The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Every construction project should have a set of goals that the contractors need to achieve. You can never create a successful construction project without setting goals. It won’t matter if you have a team of experienced project managers, architects, engineers, or construction workers without knowing what matters.
If you want a successful project, you have to learn about Critical Success Factors, also known as CSFs. Many construction companies use CSFs because it dramatically helps them fulfill their goals and meet the client’s demands without a fuss.
What Are Critical Success Factors?
In short, they are factors that you develop to help you reach your goals better. In some cases, construction companies lose focus of what’s important to them because they never had a clear goal in the first place. But with CSFs, you get to know what goals you want to meet in a construction project. It lowers the chances of your team doing the wrong things instead of focusing on other tasks that won’t help push the project forward.
If you want to learn more about the CSFs, you have to learn about their four types.
1. Environmental Factor
This type of CSF talks about the macro-environmental influence on a construction project. Some examples include the economy, business climate, technological advancements, and your competitors.
Industry factors result from the particular characteristics of your industry. It’s also what you must do to stay competitive in your sector. One good example is a start-up tech company choosing innovation as their CSF.
3. Temporal Factor
Temporal factors result from your company’s internal growth and changes. Specific challenges, barriers, influences, and directions can also determine your CSFs. An example is an expanding company with a CSF aiming to increase its international sales.
4. Strategic Factor
The last type of CSF is strategic factors that result from the particular competitive strategy that your company follows. It can include the way you choose to position and market yourself., and whether it’s a low-cost, high volume producer, or a high-cost, low volume one.
How You Can Develop Your CSFs
Since you now have an idea about the four types of CSFs, the next step is to work out how you can create your own. You can find at least six steps to identify and develop your CSFs, and they include:
Figure out your construction company’s strategic goals.
Determine what area of project activity or business is crucial to meet your goals.
Assess your list of possible CSFs and identify which ones you need to attain your goals. When you find out your possible CSF, you find more things like strategic objectives that can propel you to meeting those goals better.
Determine how you will monitor your CSFs.
Effectively communicate your CSFs to individuals who will deliver them and to the rest of your construction team.
Frequently monitor and reevaluate your CSFs to ensure you stay on track towards your goals. You have to monitor each one as much as possible, even if CSFs are less tangible than KPIs or measurable targets.
You have to practice CSFs if you want your construction project to go smoothly. Whether it’s choosing galvanized steel roof hatches for your project or deciding which section of the construction you want to start, knowing your CSFs will always lead you in the right direction.
