Your ad can replace the one shown here from just £8.99 / month. – Click here for more info.
The Essential Guide » The Planning Stage » Project Management, Package Build and Turnkey Contracts
Project Management / Package Build.jpg)
The term “Project Manager” possibly simply conjures up for you an image of someone running a project from start to finish. – A professional who works out all the costs, gets the tradesmen sorted, orders all the materials, supervises the construction, and keeps a record of all the costs for the client.
In fact the terms “Project Manager” can be applied to a number of different people and services and a number of different trades, whilst the term “Project Management” can be applied to a wide range of activities and duties. It is important that you understand what the terms mean if you are going to be able to make the right decisions as to how you go about organising your own project.
1) What is a Project Manager?
Anyone can be a Project Manager. – At one end of the scale, if you provide a shovel and supervise someone digging a hole in your garden for a fence post, in theory, you are a Project Manager! – At the other end, “Project Manager” could be the name given to the person in charge of building the Tallest Building in the world.
So, first of all, when you start to think about your project in terms of Project Management, it is important that you define what the term is going to mean:
If you are taking on a Self Build, and are going to look after everything yourself, from the initial designs to completion, then you will be justified in calling yourself the Project Manager. - However, if you are going to look after the getting the initial designs done, buying the land, getting the Planning Permissions sorted out, choosing the materials, and then handing everything over to someone else to look after, your title would be more like the “Project Planner”.
It’s not really important what each individual “participants” title is, BUT, it is very important that each person involved in the contract knows exactly what their job is. – It is therefore important that if you are thinking about taking on any sort of Project Manager, that both you and they understand what they will be doing, what you will be doing and what everyone else will individually be responsible for. I’ll give you an example:
Mr and Mrs Smith have no experience in building. They want to build a house, so they have a meeting with, and take on a Project Management Company to run their Self Build project. - They don’t really understand a lot of the details or the terms the person that they meet is talking about, - but they don’t want to appear stupid, so they don’t ask any particularly important questions. - They don’t really know what to ask! - So they just ask simple stuff like “How long will the project take”, “Will we get an up to date record of costs?” “Will you sort out the certificates for the Building Society so we get our stage payments?” “How much will your services cost us?” “When do you need paying?” And other similar basic questions – They then sit back and relax, thinking that everything is not going to be taken care of for them. – Waiting to be told how the planning stage is going and when work will start.
.jpg)
A couple of weeks later, they get a letter from the Project Manager assigned to their project, asking them:When will you be getting the designs done?
When will you be applying for Planning Permission?
Who is doing your Building Regulations?
Have you got your tradesmen lined up?
Where are you getting the materials from and have you opened accounts?
When are you hoping to start?
When do you need to have the project complete?
Etc...
The letter comes as a shock! – They thought this guy would be sorting all those things out! – After all, he’s supposed to be their Project Manager and they have agreed a fee which they thought would allow him to look after everything from day one to completion!
So, now they have to arrange another meeting to tell their Project Manager that they have not done any of the things on the letter and they have no idea how to!
I don’t need to go on with the example; you will see where it’s going. – Basically it’s not good news!
That’s why it is important to know exactly what you are doing when you consider Project Management.
Project Managing everything yourself:
The majority of Self Builders and Property Renovators take this option.
What it means to Project Manage everything yourselves is that, from day one, you are the place where “the buck stops”! – You can’t blame anyone else if something has not been done. If you get things wrong, if you take twice as long as you had hoped, if your building plot has major practical problems that would have been apparent to anyone with experience of building, but which you didn’t notice, if you overspend and run out of money, if you make mistakes during the build process, which cause you extra cost or time delays, if you use shoddy workmen and can’t get them back to fix things they got wrong. – In other words, if you take on the Project Management for something major, like a Self Build, a Property Renovation or a Property Conversion, you are taking on a major responsibility! – You need to.jpg)
either know that you already have the knowledge and experience you need to be able to make a success of it, or you need to be prepared to do the research and hard work to make sure that as you go along, you are making sure that you have all the facts and information you need to hand to allow you to make the right decisions at every stage.
either know that you already have the knowledge and experience you need to be able to make a success of it, or you need to be prepared to do the research and hard work to make sure that as you go along, you are making sure that you have all the facts and information you need to hand to allow you to make the right decisions at every stage.Ok, that paints a fairly daunting picture, but it’s not necessarily quite such a monumental task as long as you start where you should start and do the things you need to do, - when you need to do them. – Building is 50% knowledge and 50% common sense. – Reading as much of this guide as possible before you start planning should give you a lot more confidence as you start to plan, but also read about other people’s experiences in some of the monthly magazines, and if you are thinking about “having a go” at some of the physical work yourselves, then possibly buy one or two of the more “technical” manuals (I would recommend that in general, the professionals are the best people to do the “physical” work. – If you have never laid bricks, don’t even think about trying to build the house yourselves! – If you have never done joinery work, don’t even think about trying to hang the doors and fit the locks!! – If you are doing the Project Management, you’ll have more than enough to keep you busy!)
