planning a refurbishment

Before you get started remember that nothing should be arbitrary when planning a refurbishment

When we say this we mean nothing should be left to chance or guesswork. Project Management needs a lot of thought put into it. Otherwise you are just throwing the dice and hoping that the right numbers come up

If you are serious about completing a project successfully then you shouldn’t be plucking numbers out of thin air and hoping that they will be enough. Nor should you be ordering quantities of materials without doing adequate assessments of what you need

Guesstimates

Basing things on “Guesstimates” is a sure road to disaster , wasted time and money and a whole load of headache. A project needs to be planned with defined timescales and accurate cost projections. If you don’t approach it like that then you are just hoping for the best

One of the 6 key areas of successful Project Management is the programme and another one is financial

Programme

You cannot hope to have a successful outcome if the bricklayer tells you that the walls  “should take about 3 weeks but hopefully he can do it a bit quicker”. How on earth can you plan things around that?

You need to break down every single piece of a project into an individual activity. Once you have done that you need to work out a duration for each activity. Activities have to flow in a sequence so there is no lost time. You have to see if any activities can be carried out at the same time without interfering with each other. If you can do that it will shorten the project duration. You also need to leave a bit of spare capacity in the programme in case some activities overrun. This is called  “float”

Finance

You cannot employ a tradesman who says that a piece of work will cost ”about 2 thousand pounds or maybe a bit more but not more then 2 thousand five hundred. You need to have accurate numbers for each activity. If you don’t have this you wont be able to track your spending. Costs could spiral out of control and leave you unable to finish the project.

You could end up having to borrow more money to get the project finished. The additional finance costs could wipe out most or all of the profits.

Cashflow

There will never be accurate cashflow planning if you allow “around 13 thousand for the kitchen”. Cashflow is vital to any project. Its the lifeblood of any project. If it dries up then work will dry up. Numerous projects in the past have been brought to a grinding halt because of this

Summary

Get your numbers and your timescales right. If you are just using arbitrary figures how are you going to measure the efficiency of your project? Remember that a property development project is a business project. You should be looking to maximise efficiency in all areas at all times. Always leave yourself some float in the programme. Also make sure you have a financial contingency

 

At Evbi Projects we have many years of project planning. It’s one of the many  services we offer to our clients. Please  contact us to see how we can help you with your project

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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