The 8 Wastes of Starting Lean

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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The Eight Ways of Starting Lean

Lean construction is built on timeless principles that help us eliminate waste, increase flow, and respect the people who make projects possible. We often reference the eight wastes of lean: overproduction, excess inventory, transportation, defects, over-processing, waiting, unused talent, and unnecessary motion. These wastes are powerful to learn and apply, but I have come to realize that before teams even get to practicing lean, they face other barriers that keep them from starting.

These are what I call the eight ways of starting lean. They are not meant to replace the traditional eight wastes. Instead, they are obstacles that block the very beginning of the lean journey. If we do not address them, no amount of sticky notes, pull planning sessions, or improvement videos will get traction.

I first shared this idea on LinkedIn, and it resonated with thousands of people. The conversation showed me that the industry is ready to talk about what really gets in the way of continuous improvement. Some critics pushed back, saying we should not alter or expand the sacred lists of lean. But in my mind, that is the opposite of lean thinking. Lean is about adapting, innovating, and tailoring systems to meet the unique needs of teams and projects. If we refuse to grow and evolve, we risk turning lean into the same rigid bureaucracy it was designed to disrupt.

So here they are: the eight ways of starting lean.

Ignorance
Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is projects delivered late, families missing time with loved ones, injuries on jobsites, and frustration on teams. Too many people in leadership positions proudly state that they have not read a book in decades or that they do not need training. Would you trust a doctor who bragged about not studying since medical school? Construction leaders carry the same responsibility for human lives, and ignorance is unacceptable. Continuous learning is the antidote.

Fixed mindsets
Fixed mindsets can appear in anyone, even lean consultants. Learning one tool or method and then clinging to it forever is a dangerous trap. Some people learn pull planning and suddenly declare themselves lean experts. But lean is much more than sticky notes on a wall. True lean thinking requires constant growth, questioning, and humility. If you believe you already know it all, you have stopped learning and therefore stopped being lean.

Racism and sexism
Lean cannot thrive in toxic soil. Racism and sexism are destructive to human potential and collaboration. If you believe certain people are less capable because of their gender or race, you are not only harming individuals but also blocking the possibility of team unity and respect for people, which are cornerstones of lean. This is a simple litmus test: if you cannot treat others as equals, you are nowhere near ready to implement lean.

Unchecked egos
Ego is often the loudest barrier to improvement. The ego wants significance, recognition, and comfort. It resists change because change threatens identity. It creates excuses about time, relevance, and certainty. True progress requires presence and humility. Lean can only take root when the ego is set aside and leaders open themselves to learning, listening, and adapting.

Procrastination
Procrastination convinces us to delay improvement until later, when conditions are perfect or when we have more information. But there is never a perfect time. Imagine a carpenter refusing to adopt a better way of cutting wood until next month. That would be absurd. The right time to improve is always now. Continuous improvement is not a scheduled event. It is a way of life.

Lack of discipline
Some teams believe lean will implement itself with little effort. They expect culture to shift by mere mention of the word or by a single workshop. That is not how change works. Lean requires discipline, consistency, and resilience. It demands leaders who model the behaviors, push through resistance, and stay the course long enough for the system to take hold. Without discipline, lean becomes just another buzzword.

Poor time management
This one is critical. Many people say they are too busy to improve. They chase emails, jump from fire to fire, and stay late at the office. In reality, poor personal organization and lack of capacity prevent them from focusing on what matters most. Lean requires time to reflect, to learn, and to plan. Without mastering time management, teams will never create the space needed for improvement.

Blaming others
Perhaps the most destructive of all is the habit of blaming others. Leaders say trades do not care anymore, workers have no work ethic, or young people are lazy. The truth is that this complaint has been around for centuries. Records from the 1930s, the 1950s, and every decade since show people making the same claim that “nobody wants to work anymore.” It is a lazy excuse that distracts from real accountability. In reality, most trades and workers are highly skilled and motivated, often in spite of the poor systems they are forced to work in. Leaders must take extreme ownership instead of pointing fingers.

When we face these eight ways of starting lean, we prepare ourselves and our teams to adopt the traditional lean principles with clarity and commitment. It is not enough to know the eight wastes. We must also remove the barriers that prevent us from even beginning. Ignorance, fixed mindsets, racism and sexism, unchecked egos, procrastination, lack of discipline, poor time management, and blaming others must be addressed head-on.

Lean is not frozen in time. It is alive, growing, and adaptable. If we want our industry to thrive, we must be willing to evolve and innovate. That is the true spirit of learning.

