10 best practices for construction project management

Immense pressure is put on construction projects. They must adhere to the budget and schedule given, mitigate risks and hazards, and deliver the finished product as agreed upon without issue. At the same time, a project manager must adhere to worker, job, and safety regulations, handle supply chain disruptions, and resolve any trouble with contractors and hired trade professionals. This isn’t easy.

Here are the best practices for construction project management that you can use to ensure a project is delivered according to the guidelines provided.

Prioritize strong, clear communication

A team always completes a construction project. A team has to communicate. Even small issues in communication can result in pushed-back timelines and additional costs. As a construction project manager, ensure clear communication and that questions are answered promptly and accurately.

Learn how to communicate with different team members. Be ready to adapt your communication style based on how a person responds.

Manage timelines with construction software

A lot of timelines go into managing a construction site. There are schedules for contractors and subcontractors, material delivery, equipment rental and maintenance, client visits, reports, and more. Ensure you are clear on project timelines by inputting the relevant data and letting us know when things are expected to happen in your construction software. As a project progresses, update timelines to reflect current realities.

Implement clear quality control measures

Track quality control and safety compliance on a project. Ensure the tools and resources are provided to guarantee that a project progresses with work done right. Evaluate ways to minimize rework on-site. Perform regular inspections to identify issues early. Log and resolve issues by tracking them in your construction management software. Quality control is a must to get right on any construction project.

Manage progress using construction management software

Using construction management software to oversee a project is almost necessary. It makes tracking progress all the easier, ensuring milestones are met, automating and issuing detailed reports, and more. This software also offers a way to streamline communication between project teams, stakeholders, and contractors, providing real-time updates as needed. Construction management software keeps managers and workers informed and priorities aligned.

Maintain a strong culture of documentation accessible by cloud

It’s crucial to create and save documents throughout a project. From planning to documenting project work, scope, and guidelines, cloud-based documents can be easily shared and are immensely valuable for defining expectations and running analyses. A construction project will generate all sorts of documentation relating to budget, schedule, change control, contractor safety, hiring, quality control, and more. Ensure you have a method to save and gather these.

Use real-time data to make key decisions throughout a project

Analyze your data and review it to refine current processes. Find the most optimized way to execute. Use real-time reports to inform your decision-making and reduce the chance of errors. Automated progress reviews generated in your construction project management software can be invaluable to this process, ensuring tasks align with schedules and project goals. So many advanced software tools exist. Don’t hesitate to use them to make data-backed decisions.

Prioritize risk management with predictive construction software

Analyze risk on a construction project. Conduct risk assessments. Recognize potential issues and create mitigation strategies to combat them. Use construction management software to run predictive analyses, forecast risks, and assist you in devising solutions. The risk may refer to safety hazards on-site and risks to your timeline, budget, and resource allocation. Should a risk become a reality, a management team must act quickly.

Maintain and adapt with a realistic budget

Not only do you want to set a realistic budget from day one, but you also want to use construction software tools to monitor costs and expenses in real-time. Work to prevent budget overruns. Reallocate funds when necessary. Ensure a portion of your budget is allocated to unexpected expenses. This way, your budget is ready and flexible. If your budget is dramatically impacted and an overrun is likely, contact all relevant parties to ensure you have approval to move ahead.

Invest in insurance to cover responsibilities

Construction project managers operate under a registered corporation, but whether you do or not, investing in comprehensive business insurance is wise. There are so many issues a construction project may come up with, from artistry errors to issues with materials, safety hazards, injuries, withdrawn financing or support, and more. A construction company will always want to make sure they get paid for their work, and insurance is there to cover that.

Update stakeholders and actively manage project expectations

Be willing to go the extra mile to keep stakeholders, contractors, builders, and clients updated on where a project is at. Manage expectations. Ensure each party understands how a project will play out and what the outcome is supposed to be. Unrealistic expectations can lead to project failure and issues. A manager has to actively communicate throughout a project and ensure all actors are kept on the same page as the construction begins, continues, and inevitably completes.