Projects & Development
Pre-opening is a sequencing problem
Most delayed openings were not built late. They were sequenced badly.
Author
TEX Management
The critical path runs through operations
Fit-out has its own programme and its own contractors. What usually slips is everything that has to happen alongside it: recruitment, systems, licensing, supplier onboarding and training. These carry long lead times and no visible site presence, so they start late and then compress against a fixed opening date.
Hire the heads of department early
Department heads are not a staffing line item; they are the people who specify the operation. A chef who arrives after the kitchen is built inherits someone else’s equipment schedule. A rooms lead who arrives after the PMS is configured inherits someone else’s rate structure. Bringing them in early costs payroll and saves rework.
Systems before soft opening, not during
PMS, POS, channel manager, booking engine and the connections between them need to be live, tested and reconciled before the first paying guest, not in parallel with them. A soft opening that doubles as a systems test produces bad data and a team that learns workarounds it will keep for years.
Protect the handover
The moment the project team leaves is the moment most openings lose momentum. Snagging, warranty items, supplier terms and open decisions need a named owner on the operating side before handover. Otherwise they quietly become nobody’s job and resurface in the first season as service failures.
