The management of landscaping projects, just like the management of all other types of projects, tends to be a challenging affair. We will be looking at some of the challenges encountered in the management of the said landscaping projects. But, we may mention, by way of introduction, that these are essentially yard beautification projects. That is the scenario where the external appearance of a home or a office block tends to matter as much as the appearance of the interior spaces. And while the improvement of the appearance of the interior spaces falls on the shoulders of the interior designer, it becomes necessary to get some other professional to improve the appearance of the ‘outside space.’
The ‘other professional’ in question turns out to be the landscaper – who through things like establishing lawns, planting trees and so on manages to improve the appearance of the outside space, also referred to as the yard.
Seeing that such yard beautification involves quite a number of actions, and the use of diverse resources, it becomes necessary to view it as a project and manage it as such. And some of the challenges in the management of landscaping projects often turn out to include:
The challenge of delivering the expected results. This is a situation where clients tend to come across fascinating landscaping ideas (on magazines for instance), and then demand that their landscapers deliver the same for them. That is something they – being laymen in these matters – tend to demand without pausing to think about what the actual implantation involves. And whilst the landscapers are supposed to be professionals in these things – and therefore up to all tasks – some of the things they are expected to do turn out to be rather challenging.
You come to realize that some of the lush lawns we see in various ‘dream home’ pictures are simply created using graphical programs, but they don’t exist anywhere in actual fact. Yet we occasionally see people demanding that their landscapers deliver such results for them. That puts the landscapers between a rock and a hard place. If they say that they can’t deliver such results, their professional competence may be called to question. And if they say that they can deliver such results, they may end up being unable to do so in actual fact.
In the final analysis, the solution lies in proper management of client expectations, as well as use of best practices to deliver the best possible results to clients.
The challenge of getting things done on time. This is tricky because some of the things involved in landscaping are well beyond human control (this being an endeavor that essentially involves plant husbandry). Yet the clients who seek the landscapers’ help tend to have specific deadlines within which they expect certain results.
The challenge of getting things done cost-effectively. This too is tricky, seeing that there are so many unforeseeable things (droughts, pest attacks, lawn grass diseases and so on) which can creep into the picture, and hike the bills considerably. This is why most landscapers tend to make huge ‘miscellaneous allowances’ in their budgets, to cope with such unforeseeable things.
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