Effective commercial construction project management is crucial for the successful completion of any commercial project. Completing a project on schedule and within your client’s budget requires careful planning, detailed progress monitoring, and collaboration and communication with team members and major stakeholders.
At Vulcan Construction, our experienced construction project managers have the proven ability to navigate a broad range of technical, financial, regulatory, and scheduling challenges. We believe that establishing high standards for technical quality, creative problem-solving, professionalism, and ethics are prerequisites for building effective relationships with the entire construction team and are key to realizing the financial and schedule goals of any project.
Construction Project Management: 4 Key Focus Areas
Here are the 4 key areas to effective commercial construction project management.
Planning
As we’ve said, the most important part of successful project management for construction is detailed and strategic planning. There are so many factors that can affect your project, which can get you off track. By creating a strategic plan, you will be able to maximize efficiency and provide a structured roadmap for completing the work.
It is during the planning process that you’ll be able to develop deliverables, define goals, and establish milestones. You should also determine what equipment will be needed, how much labor is required, subcontractors to be contacted, and secure supplies for building materials according to schedule.
Other aspects to be included in the planning stage are a safety plan, a communication plan, and a risk assessment as well as creating a response plan.
Monitoring Progress and Making Adjustments
In construction, it is important to ensure that everything sticks to the plan. Oftentimes, projects can get derailed by several minor issues instead of one large problem. Therefore, it is required for project managers to have a high level of attention to detail especially when analyzing progress reports.
Identify potential causes of delay and monitor new and recurring issues. Do due diligence and investigate the root cause of why a task is falling behind schedule. There are several reasons for low productivity. It can either be that the workforce allocated for that task is inadequate or there is a lack of equipment on site.
Once you’ve uncovered the root cause of the problem, it’s time to find a solution, revise the plan, and adjust the schedule accordingly so everything can get back on track.
Communication
Effective communication is vital to any construction project, especially commercial ones. Making good communication a habit can improve overall project collaboration and teamwork. The lack of communication can cause delays, misunderstandings, and bigger problems down the road.
Identify the points of contact for key team members to ensure a consistent flow of information. Make sure you follow submittal procedures for contract documents and relay information to the right individuals. While project managers want to go over daily reports, owners, on the other hand, would prefer to have upper-level updates once a week.
Collaboration
Collaboration is not just about completing tasks. When talking about good project collaboration, it involves building relationships based on trust with all stakeholders and team members. By creating a collaboration plan, you can ensure that everyone is on the same page and team members are free to share ideas and expertise.
Part of a good project collaboration plan is allocating risks to team members best equipped to deal with them.
Takeaway
These are the four key areas every manager should focus on when handling a construction project. By making sure these areas are intact, you can deliver quality work to your client with confidence.