Key Takeaway
Starting lean requires more than understanding the eight wastes. It demands that we confront the human and cultural barriers that keep us from even beginning. By overcoming ignorance, fixed mindsets, ego, and blame, we create the space for lean principles to take root and transform our projects.

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Goldratt’s Rules of Flow

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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Today I want to share something that has transformed the way I look at projects: the rules of flow. These rules come from Eliyahu Goldratt’s work, and they are as relevant to construction as they are to manufacturing or any other complex system. They focus on fixing real problems, eliminating waste, and ensuring that people and resources are used in the most effective way possible.

The first rule is to avoid bad multitasking and control your work in the process. On a project site, it is tempting to chase every open area or jump on every opportunity to get something done. But spreading crews across too many tasks at once eats up capacity. Equipment like forklifts, cranes, and hoists get overused, management attention gets diluted, and the team loses focus. Even if it looks like progress on the surface, it creates hidden waste. The discipline is to stay focused on what is truly needed, limit work in process, and protect the flow.

The second rule is to verify the full kit before starting. You would not expect a craftsman to begin work without their tools, materials, and information. Yet in construction, crews are often mobilized without everything they need. This leads to delays, frustration, and rework. Full kit readiness means ensuring that information, approvals, layout, and materials are all in place before work begins. Like a Minecraft chest that has every item needed to build, a complete kit is the key that unlocks flow.

The third rule is triage to ensure the right priorities. In healthcare, triage means treating the most critical patients first so the hospital does not collapse under its workload. On a jobsite, triage means focusing on the most urgent bottlenecks rather than spreading energy evenly. The bottleneck defines the pace of the project. If you resolve that constraint, everything else improves. Leaders must be willing to make tough calls, assign resources wisely, and focus on the priorities that truly drive outcomes.

The fourth rule is to ensure synchronization between tasks, people, and resources. Construction is a team sport, and it rarely goes smoothly when departments or trades operate in isolation. Synchronization means aligning the work of multiple groups so that handoffs happen cleanly and the overall system moves forward together. Sometimes this requires shifting people away from one area even if it slows local progress, because the bigger priority is optimizing the whole. A jobsite where everyone works at 100 percent capacity without coordination is far less effective than one where resources are balanced in service of overall flow.

The fifth rule is to increase the dosage when problems repeat. In construction, we often treat symptoms rather than causes. If the same issue arises over and over, adding more temporary fixes only hides the waste. Increasing the dosage means committing more effort to preplanning, preparation, and problem solving. Instead of sending crews to clean up messes or work overtime, invest the time and focus upfront to prevent those issues from recurring.

The sixth rule is to avoid unnecessary rework by finding and addressing the root cause. Every time rework happens, it drains resources and morale. Leaders must resist the urge to patch problems quickly and instead step back to ask why they occurred. Root cause analysis allows us to eliminate the underlying issue and protect future flow.

The seventh rule is to standardize when improvising is costly. While flexibility is sometimes useful, too much improvisation introduces chaos. Standardization stabilizes processes, creates consistency, and lays the foundation for continuous improvement. As Charlie Dunn often says, improvement is the house that standardization built. A stable environment gives people confidence and makes innovation sustainable.

The eighth rule is to abolish local optimization and focus on global optimization. Suboptimization happens when departments or trades try to maximize their own efficiency without regard to the overall system. It may feel productive in the moment, but it harms the project as a whole. Global optimization means directing resources to bottlenecks, aligning with overall priorities, and judging success by the flow of the entire project rather than individual output.

When I look back at my own career, every major breakthrough I experienced in construction tied back to understanding flow. From learning at the Bioscience Research Laboratory to reading Goldratt’s The Goal, these principles have consistently reshaped the way I see projects. They cut through complexity and simplify the focus: avoid distractions, prepare fully, prioritize wisely, synchronize efforts, eliminate root causes, standardize where it counts, and always optimize for the whole.

Construction does not have to be a struggle against chaos. By applying the rules of flow, we can build projects that are more efficient, safer, and more rewarding for everyone involved. These rules are not theoretical. They work on real jobs, with real people, and they deliver real results.

Key Takeaway

Flow in construction is created by focus, readiness, and alignment. When we stop multitasking, prioritize bottlenecks, and optimize the whole, projects move faster and smoother.

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CPM is a Poison That Ruins Everything

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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I want to talk today about something that I believe is deeply damaging to our industry: advocating for systems that hurt people. Specifically, I am talking about CPM scheduling. At first glance, it may look like an effective tool, but when you peel back the layers, it becomes clear that it exploits workers, creates waste, and fuels many of the problems that plague construction today.

