Architectural project management process

Table of Contents

What is a project management plan?

Planning is an essential part of project management and one you never want to skip, no matter what you are working on. This is especially true for architects and city planners. Without planning, an architecture project turns into a long-lasting and costly failure.

What makes a good project management plan?

A good project plan considers all the tasks and activities that need to be done by various contractors and teams so that the project is completed on time.

If your architecture project plan is clear and transparent, everyone working on the project knows what they’re doing and who to contact with questions.

Getting started & stages of the plan

Usually, there are several stages of architectural project planning. The main parts that all successful projects have are:

project scope
project schedule
communication plan

Let’s take a look at each of the parts.

Architectural project scope

The project scope determines precisely what will be done and what resources will be allocated for that.

To determine the project scope, you must assess client needs, resources, and limitations (budget, time, site).

As an architect, you often have to look through the client’s requirements and see the constraints and conditions that your client is unaware of. There are functional requirements, special considerations, physical requirements, and material design requirements that you need to consider while planning your project.

It would be best if you planned for all that at the earliest stage of the project – right after you get the architectural briefing document from your client.

While planning out the project’s scope, you also need to have a clear picture of resources, materials, suppliers, budgets, and everything that deals with the implementation of the project.

Architectural project schedule

The next stage of architectural project planning is to define your schedule. One of the most important skills an architect or a city planner needs to possess is estimating the time necessary to complete the project. Good experience in project planning helps develop that skill.

If there are constant delays and shifting dates – you can tell the project was poorly planned.

Split the more significant milestones into smaller ones, identify contractors and team members responsible for each milestone, and so on. Make sure you know task and activities co-dependencies that affect what needs to be done and when.

Architectural project communication plan

Communication is essential for successful architecture projects, and every architect must be a brilliant communicator. So develop something called a communication matrix and make sure you follow it.

A communication Matrix lists all the stakeholders and points of contact, their preferred communication medium, the deliverables they expect, the frequency of updates they require, and who else might be interested in your communication with these stakeholders.

Quality control

Quality control needs to go hand-in-hand with project planning. You need to inspect, monitor and verify all the services and products you are using in the project – consider that while writing out the project schedule.

Project planning tools for architects and city planners

Many architects and city planners are sticking to the old-fashioned paper notebooks for initial project planning. That makes sense during the brainstorming phase and for personal notes; however, you need project management software to work with modern teams.

Since most architecture projects require collaboration between highly technical teams – the tools need to offer document sharing, messaging, task visibility by the team, and other features.

Hundreds of online project management tools allow all sorts of planning and measurement as well as collaboration and space and can be categorized into several types.

1) List-type apps

These tools organize your workspace as a simple list of things that need to be done. Todoist and Google Keep are examples of such project planning tools.

2) Kanban-style apps

The other significant project planning software is based on the so-called Kanban system. These tools organize your workspace into several virtual “boards”, and the tasks that need to be done are presented as cards. The cards start their journey on the “to-do” or “nice to have” boards and move to the “done” board eventually.

Kanban-style tools have become the de-facto standard for project management and project planning across multiple Industries. As a result, most employees and teams are familiar and comfortable with them. Examples of Kanban-style tools are Trello and Tracked b o ards.

3) Gantt Style

Gantt chart project planning tools present the workflow as a time flow chart that is continuous and is made of several stages. In addition, the charts can be broken down into segments, including sub-tasks and individual assignments for all team members.

Gantt-style project management and planning tools are convenient for estimates and deadlines. An example – Ganttpro.

4) Hybrid tools

Hybrid tools contain features of the above types: kanban boards, Gantt charts, to-do lists, and more within their workspace.

Most hybrid tools are industry-specific and created for convenience and streamlined project planning of certain professionals.

PlanMan is an example of a hybrid project management tool designed specifically for architects and city planners.

PlanMan makes managing a project of any scope easier and focuses on effective collaboration and communication. You can use PlanMan for all stages of architectural project management and store all necessary documents from invoices to design renders and CAD plans in a convenient workspace.

Architectural project management process – the 2023 checklist