OAC Meeting: Agenda, Roles and Minutes

The owner, the architect and the contractor in one room, usually once a week. Done well, it's where problems get decided. Done badly, it's an hour of status updates.

Who attends an OAC meeting

• Owner: the owner's project manager or representative, sometimes an owner's rep firm. They decide on cost and scope.
• Architect: the architect of record or design team lead, often with engineering consultants when their items are on the agenda.
• Contractor: the general contractor's project manager and superintendent. Key subcontractors join when their work is being discussed.
• Others as needed: construction manager, cost consultant, commissioning agent, or the owner's facilities team near handover.

Who chairs the meeting and who writes the minutes depends on the contract. Often the contractor or the architect does both. Agree it at the pre-construction meeting.

Standard OAC meeting agenda

1. Safety: incidents, near misses and upcoming high-risk work.
2. Review of last minutes: confirm or correct, then go through open action items.
3. Progress and schedule: work done since the last meeting, look-ahead for the next few weeks, critical path status and any delays.
4. RFIs: open requests for information, who owes the answer and by when.
5. Submittals: status of shop drawings and samples, especially any holding up procurement.
6. Change orders and cost: pending change requests, approved changes, allowance status.
7. Quality: inspection results, open non-conformances, deviations found on site.
8. Pay application: status of the current payment application (often monthly).
9. Owner items: owner-supplied equipment, permits, decisions the owner owes.
10. New business and next meeting.

OAC meeting minutes template

Good minutes are a log of decisions and actions, not a transcript. Each item should carry a number that stays the same from meeting to meeting until it closes.

Also record: date, location, attendees and their company, distribution list, and a line asking attendees to report corrections within a set number of days. Minutes that nobody corrects often become the accepted record of what was agreed.

How to run a better OAC meeting

• Send the agenda and open-items log in advance so the meeting is spent deciding, not reading.
• Show the site, don't describe it. A dated photo, 360° view or scan settles "is it done?" faster than a verbal update.
• Take long technical discussions offline. Agree who meets, and when, and move on.
• Name one person and one date per action.
• Issue minutes quickly, ideally within a day or two, while people still remember the discussion.
• Keep a running log, not a new document each week, so nothing quietly drops off.

Common OAC meeting mistakes

• Status reports read aloud that could have been sent as a document.
• Progress claims with no evidence, which lead to arguments at the next pay application.
• Actions without owners, such as "team to review".
• Minutes that arrive a week late and get corrected by nobody.

Where SpatialSense fits

SpatialSense gives an OAC meeting a shared view of the site. Captures from a 360° walk or a scan are dated, so the progress and quality items on the agenda can be shown rather than described. The owner and architect can open the same view in a browser from their own office.

• Progress since the last meeting: compare two dated captures side by side, or generate an AI progress report from two dated walks. It lists what changed by station, location and severity, each finding linked to its 360° image.
• Quality items: issues pinned at their exact location, with owner, due date and status, to walk through on screen.
• Remote review: stakeholders who can't travel to site see the same record as those who can.

Frequently asked questions