I did not come to this conclusion lightly. I started out as a worker and a field engineer. I even played a role in hurting my father-in-law’s company by unfairly treating trade partners, and that realization hit me hard. I saw firsthand how systems can crush people, and that is when I made the commitment to change course. The truth is, CPM has been normalized in construction, but normalization does not equal right. Just because it is common practice does not mean it is acceptable.

Some argue that the system is fine and it is people who misuse it. I fundamentally disagree. Saying the system is perfect, but people are the problem, is an excuse. People are not inherently broken. People adapt to the systems they are placed in, and when the system is destructive, destructive outcomes follow. You cannot blame workers for failing inside of a broken process.

Let me compare this to a broader point. There are those who believe human beings are inherently evil, pointing to children bullying each other in preschool as proof. But what really happens in preschool? Kids are placed in a confined environment with limited resources, away from their parents, and expected to navigate complex social hierarchies. They learn behaviors from adults who model taking, controlling, or forcing their way through situations. The problem is not the child’s nature, it is the environment. The same principle applies in construction: if you create scarcity, pressure, and unrealistic expectations, people will react in ways that look negative, but really they are just trying to survive.

This is why I say CPM is not a neutral tool. It is destructive by design. It locks teams into baselines that ignore real-world dynamics. It forces recovery plans that mean trade partners must work unsafe hours, stack crews, or burn out their people. It creates environments where rework, material waste, and inefficiencies multiply. And when you zoom out, you realize it fuels the very mental health crises our industry struggles with, including high rates of depression and suicide.

If you think that is dramatic, let me draw a stronger comparison. I once looked at how cartels operate, and while the severity is different, the conceptual similarities are alarming. Cartels thrive on addiction, exploitation, corruption, intimidation, and violence. CPM, in its own way, feeds similar cycles. It becomes addictive to rely on schedules that look precise on paper but fail in practice. It exploits workers through unrealistic demands. It fuels corruption when owners and lawyers weaponize schedules to withhold payment or shift blame. It creates intimidation in OAC meetings where trade partners are grilled against an impossible baseline. And it leaves destruction in its wake when projects pile up waste, burnout, and mistrust.

The point is not that CPM is equal to organized crime, it is that advocating for CPM while knowing its consequences is perpetuating harm. Leaders in construction have a responsibility to stop supporting systems that damage people. Saying you will change it from within is not good enough if the foundation is already broken.

If you are a leader, it is your job to examine the systems you run. Look at the process, the culture, and the behaviors they drive. Do not fall into the trap of blaming people. When workers, foremen, and trade partners are exhausted, unsafe, and demoralized, the root cause is the system, not their character.

I know I am being direct here, maybe even blunt. But I believe this matters too much to water it down. You can have a blog, a career, or even an entire consulting business built on CPM. That does not make it right. That does not make it harmless. It is wrong, and we need to stop normalizing it.

As an industry, we can and must build systems that respect people, elevate human nature, and enable better outcomes. We must hold ourselves accountable to choose approaches that heal rather than harm. I am calling on you, as a builder and as a leader, to refuse to advocate for systems that are destructive, no matter how common they are. We owe it to our people, our industry, and our future.

Key Takeaway

Systems, not people, are the problem. Leaders must stop advocating harmful methods like CPM and instead build processes that protect workers and elevate the industry.

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Random Topics

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

Read 5 min

In leadership and construction, the way we focus our attention can either build a culture of excellence or quietly destroy it. Over time, I have noticed that success comes when we choose to highlight and reward the right people, set a standard for fairness, and embrace the challenges that make our work meaningful.

One of the most important concepts I have learned is to make winners famous. In any organization, you usually have three groups of people. The top third are highly engaged and committed, the middle third are somewhere in between, and the bottom third are resistant or negative. Too often, leaders spend most of their energy trying to fix problems in the bottom group, but this creates the wrong incentive. When you reward negativity with attention, human nature encourages others to drift in that direction.

The opposite is also true. When leaders focus on their best performers and most bought-in team members, others begin to strive toward that level of excellence. What you measure and reward is what people will naturally become. If you want a culture of winners, you must reward your winners.

Making winners famous does not mean overworking them or assigning them to fix every problem on every struggling project. That is a quick way to burn out your strongest people and dilute their impact. Instead, give them the best opportunities, invest in their training, and create an environment where they can shine. Care for them by listening to their input, involving them in meaningful decisions, and ensuring they feel valued. Most importantly, give them recognition and visibility. Highlight them in meetings, celebrate their achievements publicly, and create opportunities for them to share their success with others.

