Mastering Construction Project Management: Your Key to Building Success

Managing construction projects is a massive undertaking. To help anyone who has to deal with this monumental task, this guide is here to help you learn how to maximize efficiency in construction management.

What is Construction Project Management? 

Whenever someone needs to construct a building, they must have a plan to ensure they can build what they need. They also need a way to ensure that everyone and everything is doing what they’re supposed to for this construction. After all, having a picture of the end goal will not give you the building you want. 

That’s where construction project management comes in.

Construction project management involves managing the minute processes of building whatever the project is about. It is also the human resources involved in it. The tasks involved in construction project management would center around coordinating everything, from the schedule, the budget, and the state of the resources, materials, and people involved in the construction. 

The Roles of a Construction Project Manager and Contractor

After defining construction project management, let’s familiarize yourself with the roles of a construction project manager as it differentiates from the contractors. 

To start, a construction project manager is the one to supervise the execution of the project throughout the project lifecycle. 

 They usually work closely with the client to understand their requirements, develop a comprehensive project plan, and ensure that the team executes these effectively. They also would then communicate client desires to the team.  

Aside from being the front-facing team members of the construction project, they are also responsible for an overview of logistics, like managing budgets, timelines, and resources.

On the other hand, the contractor does the bulk of construction work on-site. The client can hire them, or they can leave that task up to the construction project manager, who may have a reliable network to rely on already.

The contractor also likely already has a team of skilled workers that works together with them, so you have a group of experts working with you if you hire one reliable contractor. 

All-in-all, the construction project manager is working on the macro-perspective, while contractors specialize in executing the day-to-day tasks of the construction project. 

Construction Project Management Challenges

It helps to know some of the frequent challenges one can encounter when managing a construction project. Here are some to be aware of.  

Poorly designed objectives

Poorly designed objectives for a construction project can create significant challenges for project management. 

Your construction project has one end goal. However, your day-to-day operations and how you work from week to week need to have some way of ensuring that the construction project is moving forward.

When objectives have no clear definition or lack specificity, you can misunderstand them. This vagueness can confuse your construction team members, leading to delays, poor handling of materials, and many other avoidable hassles in the project.

Poorly defined objectives often need measurable metrics or milestones that allow project managers to track progress effectively. With clear benchmarks throughout your construction timeline, assessing whether the project is on track or if you need to adjust to the end successfully becomes easier. 

Scheduling conflicts

Another common issue in construction projects is poor scheduling from different parties.

When multiple tasks and activities are happening simultaneously, it’s almost impossible for there not to be any delays or conflicts in the schedule. However, poorly handling these conflicts or simply not preparing your team for them can domino effect the entire project timeline. 

The worst thing that delays can lead to, especially in the client’s mind, would be additional expenses. This expense can strain the project budget, leading to further delays or, worse, a project cancellation. 

Another thing it affects would be your materials and resources management. When scheduling conflicts occur, you might find that you don’t have enough materials or too much of one you don’t need. With poor resource management, you can spend more than you need to or cannot work on the part of the project you should be doing because you don’t have the right tools and materials.

Also, poor scheduling can lead to problems between the construction team and the client. 

If you don’t meet deadlines due to scheduling issues, it can lead to frustration among stakeholders who may have their timelines and expectations.  

Budgeting and cost overrun 

 As mentioned earlier, the worst construction project management issue you wouldn’t want to encounter would be budgeting. And when we say budgeting issue, rarely is it an issue of having a larger budget than needed, isn’t that right? 

This issue is particularly biting to the client’s side, which is why it’s much harder for construction teams when there’s a budget issue since you need to persuade the client to increase it.

It can happen due to many reasons: poor planning, issues with the materials, damages, and many more.

Since it can manifest in a construction project in many different ways, you know the likelihood of encountering budgeting issues is high. 

Unrealistic expectations 

The flip side of having poor goals and objectives planning would be having too unrealistic of an expectation for how your construction projects will go.

