Ten Minutes at the Tailgate, Every Job

On the list of fires: “the job debrief”

Module 3 · Crew Quality · Play 1 of 10

The problem in one breath

The crew finishes the roof, throws the ladders on the truck, and rolls to the next one. Nobody said out loud what went right, what nearly went sideways, or what the homeowner grumbled about at the curb. So the same miss — the valley that ate two extra hours, the dumpster dropped in the wrong spot — rides along to the next job, and the one after that.

Why it happens

When the roof's done, everybody wants to leave. There's another job waiting, it's hot, and picking apart work that's already behind you feels like hunting for trouble. So the crew learns nothing from the roof they just built, and every job starts from scratch. What the crew figured out that day walks off the site in five men's heads and never lands anywhere you can use it.

The play

Before the crew rolls off, you run the job debrief — ten minutes at the truck, the roof still in sight.

Walk the roof first. Before anybody talks, the owner or the foreman climbs up and eyeballs the finished job — valleys, penetrations, flashing, and the ground cleanup on the way down. You can't debrief what you never looked at. Walking it first is what makes the praise and the problems specific instead of a shrug and "good job, guys."
Say what went right — out loud, by name. Start here, always. "Mateo's cut on the dead valley was clean." "Nobody left a nail in the driveway." Name the man and the thing he did. A debrief that's only about what broke teaches the crew to dread it and hide the misses.
Name what went wrong — or almost. The near-miss counts too: the ice-and-water course that almost got skipped, the ladder that slid, the bundle count that came up short at 3pm. Say the thing, not the man.
Repeat what the homeowner said. Good or bad — "she loved the cleanup," "he's still hot about the flowerbed." The homeowner's words are the review you're about to get online, handed to you early enough to do something about.
Who fixes what, by when. Every problem worth fixing gets one name and one date, right there at the truck. Then it goes on the promise list (Module 2, Play 1) so it doesn't die in the parking lot. A debrief with no fix on the board is just standing around complaining.

Ten minutes. The roof in sight. Every job — not only the ones that went bad.

Do this this week

On your next finished job, before anybody leaves, stand at the tailgate and ask two questions out loud: what went right, and what we'd do different next time. Write the "do different" on the debrief sheet with a name and a date on it. One job. That's the whole habit starting.

The tool

Get the sheet Get the card file

Or fill it in here — no download →

Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers or LibreOffice. Grab it on the phone now — it’ll be waiting on the computer at the shop.

The debrief sheet — one page you fill in at the truck, one per job:

JOB DEBRIEF  —  fill in at the truck, roof still in sight

Job / address: ____________________________     Date: __________

WENT RIGHT (say it by name):
  ______________________________________________________________

WENT WRONG / ALMOST DID:
  ______________________________________________________________

HOMEOWNER SAID:
  ______________________________________________________________

FIX                          |  WHO            |  BY WHEN
-----------------------------|-----------------|-----------
_____________________________|_________________|___________
_____________________________|_________________|___________

A Spanish version of this card lives on the Spanish cards page — same sheet, plain jobsite Spanish.

the-job-debrief-log.xlsx is the debrief log — the record across jobs, one row per debrief: the job, the date, the biggest win, the biggest miss, the fix, who owns it, when it's due, and whether it's Done. It counts your open fixes up top and flags any fix past its due date in red, so one glance tells you which jobs left a loose end nobody closed. See the sheet notes below.

If your crew is 1099

With a sub crew, the debrief is about the work product and the terms of the next job — not coaching his men. Walk the finished roof, note what met the spec and what didn't, and settle who fixes what by when as a matter between your two companies. Keep it on the deliverable: "this valley isn't the spec we agreed on — here's the fix and the date," not "here's how your guys should've run it." What went right and wrong on the roof is fair game and plain good business. How his crew gets there is his to run, and reaching into that is the move that can cost you his 1099 standing.

M3-01 · Ten Minutes at the Tailgate, Every Job — Roofer MBA, https://roofermba.com/plays/crew-quality/the-job-debrief

The sheet notes

How the sheet works — the columns and the formulas

The columns, the formulas behind them, and the judgment calls — so you can rebuild it by hand if you ever need to.

