Pre-task plan / daily task briefing
Five minutes with the crew before the work starts: what we are doing today, what changed overnight, who is doing what, and who else is working near us.
Regulatory status General practice. No OSHA standard requires a pre-task plan or prescribes this format, though many contracts and client site rules do require one.
A pre-task plan is not a hazard analysis. The analysis was done when the job was planned; this is the conversation that happens at 7am about today — the weather, the crew you actually have, the scaffold that went up yesterday, the other trade working above you. Most incidents on well-planned jobs happen because something changed and nobody said it out loud.
If the job needs its hazards worked through properly, that is a different document: the job hazard analysis template. This sheet assumes that work exists and asks what is different today.
Type into the form below, then print — what you enter prints with it. Or print it blank and fill it in by hand. Nothing you type is saved, sent to EHSTEC, or stored on this device; refresh the page and it is gone.
Pre-task plan
1 · Today
2 · What changed since last time
3 · Steps, assignments and controls in force
| Part of today's work | Who | Controls in force right now | Verified by |
|---|---|---|---|
4 · Coordination and stop conditions
5 · Crew acknowledgement
| # | Name (print) | Signature | Anything raised? |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | |||
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| 10 |
A signature records attendance at this briefing. It does not establish competency, does not transfer the employer's responsibility for a safe workplace, and does not satisfy any training requirement.
Pre-task plan — ehstec.com/resources/pre-task-plan-template · Published 23 September 2026. General practice; no OSHA standard prescribes this form. Customize before use.
How to run the five minutes
- Do it where the work is, with the crew who will do it, not in an office the night before.
- Start with what changed. If nothing changed, say so and move on — that is a valid answer and it takes ten seconds.
- Name who is doing what. "The team will" is how two people each assume the other did it.
- Record controls that are in force, not controls that are planned. If the barrier is not up yet, the honest entry is that it is not up yet.
- Agree the stop conditions out loud. Deciding in advance what stops the job is what makes it possible for someone to stop it at 2pm.
- Ask for anything raised, and write it down even if you fix it immediately.
What this template does not do
- It is not a hazard analysis. Working a job into steps, identifying the hazard at each one and selecting controls is a different exercise done at a different time — see the JHA/JSA template. A pre-task plan assumes that work has been done and asks what is different today.
- It is not a permit. Hot work, confined space entry and similar activities have their own permit requirements that this sheet does not satisfy or replace.
- It does not make anyone competent. Attendance at a briefing is attendance.
- Completing it does not establish compliance.
Sources
This is a template, not legal advice
Nothing here is endorsed, approved or reviewed by OSHA, and holding a pre-task briefing does not make an employer compliant with any standard. See our editorial standards for how this content is written and reviewed.
Briefings that leave a trace
The part of this sheet worth keeping is what the crew raised. In EHSTEC something raised at a briefing can be captured as a hazard from a phone and become a corrective action with an owner and a due date, so it outlives the shift. The plan itself can be a scheduled form assigned to the supervisor, which at least tells you whether the briefing happened. See how hazard reporting works in EHSTEC.