Most of the people connect construction business with craftsmanship like brick masons, roofers, ironworkers, plumbers, electricians, different engineers, and architects? However, there are people like surveyors who are supposed to overlook the process, as well as project managers who specialized in construction. Construction project managers have many responsibilities apart from monitoring. Simply put, project managers are present from the idea of a building until the last documentation is filled after the building has been built.
What is the process of a construction project?
To help you understand what is the process of the construction project, it is best to follow proven methods. Project Management Institute (PMI), the world?s largest association for the project management profession has reconstructed the project in five phases: initiation, planning, execution, performance and monitoring, and project closure. Following the 5-phase structure for project management, you can also implement a successful construction project.
Feasibility – Project Initiation
Before you begin with the detailed planning, budgeting, and contacting the smaller contractors, you should familiarize yourself with your project. Essentially this is the part where the first idea is formed and checked whether it is possible at all. Go over every scheme, drawing, even other existing documents extensively, paying attention to each and every detail. While doing this make the first design of the project.?
Be in close contact with the client to check, confirm, and if needed define whatever you can ? their idea, their wishes, and the feasibility of it with the existing budget. Do the initial assessment for the project idea and its budget with the contractors or other professionals you will cooperate with, which can affect the project idea. Once you understand what the client wants and what is needed from you and you get the green lights from the initial contacts with each party you can move on to the detailed planning step.
Goals in detail – Project Planning
After being met with satisfaction in the first round of project ideas, the detailed plan and extensive documentation are what follows. Now you need the budget, the contractors’ detailed estimations, and prices, material prices, and the needed quantities, as well as permits and other legalities that your clients? project might require before the building begins.
The budget requires costs for labor, material, tools, equipment, supervisors and project management team, safety procedures, insurance, land development, and possible unexpected expenses. It is quite easy to go over budget so be very careful when listing the needs and fulfilling maybe costly clients’ wishes. Assign the supervisors for each team after you sign with the contractors that won the bid for the construction project, and do not forget to get the legal team involved. The experienced?construction lawyers from Sydney?recommend at least checking the demo contracts before signing the final versions.?
Assign teams and begin construction – Execution
After the paperwork and plan are in their final stage you can finally get to the execution of the plan. However, this is not where the project manager works less. Take the time to speak with each team member (depending on the size of the project it can be with each chief or each worker), and try to match the supervisors and all of the team so that they are all on the same page.
Practically this is shown on the construction site with the workflow that follows the schedule without any issues and where each document and daily activity are reported and completed successfully. Additionally, if any delay were to happen, the smartly assigned crew can work together to quickly resolve the issue and come up with the best solution if it hasn?t been mentioned in the risk management documentation of the project.
Bonus tip: As the project management team might be small, take time in the planning phase to develop a detailed schedule. This step will help you and your construction colleagues to follow and mark everything done, finally easing out the risk management and quality control, as well as the evaluation process.
Gathering KPI – Performance and monitoring
While the construction is ongoing, there are multiple goals that have to be met in the estimated deadline, as well as the quality of the work done. The paperwork is usually formed by using KPI ? key performance indicators. While many indicators can be found in different literature, a study has been conducted in 2020 that has found the next indicators as the most desired by the construction professionals:
- Cost of everything,
- Time performance,
- Safety and health management,
- Productivity ? project performance,
- Satisfaction of the client and each party involved,
- Quality control,
- Knowledge ? the experience of the construction professionals and project management team,
- Service ? sustainability, functionality and site management,
- People ? communication,
- Risk management, and
- Legality ? litigation, and claims.
Bonus tip: Many project management teams use communication software to ease the flow and quality control process for the contractors and project management team. These don?t need to be anything developed specifically for construction projects but it has to be legal and easy to use.
Evaluation – Closure
The evaluation can be started after each larger phase or part of the phase has been completed. These documents include the legal documentation needed for the construction site preparation, the material documents, the contact list, the warranties, and later the schedule paired with quality control as the project execution continues.
In the end, the major meeting should be arranged. The same as with any project done, discuss how you performed and try to get honest opinions. Even better, conduct a brainstorming session that will look like going over quality control document to get ideas on what could have been done better, and take extensive notes on this occasion. The final part should include the final report as well as the recalculation of the budget paired with the original budget. Finally, the clients will also give you their final opinion. Hopefully, they haven?t made the changes further into the project and you have managed to respect the budget you were given.
