Top tips and best practices for construction project management

If you’re new to project management, your peer construction project managers can tell you that construction project management is an energy-intensive, exhaustive, and complex process.

However, having worked on many projects and gained talent for it, good planning, combined with today’s technologies, can make your job easier and streamline your workflow.

Successful project management means that you are able to finish your project within budget and on time.

In order to know how you can become a successful project manager, here are some strategies you need to implement in your project management business:

Take advantage of real-time communication

Construction projects tend to involve many parties, such as main contractors, project owners, subcontractors, architects,

vendors, and back-office staff, all of which need to be updated as the project progresses.

You need to create a smooth communication flow between project stakeholders,

Transparent communication ensures the project runs smoothly and reduces the number of phone calls and emails.

You can also obtain effective communication by establishing a central communication system.

This helps you sync documents, photos, and calendars in one place.

From there, you can monitor costs, updates, and changes as they occur, and centralized connectivity provides easy access to 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 information to email addresses.

Hire the right team

Once you have all the details to start the project, you need to gather a capable project team.

For each task, hire individuals who have the right talents, skills, and personalities.

Each person must be well aware of what is expected of him and the deliverables required of him at the end of the project.

As a project manager, you should promote positive work dynamics and be a coach for all members of your team.

Once you have the right group of people, keep them motivated and inspired, whether things are going well or there are challenges.

You need to employ your leadership skills to deal with the challenges facing the project.

Manage time well

Every day, prioritize activities that need to be done immediately over those that can be done later.

You should avoid getting distracted by things that are not urgent at the moment. By the same token, not every email you receive needs to be responded to immediately.

Managing time wisely may require delegating some duties to other individuals on your team,

With the right workforce on your team, you won’t have to manage every little detail.

Just get constant feedback and trust the people you have delegated to make decisions and perform their duties.

Re-evaluation of technologies

Every project manager wants to finish their project on budget, on time, and according to plan.

Regardless of how well the project is progressing, you should be able to evaluate your plan and the project.

There can also be oversight on a better project management strategy or solution to a potential problem.

Therefore, you must have a critical eye to identify specific areas in the project that can be improved.

Timeline and plan

Your ability to accomplish later projects is a function of how well you learn to plan and schedule.

Make sure that all the resources you need to implement your plan are available to finish the project on schedule.

Each stage of the project requires materials, equipment, manpower and tools.

It’s also your responsibility to make sure everything is available to your employees, and in your planning, set achievable goals for the project phases.

Maintain proper documentation

Project documentation should be in place from the beginning, updated regularly, and easy to track.

When a milestone is completed, relevant stakeholders must sign off on documents before submitting them.

Having a document management system can help you keep track of all your documents and make sure you don’t lose documents.

Having detailed project management does not mean that the project will be completed within the proposed budget and on time.

Therefore, you need to maintain all project documentation that will be presented to stakeholders so that they can accommodate unforeseen possibilities.

If such situations arise, with supporting documents that are audited, you can avoid potential disputes, project delays or legal issues.