Construction Industry Project Management: Priority 3 — Planning

Mark Annunziata, PMP, entered the construction industry after college as one of the youngest general contractors certified by the state of Florida. He ran his own general contracting business performing and executing every phase of his business from business development, estimating, contract negotiations, project controls, and project execution through handover. His firm has produced housing projects, multifamily, commercial, retail, high-rise, and high-end homes along the eastern coast of Florida.

  Construction   Lessons Learned   Procurement Management   Quality   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)   Knowledge Shelf  

Introduction
In my previous article on the topic of construction industry projects, I explained the differences between tier 1 contractors (generally projects and sales volumes over US$ 100 million), tier 2 contractors (generally projects and sales in the US$10–100 million range), and tier 3 (generally project values less than US$10 million). The following article explains the contracts and tier 1 contractor requirements for planning.

The project management plan is a contract-required submittal within the tier 1 world. As part of the project management plan, the contract between the owner and the contractor requires submittal and owner approval of the following parts: the safety plan, the procurement plan including the procurement schedule, the project quality plan in ISO 9001/2015 format, the project execution plan, the organizational chart/key employees, the project controls plan/Primavera 6 (P6) schedule, and the document control plan. A brief description of these elements and some lessons learned are included in this article.

Priority 3: Planning
In the tier 1 construction industry, the project begins when the contract for construction is signed between the owner and the contractor. Most tier 1 contracts contain between 600–1,500 pages, with many citations of supporting documents. In the case of a project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), …

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