The tool, in your browser
Is this person ready to decide?
Pick one person — the one you’d hand off to first, usually your lead foreman or your office manager — and score them against twelve things you can actually watch. Not “is he smart” but “does he price a surprise deck repair without calling me”. The page adds up a readiness score out of 24 and lands them in a band: delegate now, grow first, or wrong seat. Believe the number even when you were hoping for a different one.
Free, and it asks for nothing. No email, no account, no sign-up. What you type stays in this browser on this device.
Read this first
This is one score at a time, and this first pass is for you. Don’t tell him you’re doing it — it’s to see clearly where he stands before you build a plan around him. When you’re done, write the score down or download the spreadsheet below, then clear this page for the next man. The file is one file per foreman; this page holds one.
It saves in this browser on this device and nowhere else — nothing you type is sent to us. But saved in a browser isn’t the same as locked: anyone who opens this page on this computer can read who you scored and what you scored him. Keep this one on your own phone, or clear it before you walk away.
The checklist fills in right here in your browser. If this line stays put, JavaScript is off — the spreadsheet below does the same job.
How it gets used
- One name, not the whole crew. The person you’d hand off to first. Fifteen minutes.
- Score how often it’s true today — not how often you wish it were, and not what he could do if he tried. Scoring high to feel better just hands the wrong man the keys, and you’ll pay for it in callbacks.
- All twelve, then read the band. Until every line is rated the band just reads “score all twelve”, so a half-filled sheet never brands anybody on no evidence.
- If it says grow first, build him on purpose — three rungs, in order. Shadow: he rides along on estimates and job starts and hears you decide out loud. Silent seat: he makes the call while you sit in the truck and say nothing, then you debrief. Solo job: one whole roof, start to finish, his — debrief at the end, not during.
- If it says wrong seat, stop trying to delegate to him. Either he’s great at the job he already does — leave him there and stop forcing it — or you have a hire to make before you can get out of the truck. Handing real calls to someone who can’t hold them is worse than keeping the calls yourself.
- Score him again in a season. That’s the point of the number: it moves. Clear the page, run the twelve again, and see whether the rungs worked.
Not sure what you’d hand him first? Where your week actually goes gives you the list.
Before you act on it
You develop an employee; you select a sub
This is about growing a W2 employee into a decision-maker — shadowing, silent seats, debriefs. You can’t do that with a subcontractor, and you shouldn’t try. If the person you’d hand off to is really a 1099 crew lead, the question isn’t “how do I grow him” — it’s “is this the sub I keep rehiring, and does our contract spell out what he’s allowed to decide?” Running a development plan for a 1099 the way you would for an employee is also a fast track to wrecking his 1099 standing.
One more thing: this play is how we run a shop — it’s not legal advice. Rules change by state and by contract, so before you act on the legal-sounding parts, run them past your own attorney or accountant. It’s your business, and what you do with any of this is your call and your responsibility.
Want it in a spreadsheet?
The same checklist as a spreadsheet
is-this-person-ready-to-decide.xlsx is this checklist as a spreadsheet — the same twelve behaviours, the same points, the same three bands — for the computer at the shop. Two differences in the page’s favour: it tells you how many of the twelve are in rather than only whether they all are, and there are no sample ratings to clear before you start. The big one the other way: the file is one file per foreman. Save a copy per man and you can score three people and compare them, or pull last spring’s score out and see what moved — this page holds one score at a time. The sheets ask for your email once; this page never does.
The play behind it — M1-04 Who Can You Actually Hand It To? — is the three rungs you run when the answer is grow first, and the sheet notes spell out the scoring and how to tune the bands.