The construction industry is rife with many problems in the developing as well as the developed world. One of the most prevalent problems is the high frequency of delays in construction projects. You can take partnering facilitator to leading your busiens. While there are some methods of dealing with procrastination and resulting claims, is there a way to eliminate instances of delays?
To move ahead to look for ways to minimize, it is essential to understand the causes of delays. After following those causes, you can work towards reducing delay occurrences with the help of effective construction like Beacon construction project management.
This article aims to introduce you to ways project management can help minimize the frequency of construction delays.
Five ways project management helps minimize construction delays
Many researchers and industry professionals have been analyzing the reasons behind construction delays. One of the key reasons for delays during the construction process is ineffective management and inadequate planning and feasibility analysis. Contractors and agencies who use construction estimating software that is paired with current cost data can avoids unexpected delays due to budget issues.
You can work on these areas by monitoring the dynamics of the following components of construction project management:
a). Teamwork
Ten people working separately cannot guarantee the same level of productivity as ten people working as a team. In construction projects, there are scores of people working together. But are they coordinating as a team should? This is something you, as a project manager, need to ensure. If there is a lack of coordination and grievances about fellow team members’ work ethic, there will e a lack of productivity.
Labor productivity is one of the significant causes of construction delays, which then needs you to contact a delay expert to solve the arising claim. With teamwork, the project manager can ensure that there is hardly any productivity due to the laboring team’s internal issues.
b). Detailed investigations.
Humans are complex beings. When they are working together, problems inevitably arise. In construction projects, there is laboring staff, procurement staff, transport staff, and equipment handling staff. So disputes may arise. Initially, the problems are small, and the consequences can hardly be seen.
But if there is no timely investigation of the details of the matter, the situation may escalate. Laborers may go on strike. The material procurement may get delayed for longer than the lag period allows. To avoid such grave consequences, keep an eye on the small issues arising before they turn into the elephant in the room.
c). Careful & regular monitoring and meetings
As a project manager(PM), you are responsible for monitoring the progress of the project. You have to maintain active communication with all the teams working on the project. Keeping them in the loop on weekly intervals will save you from unwanted surprises to a great extent.
Make sure none of the team representatives are misrepresenting the progress, instead encourage open communication of all hurdles so that you can help them solve those and rise above the chaos. Effective monitoring and hearing a word from the workers will make your construction project management job easier with clarity.
d). Careful scheduling.
Construction projects have numerous activities going on simultaneously. Some of these activities are dependent on the activity preceding them, while others are independent and can be carried out without affecting the rest of the progress. The abundance of activities is one of the causes of the complexity of a construction project.
The mishaps of activities getting delayed due to preceding activities can be majorly avoided if the scheduling of the project is well-thought-out. For this purpose, a project manager must invest a good amount of time in the planning and feasibility analysis phase of the project. When you plan it well, you leave little to none to the anticipation in your project.
e). Collaborative working & effective coordination.
Without keeping all components of a project synchronized, you cannot expect the timely completion of the project. There will be delays in completing individual activities if all teams are not on the same page. The reasons can be many ranging for the delay in payments to delay in the procurement of building material.
To be on the safe side, keep a delay expert in the loop since the beginning of the project, because the delays can be minimized but not eliminated. Project teams can go out of sync anytime in the duration of the construction process.
Is your construction process around the corner?
The construction process can be the harbinger of many problems if your project manager is incompetent. A project manager that you hire for your construction project should have the foresight to maintain coordination and active communication in the project team members.
Time is a precious commodity & you can save it by planning the project well and schedule it after practical thinking and deliberation. Make sure you carry out detailed investigations of matters. Lastly, keep an eye on the disputes and claims no matter how small these are.