What is the most significant error you have made on a project? How did you address the issue and repair the situation?

Costly errors can occur on construction projects. As a project manager, errors will not always be avoidable, no matter how diligent you are. Some of the more common mistakes on a construction project might be assigning or delegating the wrong people to different phases of a project, seeing a project fail due to a shortfall of resources, or lack of clarity when it comes to project vision and alignment during the initial kick-off. Discuss an error or oversight made during your career, and what you did to repair the situation.

"The most significant error I have made was earlier on in my career when I did not spend enough time properly building the budget and estimate on a hotel project. Not only did I underestimate the project budget by 15%, but I also underestimated the timeline of the project by two weeks. What I did wrong was I failed to get expert advice, which I should have done, considering it was my first hotel project. Also, I did not take a bottom-up, budgeting approach. Luckily I was able to communicate the issue with the client quickly, and there was no damage done to our working partnership. In the end, I learned to lean on others for answers and to use a better approach to budgeting so that I could come up with more reasonable estimates."