Considerations prior to, during and after your project.

Prior to the project you are concerned with the accuracy of your quote and developing a workable punch list. During the project you are concerned with maintaining and fulfilling the punch list on time and on or under budget. After the project you are concerned with the longevity, stability and logic of the plan you just completed and how it will affect both the institutions daily and long-term needs.

Throughout the project planning you should be questioning the institutions goals for the project and compare those goals with what they are asking you to do or quote. Sometimes you will be asked to do what the requester believes will solve a problem, but they never mention the problem to be solved in the request. It is important to know not just what the project is supposed to accomplish but what problem the project is supposed to solve.

Once the project begins you should keep the project goals and the problem that initiated the project in mind, but you also need to be mindful of new problems the project itself can generate. Institutional problems can be slippery things and they can shift, multiply or disappear, all unexpectedly. Rush end-dates will suddenly turn into delays with no explanation and infrastructure problems requiring art-movement can uncover other infrastructure problems unexpectedly compounding both the problem and the project. You should anticipate scheduling changes whenever a project’s schedule is dependent on building or construction contractors. These delays may fall under your “contingencies” category and they should not be surprises. A project manager should not only be conscious of their project but also of the other projects around their project. They are all interconnected. As you walk your job site or text your site-managers to ask if they are on schedule or if there are issues that need to be discussed, you should also be doing the same thing with the construction project manager and the electrical project manager and the plumbing project manager. You should touch base with every facet of the project that effects your project and over which you have no control. Knowing the general progress of all aspects of the project’s environment will allow you to be fluid or at least flexible in steering your part of the project to completion.