5 Advanced Project Management Takeaways

At Lamp, we believe in the importance of continuing education so that we can stay in front of best practices, industry priorities, and new technology and ideas. We recently sent Project Manager Josh Campanelli to the Advanced Management Program, which is hosted once a year by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). The premier 6-day program helps industry decision makers amplify their business acumen, and we are so glad to have him return to Lamp with new insights and ideas from the course.

Here are few of his key takeaways from the event:

1. Ongoing employee training is important. No matter the role, be it carpenter, estimator, superintendent; everyone should have further training to learn about cutting edge ideas, processes, technologies, and techniques. Overall it is important for everyone to always train.

2. Prepare successors. Succession planning is a very important part of a construction company. If anyone in your company leaves, somebody has to pick up where they left off. This applies to everyone, from the main leaders to carpenters to superintendents and more. There should always be a plan in place in case someone leaves, so that someone is fully prepared to go in and pick up any job without downtime. As part of this planning, companies should focus on bringing in and retaining young employees, apprentices, and younger superintendents.

3. Consider ways to increase field productivity. Everyone should take on the role of finding ways to increase field productivity. Each person in the field should evaluate what they are doing and how it can be improved. Can masons improve efficiency by changing areas of their work that slow them down? Everyone should stay aware by asking themselves, “What am I doing that doesn’t make sense?” Always be improving efficiency.

4. Networking improves your processes. Hearing how people do things differently has helped drum up ideas of how we can do things differently or better. For example, strategic planning has always been a top priority for me. At the conference, it helped to hear the ways other places have done this—some businesses have had success using a mediator to steer the direction of strategies. Having these conversations helped me to see how someone in a similar position from across the country handles a specific challenge or situation, which in turn will improve my processes and ideas.

5. Prioritize recruitment and retention of employees. This goes along with the idea of succession planning. There is no reason not to be looking for new talent and employees. There is no reason not to have an intern or two each year. It’s far better to always be recruiting and looking for someone who knows someone than to just interview and hire someone because their answers were good.

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