April 2015: Business Building

Words: George Hedley

How to Set and Track Project Goals

Headshot-George-HedleyBy George Hedley

To achieve or beat construction project goals, your field crew and team leaders must know what you want them to accomplish. Implementing a winning strategy starts with a scoreboard showing all of the tasks, milestones, and measurable targets you want them to hit. Next you must update it regularly and communicate specific project results to every team member on an ongoing real time basis. And then at the completion of your projects, you review and analyze the actual results versus the goals to determine where your team could have improved or achieved better results. The majority of contractors don’t consistently track project goals as their jobs progress and move forward. When this happens, crew moves forward in the dark at any pace deemed appropriate without statistics, targets, goals, or feedback. Seeing a final job cost report long after the project is finished doesn’t motivate, help, or provide guidance to the project superintendent or foreman. It’s too late to make changes to your day to day strategy or make up any lost progress after jobs are finished.

No targets, no results

Before you start any task you want to complete on-time or ahead of schedule, you need to know the interim milestones, deadlines, and expected completion dates. To meet the budget, you need to know and track how much resources, labor, materials, and equipment you have estimated and how much you are using as you work on the task. When project managers, superintendents, foreman, and field employees don’t know what their goals are or how well they’re doing, they can’t be held responsible or accountable to achieve results. When general contractors don’t communicate exactly what’s expected or required on projects to their subcontractors, they also can’t be held responsible to achieve milestone targets and goals. Most construction companies get awarded jobs and start them in a hurry without taking time to prepare a detailed project plan, schedule, or budget which will insure success. You’ve heard the expression, “haste makes waste.” Proceeding without clear targets or a detailed work plan will cause you to make mistakes and not achieve or exceed bottom-line results you want.

Set and track your schedule

Get the project superintendent and foreman together before the job starts and draft out a simple bar chart schedule for performing every work task. Using a blank wall, flip chart, or large white board, they work together to think through and layout all the tasks and phases required to build the project or their scope of work. The project foreman or superintendent should also develop, prepare and update two to four week “think-ahead” schedules every week to detail their plans for next month’s activity. This will cause the foreman or superintendent to look ahead and think about the upcoming deadlines, activities, tools, equipment, subcontractors, and labor required to keep the project on schedule.

Set and track your budget

After you get awarded a contract, the project team must sit down to create a line item project budget. First review the bid cost breakdown and make sure everything was covered in the bid and estimate. Make the necessary adjustments and agree on a final project budget for every line item. Your project manager will then have an overall working project budget to start with and the foreman or superintendent will have a field budget for labor, equipment, and material for work tasks their crew self-performs. On self-performed work, using input from the project manager and estimator, determine how many crew days, total labor, and equipment hours you have to complete your work. Then spread these crew days across the allotted schedule to make sure the crew days and total labor hours meet the job budget. Every month the project manager must prepare an updated job cost report for every job under construction to determine the budget versus actual costs on every line item. Starting with the line-item budget, determine the cost to date, estimated cost to complete, and any variances to determine the estimated final cost and projected profit for every job.
George Hedley works with contractors to build profitable growing companies. He is a professional business coach, popular speaker and best-selling author of “Get Your Business to Work!” available online at www.HardhatPresentations.com. To sign up for his free enewsletter, join his next webinar, be part of a BIZCOACH program, or get a $100 discount coupon for online classes at www.HardhatBizSchool.com, email GH@HardhatPresentations.com. George Hedley, HARDHAT Presentations, 800-851-8553 Return to Table of Contents
About: Business Building
Building More: How Can They Do It For That Price?!

Spring is a weird bid season. Estimates are coming in all over the place. It seems like everyone has tightened their belts to land what they can as we come out of the election cycle slowdown. We are no exception. Lowering margins is a temporary solution,

By: Corey Adams
About: Featured
Read More
MASONRY STRONG Podcast, Episode 14 Recap: Foreman Instructors

On this episode of the MASONRY STRONG Podcast, Foreman Instructors Donnie Williams, Jameel Ervin, and Tom Vacala join Justin in talking about the changes in masonry education over the years, how they all became good friends, and some of their favorite sto

By: Justin Stengel
About: Featured
Read More
Building the Next Generation: Advances in Masonry Material, Design and Efficiency

Brick’s versatility has made it an architectural staple for centuries, adapting to the evolving trends, demands and challenges of the building industry. In 2025, modern advancements in brick continue to influence the way architects, designers and builders

By: Tim Leese
About: FeaturedMAP Partner
Read More
Can Keeping Your Business Clean Help Prevent Risks and Accidents?

Masonry contractors face many challenges in their day-to-day work, including the need to ensure general maintenance and housekeeping are being kept up at your business. As an owner and leader, it’s your responsibility to prioritize safety by promoting cle

By: Patrick Cunningham
About: MAP Partner
Read More