Any team leader needs to understand how to lead a project effectively in order to help make sire performance stay high. However, in construction, this is especially important to ensure a building project goes to plan. In this post, we’ve covered different strategies to help ensure your construction project performance remains high and your team remains organized. If you want to find out how then read on.
Building A Great Team
The best place to start to create good project performance is by making sure you have a great team in place. This means choosing members of your team that you think will be an asset to the project and will each be able to bring something to the table. When choosing team members, try to balance their necessary professional experience with other personal attributes such as a good attitude to work and good team skills. Make sure all the different aspects of your project have someone to carry them out and oversee them in order to make sure everything gets completed on time and to the right quality. If your team are able to respect each other and communicate well, your project will be far more productive. In order to be a good project leader, if there are times at which your team clashes, you will need to work with them to try and resolve the issue. Workplace conflicts can lead to a huge drop in performance from your team so it’s important to resolve them quickly.
Equipping Your Team With The Right Tools
The equipment your team has in order to complete the project is important to how effectively they can carry out their work. If your team isn’t properly equipped, the project won’t run smoothly, and you’ll find that issues crop up continually to delay progression. Make sure before you start the project that all members of your team have what they need in order to carry out their work. Throughout the project, it might be that your team discovers there are pieces of equipment they require or that tools break down, so you need to make sure you’re on top of replacements and repairs to help keep the project running smoothly and meet deadlines.
Using Project Management Software
If you’re overseeing a large team, then it can be difficult to keep on top of all the individual tasks you need to carry out. Ideally, you need to be able to work collaboratively with your team as a whole in order to bring together ideas and maintain good communication. This is where construction project management software can really help you out. Project management software allows you to improve channels of communication across your team, work together on projects, and cut the time it takes to work on project planning. You also have the option to streamline processes within your project by automating them to work for you in the background. This allows you and your team to focus on other areas of the project, cutting down completion time. To discover how project management software from Kahua can help benefit your project and help boost performance it’s worthwhile having a look.
Communicating Effectively Across Your Team
Effective communication is the backbone of a smooth-running project. It’s important to make sure everyone taking part in the project is communicating effectively with other team members to avoid mistakes being made and delays in carrying out work. Effective communication means a team that is making sure their colleagues are on the same age through all the important steps in the project. They should also be able to speak to each other respectfully and understand what is expected of them throughout the project.
Hold Regular Team Meetings
One way to help boost good communication in your team is to make sure you all have the opportunity to meet regularly. There are plenty of options when it comes to channels of communication when working as a team these days, but face-to-face communication is still preferable. As well as being the preferred option to communicate with your team, meetings also give you the opportunity to catch up with your team and get to know them better. This helps to create better working relationships and respect for one another.
Check Up On Your Site And Team
As the team leader, it might be that you’re not always on-site because you may have to be based from an office a lot. However, when you’re overseeing a construction project it’s important to make sure you’re regularly showing your face on site and amongst your team. This will help to make sure you have a clear understanding of the progression of a project. You will need to inspect the work being carried out to ensure it’s of a high enough quality. It will also allow you to inspect health and safety on site and make sure your team is working in safe conditions. Whilst on-site, make sure you take the time to speak to your team and listen to any feedback they might have on the project or their role. A good team leader doesn’t just tell others what to do but also listens to their team and takes on board feedback.
Reward Good Work
When you’re leading a team it’s important to make sure you don’t focus too much on negative aspects such as how work needs to be improved or mistakes that have been made. Of course, it’s necessary to address and resolve them but it’s also important to reward good work as well. If your team has done a good job at something, make sure you bring it up so it doesn’t go unrecognized. This will help to boost team morale and encourage them to maintain their standard of high-quality work. Failing to praise your team could lead to them feeling burnt out and demotivated due to a lack of recognition when they’ve worked hard on something to get it right.
Delegate Tasks Fairly
When planning your project and overseeing its progression you will need to delegate tasks amongst your team. It’s important to make sure this is done fairly to help make sure your team is happy and the project performance is as high as possible. To help you decide how to best delegate your tasks, don’t just consider what work needs to be carried out but also the fellow members of your team. For example, who is best placed to handle certain tasks or has the experience to see them carried out well? Are you placing a fair amount of workload on members of your team, and could it be distributed more fairly?
Plan Ahead
And finally, to help boost your project’s performance you need to make sure you’re planning ahead. This will help you to avoid getting tripped up when issues arise if you’ve already planned how to handle them should they arise. Consider the different aspects of your project and work with your team to come up with solutions to potential issues that could arise. Planning ahead also means you need to be setting timelines in order to meet any deadlines you may have to complete construction. Have backup plans in place to help avoid delays in your project if original plans don’t go ahead. Always make sure your planning is communicated amongst your team, so everyone is aware of their roles and expectations.
