The 5 Most Common Mistakes in Construction Project Management (and How to Avoid Them)

They say you learn from your mistakes.

They also say that humans are the only animals capable of stumbling twice over the same stone.

From my experience managing construction projects, I can confirm that both statements are true.

Today, I’m sharing a list of the mistakes I’ve made the most and that have helped me improve the most as a Construction Project Manager over the past six years.

1. Procrastination: decide, act

In construction, timelines are usually quite long for absolutely everything. Materials take time to arrive, custom-made items take time to be manufactured, contractors are overwhelmed, and they put you on a waiting list when you hire them.

That’s why it’s so important not to delay actions once they are clear—order the materials, hire the contractor, and schedule the measurements as soon as you know what will be needed. Doing this is crucial to meeting deadlines and, in turn, staying on budget.

But it’s not just about initiating action. Almost always, it’s necessary to follow up and keep pushing to ensure the agreed-upon delivery date is met.

For this, I use a Trello template (which I’ll share one day) where I can see which actions are on my side and need to be initiated NOW, and which actions are on the side of each supplier so I can follow up with them.

2. Not signing contracts: keeping everything locked in

When hiring a company or professional for a job, there’s usually a negotiation or an agreement on the terms of the contract. At a minimum, price and deadlines are discussed, along with anything else deemed necessary.

This agreement must be documented and signed by both parties. Otherwise, when problems and unforeseen issues arise, no one takes responsibility for what was initially agreed upon.

For me, the basic points a contract should include are:

With these four points clearly outlined and signed, you’ll already have a lot in your favor. From there, any other relevant details can be included in the service contract.

3. Not requesting estimates: knowing the costs

The budget in a construction project should be a living document throughout the execution. It’s not enough to request estimates before starting work and never request another one again.

It’s essential to make it clear—and put it in writing in the contract—that no payment will be made for work that was not previously approved.

That’s why it’s necessary to request estimates for every new work item not initially planned, review which items from the original budget won’t be needed, and track what has been approved, what hasn’t, and how the global budget has changed.

By doing this, we ensure we always know the final project cost, which is essential for project financial planning.

4. Not keeping the Gantt chart updated: deadlines adjust to circumstances

It is common to create a schedule with a Gantt chart before starting construction work. It details all tasks, dependencies between them, responsible parties, start dates, and estimated durations.

However, it is also common for the Gantt chart to be stored away, hoping it will be followed, and at most, used to check task dependencies while ignoring dates that became completely outdated after three weeks of execution.

For me, this is a major mistake, and it can be fixed by constantly updating the Gantt chart with any changes that impact the scheduled data.

This will provide us with a global picture of what remains to be done, the critical paths that will determine the final project completion date, and allow us to manage them to avoid delays. And if avoiding delays is not possible—because sometimes it isn’t—we can inform the client and other stakeholders in advance.

5. Not keeping meeting minutes: everything in writing with accountability

In a construction project, decisions are made continuously. Not only that, but questions arise that require decisions from specific parties, who must decide within a certain timeframe to avoid impacting the project schedule.

All of this must be documented somewhere, and for that, we use meeting minutes. These minutes outline the decisions made, who made them, and also list pending decisions, who is responsible for them, and their deadlines.

These minutes are sent to all project “stakeholders” every week, coinciding with the weekly site meeting. Once received, they have two days to suggest changes if something doesn’t match their understanding, and after those two days, the minutes are automatically considered approved.

This process allows us to track what has been decided and by whom, execute the project accordingly, and identify responsible parties when someone requests explanations.

However, meeting minutes are not only important after meetings. To ensure productive meetings and maximize decision-making, the agenda is sent out the day before. This agenda outlines the topics to be discussed, the decisions that should be made, and who should make them.

This helps ensure that attendees come prepared and that meetings are as productive as possible.

Conclusion

A construction project is constantly evolving, adapting to new developments and unexpected findings along the way.

The role of the Project Management team is to keep these changes as controlled as possible, managing their impact on costs, timelines, and quality—mitigating risks whenever possible and ensuring decisions are made quickly and accurately.

Additionally, transparency is key, keeping the client and other stakeholders informed so they always know the status of the project.

And this requires not only a lot of fieldwork but also extensive office work, where findings from site visits and conversations with all workers are managed and processed.