Meet the Maestro - The Role of Turnstone Project Managers
Meet the Maestro - The Role of Turnstone Project Managers
Project Managers are the unsung heroes of the residential construction business. Many homeowners don't fully appreciate the skills these pros bring to the table, or how crucial they are to our business success and our clients’ satisfaction.
While the builder creates the business processes and sets the quality standards needed to build a custom home, someone must make sure the processes are followed, and the standards achieved. This requires hand-on, on-site supervision of our employees and trade partners, day in and day out. The job demands an experienced professional with technical expertise, creativity and strong problem solving and interpersonal skills
A good PM is a blend of engineer and orchestra conductor, with a bit of psychologist thrown in.
The PM needs a thorough knowledge of home elements and systems, how each relates to the others, and how to ensure that everything gets assembled in a way that satisfies the relevant building codes and our quality standards.
The many thousands of things the PM needs to understand and manage include big issues like how concrete cures, how structures handle wind loads and how hardwood floors respond to humidity swings. They also understand details like how to frame stairs, so the rise and run are correct after the finished flooring has been installed, and the newel post at the landing meets the adjacent treads in the exact way the designer specified.
The PM uses this knowledge (and our construction management system) to create a plan to complete each task on schedule. But Murphy’s Law is always lurking around construction sites, and the PM must be ready to adjust those tasks when the unexpected happens--whether that's a five-day rain storm or an incorrect cabinet delivery that shows up the day before it's supposed to be installed.
The best PM's have an ability to orchestrate the wide range of personalities needed to get all this done. Many of our trade partners are independent business people who are always in strong demand. Consistent success with them requires a leader who can maintain a culture of teamwork, where everyone takes pride in a great result, and where each trusts the others to do their part. The PM's skills in scheduling, problem solving and communicating can be the difference between a project staying on schedule or stalling.
That's why Turnstone is very picky about the people they hire for this role: most PMs qualify for the job through years, sometimes decades, of experience over a wide range of projects. The project manager is a seasoned industry professional who commands a good salary and earns every dime of it.
It should be no surprise that the best PMs seek positions at well-run companies that offer the opportunity for professional growth. The company that can attract this caliber of manager passes the benefits on to customers--one of the many advantages of doing business with a professional builder like Turnstone Custom Homes.
This blog post was inspired by a post by Castle Homes of Tennessee.
