6 Tips To Keep Your Signage On Time & On Budget

If you want to keep your Signage project on time and within budget, this article is specifically for you. Research conducted by IBM across 15 countries on 1500 executives revealed that about 60% of business projects do not meet their objectives. No matter what aspect the Signage project you are working on is, it must have a lot of moving pieces. At the very least, you need top-notch planning and close project management to let everything run smoothly and successfully.

In this post, we will provide you with 6 essential tips on how to keep your Signage project on time and on budget. If you have not been delivering on time and within your budget, this post is your perfect guide.

1. Minimize the number of decision-makers involved

It is a proven fact that the more people are involved in decision making, the slower it will take to reach a decision. As the saying goes, “Too many cooks/ingredients spoil the broth”. Therefore, you should keep as few decision-makers involved as possible, mainly just the high authoritative experienced ones. It does not matter if you are making a decision about signage Singapore or deciding on your lunch venue; minimize decision-makers as you only need to include those essential in the decision-making process. Too many opinions, sometimes, cloud the judgement and also prolong the entire process.

2. Make sure you have a primary point of contact

To keep our Signage project on time and on budget, your sign company should have a primary point of contact to manage the project. If you are a client, your organization needs one as well. The primary point of contact should be the most senior with the largest margin to handle such a project. If you choose a senior person with the margin to manage the project, but not senior enough in a position to take independent decisions, he or she will be waiting on others to get things done. Such will undoubtedly slow the efficiency and effectiveness of the project. Also, if the person chosen as the primary point of contact is senior enough to manage such a project, but he or she does not have enough margins, the person will struggle to dedicate ample time to execute the project.

3. Critically analyze all the details on the front end

Signage projects are often always detailed endeavors and demand good and quality planning. Before deciding on your Signage, ensure you have all the necessary details required and confirmed. If there is any lacking information or red flags of the Signage company, this will cause possible issues or unhappy partnership. Here, we have compiled the essential things your decision-makers must think about and agree on before launching your Signage project.

What do you hope to achieve with the Signage project?

You, along with the other major decision-makers, need to understand the goal and purpose of the Signage project you want to start on. Understanding the Signage project’s essence will enable you and your decision-makers to avoid and, at the least, reduce hiccups and mistakes down the road. It would be best if you could establish whether the Signage project would be:

A long term project or just a temporary solution
Essentially for function or aesthetic
Targeted at a particular group of people or a generalized project
Able to fit into the general brand identity of the organization
A subsidiary of a larger Signage project

If you and your decision-makers define and could agree on the above points, you will most likely be able to keep your Signage Singapore project on time and within budget.

What is the budget for the Signage project?

The materials that your signs will be made of are hugely dependent on the overall budget for the project. Your budget will also determine the number of your signs, how large they can be, the length of time they will take to build, and the project’s goals. Depending on your project’s cost, you may only be able to afford the first phase of your Signage objective.

If you are a new business or start-up company, you may also consider yourself settling for a temporary solution until you can afford a bigger budget project for the long term.

What will be the lifespan of your signage solution?

You must ensure that all your decision-makers are well aware of how long your proposed project will last. If you are working on a long-term solution, carefully consider how long will it take for the materials to be replaced? Will such materials require special maintenance or consistent cleaning? If you only have the budget for cheap Signage materials, you may have to spend more money sooner to replace them. Sometimes, it is a wise choice to invest in a higher cost Signage, as it would mean better quality and a longer-lasting lifespan to risk being replaced again soon.

When you know how long your Signage solution will last, you will know the best material to use and how much you are willing to spend on. If you provide a temporary solution, how long will they last before you replace them with a long-term solution? Your ability to provide relevant answers to these questions will help you keep your Signage project on time and on budget.

4. Ensure your project details are well organized

Go beyond just talking about the project details with your key decision makers; ensure that these details are well organized. Without proper organization, details can easily slip through the tracks, and anyone will tend to forget about them. To keep your project on track and ensure that everyone is held accountable for, there must be a paper trail. Today, you have a lot of options to keep track of your projects. Some of these options include e-mail, Microsoft Word, project management software tools, etc.

You would not want to dig through months of e-mails to find important information or instructions. Papers can also easily get lost and cannot be accessible to people in different places quickly. You can make use of Google Docs project management tool to ensure there is no loss of any paper trail it is free and can be easily used by anyone without experience. Unlike Microsoft Word document, it is not stored on individual computers, but on the cloud. This means that an unlimited number of people can have access to the file simultaneously from different locations, even edit the document together live!

With Google Docs, you, along with your decision makers can be completely up-to-date with everything about the sign project. To start working with that, all you need to do is to create a Google account. However, if Google Docs is not for you, you can consider other project management tools like Basecamp and Trello. It does not matter the method you choose; the most important thing is that it works for the company and everyone is familiar with it upon training and daily practising. Your decision makers and everyone involved must understand their roles and contribution to stay informed on the project details as they develop along the way.

5. Ensure the project has been approved before ordering

You must ensure that every key decision maker involved in the project has signed off on the project’s final details. Your key decision makers should know about the budget, timeline and the proposed final product. It would be wise to sit down with these decision makers to review all the agreed-upon details one last time before your ordering.

Your ability to keep your Signage project on time and on budget greatly depends on how well you carry your key decision. Once an agreement has been reached, keep it on records where you can easily refer back to it in the future. Bear it in mind that you do not only need the organization’s approval on ordering the sign project but also to get approval from the Government of that particular location. If the relevant local Authorities do not approve of the sign project, you have to review it.

6. Have a margin for yourself

Irrespective of how well you have planned the sign project, hiccups are inevitable sometimes. The more complex the sign is, the more likely something unexpected can rise in your plans. Ensure you give yourself more time than originally projected so that when hiccups occur, there can be some time to review and rectify to get back on track and achieve the final product and goal.