As a construction business owner, do you ever wonder how you can accomplish all your company goals in a specific time? Do you exert effort in hitting these targets? Realistically, there’s a lot of work to do to set every goal right.
To beat and achieve any construction project goals, your project managers and field crew should know the goals you want them to accomplish. Creating a winning strategy starts with a scoreboard showing all tasks, measurable targets and milestones you want them to hit!
This blog serves as your guide on how you can set, track and obtain all of your project goals successfully.
Three Key Elements to Successfully Hit Your Project Goals
It doesn’t take long for you to reach the point where you have to decide whether to continue reaching goals for your company or not. If opting to hit more and more targets, here are the four strategic areas you and your team needs to focus on.
1. Long Term Objectives
The construction industry is littered with businesses that typically have no sense of direction. Contractors are on a mad dash from one opportunity to the next while their bidding machine whirs away in the background. They find themselves more exhausted than ever due to their race. With so much chaos, internally and externally, it can be hard to reach the goals.
Hence, when setting your project goals, think long-term. Once you have finally outlined what you want for your business and projects, it becomes easier for you to fill in what you need between now and the next few years. To get to the main point, start with these two personal questions cited below:
How do you define success?
Is it about profits? Is it having sufficient money? Is it creating a legacy in this industry? Or perhaps, it’s just about having fun in operating your business and your team? If you can only allow yourself to believe that there is no universal definition for success, you can leave room to define success on your own.
What part of contracting do you like best?
People usually excel in things they are most passionate about. Hence, once you asked and answered this particular question, you further define your goals based on the role you wanted to play. It is absolutely fine if you like to do the work. However, if you never express that, you’re not deciding to hire somebody to handle the business side of things.
After clearing all of your answers to the two questions above, you will stay on track as you set your project goals.
2. Wise partner selection
You will need to work and be involved with other people, especially if your goals are too complicated to be handled by a one-person business. You need people to help you, and at the very least, you also need suppliers to supply you with the materials you need.
All of these entities become your defacto partners because they have a direct impact on your company’s performance. Hence, it is very crucial to choose wisely who you wanted to collaborate with. Take note that more than a couple of contractors have already failed at projects due to someone else’s fault.
While you cannot make the right decision every single time, you can always practice due diligence as you’re deciding who to partner with.
3. Guarding your Reputation
In this industry, reputation is everything. Actually, you do not need to have similar values as your competitors, but you should have a good, if not excellent, reputation. Without having a good reputation, it can be impossible for you to get many leads and referrals. The latter is the lifeblood of the contracting business. You also need to know that reputation depends or varies on the following three factors.
Quality leads the pack since people are paying a lot of moment for your services and products.
If your quality reputation turns from positive to negative, your reputation will be the latter. People always remember what didn’t match or surpass their expectations more than what thrilled them.
Timeliness helps your reputation by simply showing off you can finish on time.
It also tells so much more because finishing on time means you and your team can plan it correctly and effectively estimate the work. It also shows that you can effectively schedule and your team has strong project management skills.
Delivering consistent value shows you and your team are hands-on but on every aspect, especially the business and the goals.
It shows people that you and your team are willing to put everything down in the right place. It shows people that everyone involved is willing to find ways to meet both the project’s needs and financial needs. People do not want to pay more than they needed to. However, they never wanted to settle for less than they want.
5 Steps to the Perfect Process of Setting Your Project Goals
You have to be an expert at construction project planning to set and accomplish your project goals successfully. But what is construction planning? And what does successful construction planning exactly looks like? With an assist from the best construction project management software, you can be hands-on in helping your project team consistently to finish any projects on time and within budget.
So let’s get started with the basics.
Step 1: Create the project and the goals.
Start by creating PID (Project Initiation Document). This document spells and outlines the resources, the budget, and the people involved in the project. In general, it describes the following non-technical terms):
- Resources – necessary materials for the building and design plans
- People – number of your workers necessary for the job including subs, like electricians and plumbers.
- Budget – Total cost estimate of the project, including materials, labor, equipment, fees, and permits
Step 2: Draft an Initial Plan
Use the C.L.E.A.R and S.M.A.R.T processes to set specific and concrete goals for your project. Here’s the point where you need to turn the PID document into a more concrete plan by setting and goals that are CLEAR AND SMART. Take the specific resources you have listed in the first step and use them to inform a much broader strategy that will guide you and your team on how to execute the project.
Let’s begin with the definition of SMART goals:
- Specific – set specific goals for your current projects, like deadlines for key milestones.
- Measurable – agree on how you will measure success for your current project goals.
- Attainable – You need to create a plan for how you will accomplish these project goals.
- Realistic – whether you’re the project manager or the owner, your goals must be within your abilities.
- Timely – Layout a particular time frame where you can realistically expect that you can achieve those goals.
Now let’s take a look at the C.L.E.A.R goals, a slight variation on the strategy.
· Collaborative – get everyone in your team on board.
- Limited – limit the goals in terms of the time frame and scope to not become overwhelmed.
- Emotional – ensure that your project goals aren’t getting your employees bored and fired up.
- Appreciable – break down big goals into achievable tasks so you will not overwhelm your crew members.
- Refinable – make count on becoming to be flexible since you can never predict what will happen on the job site.
Step 3: Execute the Plan (Take actions on your goals)
Have a meeting with your team, get on a similar page, set certain expectations, and assign project managers to monitor progress. It’s time to take action on the goals you have set by executing the plan. Begin with a meeting to go over the construction schedule and project plan. This particular meeting is vital for the success of your goals and plans. Without buying in your crew, you will fail to accomplish your objectives.
If possible, talk with each person on your crew separately to further discuss expectations. Give them the opportunity to ask some questions.
Step 4: Track Your Performance
Gather data on KPIs like performance, objectives, and quality. It is also crucial that you correctly track your team’s overall performance using the best construction scheduling software. Only this specialized software can help you track your crew’s performance and the parameters you have set. In the event of a failing project, you can use the data stored in this application. It’s easier for you to dive into the real issues and figure out why the project failed, ensuring not to happen again.
You have to use KPIs to track the project’s performance. Some KPIs include Project objectives, Project Performance, and Quality. Successful project managers not only use KPIs but also specialized software tools. Speaking of these cutting-edge technologies, Pro Crew Schedule stands out!
Set, track and achieve all your project goals using Pro Crew Schedule! You can easily measure the progress of your goals through this software. Get started with a 30-day FREE trial!
Step 5: Closeout and evaluate the project.
Using the gathered data, make sure to evaluate performances with your crew members. Ensure to talk about how you can improve the following projects. The planning process and setting up goals does not mean you are done just because projects are already finished. The data gathered and lessons learned from the newly finished project can give you more and more insights, helping you perform the close-out tasks.
Key Takeaways
Make your projects successful by setting and tracking goals and targets. To accomplish additional project goals such as safety, quality, orders, customer service, warranty work, and punch list, follow the above steps to achieve specific goals you and your team want to hit.
