Prior to JobLine, I was a General Manager, and before that a Project Manager. That was more than 30 years ago, but hopefully I can shake off the dust and continue the process of building our forever home without too many problems.
Project Management is a catch-all name used by people who may or may not be a project manager. Take our biggest “subcontractor,” who was going to turn-key the home but then backed out due to distance, only offering to build the completed shell and interior framing. Their Project Manager is a great young man who has been on the job for 3 years, and was in construction prior to that. What I failed to pick up is that he is what I would call a Project Administrator. He keeps up with who is doing what and when they hope to be on site, and he’ll answer questions when asked. What he doesn’t do is manage. I mean, he knows who the foundation guys are and when the home office said they'd arrive, but on the day they were due I got a little nervous and sent him a text. About 30 minutes later, he called saying they were running late…by about a week! Now I know I should have checked with him the week prior, as the office still thought they were on time. Still, I blame myself for being too trusting and not proactive enough, but lesson learned. Thankfully, this one-week delay isn't a big deal because my other subcontractors are at least 2 months out, but I will use this as a learning opportunity and be more proactive from this point on.
Finding a program or app to use was a challenge and the ones I found were either expensive or took too long to learn. So, I fell back to my trusty spreadsheets. After adjusting for the week delay, I have all of the trades’ lead times scheduled. I have a page called delays. They can be due to weather, a subcontractor, or me. Each delay is noted, especially weather delays, so that I can see why we go off the rails.
In the spreadsheet, I have pages for each trade with line items for lead times, work duration, sequences, bid line items, plus a section to record invoices. The cover page brings all of the bids, change orders, and other costs into a project cost tracker. Staying on budget is important, especially if you report to the banker. When we get a bill from the subcontractor, we have two payment forms. One is writing a check, and when we have a large enough total, I can get a bank draw to replenish personal funds. The other way, for larger payments, is a direct draw where we have the subcontractor submit their bill to the bank. Everything is planned, and everything is tracked against the plan.
So the best part, Breaking Ground, makes it real. We are really building a house! All of the planning, budgeting, refining, late nights, and long hours searching for the best subcontractors has led to this. Now we build.
Next Month:
Coming out of the ground, planning utilities, and lining up the trades