How Schedules Can Make or Break a project

Ever jumped into a project without a solid plan and found yourself tangled in chaos?

In this episode, I share a personal story about a chaotic project and how a well-thought-out plan turned things around. Join me as I uncover the lessons learned, the bumps along the way, and how a clear schedule helped us have the project run more smoothly. Tune in to learn more and improve your next project!

Resources:

• Want to increase your profitability? Grab my book “The Profit Bleed.“
• Looking to grow your construction business? Check out our exclusive group "The Contractors Collective.”
• Want employees to take more ownership? Check out our course - “Build Your Dream Team.”
• Are you struggling to hire the right people? Check out our “Contractors Hiring Blueprint” course.

Connect with Vicki on social media:

• YouTube: Vicki Suiter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickisuiter
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuiterBusinessBuilders

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Transcript

0:00

welcome back to the profit Builder unscripted today we're going to be talking about how do you ensure that projects go along smoothly and avoid the delays that oftentimes happen which also cause you a lot of money let's jump[Music] in so for the last few episodes I've been talking about this transition that I'm in with my team about having them take more ownership of um this podcast actually and really driving more of what um makes it work and make what makes it tick and um and right now we're in the middle of even as I record this we're in the middle of this setup of getting all the backend things handled and set up but also setting it up so that my team is driving and managing more of it go forward than they used to do before when I was doing a Blog and and what I've been sharing in these videos is about my journey as a leader and um the challenges that I've been facing and how I've been noticing um the things that I could be doing different as a leader in order to really make this transition in my business and you know this is one of the topics that I talk with people about all the time whether it's uh my one-on-one client or when I'm speaking speaking or in my group with the contractors Collective this is like this whole topic of how do we grow our businesses and the pathway to getting there and specifically the way that we can grow our businesses is by growing our team and is in in developing the people around us to shift from that whole mindset of being a helper to being taking ownership and to actually owning the results on projects as opposed to us sort of being in the middle of it and driving it and having other people help us and what I've been going through myself in my business is making this transition to my team taking more ownership and and really driving the results as opposed to me being the one in the middle of it driving the results and what I've um been noticing is a lot of different things in terms of how I get in the way of um actually making progress but also I've been noticing some things about my own communication and what works and what doesn't work and that's what I've been sharing in in some of the past videos and in today I want to talk about um one thing that's shown up that I know that is somebody in the construction industry that you'll really relate to which is that whole thing of having a well planned out project before you begin make makes all the difference in the world in terms of how long it takes to ultimately drive a project and um Can impact the breakdowns that show up uh when you're not planned well so for me you know when I started this I I um realized in this last week that I handed over this project and I said hey let's do this and and you know myself and Rebecca and Dortha um looked at this project and went okay well it should be pretty simple and it looked simple at the beginning but there's a lot of moving pieces and there were a lot of things that we knew about producing content and producing videos and putting it up on YouTube and all that but we did not know about several pieces or elements about doing a podcast and so on and we also realized there was somebody missing in that equation which was Carol who's a person who does all of our website stuff and involving her in the conversation and you know even as we've been working through the details and figuring everything out we use um Trello as a a way to manage our communication is that I realized that we started you know throwing up all these different pieces on the Trello board and and what I realized yesterday as I started to look on there and I was like all right what you know where are we on this project I realized that it was very was kind of chaotic like there were lots of different pieces and elements to everything that needed to be done but it wasn't organized in a way that we all were really clear about what are all the elements of what needs to happen and so I got to thinking about is a in in construction uh you do project schedules right and that project schedules are the thing that have all the task and they have deadline dates and durations and there's milestones and all that that help you plan out a project and I realized that first of all we hadn't really done a great job we there's a little bit of learning involved but we also hadn't done a great job with what we did know about in terms of planning with the end in mind and that I will confess there was this little thing that happened a couple of weeks ago where my website person Carol said to me when we started having this conversation with her when do you want it done by and I said as soon as possible and so in Carol's mind she starts turning off on what she has to do on the website side of it but Dortha and Rebecca were not really they like there were pieces that hadn't been worked out yet that Carol needed in order to do what she needed to do does this sound familiar this is like a Conant structure Pro right like any project this is what happens when we start rushing into it without being clear about what are all the things that need to happen and it's been a good learning for me in terms of realizing that um if I'm going to embark on giving my team projects you know so I mean you deal with this on a grand scale when you're talking about a huge construction project but here's just this little project within my business that I'm trying to execute on that I'm seeing how there's been a bit of like spinning wheels and inefficiency and lack of communication and breakdown in communication and you know this person not knowing what this person is doing that has caused a just a little bit of chaos but also that I'm seeing how it's delaying this project actually getting done quickly and it you know and what I said to to Dortha