Matthew Beerbower

This article highlights several project management strategies that can be used in most environments.

• Job Planning – Ensure the team, including project managers, superintendents and foremen, begins the job with a strategy aimed at maximizing efficiency.  Upfront communication promotes teamwork and empowers a crew to provide quality and efficiency.  Communication is supplemented by a well-defined job-site layout shared with all of the trades on the job site.  Material-staging areas should be well-marked for delivery vehicles, and safety considerations should always be at the forefront.  For anything other than short-term projects, job-site team meetings should be held at least every other day to assess progress, implement plan revisions and communicate upcoming tasks.  Communication with owners, architects and other on-site trades should occur at least weekly, and having all parties at the job site for those meetings is ideal.  These meetings should address efficiency opportunities, potential change orders and how to avoid potential pitfalls.

• Safety – Consider implementing a best practice to explore risks and ensure safety is planned before a project begins.  Significant but avoidable safety risks can be mitigated by having an advance plan for all material handling and staging.  Your company will save significant costs in the long run and avoid catastrophic events when safety is a priority in a project’s planning stages. 
• Change Order Procedures – Ensure that your company has fundamentally sound and documented change-order policies and a process for responding to change requests or when job-site conditions are encountered.  Effective change-order management can significantly improve overall project profitability on most projects. 

Other Areas for Consideration

• Project Wrap-Up – Management should develop a strategy before or early in a project to plan the timing of a close-out meeting.  The meeting should identify punch-list or wrap-up procedures and hold project team members accountable for completion of the wrap-up process.
• Evaluation of Project Managers – Evaluating and monitoring your business leaders’ performance is key to enhancing the efficiency and quality of your services.  Project managers should be evaluated in significant measurable areas, including project efficiency, profitability and timeliness of completion.

• Performance Reviews – The entire project team—including management, foremen, safety coordinators, estimating and sales personnel and accounting—should meet at the end of every significant project.  The meeting should communicate what went well and what could have gone better and identify solutions to enhance procedures, communication and quality for future projects.
• Project incentives – Bonuses or incentives related to successful projects help ensure employees remain focused on project goals.  Motivated employees take ownership of projects, usually resulting in better quality and more efficient operations, which can improve project profitability.

• Customer Satisfaction Awareness – Customer satisfaction is not the easiest item to measure; however, be aware of potential methods for measuring satisfaction or dissatisfaction, such as business referrals from existing customers, repeat business and customer claims.
• Employee Motivation – Creativity to empower employees in challenging times will pay dividends now and in the future.  Successful contractors and project managers know, regardless of the economic environment, employee relationships must be nurtured.  Businesses thrive when employee morale is high and employees are empowered.

There may never have been a more important time to actively monitor project management strategies.  Uncertainty in today’s economy forces contractors to continuously improve project management to keep employees motivated, remain competitive and enhance service quality.  Revisiting these strategies can help bolster your bottom line and provide growth opportunities as the economy rebounds.