Construction Project Management 101
By Scotti Ian Ogden
Owner of Ogden Contracting LTD
Top 5 Most Important Aspects of Project Management
There are a lot of moving parts to any construction project. The project manager’s main goals should be to keep the project on time and within budget. The timeline and budget is our promise to the client, along with other aspects such as quality work and great communication.
Time Management
Being Proactive:
The project manager’s top priorities are to keep the job within budget and on time!
For General Contractors, be proactive and systemize the Project Managers role, including checklists that make processes more efficient.
If you try to write out everything involved in a particular project, you are going to miss something. It is best to have a checklist already established to keep things organized.
Project Managers, stay on top of things otherwise your job will become overwhelming, not only for you but for your team. Be proactive in always planning ahead and checking in with your team.
Personal Time Management:
Being proactive and practicing time-management not only at work, but in personal life will help you to minimize stress and stay on top of things.
Scotti’s Tip
I encourage my staff to practice time management in their personal lives, this allows them to stay focused and proactive at work and also helps them maintain balance in life and promotes healthy well-being. Happy staff, make for a happy boss.
Job Coordination
This goes hand in hand with time management.
Build a Timeline:
Building a timeline for the project is another good strategy to manage a successful project.
There are various milestones in a project, including things like inspections, where you cannot move forward until these phases have been completed and approved.
Making sure that you are ahead of schedule prior to each one of these milestones is crucial for keeping the schedule maintained.
If problems arise and you need to wait a week for an inspection, this can throw off the entire planned schedule, affecting every trade down the line. So you need to stay on top of it.
Too many times projects go over schedule due to the inexperience of the contractor.
Scotti’s Tip
There is a wide range of programs that allow you to schedule and monitor the progress of a job. We use the Asana program. There are other contractors that use Co-Construct, or BuilderTrend. Or, Microsoft Projects.
Communication
Communication is also a key element to a successful project and is at the heart of everything.
Typically, communication sometimes seems to be moving in a hundred directions. Project managers need to communicate to the contractor, the clients, the field staff and the sub trades.
Scotti’s Tip
One of the best ways to coordinate and manage a project is making sure that there is a clear understanding of what you are doing with detailed blueprints and a detailed list of everything and everyone involved. One way you can ensure clear communication is through detailed contracts.
You hired the pros to do the job, so let them do their job, it’s the project manager’s responsibility to have clear communication between the trades and the client.
Budget Analyze
Budgeting the owner’s money is another responsibility of the project manager. The budget needs to be well managed.
A common issue for construction companies is when a project is finished without proper documentation of costly addons during the job. In this scenario, the owner receives the invoice and doesn’t understand why it’s higher than the original estimate.
Scotti’s Tip
One of the best ways to coordinate and manage a project is making sure that there is a clear understanding of what you are doing with detailed blueprints and a detailed list of everything and everyone involved. One way you can ensure clear communication is through detailed contracts.
Quality Control
Quality control is also a really important aspect of project management.
Every time that a PM or site supervisor visits a site there needs to be a magnifying glass approach to the visit, where they take the time to analyze the quality that was performed by the crew or trade involved. Ensuring that all the items installed are done so correctly.
Scotti’s Tip
If you are starting out as a new contractor, then you may not know everything that is included, so I suggest that you have a trusted mentor that can help you through the process.
I have a simple checklist that I use for new builds; the checklist is a simple timeline of a construction project with a list of all the trades involved. I simply go through the list and think about each and every step and trade involved. This is not a bullet proof system and also requires experience and past projects to compare the data.
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