ProTip #6 - Understanding Time & Money

What you have to understand about these two key denominators is that they will run side by side for the duration of your entire project. It will be crucial to ensure that you have robust methods in place to control and monitor their progress.

People involved with the project will always be asking you, “Hey, when is this happening, what time do you want that delivered, how much is that going to cost and what’s in the budget for this item?”

Time and money are your barometers of how the project is progressing and a way of forecasting the future weeks ahead. So let’s look at each item individually to see how they work.

Time
Without any awareness of time, your project will end in tears and be over budget, a domino effect ending in real problems for you. It is vital at every key stage that a non-negotiable time frame is understood and agreed upon by all parties. Commitment to time is the key to success.
To help you manage time I suggest you do the following:
. Develop a Construction Program.
. Have regular site visits.
. Insist on weekly meetings (with minutes taken). So what is a construction program? It’s a very simple Gantt chart that shows all the activities of the project on the left-hand side listed in the order that they are required on-site. Running across the top of the page is time, which might be hours, days, or most commonly in weeks. You should highlight any item that has a time pressure against it. Start using the construction program at the very beginning of the project, this will ensure critical timekeeping is paramount from the beginning.

Too often, I have seen time burnt up at the start of a project whilst the client has been dealing with landlords, or getting bogged down in design, leading to crazy construction times at the back-end of the project. This leads to escalated costs due to overtime and leaves no time for a smooth transition to the new premises.

Take time at the very beginning to work out what is critical to you and your business. Write down the ideal dates by which you want to achieve these critical items. Mark them on your construction program and highlight them in red. You now have target dates that are highlighted on the construction program and the team can work towards them.

. Boss (if you have one).
. Your internal project team (if you have one).
. Solicitor – to ensure the lease paperwork is complete when required.
. Designer – to make them aware you have deadlines with the design.
. Builder – so trades can be aligned and ready to start when required.
. Removalist – locked into relocate.

Other key items:
. Telstra or you Internet Service Provider (ISP)
. The company that handles your computers or your IT department.
. Clients – so they know where to find you.
. Business specific equipment.

I often hear that construction program time plans are a waste of paper and no one looks at them so don’t bother writing one up. This is usually said by the person who can’t manage time. On every successful project I have ever run there has always been a construction program. They are an essential tool that you should not work without.

They are very rarely 100 per cent accurate on a day-by-day basis, but they’re a planning tool. Dates will slide forward and backward over the project, but they keep you on track and pushing when you need too. As long as you meet your final deadline date, then the program has done its job.

As one long-time colleague and great friend always says, “You have to have a plan, you can’t change a plan if you don’t have one to begin with.”

Once under construction, regular site visits are another great way to monitor time by seeing for yourself the progress on-site and how it is tracking compared to the construction program.

Are you interstate? I have completed jobs all over Australia and thanks to a digital camera and email, photos are a great way to get updates on progress – ask for them weekly.

Weekly meetings between yourself and everyone involved are a great way to stay on track with time. As discussed earlier there is nothing quite like the pressure of an upcoming scheduled weekly meeting to kick you into action. With our ever-increasing busy schedules, things can be pushed to the back of the pile or just simply forgotten, but knowing there is a scheduled weekly meeting drives you to make sure you’re ready when it’s your turn to speak.

Check back next month to hear about the second key denominator, money. In the meantime, contact George Gatt to talk about your next office fitout project, george@officebuilders.com.au.