Project Management for Owner Builders

Owner Builder Project Management
 
This blog is all about the importance of employing sound Project Management principles and techniques in the running of your owner builder project.
 
As with all areas of building and construction, knowledge is power. The more knowledge and skills you can develop, the greater your chance of being a successful owner builder.
 
Whilst we provide a good basic education on Project Management principles, we are limited by the time available in the courses we offer. I know we go way above and beyond what is mandated in the various owner builder course requirements, but I would encourage you not to leave it at that.
 
Strive to learn as much as you can about Project Management and it will pay big dividends. These benefits will be realised not only in your owner builder activities, but generally in the way you conduct business and your personal life.
 
Project Management is all about being organised and recognising the relationships between the various activities we engage in on a day to day basis.
 
The relationship between these activities or tasks as they are most normally referred to in the Project Management discipline are known as dependencies.
 
A dependency may be a start start, start end or end start relationship. That is, often a task may not be able to be either commenced or completed until the related task is at a given point.
 
We introduce this concept in our Owner Builder Project Management tutorial that remains available to each of our owner builder students. Take the time to review it at various stages of your owner builder project and enhance your learning with further reading on the topic.
 
Business Balls is a great website resource that provides free reading and information on a range of management topics including Project Management.
 
Another important concept for the owner builder to grasp is that of establishing Project Milestones.
 
Project Milestones are identified key target points in your project and are often aligned to the progress payment stages of construction work.
 
Stages the owner builder may use as milestones in a typical domestic construction project include, Base Stage (slab or flooring system completion), Frame Stage (structural framing competed and certified), Roof On, Lock Up Stage and Practical Completion.
 
Linking milestones to these stages provides the owner builder a consistent and logical means to measure project progress. Remember, you cannot manage what you cannot measure.
 
The benefits for an owner builder of managing and documenting (recording) a project in this way are numerous.
 
It provides an opportunity to manage project disruption and delays as well as identifying potential block points and project funding requirements.
 
Remember, if you have questions about Project Management and its relevance to owner builders, we are always happy to provide advice through our online forums or replies to comments on the blog.
 
Happy Building
 
Rick