Construction change directive
A construction change directive is a written order instructing the contractor to proceed with changed work before the parties have agreed what it will cost or how it affects the schedule.
Also known as: CCD · Change directive · AIA G714
Most changes on a job are settled before anyone picks up a tool: the scope shifts, a price is agreed, both sides sign a change order, and the work proceeds. A change directive is what happens when that sequence is not possible — the work cannot wait for the negotiation.
The distinguishing feature is consent. A change order is an agreement, so it needs the contractor's signature. A directive is an instruction, and it does not. The contractor is generally obliged to proceed while the cost and time are still being worked out, and refusing can itself be a breach.
That sounds one-sided, and from the contractor's chair it can feel that way. But the instruction does not waive the right to be paid: the contractor is still entitled to a fair adjustment to the contract price, and to the schedule where the work affects it. What the directive removes is the ability to hold up the work until that number is settled.
Change directive vs change order
A change order records an agreement that already exists. Scope, price and time impact are all settled, everyone signs, and the contract value moves. It is the normal instrument and it should cover the large majority of changes on any well-run job.
A change directive records an instruction where the agreement does not exist yet. The owner needs the work to start now — an unforeseen condition in an excavation, a code or regulatory change, something affecting safety — and the pricing follows behind. Once the parties do agree on the cost and time, the directive is normally converted into a change order and the contract value moves then.
The practical difference for a contractor is what you are tracking. A change order is a number. A directive is an open cost you are carrying, with an argument attached, and it stays open until it converts.
How it works under AIA and CCDC contracts
In the United States, the mechanism lives in AIA's A201 General Conditions, and G714 is the form used to document the directive. A change order uses a different form, G701. Under A201 the owner can issue a directive without the contractor's signature, and A201 sets out how the adjustment is determined when the parties cannot agree on it in advance.
In Canada, the CCDC standard contracts carry their own change directive mechanism, separate from their change order provisions, and it works on the same principle: the contractor proceeds, and valuation follows. The valuation method, the records you are expected to keep and the markup you can apply are all defined by the contract rather than by legislation, so the terms in front of you are the ones that govern.
This is a general description of how these instruments are meant to work, not legal advice, and contracts are routinely amended. Read the change provisions in your own contract before you rely on any of it — including the supplementary conditions, which is usually where the amendments are.
How to price and track a directive
Because the price is unsettled, a directive is priced on records rather than on an estimate. Labour hours by worker and date, materials with invoices attached, equipment time, and the subcontract costs the change pulled in. The markup you are allowed on those costs comes from the contract.
The failure mode is predictable and expensive: the work gets done, the records get reconstructed weeks later from memory and a few photographs, and the resulting claim is weaker than the work deserved. A directive is the one situation where daily logs stop being paperwork and become the evidence your payment rests on.
Track the directive as its own cost bucket from the day it is issued, not as part of the base contract. If it is mixed into the job's general costs, separating it again at conversion is guesswork, and the number you can defend is smaller than the number you actually spent.
Converting a directive into a change order
When the cost and any schedule impact are finally agreed, the directive is written up as a change order and the contract value adjusts. Everything you recorded while the work was proceeding becomes the basis of that number.
Two things are worth checking at conversion. That the schedule impact is captured and not quietly dropped, since it is the part most often forgotten once the dollar figure is settled. And that the directive is actually closed rather than left open alongside the change order, which is how the same work ends up billed twice or not at all.
In Canada vs the United States
The instrument exists on both sides of the border and works the same way, but the paperwork differs. American projects on AIA contracts use G714 for the directive and G701 for the change order, under the A201 General Conditions. Canadian projects on CCDC contracts use the change directive provisions of whichever CCDC document applies. The underlying principle — proceed now, value it after — is the same in both. Neither description is legal advice; your contract governs.
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