Project management in construction

Construction project management involves directing and organizing each part of the project life cycle,
from ideation to completion. It’s a holistic practice with the goal of delivering projects on time and
under budget. Construction project management is a complex discipline that requires addressing many
important concerns, including cost control, scheduling, procurement, and risk assessment. Project
managers interact with all team members involved in a construction project, from architects to owners
to contractors.

5 Stages of Construction Projects

1. Planning and Development

Determining whether to pursue a project is the first and most important part of the construction
process. Halting projects after they’ve begun is costly, and the further they progress, the greater the
potential losses become. Feasibility studies, capital budgeting, pro-con lists, and extensive input from
stakeholders are staples of this stage. You can use these practices, and others, to answer key questions
about the project:

 Will it yield a positive ROI?

 Are the associated risks manageable?
 Does it fit into your company’s portfolio?

use a combination of insights from robust data analysis and feedback from the key stakeholders on your
team. Analytics provides decision-makers with an objective perspective on the proposed project, while
wide-ranging input from team members can help identify potential issues that might otherwise pass
unnoticed.

2. Design

Once you’ve decided on a project, it’s time for the creative juices to start flowing. The design phase
involves developing everything from the basic concept of the project to detailed blueprints that show
the final design. Your design will evolve from initial sketches to finished drawings and specifications, but
each iteration should meet the project’s requirements while keeping the timeline in mind and costs
under control.

Once the design is finalized and approved, it’s time to move on to the preconstruction phase.
3. Preconstruction

Preconstruction involves creating a roadmap that will guide you through the construction process. It’s
about building a game plan for the project that shows everyone what they need to do, when they need
to do it, how they should accomplish it, and what it should cost. If all parties stick to the plan and
execute their roles to perfection, they’ll deliver the project on time, to standard, and within budget.

Presconstruction involves a wide variety of critical tasks. Here are a few of the most important:

 Define and allocate resources.

 Set up mini-budgets.
 Create timelines and deadlines.
 Distribute tasks.
 Map out work and operations through work breakdown structures (WBS), organization
breakdown structures (OBS), and other tools.

Risk assessment and contingency planning are also a major part of preconstruction. Things rarely go just
as planned during a construction project — often due to factors outside your control — so project
managers and stakeholders must prepare for things going awry. The more proactive you are, the less
time, money, and resources you’ll lose trying to get back on track if and when hiccups occur.

4. Procurement

Procurement encompasses sourcing, purchasing, and transporting the materials and services you need
to complete a project. Procurement and supply chain managers should provide input in the planning
stages to keep unexpected cost overruns to a minimum during this stage. Even so, some volatility is
inevitable, as prices are subject to shifts in the market. You should account for this risk to the extent
possible through robust preconstruction planning.

There are benefits and drawbacks to sourcing materials from local, regional, or global markets. Local
procurement may take less time, but it may come at a greater cost, while less expensive materials
shipped over long distances may be more subject to delays and supply chain interruptions. Engage in
thorough research so you can choose the right options to meet budgetary requirements and stay on
schedule.

5. Construction

You’ve made your plan, everyone knows what their jobs are, and you have the resources you need to
get started. Now construction can commence. All your preparation and planning pays off in this stage,
helping the construction process move along smoothly and finish successfully. Even the most thorough
plans can’t anticipate every hiccup along the way, of course, so regular monitoring and evaluation of
progress during this phase is vital for staying on course.

When you have to make adjustments due to new circumstances or goals, change management comes
into play. Project managers must adapt as needed while remaining within the parameters of the
project’s plan. Look for a change management solution that can help analyze the impact of changes and
minimize their impact on the project.
Core Construction Project Management Processes

These construction management processes are the key to keeping a project running smoothly from start
to finish.

1. Ideation and Research

Ideation is part of front-end loading (FEL), the planning and design portion of the project life cycle. It’s
when every detail of a project is scrutinized by stakeholders to see if it aligns with your company’s
current and future portfolio of projects. The proposed project must make sense in terms of ROI,
applicable regulations, integration with existing projects, risk, and other factors.

