Construction Superintendent Certification Program National Center for Construction Education & Research (NCCER)
In the Leadership, Ethics, and Communication: Succeeding as Project Steward course, you’ll examine your leadership role on a job site as superintendent. You’ll explore the connection between ethics and leadership, learn about the qualities and principles of leadership, and dive into the challenges of managing projects and people. You’ll examine the key role communication plays in effective leadership, and some of the specific communication challenges you’ll face as a superintendent. Finally, you’ll learn how to create your own personal leadership development plan.
In the Quality: Delivering Excellence course, you’ll learn where to find the definitions of quality for your project and scope of work and how to apply quality requirements. You’ll recognize how you can build and support your team’s quality work as a project leader. Finally, you’ll have the management tools you need to support a quality culture on your projects.
In the Information Management: Delivering Accurate and Timely Information course, you’ll learn what information management means for you on a project team; how to identify important information; and how to document processes for information creation, storage, dissemination, review, and approval. You’ll also learn how a team develops an information management plan and how to clearly define the roles and responsibilities associated with every document, in addition to learning the capabilities of information management processes and tools.
In the Scheduling: Developing and Managing the Project Timeline course, you’ll learn how to develop a schedule, use the schedule as a tool, and address schedule delays. You’ll also learn the purpose of schedule maintenance and reporting and analyze other uses for the schedule.
From the Work Planning: Ensuring Safe and Productive Workflow course, you’ll be able to participate in preconstruction planning to ensure a design is constructable. You’ll master how to lead medium-range and short-term construction planning, breaking down the work into finer details as you go. You’ll be able to utilize your planning skills, knowledge base, and field experience to ensure the success of every project you lead.
In the Cost Control: Monitoring and Influencing Project Spend course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of estimating, cost control, project accounting, and cost reporting. You will learn how to review a cost report critically and to use earned value and productivity methods to help manage craft labor costs. You’ll also learn techniques like managing materials, logistics, and waste minimization to control and reduce project costs.
The Contracts and Procurement: Understanding and Implementing Project Agreements course covers the importance of contracts in any construction project, arming superintendents with the contract knowledge you need to protect both the project and the company. You’ll leave this course able to identify the advantages of each contract type. You’ll learn how each contract clause is related to the superintendent role. You’ll also understand how to manage procurement of equipment, materials, and subcontracts.
The Resource Management: Optimizing People, Materials, and Equipment course covers key topics around project-level planning and the labor market, including assessing project labor needs and costs. It also provides strategies for managing equipment, tools, and material needs. Finally, the course covers the benefits of project training programs.
The Human Resources: Building a Strong Team course covers the superintendent’s HR responsibilities, the responsibilities of the Human Resources department, and how a superintendent works with them to build a strong team. The course covers recruiting and onboarding techniques, as well as strategies for evaluating, retaining, and transitioning employees. The last section gives an overview of key laws that affect the way superintendents work with employees.
In the Change Management: Minimizing the Impact of Change course, you’ll learn to define project scope, identify, and assess the impact of changes, and assign responsibility for changes. You’ll learn how to lead a team prepared to recognize change, follow the proper change control documentation process, and carry out an effective change management system.
The Risk Management and Claims Prevention: Protecting Your Business course covers how to develop a comprehensive risk management plan. Superintendents will leave this course understanding how to identify, mitigate, and manage risk with confidence. You’ll also learn how to prevent claims and your role in defending a claim, when necessary.
The Legal Concepts and Regulations: Understanding Construction Law course delves into the basics of contract law and how it plays into day-to-day work on a construction site. The course makes sense of essential legal terms and conditions that will make understanding a contract easier. It covers claims and how to manage them as a superintendent, from documentation to contractual notice, all the way through dispute resolution. The last section covers key laws and regulations.
In the Constructability: Integrating Construction Knowledge into Design course, you’ll learn what constructability is and why it matters. You’ll learn about the key considerations to incorporate in your constructability analysis and how constructability fits into all phases of a project. You’ll also learn about constructability reviews. Finally, you’ll explore case studies illustrating constructability in practice.
In the Site Logistics: Coordinating Project Resource Flow course, you’ll learn about the key elements of a site logistics plan, just-in-time delivery, and how to develop a site logistics plan. You’ll also learn about the connection between the site logistics plan and project goals, including safety, quality, production, and schedule.
In the Project Closeout: Finishing Strong course, you’ll learn why closeout is so important and why you must begin planning and organizing for closeout early in the project. You’ll be prepared to make a smooth handoff to the owner by ensuring that you and your team deliver a facility that meets all requirements and that you deliver all other contractual obligations, including all documentation.
The Safety and Health: Protecting People course covers key concepts related to your role in safety as superintendent. You’ll learn about topics such as leadership in safety, the cost of incidents and injuries, OSHA inspections, safety best practices, hazard recognition and remediation, safety education and training, and incident and emergency preparedness.
