Project Management vs. Construction Management

[ARKOS]

I´ve been working in large projects here in my country, Costa Rica, and recently I´d figure out that there is a big difference between Project Management and Construction Management.
If I got it right, the Project Manager works with the design team, and is suppose to clearly understand the project requirements, in order to set the specification level and scope, pointing to a porpouse.
He must demand on the design team to improve and develope concepts to the limit, so he can match both, a cost and a quality.
The Construction Manager should be pushing and coordinating with the General Contractor, looking for the the better strategy, logistics, so a schedule can be set. The schedule will provide to major programs: The in-site-information schedule, that might me coordinated with the PM; and the purchase schedule. With this set of schedules, the CM can go and look for the Ownership´s sign-offs, in order to allow the GC to proceed.

I will like to have some comments to this concepts.
Thank a lot.

Victor Garcia
ZURCHER ARQUITECTOS
San Jose - COSTA RICA

VGarcia@ZurcherArquitectos.com

http://www.ZurcherArquitectos.com

 

[RDK]

The two terms have a lot of different meanings. Even in the same industry and within the same geographic areas the terms are at best ambiguous.

Often each company involved in a project will name someone their project manager for their portion of the work. Thus there will be a PM from the designer, one from the general contractor, one from each of the sub-contractors. There can be sub consultants and they can all have their own PM’s.

Generally the PM is concerned not only with the technical details of the work but the logistics and coordination of the project as well as the contractual and financial arrangements.

There is only one ‘true’ Project Manager for any given project. That is the one person who has the overall responsibility and authority to run the project and to bring the work to a successful completion within the time and budget allowed.

This person is typically directly hired (employee or consultant) by the owner.

Because the PM is also responsible for the management of the design contract, (including monitoring progress, authorizing payments etc.) he or she should never be an employee of the design consultant.

Construction Manager can also have several definitions. There is a construction project delivery method called construction management where someone or some firm acts like a general contractor and does not do any of the actual work with employees but divides the project up and sub-contracts the entire scope of the work.

Some construction companies also call their site superintendent a Construction Manager. (cheaper than a raise?)

The Construction Manager can also be a subordinate to the true project manager and be responsible to the PM for all field and construction activities. (Schedule, logistics, coordination etc. ) In that case the CM is usually someone from a consulting firm, either the designers (NOT recommended) or a specialty construction management firm.

The reason I do not recommend that the CM be from the design firm is that there is a conflict of interest in having the designer control the administrative, budgetary and schedule of the construction process. The designers are normally picked for technical capability. Good designers do not usually make good construction managers. The designer’s representative will put the needs of the designers over the needs of the owners and of the project.

Often the CM will uncover design errors. The CM is the last opportunity to catch these errors before the work is completed. These errors have to have a fair hearing and full opportunities be made to correct them. If the designers are running the construction there will be incentive to cover up the errors or to blame the contractor. An independent CM will not care who is responsible, just what has to be done to correct the error.





Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[pandora]

Guys,

I'm going to go a step further and suggest you google (or other search engine" the "Dynamic Baseline Model". It suggests that there should be 4 project managers. That seems a bit simple and there is not enough space to explain the whole concept here. Let it suffice that as projects go through phases of their life the skill set of the project manager needs to change. Thus, the project manager and construction manager are 2 faces of the same role (sort of).

However, the reality is that you should have 4 levels of project managers. The top one gets a project start and as it passes onto the next phase delegates the bulk of the work to the next level down, etc. The higher level PMs would have many more jobs on the those lower down. And in this context the "construction manager" is the lowest level of PM.

Thinking Outside the Box

http://www.pandoraconsulting.co.uk