Original subtitles

Welcome to Lecture 2B, Managing Construction Projects.

I'm Tom Stephenson and today we're going to be looking

at the roles of the various participants on a construction project.

So we'll start off with the project manager who's leading the project.

And in construction projects, the project manager has a very fundamental

role to play, especially between the client,

the consultants, the budgeting, the estimating areas,

compared to the site superintendent who plays a very key role in regards

to actually getting the project built, liaising very closely with all

of the subcontractors and coordination, especially on the short term scheduling,

the more imminent work.

The project manager is reporting to the client on the impacts of the more

short term work on the long term project and hitting major milestones.

And together they're collaborating and working to meet the overall project goals.

So in the project management role, it involves the coordination of the entire

construction project and that's going from the initial planning.

Design depends on the construction contract type.

Design might not be that much of an impact if the project's a lump sum and it's

already been designed, but if it's a design,

build or construction management project, then they could be heavily involved

in that right from the get go.

Procurement contracts with all the subcontractors, suppliers, etc.

That's a big role that the project manager plays and really the overall development

of the project charter the goals that we've talked about, time, cost,

quality, scope, safety and the development of the project

schedule and ensuring that the schedule is going to meet the overall requirements

that are listed in the contract with regards to time.

And as I mentioned earlier, they're working in close

relationship with the site superintendent.

So very important to try to meet the project

goals and deliver the project to the owner the way that they expected it to be,

within the budget parameters, so that the company can make a profit and

the owner has no surprises in the process.

So skills of the site supers, as I was mentioning,

and project managers, you have to have excellent project

management skills, excellent oral and written communication skills.

You know, you have to be able to be clear in what you're saying.

You have to make sure that you haven't missed anything.

You have to be able to document things.

A lot of emails that go back and forth, it could be misinterpreted.

So you want to make sure there's clarity, transparency, understanding

in the communication process.

You have to be pretty diplomatic.

You have to be able to negotiate with clients.

We're all similar, selling and negotiating all the time and we have to do it in such

a way that we can build the business and have satisfied

clients that will become repeat clients.

And as I think I mentioned earlier in one of the earlier lectures,

80% of our clients are repeat clients.

So it's a lot of work if you got to go looking for new clients every time.

And you have to be very observant, have good problem solving skills,

being able to lead projects and being able to identify

potential problem areas, be proactive on it, and be able to source

the correct people that are required to solve these problems.

So basic skills needed by cms, some more skills.

Interpretation, when we talk about the technical side,

interpretation of project drawing specifications, being able to read,

interpret those, understand what the intent is and make

sure that the requirements are following.

And if there's errors, be able to see those ahead of time.

Very important in construction.

Estimating ability, good fundamental math ability.

It's not like it's rocket science.

You do have to have good fundamental mathematics and good understanding

of pulling the pieces together.

One of the most difficult parts of estimating is when somebody doesn't

really understand what they're looking at and can't interpret

the drawings that well.

And also making errors, simple errors in mathematics,

really understanding the construction technology because you got to be able

to figure out, well, what's our best methodology to use.

And in consultation with the various trades, trying to figure out certain

little differences could make the difference between being

profitable or not profitable.

Starting on time, finishing on time, and being able to lead in those areas

and utilize productivity software and the various

computer technology programs that can help leverage your ability and improve the

systems and processes within the company.

So all of those aspects, and I've already mentioned negotiating,

selling to negotiating and selling.

We're all trying to sell and negotiate all the time, as I mentioned.

And you're the person, if you're a site super or you're a project

manager, you lead the team and so you create the culture on your project.

Can be a positive culture or it can be a negative culture.

We all have circle of influence and within that circle of influence

and our circle of competence, we're able to have a big influence on

the culture on the site.

Is it a friendly culture?

Is it an engaged culture?

Is it a motivated culture?

Is it a productive culture?

These are all things that you lead on on the projects.

Or you could go the other way too, where it goes south on you too.

So you can choose.

I would prefer to choose the road to success.

So some of the functions, coordination of work, planning,

scheduling, purchasing, procuring.

Just think of procuring as Getting the contracts, signing the contracts,

getting commitments to perform the work, site supervision.

So that's involved with what's going on in the site.

And the site superintendent really gets right on hands on onto the site,

making sure that what's in the contract in the specification actually gets done.

Project managers liaising and coordinating with the site superintendent.

So all these points, documentation, job site quality control, estimating,

bidding, it's a pretty extensive list.

And everybody has their strengths and everybody has their weaknesses.

And you have to constantly be either working on your weaknesses or delegating

your weaknesses to somebody that that's their strength.

Major parties from the contractor, the officer in charge.

So that's usually that could be a high level of VP of construction on a larger

construction company that could be the owner in a mid size or

smaller construction company.

So that's sort of the different levels.

If it's a small enough company, the officer in charge is

the project manager as well.

Right, you're the chief cook and bottle washer.

But in mid sized to large size companies then you have to have a hierarchy because

there's just too much work going on.

And so at the project level you have the project manager.

On very, very large projects you can have a senior project manager

and project managers below them.

So it does depend on the scope of the project.

You can think of like a cross, Eglinton crosstown,

the LRT going across Eglinton, like every station is like its own project.

So you're going to have a project manager and a site super on those,

but you're going to have at a higher level, an overarching level,

somebody that's going to be project managing the whole project.

And so those project managers will be reporting to that PM superintendent.

And again the same goes with that, what I just mentioned.

So it can be project specific, there can be multiple superintendents,

there can be also assistance, site super supers, project engineer,

project coordinator.

And these roles really sort of serve the function of helping the PM or helping

the site superintendent or helping both.

Depending on how the company organizes its jobs and the job roles and what

the responsibilities are, those can vary somewhat from these three

can somewhat vary from project to Project

foreman is the person that generally if

you self perform the work, say concrete work,

the foreman would be the lead tradesperson, they manage the trades

on that site in that particular role.

So if we've got a forming foreman, they're looking after the forming crews

and generally they come from the trade.

So they've worked in the trade, they understand the trade really,

really well and they coordinate the workers on smaller projects.

They might even do the work themselves still.

And then trades themselves, they're the ones that have

the expertise in their craft.

They generally have a certificate of qualification for that particular

trade, particularly in the compulsory, mandatory trades like electrical,

H vac, plumbing, those trades.

So a typical organization might look slightly something like this.

This is one example you'll see later in the course.

There's other examples, like in this example, you've got

the site super reporting to the pm.

I would suggest that many of the projects that I've been on in the last 10 years,

these two kind of.