MANAGING A PROJECT TEAM
Syed Tauseef Ali (Author)
Civil Engineering Department
Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois syedtauseefali@mail.bradley.edu Abstract—Managing a project team requires an understanding and knowledge of modern management as well as the knowledge of the design and construction process. Nowadays, associations in the development area use groups to meet today 's global competition and client desires, however, they require better methods for assessing the viability of the groups. To guarantee that development groups are successful and viable, development organizations must advance, measure, and assess their groups ' viability. A project team is bound by a certain set of constraints, for example, delivering a construction project in a required time frame and so they need to see the big picture or have a clear set of goal planned in order to execute the project in time and with good quality. This paper is outlined to provide details regarding the roles and responsibilities of the different members involved in a project management team and what factors contribute to conflicts within the team and how they should be resolved.
1. INTRODUCTION
Not all construction projects are same in size. Every project varies in size and scope with different approaches, different technologies but they all share the common issues when it comes to managing a project team [1]. A project team often involves members of different backgrounds, specializations, skills and
Management of construction projects needs skills and knowledge in modern management and comprehension of construction and design process. In construction projects, the relevant technology processes, and arrangements differ, but common sequence of events apply. Construction projects generally require a specification of the project plans and objectives that entail budgeting, scope, setting of performance requirements, scheduling, and project participants (Rojas, 2009). It also requires project management specifics like the resource utilization by procurement of materials, labor, and equipment to project plan and schedule. In addition, it leads to implementation of several operations by effective control, estimation, design, construction, and contracting (Mincks & Johnston, 2010). The sequence of events occurring in the construction phase is categorized into three broad areas including foundation, structural, and finishes sequence.
Team leadership can be very instrumental in the success of a project to ensure that the project stays on schedule, encouraging use of best practices, planning and scheduling activities, problem solving and helping to facilitate control. This is achieved through team dynamics, deliverables and meeting customer expectations. The utilization of a team based approach serves to improve performance and will ultimately increase the success of a project. Nick of CanGo has been assigned the Project Manager for
The design and construction of buildings can be a complicated business involving different professions, contractors, sub-contractors and operatives. This type of work is varied and employs many construction personnel with different roles and responsibilities, working together to complete a project in as successful way- on time, on budget and to the right specification. A large project would involve a great number of different activities:
I believe that one of the most important consideration in building a project team is to be sure to provide the effective and reliable leadership for the project team. I find that teams greatly appreciate consistent leadership and clear direction. It is interesting that children react very much the same. They starve for structure and guidance despite early resistance. Similarly, a leader must build real relationships to encourage open communication, understanding and trust among the team. It is critical to earn respect from the team members to foster relationships that can endure future challenges that will be inevitably faced by the project team. I think that project team members appreciate when leaders set clear expectations. I would work with the project team to provide fair and consistent constructive
In a bit more detail, the team can be owner, construction manager, architect, engineers, builders, contractor, subcontractors, designers and even technical vendors depending on the project. They are legally bound by a contract from the concept phase through the completion of the project. Each member of the team is involved has a say in all phases and has a responsibility for completion and quality of all phases. Unlike traditional
Several approaches exist towards a successful project management. These have been emerging over years and also vary from project to project and industry to industry. This article focuses on few of popular project management techniques
It can prove to be very difficult to manage a construction site as projects and sites are short-lived in nature, constantly changing in status, covering a huge range of construction processes of varying complexity and scale. The work processes and people change almost daily on sites, and projects involve diverse groups who are physically separated from the site, i.e. those who procure, design, specify, manage and maintain buildings and structures as well as those who undertake the process of building them.
Managing a project is no easy task. A project is a series of tasks or jobs that are related to each other and directed toward a common goal or output. Projects usually require a significant time commitment, and tend to be handled by groups of workers. The employees at Craft Construction, a small business that deals with complete remodeling and some small commercial buildings, generally divide into groups of two or three workers per project. The number of employees assigned to a job usually depends on the size of the project. For each project, a project manager and a lead carpenter are assigned to handle most of the work. Project scheduling is different for every job. Smaller jobs require less planning because there is
Project is a temporary task undertaken to produce certain unique good or service with a defined beginning and end and also performed to meet unique goals and objectives in order to bring up desired beneficial change. Project management is therefore defined as an application of knowledge or skills or techniques to project activities in order to accomplish the established requirements. Project management constitutes certain processes and activities which include planning, implementing, monitoring, and controlling. A project manager who not only possess strong leadership skills but also consistently display competence in the key skills and qualities explained below, are critical factors to any project activity and significantly raises the achievement of the projects undertaken. A strong and committed project manager is of equal importance with consistently successful project management. However, according to (Northouse, 2013), the management and leadership qualities that are required by project managers for efficiency and effectiveness of project output and the project team are;
There are three major constraints of Project Management: the Time constraint, the Cost constraint and the Scope/Quality constraint. As the name suggests, the Time constraint refers to the time available for the completion of the project, Cost constraint refers to the allocated budget and the Scope constraint refers to the final expected outcome. For a construction project, it is virtually impossible to achieve the best of all worlds, i.e., cheapest, fastest and of the desired quality. Due to the dynamic nature of a construction project, a construction engineer faces a large number of complex problems. As a result of which, the cheapest method may yield a product which falls short in quality or the fastest means to achieve the
The size of project construction was huge, including many different departments like design construction operation and supervision department. Meanwhile, human resource management between managers, construction teams, and construction workers is an important issue which influences the cost time and quality.
The success of any organisation or project depends on proper synchronization of different supportive factors ranging from full understanding and application of general organizational philosophy, proper use of resources, prudent leadership and dependable systems of a particular business set up. Organizational systems or structures are not static as they are directly linked to the strategies in place at a particular time Media: (50 Lessons, (2004) ). All these factors are important for effective project execution and realization of organisation goals. With the foregoing dependencies, it is imperative therefore, that project managers study the mission and vision statements of the organisations that they work in or work for so that they work well while knowing the kind of organisation culture that surround them and the general expectations thereof. As organization cultures and labour force in place differ from industry to industry, project managers’ decisions on team role composition are therefore influenced by varying contextual situations in which projects that they lead exist.
Undisputedly, construction process is one of the most complex human endeavours in history, with huge amount of details that involve large number of people working at the same time on a single deliverable object, be it buildings, bridges, dams or the likes, the process is equally demanding, challenging and complicated. Every single person with a role on a construction project needs information about what to do, how to do it, where to do it and when to do it and lots more information required to carry out a single task successfully.
Any project can be decomposed into smaller tasks, each task require different knowledge and experience, in a project team, specialists and professionals can bring those necessary knowledge and
Utilizing BIM enabled integrated project delivery presents many challenges for the project management team because BIM enable many new channels for effective communication and collaboration and the choice of the right tool at the right time becomes difficult even for people with a knowledge of the benefits of BIM (Rekola et al. 2010).Moreover, integration is about managing people and getting them to work together to achieve something more than the sum of parts. To do this, the project manager requires leadership, motivation and teambuilding. It may also involve trust building among project participants and conflict resolution (Fewings, Peter 2012. Construction Project Management: An Integrated Approach (2nd Edition). All the above mentioned skills can be classified as soft skills of the project manager. Hence, in order to succeed in today’s dynamic industry, any individual wishing to enter the industry, should not only possess core technical skills, but also a diverse set of soft skills.(Ahn and Kwon 2010) .