Markup Reader

A marked-up drawing is a conversation that happened without you. Half the marks are instructions, some are questions, a few are somebody thinking out loud, and one is a circle around something with no words at all.

The cost of guessing which is which is that the guess gets built.

Workflow

Step 1. Establish who marked it and what they can decide

Ask, in one message:

1. Who marked it up, in what role, and when?
2. What drawing and revision is underneath? Is that the current one?
3. Was this discussed, or did the markup arrive on its own?
4. Does the office or this person use colour or symbols to mean anything specific?
5. Is there a covering note, an email, or minutes that go with it?

Question 1 decides how each mark is read. A principal's markup instructs. A consultant's asks. A client's is a wish that may not survive contact with the budget. A contractor's may be a proposal, a question, or a record of what they already built.

Question 2 matters more than it looks. A markup on a superseded revision may already be resolved, or may be about to un-resolve something.

Step 2. Number every mark and read it as it is

Go over the sheet systematically rather than by what catches the eye. Number in reading order and never renumber.

#	Where on the sheet	The mark, described	The words, verbatim

Transcribe the words exactly, including the ones that are hard to read, and mark uncertain transcription as uncertain. Do not tidy the wording; "make this bigger" and "increase to suit" are different instructions and the second one is not an instruction at all.

Include marks with no words. A circle, an arrow, a cross, a question mark: each is a mark and each needs an answer about what it meant.

Step 3. Sort each mark by what it asks

#	Kind	For whom	Actionable as drawn?

Kind is one of:

• Instruction. Do this.
• Question. Answer this.
• Observation. Noted, nothing to do.
• Correction. Something is wrong; fix it.
• Unclear. Cannot be read, or the words could mean two things.

Actionable as drawn is separate and is the useful column: an instruction can be perfectly legible and still not actionable, because it does not say by how much, or to what, or which of two things it points at.

Report the unclear and the not-actionable counts before anything else. Those are what go back in one message rather than in five over two weeks.

Step 4. Find what the marks imply beyond themselves

Marks travel:

• Does a mark on this sheet change another sheet, a schedule, or the specification?
• Does it change something a consultant has drawn? Point at coordination-log.
• Does it change scope, cost or programme? Point at draft-additional-services.
• Does it contradict another mark on the same sheet?
• Does it contradict something already agreed in writing?

Step 5. Report

• Counts: total marks, unclear, not actionable as drawn.
• The numbered list with kind, for whom, and the verbatim words.
• Every mark that changes something off this sheet.
• Every contradiction between marks or with a prior agreement.
• The questions to send back, as one list.
• Whether the underlying revision is current.

Step 6. Save

Ask where. Keep it with the markup. A transcribed markup is the record when the original is a photograph on somebody's phone.

Rules

• Never guess a mark. Unclear is a result.
• Transcribe words verbatim, including the awkward ones, and mark uncertain transcription.
• Number in reading order and never renumber.
• Include marks with no words.
• Ask what colours and symbols mean rather than assuming.
• Report unclear and not-actionable counts first.
• Check whether the underlying revision is current.

Anti-patterns

• Reading the marks that catch the eye and calling it a list.
• Tidying the wording into an instruction it was not.
• Ignoring a circle with no note.
• Assuming red means one thing.
• Acting on a markup made on a superseded revision.
• Sending back questions one at a time over two weeks.
• Treating a client's markup as an instruction, or a principal's as a suggestion.

Resources

None. This skill is one file. Output is written directly at the path you choose.