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- Finishing a construction project on time
and on budget is every builder's goal.
So how do you set yourself up for success?
Whether you're renovating a bathroom
or building a new home from the ground up,
every construction project starts with a plan.
A construction plan is a document
that outlines the tasks, resources,
and requirements needed to complete a build
on time and budget
and typically includes a breakdown of all the tasks
required to deliver a finished build,
a detailed project timeline
that outlines when tasks need to happen,
major milestones like contract approvals,
inspections, or draw requests,
dependencies between related tasks
that need to happen in a certain order,
resource assignments showing which build team
or subcontractor is responsible for the work,
and important design, planning, and closeout documents
like blueprints, contracts, budgets,
permits, inspection reports, and construction change orders.
Unexpected weather, supply delays, overbooked crews,
and faulty workmanship are just some of the factors
that can throw a construction projects off schedule.
Having a plan makes it easy to spot overages early
so you can address issues quickly
and minimize the impact of delays.
Construction planning and management
sets the stage for success
because it gives everyone a clear timelines to follow
with critical information documented
in a single source of truth.
So before you start scheduling your next build,
take time to gather all the project details
from deadlines and budgets,
to resources, stakeholders, and materials.
Once you've got these basics in hand,
here are five simple construction project planning steps
you can follow.
The first step in construction planning is simple.
Make a list of all the different, tasks deliverables,
and other milestones that stand
between you and project completion.
You can use a work breakdown structure to itemize everything
and get a sense of scope for your project.
Then group tasks into phases
to keep your plan neat and tidy as you build it out.
We organize tasks in our template into three phases.
Phase one, pre-construction, this phase is where design,
planning, and permitting happens.
Think of pre-construction as all the things
you need to have in place before the actual build begins.
Phase two, construction, the construction phase
is the heart of the action.
You'll need to coordinate closely with supers
and subcontractors to understand the level of effort
required to complete their tasks,
as well as the availability
and scheduling of their field crews
to make sure your plan doesn't fall behind.
Phase three, close out.
Once your build is complete,
you're ready to move on to the closeout phase.
This phase includes final inspections, client walkthroughs,
punch-list completion, and closeout documents.
The next step in the planning process
is to assign a timeline to the work needed
to get your project done.
Be as realistic as you can about task timing at this stage.
Review past schedules to compare
your plan versus actual timeline
and assess how work really unfolded.
Don't forget to take external factors into account as well
whether it's seasonal impacts on weather
or potential delivery delays.
You can't frame the roof before walls have been built
or hang dry wall before the electrical
and plumbing have been installed.
That's why dependencies are a critical part
of a construction project plan.
Adding dependencies between tasks
makes sure work happens in the proper order
and gives everyone a clear sense
of how their tasks impact others.
Work won't get done on its own.
You need people to make that happen,
and that's where resource assignments come in.
Make sure you assign every task
and milestone on your schedule to the person
or team responsible for the work.
That way there's no question as to who's doing what
and when deadlines are.
A construction plan is a living, breathing document
that will evolve as your work progresses.
That's why it's important to review your timeline regularly
and keep it up to date.
This will make it easier for you to get ahead of delays
and issues before your entire project goes off track.
In construction project management,
you have schedules to wrangle, budgets to balance,
and people to keep happy,
and changes in one stage of construction
can have a domino effect on the rest of your schedule.
That's why building out
a comprehensive project plan is so important.
A Gantt chart makes it easy to plan, manage,
and communicate your construction schedule
so everyone's working towards the same project goal.
There are lots of different ways to go about creating
a Gantt chart for your construction project.
Let's take a closer look at how you can build
and manage a project schedule of your own in TeamGantt
using our template as an example.
We've already mentioned three major phases
you might consider for your plan,
but don't be afraid to break your project down
into smaller phases as you build your schedule out.
This enables you to easily see
how each stage of your project is progressing
and makes rescheduling multiple tasks a whole lot faster.
Color-coding tasks by project phase,
person or team responsible,
or even priority is a simple way to make sure
your Gantt chart is easy to scan and understand.
Resource management can get
a little tricky in construction planning
because you've got so many different subcontractors
and schedules to balance.
With TeamGantt's workload features,
you can avoid messy scheduling conflicts
and overbooked field crews.
Simply click the Availability tab
at the bottom of your Gantt chart
for a heat map view of the number of tasks or hours
each person on your project
is currently assigned to each day.
Select any cell to see a pop-up of all tasks
assigned to that person or label on that day.
Every construction project has certain milestones
you need to hit to ensure things
are tracking on the right direction.
You might set contract approvals, inspections,
draw requests, or even phase completions
as milestones on your project plan.
This construction plan example shows milestones
as a yellow diamond on the Gantt chart.
The light blue vertical bar indicates the current date.
Using TeamGantt's hourly estimation
and time-tracking features brings
a powerful benefit to your project.
You can see how actual work is tracking against your plan,
making it easy to identify existing or potential overages.
Simply look for the thin striped line
that appears in the middle of each task bar
on your Gantt chart
and note its color and length.
Here are some red flags to watch out for.
If the striped line is red,
that means this task or group is over budget.
More hours have been logged
than were estimated for the task.
If the striped line is longer
than the progress indicated for a task,
that means this task or group is at risk for overage
because it's eating up budgeted hours
faster than progress is being made.
And if you don't use these features,
you can still get an at-a-glance view
of your project progress and trouble spots
with the project health report or portfolio view.
Have you ever built a beautiful project schedule,
only to have a customer request
or delay put a wrench in your plan?
It happens, adding dependencies to tasks
can speed up schedule adjustments
and make sure we're continues to happen in the right order.
If you move one task on the schedule,
all the dependent tasks move right along with it.
Of course, if your schedule changes,
you'll need to communicate the new plan
to your subcontractors and customers.
Post updates and attach change orders
to your project's Discussion tab
so nothing gets lost in the mix.
With TeamGantt's mobile app,
field crews can pull up the latest schedule
and get notified of changes in real time
no matter where they're hard at work.
The final stretch of any construction project plan
is full of little details
as you work to knock out the punch list.
Here's an example of how you can use tasks subgroups
in TeamGantt to keep track of all the moving pieces.
Simply add each fix as a task under your punch list subgroup
and assign punch list items to the person responsible
to avoid confusion about who's doing what.
You can even color code punch lists tasks by subcontractor.
Keeping up with all the close out documents
you'll need to wrap up a job is no simple feat.
It can take a long time
and a lot of wrangling.
TeamGantt makes it easy to store
and manage closeout documents in a single centralized hub.
Upload a digital copy of each closeout doc
to your project's closeout tasks in your Gantt chart
or create a subgroup with an itemized task
for each closeout item
so all your paperwork is organized
and accessible in one place.
Ready to plan a construction project of your own?
Save time building your next schedule
by using our free in-app template.
TeamGantt takes the sweat
out of construction planning, scheduling, and management.
And because everything happens online in real time,
chasing down updates will finally be a thing of the past.
Your team and subcontractors can even use
TeamGantt's mobile app to log their progress
out in the field so you always know
where your project stands.
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Sign up for a free TeamGantt account today
and get started quickly
with our free construction plan template.
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