Construction Project Management Processes

Construction project managers must follow project management principles during every project life cycle phase.

FREMONT, CA: Construction project management requires various skills and the ability to interface with various agencies and people to lead the project from concept to build. Therefore, construction project managers must follow project management principles during every project life cycle phase.

Project Initiation

You can't begin a project unless you know you can finish it. First comes the due diligence to ascertain if the project is even feasible. How do you figure out this? You want to go over a feasibility study or a business case, in which you look at the objectives, cost estimates and timeline to see if you have the resources to achieve a successful project end within those constraints.

You also like to define the reasoning behind the project and make sure it's sound. If so, you create your project charter to help initiate the project. You'llYou'll also identify potential issues and risks in this phase.

Project Planning

You have acceptance. Now how are you going to accomplish success? First, outline the tasks within the timeline, noting project milestones and the resources needed to do those tasks within the budget allotted.

Next, be transparent in your project plan, so everyone is on the same page and understands what needs to be done over the project's life cycle. That incorporates detailing the cost, scope, duration, quality and communications employed in the project. This is also when you'll be possible to envision the best project team for the project and begin assembling them.

The planning phase is possibly the most important project management phase since you'll create the documents that will guide the project execution. Here are some of them:

• Work breakdown structure

• Risk management plan

• Project schedule

• Scope management plan

• Cost management plan and project budget

The project schedule is a large part of the planning phase in construction project management. Here's an instance of a project schedule from ProjectManager's free construction schedule template.

Once you've finished the work breakdown structure, you'll add your tasks to the left-hand side of the construction schedule template. You can include subtasks, add resources and costs, deadlines and more. Project stages can also be color-coded. To the right is a timeline that captivates the project plan in one place.