During this process, ideas are refined into project proposals through rigorous research and data-driven
analysis. Capital budgeting, feasibility studies, brainstorming, and financial breakdowns are just some of
the practices involved at this phase. While considering the project, actively solicit input from as many
team members as possible to ensure that it comprehensively aligns with your organization’s portfolio.

One of the primary goals of ideation is ensuring a steady stream of high value projects while keeping risk
at a manageable level. A project that has the potential for a significant ROI but comes with major risks
may not fit in with a portfolio of safe, stable investments. Even if it does, it will require greater attention
and maintenance throughout the project life cycle.

2. Define and Plan the Project

Once you’ve settled on a project, it’s time to flesh out the details to prevent scope creep and keep your
team aligned once the project begins. Important details that should be addressed at this stage include
the project’s scope, a feasible timeline, required resources, a reasonable and accurate budget, and key
performance indicators (KPIs). Inviting feedback from as many relevant team members as possible
during this phase should again be a priority, together with determining what personnel the project will
require.

3. Determine Roles

With the many parties involved in any construction project, you need to clearly define the role of each.
This clarifies everyone’s responsibilities, enables you to hold team members accountable, and prevents
confusion and delays. When all team members know their role in the project and how to accomplish
their tasks, redundancies disappear and tasks don’t slip through the cracks.

4. Finalize and Execute Construction Plans

Before actual construction kicks off, project managers should meet with the appropriate stakeholders to
review the plan and ensure everyone is on the same page. While there’s a good chance you’ll have to
deal with unexpected difficulties and changes as the project progresses, failing to obtain explicit buy-in
before construction begins all but guarantees that you’ll face additional challenges along the way.

Once construction begins, project managers must do everything they can to keep the process
coordinated and efficient. This means rigorously measuring and tracking progress. Relevant and
comprehensive KPIs updated in real time — which around 56% of project managers don’t have —
provide invaluable insight into the performance and status of the project. Selecting the right KPIs is
critical, as they provide a way to efficiently monitor the project at a glance and see if it’s going off track.
With data on the current status of your budget, procurement, and other key aspects of the project, you
can draw the insights you need to control costs and meet deadlines.

Handling Construction Project Management Challenges

Construction project management involves its share of challenges. Here are some of the most common
and some tips on how to overcome them.

Communication and document management

Maintaining lines of communication between everyone on a construction project isn’t easy. And keeping
an accessible, accurate repository of all project documents can be even more difficult. But the risks that
come with poor communication and document management are too large to ignore.

From change orders to ongoing procurement, a miscommunication that delays just one critical process
can bring the entire project to a halt, lead to cost overruns, or cause conflict between parties. Avoid the
challenges of attempting to manage communication through email, chat, phone, and other channels
with a software solution that centralizes information and communication in a single platform.

Together with facilitating frequent communication, project managers are responsible for document
management. Contractors, insurance companies, owners, and other parties need a single source of truth
they can rely on. You can start creating a winning document management process by examining your
organization’s current document management system, centralizing existing documents, standardizing
processes, and taking advantage of a document management solution with the features you need.

Estimating

The complexity and importance of estimating costs, necessary resources, and timeline in construction
can’t be stressed enough. Even a minor error in estimation can lead to a loss on a project given the tight
margins in the construction industry. A significant margin of error when estimating the cost of a large-
scale project, like constructing a power plant, could even lead to the project being shut down midway,
with a huge amount of sunk costs. While price fluctuations, currency drops, material shortages, and
other factors can make estimation an inexact science at best, there are forecasting tools available to
help you consider all these variables and make your estimates as accurate as possible.

Siloed data

When data is decentralized and hard to access, miscommunication runs rampant and projects rarely go
according to plan. Data silos can affect cost control, the project’s timeline, risk assessment, and more. If
your contractor is waiting on information that’s already available or decides to push through without it,
you’re going to either face delays or be forced to cross your fingers and hope for the best.
To break down data silos, adopt a data management solution that makes centralizing and integrating
relevant information easy. The best tools connect all your systems and let your team quickly access data
no matter where it lives.

