Adding an excluded task mid-agreement at a Pyrmont premises

Most added tasks arrive informally: a request to a cleaner during a shift, a note left on a bench, a mention in passing to a supervisor. The first step is simply recognising that the request is not in the agreement, which is only possible if the agreement is specific enough to check. A vague scope makes this impossible, which is one reason vagueness costs money over time rather than saving it.

The second step is to say so promptly and without treating it as a problem. A request for something outside the scope is a normal event, not a complaint, and the useful response is a description of what the task would involve. Often the client's actual need turns out to be simpler or different from the request, and that conversation happens best before anything is priced. Handling it that way also keeps the relationship straightforward, because the client hears a description rather than a refusal and can decide with the facts in front of them.

An added task needs the same treatment as anything in the original scope: which surfaces, what method, at what interval or on what trigger, and what the outcome will be. Without that, the same ambiguity that caused the gap simply reappears one level down. It also needs any conditions attached, such as the area being cleared, a window when the space is quiet, or access being arranged.

The description has to come first. A task confirmed before it is described rests on an assumption, and the assumption is usually optimistic about what the work involves. Once described, it can sit as a one-off, as a recurring addition, or as an on-request item, and the client can choose which of those suits. Each option carries a different commitment, and the client should be the one choosing.

Some added tasks are one-offs and should stay that way. Others reveal that the original scope missed something the building genuinely needs, and those belong in the agreement. The test is recurrence: if the request has come twice, it will come again, and handling it as a variation each time costs both parties more than amending the scope once. It also removes the small administrative cost of quoting the same thing repeatedly.

Amending properly means updating the document, not adding an appendix nobody reads. The task takes its place among the others, with its frequency and its conditions, and the version everybody works from stays current. That is what keeps a scope useful two years in, when the people who negotiated it have moved on and the document is the only remaining record. An appendix that nobody reads achieves none of that.