Let me show you how you can save on your next project.
So imagine you have a budget of £50k for a new digital project build .. yes I’m very aware I’ve just plucked this out of thin air.
Say you have 3 months to deliver the project, you would typically need to assign a PM at about 10% of the total budget, so £5k.
£5k spread over 2 months is £2.5k (etc) per month.
Typically you would give this to an existing PM you employ full time of course, if they have the capacity.
Remember there’s managing the sales pipeline, which can be tricky as projects really can land at any time, then there’s new pitch work that comes in, sick leave, holiday leave .. etc etc .. the list is goes on. There are a lot of variables to consider and always unknowns to account for.
So due to one of the many variables puts you in position where you don’t have anyone to deliver, so your thoughts go to getting a freelancer onboard for the 2 months duration?
Not including the recruitment fees (if you’re using an agency), you might be lucky and get one you know that is available right now, which is great .. or is it? Aside from you normally have to find one which can take time you don’t have, good PMs are hard to find. So you can expect to pay anywhere between £550-£800 per day for a senior, which means you will be paying for a full time contracted PM, for the two month project anywhere between £5,500 and £8,000 for a £5k budget (not including recruitment fees). Remember the time they are budgeted to spend on the project would be roughly a few hours a day, the rest of the time they are unbillable.
Of course this doesn’t make financial sense. So you are left with these choices:
- Moving projects around the team to free up some space
- Dumping it on someone you think can handle the extra load
- Spending the money on a freelancer with the hope another project comes in that can justify their existence
Neither sounds particularly good.
So why not simply pay for a PM to manage the project for the allocated budget?
Let’s explore;
So for a £50k project that has a PM budget at £5k over 3 months at around £100 per hour charged out at, that equals:
£2,500 (monthly budget) / £100 (per hour charged out at) = 25 hours per month (roughly).
You pay a part time PM between £50 per hour, you make your £50 per hour just on the PM resource, which in my experience is a lot more than most agencies make after expenses, and you get a project delivered with no hassle, no fuss.
Meaning overall we would cost £1,250 per month for the 25 hours instead of between £5,500 and £8,000 in total.
Money saved, money earned!
If you’re interested in chatting about this as a potential option please give us a shout.