Remodeling & Renovations Blog

When planning your home remodeling or renovation project one of the main decisions you need to make is who will manage the project. Your Designer, the main builder or you may decide to take on the project management role yourself.

But be warned, it’s not as easy as it may sound. In a recent article we reveal the detail of the 10 most common mistakes made by homeowners acting as remodeling and renovation project managers are:

1. Insufficient Planning – the success of your project is probably 80% based upon good planning.
2. Poor Materials Management - Time and Materials planning is a big task but it can be very costly not having the right materials in the correct quantity at the right time.
3. Not Planning Sufficiently For Contingencies – materials can become unavailable due to warehouses burning down, transport strikes, import problems and even short supply being given to a more valued customer. Labour can become unavailable due to illness, injury or overrun on previous jobs.
4. Poor Record Keeping – keep and file everything, and keep records well organised. You need to know exactly where you are in terms of time and dollars against the plan specification.
5. Not Managing The Worksite – there are a number of regulations and workplace safety items that need to be covered during any building project.
6. Slack Quality Assurance –QA is one task that should NEVER be rushed through or passed over when under time pressure. The downline impacts are too great.
7. Poor Subcontractor Management – a full home renovation, there can be 30 -40 subcontractors. You need to use a well planned system for engaging, qualifying, contracting and managing your subcontractors.
8. Poor Communication – Act professionally, and get to know building lingo.
9. Poor Change Management Control – ensure that any remedy or changes resulting from those errors is agreed, documented and charged to the appropriate party.
10. Not Keeping Check Of The Budget – projects generally overrun their initial estimate.

Sound scary, read these building project management tips and make an informed decision on this important role. For me – I am a qualified project manager, have architectural design training and experience, but for the sheer convenience of being able to continue a full time consulting job, I am leaving to the builder to manage the contract; but will ensure that key QA points are independently assessed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Planning, Project Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.