There are traditionally three parties in a construction project. The owner, the architect and the contractor. each with their own tasks and responsibilities. Project managers, construction managers, owners’ representatives, these are all different names used to describe the same role, helping the owner discharge their responsibilitites.
In the past 45 years, since I started my career, projects have become more and more complicated. Owners have been forced to take a more active role and need greater specialized expertise.
In-house project manager or consultant
You need a project manager; why not just hire one as an employee? For large institutions, developers, public agencies, orgainzation that have a steady flow of construction projects, having an in-house project delivery infrastructure is generally a good idea. Most have their own staff, but even they sometimes choose outside consultants to respond to peaks in work or unusual projects.
But for others, retaining a consultant project manager is probably better and this is why:
- In almost all cases, managing your project only requires part-time effort with some periods of high effort and others of minimum effort.
- Some of the work requires a high level of experience and expertise and a solid network of resources. Then there are many normal administrative tasks. A consulting firm with access to a team of professionals with differenct expertise and billing rates is often the better choice.
- You may have only one substantial project. This position doesn’t represent a career path. Really qualified candidates may not be interested.
- In boom times, you won’t be able to find a qualified candidate. They are all working.
- In a recession, you might find somebody, but you’re always at risk that they will flee if a career position presents itself.
With this set of limitations you can imagine it would be quite hard to find a qualified candidate as an employee.
Hire the project manager first
There is a lot of work to be done in any project before you need much architectural input. You need to define your needs and vision in collaboration with stakeholders. You need to develop a global understanding of potential project costs and determine your financial resources and when those funds might be available. A project manager can help you with all of this and it requires almost no architectural input.
Certainly hiring an architect is on the early task list, but it’s best when even the architects earliest work is informed by the above considerations.
So where do you find your project manager. Perhaps the best resource are your colleagues in other similar organizations who have or have recently completed a capital project. Most of my work has come by word of mouth in this manner.
What does the project manager do?
In my post Building Your Project Team, I touched on what qualities you want for a project manager. You want somebody that you feel comfortable working with, who has a strong business sense, excellent interpersonal skills and a comprehensive understanding of the design and construction industry. They are the ones who you will rely on to help you through the difficult challenges of your project.
But what do they do? To some extent this entire blog describes the work of project managers, but I will summarize:
- First and foremost they should take global responsibility for developing and maintaining your project budget. From inception to post construction that task takes sustained effort.
- They also should develop and manage a comprehensive schedule, including all events. Anticipating problems and getting buy-in from all participants, including you, is essential.
- Your project manager should educate you on the design and construction process and help guide your actions.
- Every organzation plans activities and has a decision making process. Your project manager should help you adapt your existing decison making struture to the particular demands of a design and construction process. This is not quite normal business. Remember, the budgets involved are large, often exceeding your operations costs. .
- You will be faced with large and small decsions. The way these decisons are presented to you is important. You should rely on your project manager to help your team to bring decisions to you in useful and timely manner.
- The project manager should be responsible for setting the tone of interaction in your project team and with the contractor. Collaboration is essential. No project benefits from an agressive combative process.
- There are a lot of consultants involved in your project. See my post Comprehensive of Budget Items, which includes an exhaustive list of possible consultants and vendors. They all need to be identified, selected with fees and contracts negotiated and managed.
- The project manager oversees the work, not only of the design team but of all the other consultants and vendors noted above and makes sure that everybody is doing the expected work in conformance with the project schedule. This is a proactive task that may from time to time require intervention.