There are “Project Management” software packages available (you may find some in the Trade / Supplier directory on this site). – If you are taking everything on yourselves, you may find that some of these packages could help you to become aware of the individual actions you need to take and to prioritize the things you need to do, so that you are not wasting your time on one part of the project, when really you should be spending your time on another.
The trick to making a success of this major task is to make sure that you use your time efficiently. – If you have a family or a full time job, then fitting everything in around planning to build your new home could be an extremely difficult thing to do. It can put a lot of pressure on the family, and you can spend months on end ploughing through the planning and preparation process before you even start on site.
What you need to avoid is to be spending time doing unnecessary things at the wrong time, which may then have to be repeated later in the project. For example, if you spend time early in the project looking round Bathroom and Kitchen shops, you will often be wasting your time. – These businesses have sales and special offers which change all the time. They even bring new ranges (and cease selling others). – If you get a price for a bathroom that you like at too early a stage, you could find that the prices have changed significantly by the time you get to a position where you are ready to order anything. - Your house designs might have changed too, meaning that the equipment which you originally chose, no longer fits.
At the early stages of the project you should be concentrating on things like “Where” you want to live, “How much” you have to spend, “What” you need from your new home, and concentrating on things like the designs, finding the best plot, making sure the plot is going to be ok to build on. The making sure that you are going to be able to afford the plot AND be able to build the home you want on it. – Again, reading this guide will help you along the way, but just make sure that your valuable time is spent doing what you should be doing at all times. (Note: there is a section in the Essential Guide entitled “Can we Project manage it ourselves?” this section looks into running the job yourselves in more depth)
If you think that the task of managing the whole project is going to be too daunting and time consuming for you, then you may well think about taking on a:
Project Manager
.jpg)
“Project Management” is a term that covers a wide range of services. The best thing for me to do here is to give you an outline of what type of services are generally offered, then you will be in a position to ask the right questions when you talk to someone:
1) Basic Project Site Management:
This, as the name suggests, is where you take on a Project Manager (also called a “Site Supervisor” or “Site Manager”) simply to run the site. – You will have taken care of finding the land, buying it, designing the house, getting Planning Permission and Building Regs Approval. You will also have contacted the Contractors and Sub Contractors, prepared the quotes, “costed” the work and got everything ready to start.
You will have found a Project Manager who offers a “Site Supervision” service (maybe you’ve opted for this because you work full time and are unable to monitor proceedings on an “hour to hour” basis), and you will either agree an hourly or daily fee (if you don’t think there is a full time job there) or a fee for the whole contract (make sure you take into account “over runs” in timescales. You don’t want to receive an unexpected invoice from your Project Manager for extra work if your project takes longer than you thought to complete).
You will need to confirm who is going to order the materials (its better if they do it, they will know when everything is going to be needed and can make sure they order it in time), and you will also need to decide who is going to coordinate the Contractors and Sub Contractors in respect of when they are going to start (a “programme of the works” is very useful here so that you can both be singing off the same hymn sheet from day 1 – see section on programming in this guide).
It is also important that whoever you take on as your Project Manager is someone you feel you can trust and that you thing you will be able to get along with. – It’s all very well at the start of the project when everyone is keen and excited, and gets along fine, but what about when it all gets a bit tense? – That’s when a good relationship between you and your Project Manager is important.
How much will they cost? – Well everyone is different. Some will be part of a larger practice; some will be “One man bands”. – Their fees will vary. – It depends on what and who is available in your particular area.
If you pay a “One man band” hourly and they just tot up their hours (plus possibly travelling time), you could expect to pay anywhere between £20 - £50 / hour depending on a number of factors (how far they have to travel, how many hours in total you will be employing them, their qualification and experience etc).
Are they value for money? – Generally yes, but as with everything, if you pick a bad one, you may find they let you down and cause you headaches. – I would always try to speak to 3 or 4 different companies / people before making your mind up. – A good Project Manager can save you thousands of pounds, weeks of time and give you a better quality job than you could have produced yourself. A poor manager can have exactly the opposite effect.
2) “Comprehensive” “Package Build” or “Turnkey” Project Management..jpg)
Some companies and individuals offer a flexible service, where often (but not always), more than one person will be involved.
These packages can offer services covering everything, - right from the start of the whole process; – from before you even start to look for land (this is actually the service I used to offer).
You may have little or no experience of Self Building (or property Renovating), or you may not have the confidence to embark on a full project yourselves, or, you simply may not have the time. – If that is the case you can look to take someone on to look after pretty much the whole thing, - or at least, as much if it as you wish.
