When Building a Home, You Must Marry Expectations With Reality
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By Bob Hoebeke
President, Hoebeke Builders
On every Interstate highway in America little green signs on the side of the road mark an exact location of where you are on the journey. These “mile markers” give a measure of comfort should there be an accident or car trouble – the location becomes instantly identifiable for someone who can help.
Building projects also have milestones. All through the design and building process, milestones provide a measurable benchmark to help us evaluate our progress.
Earlier in our building journey, when we initially established parameters and expectations, the need for establishing a timeline was discussed. Actually, several timelines are needed: the architect establishing milestones for design; an overall preliminary project timeline established by the builder; and once everyone agrees on the final Scope of Work, a finely tuned budget and project timeline, authored by the entire team (architect, builder, interior designer, and landscape architect).
Each timeline milestone represents a “mile marker” defining progress on the overall building journey. At a glance, anyone should be able to monitor the effectiveness of the team’s performance by measuring the original expectations versus the actual progress of the job.
Once everyone agrees on the initial Scope of Work, contracts for construction will be drawn memorializing the particular moment in time. And then things start changing … conflict just entered the project through the side door!
Remember the discussion of “surprises” from several of the previous articles? A surprise naturally welcomes conflict, and must be managed efficiently so the surprise doesn’t fester and become uncontrollable. The moment a problem affecting either project time or budget arises, coach your team to respond using these four techniques to minimize project impact:
Exercise strong team communications.
Remind everyone on your team to run towards the problem, not away from it. Use the communications matrix established in the last article to effectively inform and document the scope of work deviation for the entire team’s input.
Expose the good, bad, and UGLY!
No holding back, get it all out. No problem can effectively be dealt with if only parts of the problem are exposed. Bad as it may be, encourage your team to share everything — the sooner all the facts are revealed, the sooner we can get back to building.
Encourage “under-promise, and over-deliver.”
Almost all project problems can be solved. Once the solution is determined, everyone on the team would prefer a “worst-case fix” so anything better becomes a bonus. No heroics!
Seek a “fair and reasonable” resolution.
Unforeseen surprises ALWAYS impact someone’s pocketbook, as well as the project timeline. Many projects have “cost contingencies” for anticipated problems like this. An honest assessment of who messed up, and why, coupled with a kind and reasonable allocation of damages, creates immeasurable goodwill lasting through the entire relationship!
Everyone makes mistakes.
Creating an environment for instant problem recognition, coupled with fair and reasonable resolution, ensures problems and mistakes are corrected, not covered up. Most people who have gone to the trouble to build or remodel a home, tend to live there for a long time. So, fostering a climate of accusation, contention, heavy-handedness, and fear promotes an environment in which people prefer to cover-up the problem, as opposed to facing the customer’s wrath. It’s expensive to fix “cover-up” further on down the road!
Speaking of “changes,” next time we’ll tackle scope of work changes, and how best to manage them.
From, developing a “Lifestyle Inventory,” to building and monitoring your Project Team, Hoebeke Builders Consulting Services has all the tools necessary to dramatically increase your project’s efficiency, while decreasing your project’s cost! www.hoebekebuilders.com