When you make your top performers the standard, the rest of the organization sees what is possible. Jealousy may appear at first, but eventually people realize that tearing others down will not elevate them. The only way forward is to rise to the level of the best. This creates a culture where everyone is striving to improve.

Another concept that has been on my mind is how power and privilege can lead to abuse if not managed carefully. The bigger you get, the easier it becomes to take advantage of others. I see this often in the construction industry with large general contractors. Their size gives them influence and privilege, but too frequently, that privilege is used in ways that harm trade partners. For example, I once worked with a large contractor that took nine months to pay a simple invoice. When a company grows and knows that people need them, the temptation is to leverage that position unfairly.

This principle extends beyond business. On a personal level, I have noticed similar patterns in everyday life. For instance, I often see privilege in action during small moments like traveling. As a white male, I experience situations where I am treated differently than others around me. Security checks are shorter, scrutiny is less, and space is often assumed rather than negotiated. These may seem like small things, but they reveal how unearned privilege can shape behavior and expectations. The point is not to punish people for privilege but to recognize that with it comes a responsibility to treat others fairly and respectfully.

The same applies to large construction firms. Size and influence should not be an excuse for abuse. Instead, they should carry the responsibility of setting the standard for fairness, respect, and timely collaboration. Being bigger should mean being more considerate, not less. Leaders and companies alike should be mindful of the space they take up, the influence they wield, and the way they treat others who may not have the same advantages.

Finally, I want to address the idea that lean methods or tact planning are too hard. I hear this complaint often, but I challenge that mindset. Nothing worthwhile has ever been achieved by choosing what is easy. The reason construction planning systems like tact or lean feel difficult is because they demand discipline, commitment, and change. Yet it is exactly this difficulty that makes them valuable. Growth, progress, and excellence are not found in what is comfortable but in what stretches us.

Think about it: would you be excited to go to work every day if it were just easy and predictable? Probably not. It is the challenge that makes the work fulfilling. The obstacles and complexities of construction are what give us the chance to learn, adapt, and ultimately achieve something remarkable.

If we want to elevate our industry, we must embrace this truth. Make your winners famous, recognize and manage the responsibility that comes with privilege, and lean into the difficult systems that create flow and clarity. Success is not about doing what is easiest, it is about doing what is right and meaningful.

Key Takeaway

Focus on celebrating top performers, use privilege responsibly, and embrace the challenges of lean systems because growth only happens when we rise to meet what is hard.

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What to Expect from the Meeting System

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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In construction, the way we structure our meetings and planning systems can make or break the success of a project. Over time, I have seen patterns that either drive productivity forward or stall it completely. One of the most damaging practices I continue to see is when teams ask trade partners to create their own weekly work plans and submit them separately for someone else to combine. At first glance, it may seem harmless, but this practice wastes time, destroys flow, and undermines the entire Last Planner System.

The idea of each trade generating a separate weekly plan is based on a flawed belief that construction can be managed through fragmented inputs stitched together after the fact. The problem is that these plans rarely align with the pull plan, they often ignore the six-week lookahead, and they completely disconnect from the milestones that should guide the project. Instead of creating alignment, this approach breeds confusion and wastes the capacity of trade partners who should be focusing on zone control, roadblock removal, and flow.

Even worse, I often see these disconnected weekly plans converted back into a CPM schedule, which is then filtered into yet another weekly plan and distributed to the trades. The result is a cycle where information gets buried in layers of complexity until no one trusts the plan, and trade partners simply ignore it. This is command-and-control thinking dressed up as lean, and it hurts projects more than it helps.

The right way to approach planning is straightforward. Start with a pull plan tied to a milestone that is based on proper zoning. From there, develop a tact plan that provides structure and flow. The six-week lookahead should filter from this production plan, not from disconnected guesses or a bloated CPM schedule. During the trade partner weekly tactical, roadblocks should be removed, resources confirmed, and commitments secured. That produces a flowable weekly work plan that the team can actually rely on.

From this system, the day plan becomes a natural extension, ensuring that crews have the permissions, tools, and clarity needed for tomorrow’s work. Finally, percent plan completion should be tracked honestly, capturing both the commitments kept and the quality of handoffs. When each meeting serves its true purpose, the entire production system works as intended.

To make this stick, it helps to clarify what outcomes we should expect from each meeting in the Last Planner System. In the pull plan session, the outcome is clear zoning, coordinated sequencing, realistic durations, and buy-in from the trades. In the team’s weekly tactical, the outcome is balance, ensuring people have the right coverage and space for PTO while still protecting flow. In the strategic planning and procurement meeting, the goal is an updated master production plan and procurement log, with materials secured on time.