You may find an individual in your area that has a wide experience in the Building Industry and has enough knowledge of residential building, to be able to offer a professional service - from start to finish. - On the other hand you may wish to contact one of the larger Project Management companies (made up usually of a number of different departments), which offers a complete “Turnkey” service (i.e. they are on the contract until the keys are handed over).
These companies will offer some or all of the following services:
1) Discussions on your initial ideas
2) Finding and surveying land
3) Advising on prices for purchasing the land and then advising on the purchase and finance aspects
4) Designing the property and obtaining Planning and Building Regs
5) Preparing “Tender Documents” / “Contracts” and negotiating with Contractors / Sub Contractors.
6) Programming the works
7) Supervising the construction
8) “Snagging” / problem solving and obtaining completion certificates
Individual Project Managers will not normally have the resources to offer to build the house on a “stage payment” basis, where they take care of everything, including buying the materials, and you simply pay them at certain points during the project. – They will normally be ex Site Managers from some of the larger building contractors who have “gone it alone” and are using this service simply to provide a salary. – They may work out to be cheaper option than taking on a company to do the same job, but bear in mind what I said in the first few paragraphs that you need to make sure you feel you can trust and work with these people before you should sign any sort of contracts.
There are a number of companies (some who have been in the industry longer than I have!) who have set their businesses up to take all the pressure off the individual and to make the whole Self Build process as easy as possible.
They will usually offer the full list of services (see above), and they will often have large offices, with a network of people around the country who they call upon to work in each region, as required. They will usually have “in house” Designers, Planners, Estimators / Quantity Surveyors, Buyers, Site Managers and even Accountants and Mortgage advisors. All you often need to do is to contact them and arrange to meet, and they will basically guide you from that moment on! - Through every stage of the process right through to completion and moving in!
You can usually build in some flexibility with these companies to allow you to have at least some input. - They all realise that this is your project and that usually you will want to have some involvement in creating your own “dream home”, so they will, where possible, allow you to do the “bits” you want to, and they will take care of the rest (Note: If you want to take on any part of the project whilst using one of these companies, it is important that you are able to do so within a timescale which will not cause them problems with their programming of their part of the work. – If your lack of progress on your “bit” costs them time or money, you could find yourself with a hefty bill – which may cancel out any positive gains you make from the all efforts you put in which you may have been doing to save money!
How much will they cost?
Individual Proj.jpg)
ect Managers:
ect Managers:Self Employed Project Managers will normally have fairly low overheads and can often offer you the best hourly rate. – So you may find them to be the cheapest option. However, they may not be able to offer you all the professional services that the larger companies can offer. – As with the first example, around £20 - £50 would about right for the price “range” depending on their experience and the quality of service they can offer.
Project Management or Turnkey” companies:
It’s not easy for me to give you a price for this type of service. – There are too many variables. All I can really say is that you should compare at least 3 or 4 companies “like for like” if at all possible. – If their package includes buying all the materials as well as the Project Management, then the efficiency of their buying department will be very important. – A poor buyer could cost you thousands of pounds more on a major project, than a good one. – The only real way to know if the price you get is good, is to be able to compare “like for like”. – Overall, the full Management service can be quite expensive when you compare it to doing everything yourself, but sometimes the fact that these companies have the benefit of “economies of scale” and “efficiency” on their side, can mean that at the end of the day, they don’t end up costing as much as you think they might.
For many Self Builders, if they can get a superior product to that which they would buy from a standard developer, - for around the same price, then that is a good option. – Many of these individuals or companies will be able to achieve that goal for their clients
Conclusion:
When you meet any type of individual Project Manager or Project Management Company, first, try to get together a list of the things you want to ask them, prepared to take with you. – Read as much of this guide as you can beforehand and make notes of anything you want to get advice on. – Not only will this help you to get a full picture of what they can offer, but will also help you to make sure they understand exactly what it is that you want from them.
Once you sign up with someone, you will then be working with them, sometimes for a year or more. – It is very important that you have the confidence you need in them to allow them to get on with their job. – If you feel you have to start to question their actions and the costs they are incurring, things can very quickly go “pear shaped”. – This can then, in the worst cases, lead to the project failing and you losing a lot of time and money, and possibly the home you hoped to be living in.
Consider your own personal position at an early stage. – Do you think you are going to need to use the services of a Project Manager? – If so, read this guide, magazines, articles etc and talk to a few people so that you can build up as complete a picture of their benefits and costs as possible before you start to talk in detail with anyone about specific plans. – This will help you to make the right decisions for the long term success of the project.
Taking on a Project Manager is a big decision. It can save you money or cost you extra, it can mean the difference between a successful project and one that fails. Make sure you do what you need to do so that you make the right decisions.
« return to guide contents
Your ad can replace the one shown here from just £8.99 / month. – Click here for more info.