Lesson 14. Learning from Your Experience. In this lesson, you learn how to keep your role as project manager in perspective, the value of mastering project management software, why it pays to keep your eyes and ears open, and how to get ready for what is next. | Lesson 13. A Construction Mini-Case In this lesson you learn how a thorough initial research phase can pay off handsomely for your project that open and easy communication is critical to your project s success the difference between getting by and excelling and that simple solutions often are best. Helping Construction Site Managers to Be More Effective Bob works for a large metropolitan construction firm that handles anywhere from 20 to 40 projects in a given year ranging from new home construction office buildings and parking lots to assorted public works projects. Each project is headed by a project foreman who has various assistants and has anywhere from 5 to 25 crew members who perform the heavy labor. Much like any company in the construction field the company has had its ups and downs over the past several years. Regional weather patterns shrinking municipal budgets new competition in the market place and a host of other factors keep upper management on their toes. One of the biggest bug-a-boos in the business as noted by the owner is due to declining profitability per job even as the company matures. It was the owner s belief that as a cadre of highly experienced well-trained foremen were established the profit potential on jobs should improve somewhat. TIP A good plan executed by a knowledgeable foreman with sufficient labor should add up to overall corporate profitability. Yet things didn t seem to be working. Even on construction jobs that represented fourth or fifth jobs for a regular client where all parties involved were relatively old hands at various processes profits were down. A thorough audit of the company s practices revealed that the critical issue was high turnover among labor crews. All other factors such as slight increases in cost of materials increases in wages licenses permits bonding insurance and the dozens of other issues that go hand in hand with initiating new constructions were handled relatively well. In fact compared to other .
