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How to avoid delays in your service company's projects

Updated:
25/11/2024

In the world of construction, companies must know how to handle many factors that can cause a project not to be delivered when it is due. It may be as a result of organizational problems in the company itself or unforeseen events may arise that were not part of your plans.

Whatever the case, a company must have the necessary tools to know how to avoid them and how to deal with them. Delivery periods are always important and it is one of the errors that can prevent the client from hiring the company again.

Furthermore, delays mean a loss of time for the company and, with it, money. Therefore, identifying the causes of delays is always important. Also, know why they generally occur, so that successful project management will be easier.

Causes of delays

The reasons for delays are a fundamental piece when it comes to dealing with them, if you do not know what has gone wrong with a specific project it is very difficult to be able to solve it in future projects.

Some of these causes are related to poor organization, planning and communication with both workers and clients. In these cases, it is essential to know the applications for managing services, tasks, suppliers, clients, invoices and much more.

Knowing what is happening in your company at all times, from a single place and from any device is one of the keys to ensuring that the organization, planning and communication of your projects is ideal.

Organizational issues

Long-term projects require an efficient organization led by a person who knows these types of projects and has already worked in the sector. It is essential that the person in charge of this first phase does his job well, otherwise the cost of the project will rise and with it, the volume of work. Of course, the company's reputation will fall abruptly.

Unrealistic planning

Once again looking at long-term projects, one of the most complex tasks is usually planning. Always keep in mind that as you move forward, other professionals will be needed to work alongside your team or be part of it, and companies often forget this.

For example, if you are doing the climatic installation of a building, but also the water and electrical installation and you only have climatic professionals in that work, there will come a point that when the climatic installation is finished everything will go slower and you will end up needing the help from an electrical professional.

Communication issues

Communication with workers is essential, if they do not know the planning of the project they work on or do not know how to act if changes occur, delays in the delivery of the project will surely be frequent in your company.

On the other hand, communication between workers and clients must also be taken care of, because it is one of the keys to keeping them satisfied.

Changes in projects

Changes to projects can trigger other changes to scheduling, work time, and more. For this reason, the people in charge of directing a project must have a protocol for changes that considers most of the factors that can cause the project to vary in order to know how to act.

Lack of workers

Workers' salaries are often the highest cost of projects, but reducing the workforce to save costs is likely to result in delayed delivery. The most efficient thing is to increase productivity by prioritizing workers and, in any case, subcontractors.

Poor company budget

It is important to keep in mind that the budget allocated to, for example, the purchase of materials may vary. The company needs a positive cash flow that can deal with the new monetary unforeseen events that the work requires so as not to lose work time for purely economic reasons.

Inaccurate labour costs

The calculated cost of the project can make or break profits. Therefore, it is important to make a good cost forecast from the beginning, but also to have a follow-up of previous projects to be able to make forecasts.

Avoid delays by learning from past mistakes

To avoid delays it is very important to learn from previous projects. If your company has a few years of experience in the sector, surely, before starting a project, you already know what problems may arise and how to solve them, and this is essential.

Doing an analysis of what happened in each project can be of great help to avoid it in the next ones. Furthermore, if the project manager wants or must delegate functions to other people, they will have a guide to prepare them.

Learning from past mistakes is the key to reducing project delays. These are some of the techniques that you can apply in your company to better manage your projects and avoid delays in deliveries that cause your reputation to be tarnished.

  • Compile all incidents that have caused delays. It may be interesting to do this every week and group the incidents by type at the end of the month. In some companies, these incidents are translated into monetary units in order to know their economic impact.
  • Analyze the incidents. In this sense, it is important to create a standardized list of incidents, to be able to classify them.
  • Analyze if you have acted correctly or if it could have been done differently to reduce the delay.
  • Take into account what has been useful to implement it again.
  • Create a protocol for changes having control of the tools that have been used and have worked to be able to act quickly in other cases.  
  • Evaluate the impact of the actions taken.

How can a service and task management app help you?

The taclia app is a platform for managing services, tasks, teams, suppliers and more to make your daily life easier. taclia can help you avoid delays in your projects because it has different tools that will improve your organization.

Following the work of your team is one of the keys to avoiding possible problems, as well as planning errors that can result from not knowing what is happening in your company at all times. The calendar, work reports and services to find out about incidents or direct contact with your workers through the mobile app are some of the tools that can solve some of the problems that cause delays.

With the taclia app, save time, sell more and, of course, work better. Our clients, like Boscohen, are satisfied and since they use Taclia they organize and plan all their projects better. An example is Rubén: “with taclia I can know the status of all the services and have full control of the employees and numbers.”  

Click here to learn about the taclia app.

Published:
3/2/2022
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