PM or superintendent: who does what on a job
Both roles work on the same job, so each one assumes the other has the contract, the buying and the billing.
The PM owns the paper and the money side. That means marking up and negotiating the contract, building the schedule of values, buying the bulk commodities and long lead items, securing the subs, sending change orders and submitting the pay application every month. The superintendent owns the field side. That means planning and routing the material, releasing it as needed, filling out the daily reports with the field team, agreeing with each sub on when it's on site and setting the direction on safety. The two meet at the project handoff and again at 80% complete to plan the close out.
Three moves, in order
Step 08: Standards and accountability
Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work.
Learn this part of the job
SPM The Construction CFO publishes this course. It's a separate company from this one, and the course is on its own school site.
Other problems step 08 solves
Other things that go wrong
What owners ask
Difference between a project manager and a superintendent?
Both roles work on the same job, so each one assumes the other has the contract, the buying and the billing. The PM owns the paper and the money side. That means marking up and negotiating the contract, building the schedule of values, buying the bulk commodities and long lead items, securing the subs, sending change orders and submitting the pay application every month. The superintendent owns the field side. That means planning and routing the material, releasing it as needed, filling out the daily reports with the field team, agreeing with each sub on when it's on site and setting the direction on safety. The two meet at the project handoff and again at 80% complete to plan the close out.
Which part of the system fixes this?
The step is number 08, standards and accountability. Five hours a month of owner time, spent projecting the work. It's drawn from chapter 8 of CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System.
Is this normal for my trade?
Across the 48 trades that publish a figure, net profit at $1M to $5M averages 7% after taxes. If you're well under that and this page describes your month, the two are usually the same story. The published average tells you where the pack is, and your own job costing tells you where you are, which is the number that pays payroll.
Where do I start?
Write down which of the two owns each task above, and post it for the whole project team.
Can I fix this without touching anything else?
You can try, and it doesn't hold. Step 08 depends on step 03, overhead calculation and step 06, project management and step 07, monthly cadence. Install it ahead of those and it produces numbers the field won't trust, which is worse than the problem you started with.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.