Lack of real-time data for risk assessment and change management

Sharing data across your team doesn’t matter if the information is out of date. Construction projects are,
by their nature, works-in-progress, so you need real-time data to stay on top of new developments and
address challenges as they arise. Again, the right software solution is the answer. The platform you
choose should make diving into the data easy with up-to-date dashboards and reports while providing
the tools you need to visualize workflows and see the impact of your decisions.

Types of Construction Management Contracts

Lump Sum Contract: A lump sum contract or fixed price contract, defines a total price for the
completion of the project.

Cost Plus Contract: Cost plus fee contracts are made of two parts: a fixed fee that’s agreed upon by the
project owner and the contractor, plus additional costs that are added as the project progresses.

Guaranteed maximum price: It’s the same as a cost plus contract, but a maximum price is defined.

Time and Materials Contract: This type of contract is used when there’s uncertainty about the project
scope. The general contractor charges an hourly rate for labor and materials.

Unit Pricing Contract: Used when costs can’t be determined ahead of time, it sets unit prices for
materials

Construction Project Delivery Methods

The purpose of these construction delivery methods is to define how the project owner, the general
contractor and the licensed designer (architect or engineer) will interact throughout the project.

Design-bid-build: The design-bid-build method consists in choosing a general contractor after the design
phase is completed.

Design-build: In the design-build method, the design and build phases are executed by the same party
known as the design-builder.
CM at risk: The CM at risk model empowers the construction manager, giving him more functions than
he would normally have. In this project delivery method, the construction manager acts in two ways. On
one hand, he is a consultant to the project owner during the design and development phases, and on
the other hand, he monitors the contractor during the construction phase to control costs and
guarantee that the project is delivered within the guaranteed maximum price.

Project management in statue of unity construction-

Standing at 182 feet, which is twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the United States, the Statue of
Unity in Gujarat rises on the western shore of India as the pride of the nation. Built on a budget of Rs.
2,989 crore, it is a tribute to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, freedom fighter and India’s first deputy prime
minister.

Patel, who is popularly known as the Iron Man of India, was responsible for unifying the country post
partition in 1947. The world’s tallest statue with bronze cladding is not just a fitting tribute to the
country’s Independence hero but also its modern engineering prowess.

Constructed by Larsen and Toubro (L&T), the Statue of Unity is located on Sadhu Hill on the banks of the
Narmada in Gujarat. The statue towers over another engineering marvel, the Sardar Sarovar Dam, and
has already become a draw for tourists from across the country.
Unique challenges

• Working within the river bed on a hilltop

• Environmental clearance to protect the aqua tic and wildlife population in the area
• The statue’s stance and orientation
• Building a high speed lift and emergency stairs inside the legs of the statue
• Maintaining the strength and stability without compromising on the aesthetics

The other key challenges were:

• Coordination among man y teams and vendors with different objectives
• Procuring material at a location with poor access and mobile connectivity
• Creating a conducive work environment with basic amenities
• Emotional attachment and expectations of the people
• Managing hostilities from local residents

Some of the best construction project management practices applied were:

• Building Information Modeling to prepare 4D reports for creative monitoring/approvals
• CCTV cameras, drones, and time-la pse photography for overall view of the project site
• Mobile android application like L&T’s Pro-Cube for progress monitoring
• Digital software for project documentation
• WhatsApp for daily progress monitoring and follow-ups with the site team
• Barcoding of drawings that allows users to see 3D images of the drawings on their mobile phones.

Comparison with other major statues-

Completing a 182 meters’ tall statute within five years and within a budget of USD 450 million is a
success story of project management. It also throws light on the various risks associated with these
kinds of projects and how these risks can be mitigated through engineering innovation, successful
division of labor, and collaboration of the private and public sector. It does a comparative analysis of the
similar projects done by the other countries and found that with the advancement of technology and
proper utilization of project management techniques, this project has achieved its targets with less cost
and time