The benefits of using an experienced Building Project Manager
Planning, organising, and managing a building maintenance project can be stressful and take up valuable time and resources. From organising reliable, qualified, and competent trades to developing a site risk management plan to ensure safe project completion all takes time, effort and skill. Other necessary considerations include knowledge of required building and compliance standards and meeting the expectations of the body corporate.
If not planned and executed well, coordinating building maintenance can lead to a tangled web of financial, compliance and possibly even further unexpected maintenance issues. Self managed projects can lead to unwanted stress and often give a false sense of economy, especially when unintended ‘band aiding’ of maintenance problems occurs.
We have probably all heard of someone, who knows someone, who can do the job cheaper. The term “buyer beware” comes to mind here as this arrangement can turn sour very quickly with risks that the job may fail to meet expectations or even be defective. Often these well-meaning casual arrangements cost more money in the long term requiring expensive rectification works.
There are two choices when planning maintenance on a strata building.
1. Body corporate appoints a person from the building to manage the project.
2. Body corporate engages an experienced project manager to achieve successful project completion—on time, within budget, and free of financial, compliance and legal complications.
What is Project Management?
Project management is planning, organising, and managing the effort required to accomplish a successful project outcome.
Once the objectives and goals have been agreed between the body corporate and the project manager, a project plan is developed. Industry knowledge and experience is essential when developing an effective project plan. The plan will include, methodology, procurement, required skills and controls. Controls will ensure the project, if disrupted for unforeseen circumstances, can recover and continue with little to no interruption.
Effective communication is key to the success of any project.
Project Manager – What to expect
Making the decision to engage a project manager can be daunting. But it doesn’t need to be.
The primary expectation when engaging a project manager is feeling that they have the experience, knowledge and understanding of the trades required to do the job properly. This expertise and experience is invaluable when leading a team on a project.
The project manager will identify the tasks needed, quantify the resources required while leading and managing the team to successfully complete the job within the timeframe and to budget.
Project managers ensure activities are adequately resourced, while managing relationships with all contributors and stakeholders. This may sound simple but can be a time consuming and stressful undertaking for the inexperienced.
Planning
The successful management of a project includes developing a project plan. This plan outlines project goals and objectives and how they will be achieved. The plan also identifies tasks and quantifies the resources needed while providing budgets and timelines for completion.
Planning is all about asking questions, making decisions, and solving problems.
Conclusion
A project is a series of tasks, simple or complex, that produces a specific output or outcome to achieve a particular goal. Engaging a project manager will add value and save money for a building maintenance project a body corporate needs to undertake.
The simple exercise of requesting a quote and having a conversation with a project manager costs nothing and cannot do any harm to your project. This one simple action could save you and the body corporate a lot of time, money, effort and worry.
Simply put, it is all about getting things done…. properly.
