If you’re new in project management, your counterpart construction project managers can tell you that managing a construction project is energy-consuming, exhaustive, and a complex process. However, after you’ve worked on several projects and got the knack for it, good planning, coupled with today’s technologies, can make your work easier and streamline your workflow.
Successful project management means that you’re able to finish your project within the budget and on time. To know how you can be a successful project manager, here are some strategies that you need to implement for your project management work:
1. Leverage Real-Time Communication
Construction projects tend to have many parties involved, such as lead contractors, project owners, subcontractors, architects, vendors, and back-office staff, all of which need to be updated with the project progress. You need to establish a seamless communication flow among the stakeholders of the project. Transparent communication ensures that the project runs smoothly and reduces the number of phone calls and emails.
You can have efficient communication by putting in place a centralized communication system. This helps you to synchronize documents, photos, and calendars in one place. From there, you can monitor costs, updates, and changes whenever they occur. A centralized communication offers ease of access to the project information.
All changes made should be communicated instantly through automated actions, instant alerts, and visual dashboards. You can choose to reduce paperwork by faxing online and sending the information to email addresses.
2. Have The Right Team In Place
Once every detail to commence the project has been finalized, you need to bring together a capable project team. For each task, assign individuals who have the right talents, skills, and personalities. Each person should be well-informed of what’s expected of them and the deliverables needed from them at the end of the project.
As the project manager, you have to foster positive working dynamics and be a coach to all your team members. Once you have the right set of individuals, keep them motivated and inspired, whether things are moving on well or there are challenges. You need to employ your leadership skills to handle the challenges that face the project.
3. Manage Time Well
Every day, prioritize the activities that need to be done immediately over those that can be done later. You should avoid being occupied with things that aren’t pressing at the moment. In the same vein, not every email you receive needs to be replied to immediately.
Managing time wisely may require that you delegate some duties to other individuals in your team. With the right workforce in your team, you don’t have to micromanage each small thing. You only need to get constant feedback and trust the people you’ve delegated to make decisions and perform their duties.
4. Reevaluate Techniques
Each project manager desires to finish their project within budget, on time, and according to plan. Regardless of the good progress of the project, you should be able to evaluate your plan and the project. There could be an oversight of a better strategy to manage the project or solve a possible problem. Thus, you need to have a critical eye to identify certain areas of the project that can be improved. Get feedback on each phase and talk to your team to see possible areas of improvement.
5. Schedule And Plan
Your ability to deliver in subsequent projects is a function of how well you learn to plan and schedule. Ensure that every resource that you require to carry out your plan is available to finish the project on schedule. Every stage of the project needs materials, equipment, manpower, and tools. It's your responsibility to ensure that everything is available for your employees. In your planning, set achievable targets of the project milestones.
Your plan may be adjustable whenever something arises that interrupts the normal plan and schedule. Your plan should be relatively fixed to keep the project on schedule, while at the same time be able to adjust to accommodate unexpected circumstances so that the project can keep moving forward.
6. Maintain Proper Documentation
Documentation of the project from the beginning needs to be put in place, regularly updated, and easy to track. Whenever a milestone has been completed, the involved stakeholders ought to sign the documents before filing them. Having a document management system can help you keep track of all documents and ensure that there’s no loss of documents.
Having elaborate project management in place doesn’t mean that the project will be completed within the proposed budget and on time. So, you need to keep all the project documents to be presented to the stakeholders so that they can be able to accommodate unforeseen eventualities.
In case such situations arise, with the supporting documents that are audited, you can avert potential conflicts, project delays, or legal issues.
7. Know The Terms And Conditions
Once you’ve won the contract, ensure that you carefully read the contract document and understand it well before signing and commencing the project. This is the binding document that makes sure that the contractor and the customer meet their respective contractual obligations and that the said project is within the scope and specifications of work. The better you’re aware of the terms and conditions, the better you can handle conflicts that are outside the scope of the contract.
8. Have Good Negotiation Skills
To hack the field of project management, you need to horn your negotiation skills. You need to know how to convince suppliers, subcontractors, customers, and the rest of the project team. You need to bring everyone to the understanding that your idea is the best with measurable facts.
9. Prioritize Employees’ Safety
The safety of your workers is critical as much as you want to make a good fortune from the construction project. Avoid using shortcuts, verify installed braces, and use recommended construction equipment as oversights and negligence can cause serious harm to your employees or passersby, resulting in a legal suit.
Conclusion
Construction project management is a process that requires you to do good planning and scheduling to ensure that your project is delivered on time. Document all the stages of your work, keep every stakeholder informed, and facilitate excellent collaboration within your team.