this morning and she's the one that's driving this project now is the Project Lead really important lesson and I learn make sure that when you delegate you have one person who's going to be accountable for that result uh it was a video I talked about a few times you know a few episodes ago but um the thing that I learned is that um the whole planning piece of it and making sure that there's a wellth thought out plan without it is causing there to be a a waste of time and energy on some level a duplic ation of conversations missing things as well as we're not super clear about what are all the steps that need to happen and as doroth and I talked this morning I was like all right what do you think needs to happen and what are all those different pieces and she goes yeah I get like we have them all in different different boards and different cards in Trello but we don't have it organized in a way that I'm super clear about where what we need to do and so I said let's just stop let's let's not move forward yet with anything else until we have a wellth thought out plan because then we can determine what our Milestones are and then we can determine what are our deadlines for when we're going to have different things done or or who needs to have what done by what date we we but we've first got to figure out what the entire scope is and you know you might be listening to this and you might be thinking well of course that has to happen all the time and when I talk to contractors I know that this is one of those things that happens a lot where there's not really a wellth thought out plan ahead of time that really helps you make sure that you stay on track and are able to execute and have your team execute well because the other thing I realized is I was creating confusion for everybody well we were creating confusion for everybody because we didn't have a well planned out schedule and a well planned out idea of like what are all the steps and what's everything that has to happen so that's the next step that we're taking on and that's a learning for this week and all of this which is before you start getting into action have a plan for what are those Milestones what's the schedule what needs to be done by when who needs to do it right like being clear about all those pieces and even on the pieces where you're like I don't know what I don't know because when we started there were certain elements of we didn't even we didn't know certain things so we couldn't even plan it very well but the then you know what Dorth and I talked about this morning is let's have a board for that right like let's have a board for what are the questions that we need to ask that we need to get answers to that will help us create create a better plan and we'll help her manage and execute so that we can get it done in the way you know to the to the result that we were looking for in the time frame that we're looking for it so um you know I'm going to I'm going to keep recording um and sharing my experience as I go through the rest of this project but you know again I'm I'm sharing all of this because there's such it's it's an interesting process I'm going through right now in this project with my team and asking my team to take on more ownership that um I'm wanting to share this experience because these are things that I talk to clients about all the time like in theory I know all this stuff and in practice I'm having this opportunity to observe myself and notice where I get to catch myself notice the breakdowns make course Corrections and adjust and you know and I think that if I had to say that there was one ultimate desire I have for you as you're listening to this it's that this whole thing of making change in our business as leaders and asking people to take more ownership and building teams around us like it's not a one andone kind of thing and that that we have what we have is the opportunity to continue to observe what's working what's not working and what needs to be different different and I will say without judgment because I think a lot of times we judge ourselves we judge other people that that head trash gets in our way of like being able to just move through and go hey that didn't work what do we have to do differently so being able to just notice without judgment and then I think the second thing is to just understand that um it's a long game for building teams that take ownership it's a long game for transforming how we are as leaders and learning to be different and helping our teams rise up to their next level of greatness I think that it requires continual conversations and continual assessment of again what's working what's not working what needs to be different without us Sweeping in as leaders and going well I can fix it or well that's not working I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that like I've had to really notice and pay attention and catch myself when I want to like just go I can jump in and I can fix that or I like I like I got the quick answer for it but instead just stepping back and going all right if I really want to give them the opportunity to to own own the result in a different way and have them step up and take more ownership I need to be willing to step back let them figure it out maybe ask questions right have conversations but not have to go in and rescue and um be the one with all the answers and so um I I think that's you know something for us to consider and keep in mind as we're developing our teams and we're taking um the opportunity to grow in our businesses to grow ourselves as Leaders as well as to grow our team um in taking more ownership it's a process and I think um we just got to um be observant and um continue to ask good questions and not jump in and have to be the ones to fix it um so that's this week's learning um I will continue to record uh as we continue through this process and by the time you're listening to this um the podcast will be up and um and we'll be up and running it off and um just a couple things before I close here one is if you are interested in um being a guest on the podcast if you have some learning as a leader that you want to share or as a as a professional in the construction industry of uh some that you think would be useful in your journey as a leader that you would like to share with other people I would love to hear from you love to have you as a guest on the profit uh Builder unscripted um I think that as a community when the more that we share with each other the more we have to learn from each other um so feel free to reach out to me um Vicky ater busuu.com and make sure to subscribe if you haven't already and if you know somebody else who could get value from this um please make sure to share share it all right thanks I look forward to seeing you next time on the profit Builder unscripted