What it does

One row per job debrief. At the truck, after you've walked the finished roof, you write the job, the date, the biggest thing that went right, the biggest thing that went wrong, and the one fix that came out of it — who owns it and when it's due. Set the fix to Open or Done from a dropdown. The box on the right keeps a running count — open fixes, overdue fixes, done fixes, and how many debriefs you've logged — and column I flags any fix that's past its due date and not Done as OVERDUE in red. One glance tells you which jobs left a loose end nobody closed. Row 5 (yellow) is filled in as an example; delete it before you log your first real job.

How to use it

Run the debrief at the truck first (the play), then write it down here — the sheet is the record, not the meeting.
Fill one row per job: Job, Date, Biggest win, Biggest miss, The fix, Fix owner, Fix due.
Set Status (column H dropdown): Open or Done.
Also put that same fix on the promise list (Module 2, Play 1) — this log is your record of the debrief; the promise list is where the whole company's open promises get read every week.
At your weekly review, look at the box on the right. Anything showing OVERDUE in column I is a job fix that blew its date and still isn't Done — chase those first.

Columns

Column	What it is
A Job	The job or address the debrief was for.
B Date	Date of the debrief (the day you rolled off).
C Biggest win	The one thing worth saying out loud, by name.
D Biggest miss	The one thing that went wrong or almost did.
E The fix	What you're changing so it doesn't happen again.
F Fix owner	The one person on the hook for the fix.
G Fix due	Date the fix is due.
H Status	Open / Done (dropdown — it rejects anything else, so a typo can't drop the row out of the counts).
I Flag	Auto: shows OVERDUE in red when the fix is past due and not Done; blank otherwise.

Formulas (so you can rebuild it by hand)

Flag (I5, fill down): =IF(AND($H5<>"Done",$G5<>"",$G5<TODAY()),"OVERDUE","")
Open fixes (box): =COUNTIF($H$5:$H$24,"Open")
Overdue fixes (box): =COUNTIF($I$5:$I$24,"OVERDUE")
Done fixes (box): =COUNTIF($H$5:$H$24,"Done")
Debriefs logged (box): =COUNTA($A$5:$A$24)

Only IF, AND, TODAY, COUNTIF, and COUNTA are used — no new-Excel-only functions — so it opens and computes in old Excel, Numbers, and LibreOffice.

The red on OVERDUE is conditional formatting, not a formula: a rule on I5:I24 that turns the text bold red (font color C00000) whenever the cell equals OVERDUE. To rebuild it by hand, add a "cell value equals OVERDUE" rule with a red font — supported in old Excel, Numbers, and LibreOffice.

Notes / judgment calls

Due date drives the flag; status turns it off. A fix marked Done never shows OVERDUE, even if it landed late — you closed it. Only Open fixes past their date flag.
The fix lives in two places on purpose. Here, so the debrief is a record you can look back on job by job; and on the promise list, so it gets read out loud with everything else every week. If a fix only lives here, it won't get chased — this log isn't something you read every Monday.
One line each for win and miss. The debrief at the truck can name three things that went right; the log only wants the biggest one. Keep it to the headline so the sheet stays a fast scan, not a transcript.
No homeowner column, on purpose. The printable card has a HOMEOWNER SAID line because you want his exact words at the truck; the log keeps a fast scan. What he said rides in the win or the miss line — "nails left in the flowerbed, homeowner found them" — and the fix it earned is right beside it. Same reason as above: headline, not transcript.
To add rows, insert them INSIDE the shaded block. The box counts rows 5 through 24. A row typed below row 24 is invisible to every counter and never flags OVERDUE, while the sheet still looks right. Insert new rows inside the block and the ranges stretch on their own; if you do go past row 24, widen the $5:$24 ranges in the box formulas and the flag column to match.
The sheet ships with the numbers already saved in it, so a phone preview shows real figures; they recalculate as soon as you type in it.

The one thing

Do this this week

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Same fire

Callbacks and sloppy work

All the fires →

Fixed this?

Module 3 is how you stop the next one. When the phone rings about a roof you already finished, that's a different play — and the first hour decides how it ends.

The fire right behind it is usually A roof you finished is leaking and the phone's ringing.