Our team have come up with some Project Management Tips for your Self-Build to get you on the right track.
If you are considering undertaking a self-build project, you will need to spend lots of time planning and researching.
CLPM’s Project Management Tips for your Self-Build explained.
1 – Understanding your priorities
CLPM Top Tip – Identifying which priority is in charge will help you plan
Time
Are you confident you can give your project the time it requires. Some projects can last for a couple of years. If you can be available, fantastic. If not, you may need to hire a project manager to oversee the job. Someone has to have full oversight, be there to deal with queries quickly and efficiently, and make snap decisions. Make sure you can commit to this.
Quality
What type of build are you aiming to achieve. The quality of workmanship, and cost of quality finished all need to be worked into your budget. You also need to be sure you can check a quality finish from a substandard one. If this is not your skill set, you may need to appoint a construction consultant who has that experience and expertise.
Money
If costs are your driver, then research and budgeting are essential. Quantity surveying services can provide high level and detailed budgets, procurement routes through to on site valuations and financial monitoring.
If budget is important to you, this will more than likely influence your procurement route.
2 – Design, Design, Design
CLPM Top Tip – plan and be confident with the detail early.
Detailed designs will help you understand how your project pieces together. It is like one big puzzle, and if a piece is missing, it will cause issues. Creating detailed designs early, will save you time and stress later on.
Make sure your designs include everything relating to the build and the project. Right down to the last tap.
3 – Comprehensive Pricing Schedule
CLPM Top Tip – if budget is your key driver, you may find you need to trim costs once a detailed budget has been completed. This can be achieved through our value engineering services.
Once your designs are in place, creating a pricing schedule will put you in control of all you costs. Your plans need to be right down to the smallest details. Such as how much tiling you want so the costs can be worked out. Alternatively think of it this way, if you have not designed your lighting scheme, you can not budget for how many lights, sockets, cabling would be required. If you need to add costs in along the way because they were not planned at the beginning, you will not be in control of your costs.
Sometimes it is tricky to plan to that level so early, in which case you will need to plan a contingency fund to allow for changes and additional costs.
4 – Understanding Interdependencies
CLPM top tip – a programme is a great way to keep a track on timings.
Once your plan and pricing schedule is complete, it will show you the interdependencies that need managing.
A construction programme is the most coherent way to achieve this. By planning the detail, you will know which suppliers you are using, and what their lead times are likely to be. This will dictate ordering dates, which must be in line with the build schedule.
5 – Regular communications
CLPM top tip – he suggests that the most recent information is displayed visibly throughout the project, so the whole build team know where to refer to should they need to.
Regular communications are critical to a projects success. CLPM Project Managers always hold regular meetings and circulate minutes with all parties involved.
Everyone needs to have the most up to date drawings to work from. This way no errors will occur. There are times where we have come across instances where one part of the build team have a different set of plans to another.
6 – Check the work matches the drawings
Finally, once everything is in place, it is time for the project manager to inspect the work that has been done. They will ensure it is in line with the plans and drawings.
Your project manager will also make sure what is planned on the drawing is being built on site to the required standards, ultimately checking that you are getting what you have designed and what are paying for.
Get in Touch
If you would like more information on how CLPM can help you with estimating construction costs, or project management we’d love to hear from you. Call us on 01923 896550, email info@cl-pm.com or complete a contact form.
Project Management Tips for your Self-Build
