Information About Various Project Management Services For Architects

| Thursday, February 6, 2014
By Jayne Rutledge


Many companies rely on project management services for assistance with organizing their business. Being able to manage projects well and keep track of billing is important for retaining clients. Many professionals, such as architects and designers, use these services. If you run your own business, then using special software may be useful in organizing your work.

Professionals like architects must participate in developing buildings and structures to the specifications of what the client wants. The architect must also coordinate a design team that consists of engineers, planners and other specialists. Once they are hired the architect must oversee the work and ensure that everything is running smoothly and within appropriate costs. This is why managing projects is such an important task.

In this profession, having technical knowledge and management skills are equally as important as having a talent for designing. Once a commission is accepted from a client, there are many essential business processes that must be carried on before the work is completed. The job may involve preparing reports about what work is feasible and what is not. It may require carrying out building audits or designing multiple buildings for large scale projects. Being organized and detailed oriented in this profession is very important.

Once the designer is hired by a client, they are responsible for creating a template that will meet their requirements. The client may have a specific building in mind, with a specific purpose, and they will want a facility that is suitable for those purposes. The planner normally meets several times with the client to work out all of the requirements for the job. Based on these meetings, the planner prepares a brief of his or her design concepts.

Security is also important to clients. An architect needs to secure his or her data from piracy or theft. Some types of software can stagger access to important information, so that a manager can access higher level files, while a regular employee only has access to lower level information, such as time and expenses reports.

If you are an architect looking to manage your business better, you should consider carefully what your needs are and what sort of requirements your clients have. Many clients are very pedantic about the costs of their design project, and expect their architect to keep them updated of the running costs. If this is the case in your situation, you may want to consider using software that offers phased percent completed invoices. This is useful for clients who want to see the percentage of the work that has been completed for each phase, as well as the amount that was previously billed, and the amount due for the current billing.

Yet another vital part of managing a project is creating and submitting reports to the client on a timely basis. This helps to keep the client and the managers informed about how time and expenses are being allocated for the job. Reports are important because they help you to manage your business and gives you control over who is working on specific tasks. Some common types of reports are budget comparison reports, profitability reports and work in progress reports. Reports can also be used to help you evaluate the performance of your staff or of any consultants that are hired.

If you prefer to hire a firm for project management services, ask other professionals in your industry which firms they use. You should always get a rate quote before agreeing to hire a firm.




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