Jumping into essential skills of Construction Project Managers we must first evaluate personality traits in general. People strive to learn how to be good leaders. The proof is the ever-expanding publishing industry of leadership manuals. From Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, there’s no shortage of practical and inspirational tomes on how to become a great leader. However, these books frequently encounter a common problem: because they are created for a general audience, adopting their recommendations in a specific subject might be difficult.
In the following post, we will look at how eight general and specialized talents and attributes influence construction project management responsibilities. If you are a construction project manager looking to advance your career or if you want to learn more about construction project management, keep reading!
Our list of required talents and attributes for a Construction Project Manager starts with:
Leadership in Project Managers
We commonly see leadership when it comes to being on schedule and staying under budget. It may appear unusual to use the term we wish to describe as part of its definition, but we all recognize that leadership entails proactively taking charge of numerous parts of a situation — and this is critical from the start of a construction project.
When experts describe how projects always develop, they always mention three things: scope, time, and money. As a general rule, lowering one of these requires raising the other two. It is critical for construction project managers to understand their clients’ priorities. The manager must then skillfully guide the project to meet their clients’ top priorities first. For example, if a client’s focus is on timeline for a hard opening date, their project manager needs to be able to complete all aspects of the project to this standard.
The Project Manager is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the construction project as well as managing their project team.
Flexibility and problem-solving in Project Managers
“It’s no use talking about the problem unless you talk about the solution,” Nobel Prize winner Betty Williams famously noted. Indeed, troubles are unavoidable in all aspects of life. Many moving pieces must work together as one in a big construction job. If a supplier fails to deliver, subcontractor issues arise, or the project’s scope changes unexpectedly. These changes can jeopardize a project, yet they are entirely normal issues that lie well within the scope of a project manager’s responsibilities. To finish on time and on budget, a manager must deal with them efficiently and promptly.
Knowledge of the Industry in Project Managers
Just because the building industry creates structures that survive for decades or centuries does not mean that its procedures are set in stone. Change is emphasized, standard operating procedures move, and progress is made — and construction project managers must stay up with it all.
In a perfect world, managers would already have all of the skills required for each position. However, that is not how reality works. Change is continuous, and competent managers must stay current on advancements in their fields. In practice, this entails managers having a natural passion of learning.
A Project Manager with a Mindset Driven by Action
Some construction project managers are numerate. They understand their clients’ objectives and know where they’re prepared to bend. They understand how to modify their strategy in response to changing situations. They’ve stayed current on industry best practices and researched new ways as they emerged. Such project managers would inevitably succeed, right? Not so quickly. Another thing they urgently want is action and initiative.
To put it gently, project management in construction is not for the faint of heart. Almost every day, irritations, discouragements, problems, complexities, and disappointments appear. It’s far too simple to disregard the more challenging aspects of the work in favor of the minutia that’s easier to manage. It’s also fatal to the success of your endeavor. A competent construction project manager must keep the client’s ultimate goal in mind and take solid, forward-thinking action every day to achieve it, no matter how difficult or difficult the task.
Patience
Patience is a characteristic that is closely tied to flexibility. Things happen on building projects just like they occur in life – only more so. This is not a job for people who dislike dealing with hassles, irritants, and unexpected events. Building planning and construction necessitates the control of an infinite number of factors, and issues are unavoidable. If you find yourself losing your cool when things go wrong, or if your mind wanders to a less difficult activity, you will not perform effectively. Furthermore, subordinates will pick up on your attitude and fail to perform to their full potential. Whatever happens, a successful construction manager should have the same view as Edmund Burke: “Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
Team Leadership
Managing teams is a vital aspect of guiding any construction job. Consider a construction project manager to be the linchpin of the entire operation, the one who connects the different elements into a coherent whole. Every activity and piece of information connects with the orbit of a manager. Which explains why crucial team-management skills like good communication, openness to feedback, and bargaining are important.
Still, there is one aspect of team management that is much too often overlooked. It is critical to understand how to not micromanage. Because the project manager is responsible for so many aspects of the project, it’s tempting for the manager to get involved in everything. A good manager, on the other hand, recognizes that this is unachievable and takes a step back, putting the appropriate people in the proper positions and relying in their judgment.
Management of Risk
Managers who are stuck in a basic way of thinking feel that their options are divided into positive or negative categories. However, experienced managers understand that this is false. Every decision, even those that appear to be the most favorable on the surface, involves trade-offs, opportunity costs, and unknown hazards.
This realization is not new. “The fastest runner does not always win the race, the strongest soldier does not always win the battle, the wisest does not always have food, the smartest does not always become wealthy, and the talented one does not always receive praise,” an ancient writer once stated. Everyone is affected by time and chance.” What distinguishes effective construction management is their ability to plan for and handle unforeseen events even when they cannot directly predict them.
Financial Administration
A construction manager has little influence over a project’s financial management. After all, it is the customer who ultimately determines the budget, the extent of the project, and the overall timetable. It is up to project managers to work as efficiently as possible within those constraints.
Having said that, understanding how to take the total offered by the customer and appropriately assign all of the line items it must contain is critical to having the project go smoothly — or even operate at all. Forecasting and determining how to handle when one supplier returns a higher-than-expected price, as well as knowing the best approach to manage adjustments without going over budget, are also important. Financial management is the figurative oil that keeps the project’s wheels turning smoothly.
Our Skilled Project Managers