Management and Control

I’ve given my opinion and explained the pragmatic approach to project management (some might call it a lack of management) that I employ. I’ve also described some of the tools that I use … Google documents & Basecamp … and some of the questions to answer when deciding ‘how to manage your project‘.

Progressing with this I’d like to suggest to any would-be renovator to not over-manage or over-control your project. A successful renovation project requires skilled and talented people to be engaged and translate their talents into tangible parts of your renovation. With all the will in the world, there will be elements to your plan or your plan that are not optimal and that these individuals are better equipped and are better able to decide upon or specify. So let them do so … listen, take advice, get an feel for costs and time-scales, then make a decision.

Don’t try to make all your decisions up-front and don’t try to be the sole decision maker. There’s no way that on your own you’re going to get it all correct all the time, but with help and advice you’ll get more correct, more of the time.

From a management and control perspective this means that you’re going to need to leave some decisions until later, to allow aspects of your plan to evolve over-time. Start off with a plan by all means, just don’t expect it to be followed exhaustively, or feel bad when reality diverges away from it.

Follow the path to your goal and expect to make a few diversions along the way.

…and don’t forget to buy a good notebook…