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Consultants face a unique business challenge where they will have to begin showcasing positive results right from the get-go. Unlike internal hires who have the luxury of availing a transition period of tranquility and learning, consultants are expected to hit the ground running, delivering high-impact results on a budget.

Time is tantamount to money in consultancy. This means that project management is no longer about keeping track of what’s being done but rather it’s about ensuring that the right resources are being used strategically, to maximize outputs, and that progress is in line with the commitments made to the client

To help with this we have outlined a few project management tips for consultants to help them take their game up a notch:

Bridge Gaps Between Project Management & Proposal Creation

Every construction consultancy firm worth their salt is able to accurately bid on time and resources pertaining to the project. Firms must understand that it doesn’t necessarily take years of experience to determine budgets and timelines—it just takes better data.

The best project management tools allow you to use job and resource data to create realistic proposals. Furthermore, your project management processes should also provide post-mortem data on previous projects to showcase:

• Where you may need fewer or resources
• Where you tend to inadvertently miscalculate the working hours needed to complete certain tasks
• Where certain resources may be more productive than others

This will help inform each subsequent project proposal to improve productivity, output, and profitability

Introduce Specificity in Scope:

Any consultant who has experienced scope creep knows that the biggest threat to profitability is a mid-project change in scope. One must therefore take the time to understand the project from the ground up and include a comprehensive scope of work in the contract. This should be done to prevent the scope of work expanding without compensation. This gives you the opportunity to create change orders and create a revised budget—if a client comes back with additional changes not included in the initial scope of work.

Being specific about what’s included in each stage of a project will enable your employees to do exactly what is required for the most optimal output thereby resulting in meaningful business impact.

Keep it Central:

Many consultants have the propensity to fall into the trap of using multiple file management systems including multiple messaging platforms such as WhatsApp chat, and Teams for official communication as well as using multiple file storage online solutions such as DropBox and Google Drive to store documents and in some cases storing important documents on different legacy systems. This can lead to chaos and confusion among the ranks of your consultant army leading to lost productivity. Instead, it’s better to choose a single project management system as well as one communication platform that includes provisions for managing documents, revisions and incorporating real time client feedback.

Stay on Track with Regular Check-Ins:

Avoid making the mistake of initiating a project and then failing to check in until the deadline is in sight. Healthy project management requires regular check-ins to ensure the project is hitting its milestones without making compromises to quality, time and budget

Keep in mind that the frequency of your check-ins should be directly proportional to the length and complexity of the project. An effective mindset is to use check ins to identify key areas of the project that show the highest risk of derailing it and taking preventative measures to combat these risks.

Use the Power of Project Debriefing:

Every time a project gets completed, it is important to do a postmortem on it to understand what went wrong, what went well and what processes could have been done better

Keep in mind when doing a debrief it’s important for consultant to take their blinders off during the whole ordeal. This is because a debrief is the most crucial stage to pull out data and reports from your project management software. If managed well, you should have the right data that shows the progress of task completion, budget information that ensures whether was above board, resource use compared to projections, and risk reports that are indicative of both risks and changes that could have manipulated the output.

The information from this debrief should then be compared to previous reports. And then you must answer the following questions:

• Is there any part of your completed/ongoing projects that your company predictably underbids?
• Were there resources that weren’t being used efficiently to complete a set number of tasks?
• Which steps of the process usually tend to go slower or faster than expected?
• What are the predictable “snafus” that can be accounted for before the project begins?

Final Thoughts:

By following the tips we’ve outlined above, construction consultancy firms can improve the quality of their services, increase their profitability and provide their clients with outstanding results. To summarize, it’s essential to bridge the gap between project management and proposal creation by using better data, being specific about project scope, keeping all communication and file management central, and regularly checking in on project progress. Finally, taking the time to debrief after each project can provide valuable insights to help your firm continually improve its processes and ensure the delivery of high-impact results on budget, and on time. By following these strategies, consultancy firms can establish themselves as industry leaders and help clients achieve their construction goals with confidence