Most of the time, this comes from the client side, where they expect the construction project to finish sooner than you projected, or they wish to go under budget with the costs. 

If there are unrealistic expectations, it can frustrate the clients and the construction team and lead to unwanted rush work, which won’t lead to better work quality. 

Lack of risk management 

 Since construction is an industry that involves a good amount of risk and danger, construction project managers should be aware of risk management strategies. Otherwise, you’re throwing caution to the wind, so to speak, in an environment that severely needs it. 

In this case, the worst scenario is a loss of human life, which you never want to compromise with. Therefore, construction teams should always have some form of risk management before any undertaking. 

The Benefits of Efficient Construction Project Management 

Now that you know the side effects of poor construction project management, let’s look at how construction projects would improve simply through better management.  

Efficient project completion 

 There are many ways to improve your construction projects’ efficiency, but you can’t understate how powerful a robust construction project management is at doing that. 

When you have a thorough and clear plan, it becomes much easier to complete the project as close to the plan’s initial deadline as possible.

Even if there are any unprecedented hiccups, proper management should help overcome these so that project completion is still underway. 

Improved project quality 

 When a reliable construction project manager or management plan is in place, the construction team can do a more thorough and high-quality job with the project. 

They don’t feel rushed, confused, or distracted due to obstacles in the construction project. Therefore, their skilled efforts can focus better on their particular tasks, leading to an overall improved quality of results. 

Improved communication and collaboration 

Another aspect of a construction project that better management improves is the overall means of communication and the quality of team collaboration.

Clear plans and proper resource allocation in a construction project will lead to fewer bottlenecks. Plus, you can avoid interpersonal issues from communication problems amongst your team getting in the way of producing quality work as efficiently as possible. 

Reduced costs 

By properly managing your construction projects, you also inevitably avoid issues that affect how much your project costs will be if they’re not part of the plan. 

Also, proper construction project management involves setting the record straight with clients. If they have lofty expectations and desires of the construction’s outcome, then it will cost them. Being transparent with it is critical so you don’t have to deal with a lower budget than needed for the project. 

The Phases of Construction Project Management

Understanding the general phases of construction project management should help you create a thorough project plan. Here are the steps you need to incorporate during the project management planning.

1. Project initiation

When you first talk with a client, you should discuss certain things first, such as: 

• Can you finish the project? 
• Are the clients’ project goals realistic? 
• Does the client’s budget match the purpose of their construction project? 
• What are the possible risks to encounter with this kind of project? 

By clearing out these questions in the first place, you’re saving yourself and your team a significant headache further into the construction phase. 

2. Project planning 

 Once you confirm that you will take on the project, you should start planning how you will go about it.  

You need different plans for different aspects of the construction, like a site logistics plan, a blueprint of the entire construction project, schedules, assigned budget, team roles, risk management, safety plans, etc.  

3. Project execution 

This phase is where your day-to-day activities are going to kick off. Before you start it, it always helps to meet with the team to review the entire plan. This phase is also the best chance to make some final changes to the project management plan based on the feedback from your team.

4. Project monitoring and control

Throughout the project execution, you should have touchpoints with your team to monitor progress and understand or tweak processes to be more efficient. In this phase, you ensure everything is going according to plan and, if they’re not, find a way to make your team more efficient. 

5. Project closing 

 After finishing construction, your work doesn’t end there. 

This phase is where you look back on common issues that you encountered so that you can optimize how your construction processes would be for the next project. Meeting with the team also helps with this, as their feedback can help inform you of gaps you may need to be aware of.

Don’t forget to communicate with the client after project completion in a positive manner, as you never know if they’re ever going to need your services again. 

Conclusion

This guide should help you better understand how construction project management works and figure out ways to improve your management skills continuously. If you’re a construction project manager, this guide hopefully should be a reliable reference for making yourself and your team work faster without compromising build quality.