During the trade partner weekly tactical, the outcome must be a flowable six-week lookahead, a realistic weekly work plan, and a shared commitment from the team. At the day’s plan, the outcome is clarity for tomorrow with everything ready. In the percent plan complete session, the outcome is a true reflection of promises kept, buffer management, and roadblock removal effectiveness.

The common thread across all of this is flow. If your planning meetings do not serve the flow of work, then they are failing. If your weekly work plan is created by compiling separate trade submissions, you are wasting time. If your CPM schedule is being treated as the source of truth, you are relying on a tool that cannot create flow. And if your meetings are being held without a focus on specific outcomes, you are adding noise instead of clarity.

Construction thrives on clarity, commitment, and flow. When we honor these principles, the Last Planner System becomes more than a process, it becomes a way of building projects with respect, trust, and reliability. When we misuse it, layering unnecessary complexity, we sabotage the very outcomes it was designed to deliver.

Key Takeaway

When I focus my meetings on clear outcomes and tie everything back to flow, I give my teams the clarity and structure they need to succeed.

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All Instructions Are Written and Verbal

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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Why Superintendents Must Lead with Visual Communication

One of the most important reminders for superintendents is this simple truth: if you want to change something on your project, it must be written down and clearly communicated both visually and verbally. Anything less is reckless and destructive.

I have seen projects of every type and size. Hospitals, laboratories, airports, bridges, custom homes, data centers, the list goes on. With every project, one principle remains constant: when superintendents make changes verbally without updating plans, schedules, and visuals, they undo all the progress the team has worked to create.

Imagine you have spent weeks pulling together a production plan, coordinating with trades, setting up lookaheads, and aligning the master schedule. Now imagine that one superintendent walks the site and casually gives verbal directions without documenting the changes. At that moment, every second of planning that went into the project was neutralized. The master schedule is meaningless. The last planner system is discarded. The supply chain is left disconnected. The field team is now running blind.

That is how quickly verbal-only direction dismantles a jobsite.

The military figured this out long ago. General Patton required that all orders be written and then followed by verbal explanation. Written orders alone can be misinterpreted. Verbal orders alone can be forgotten or reshaped into something they were never meant to be. Together, they create clarity and accountability. The same standard must apply to construction leadership.

A superintendent who does not think and communicate through visuals is a liability. If you want something to change, you must update the production plan, ensure it is reflected in the schedule, share it visually, and follow up with verbal direction. This discipline is not optional.

The dangers of skipping this process are enormous. When superintendents run jobs from their heads, they create silos. They default back to command-and-control leadership. They destroy consistency and reporting. They eliminate key performance indicators. They cut off the project managers and engineers who depend on updated plans to coordinate supply chains and resources. Most damaging of all, they introduce massive variation into the project, making outcomes unpredictable and trust impossible.

I used to frame this issue as “getting everything out of a superintendent’s head.” Today, I say it more plainly. A superintendent who does not communicate visually and in writing does not understand the true role of the position. That person is not only failing to do the job, but is actively undermining the systems that protect the team, the client, and the project.

Why does this still happen? In most cases, it comes down to one of three causes: habits, laziness, or the desire for significance.

Some superintendents have simply fallen into bad habits over years of experience. They are used to issuing verbal commands and have never been trained to operate differently. Others are lazy, choosing the path of least resistance rather than taking time to properly update plans.

But the most concerning reason is significance. Some superintendents intentionally hoard information because it makes them feel indispensable. If the plan lives in their head, everyone has to come to them for answers. They become the gatekeeper, the hero, the one person the project cannot function without. This may give them a sense of power, but it holds the entire jobsite hostage. It is a method of job security born out of incompetence, and it is unacceptable.

Superintendents are not meant to be heroes or bottlenecks. They are meant to be leaders who create clarity and consistency so that the entire team can thrive. When you insist that all changes be documented visually and verbally, you are not just protecting the flow of the project, you are protecting the trust, safety, and productivity of everyone involved.

Every system we build to elevate construction depends on this discipline. The master schedule, the weekly work plan, the day plan, the reporting systems, the supply chain connections, all of it collapses without consistent written and visual communication.

The role of a superintendent is too important to be reduced to memory and ego. The projects we build are too complex and too valuable to rely on verbal commands. It is time for us to raise the standard across the industry.

If you are a superintendent, commit today to this simple rule: all changes go into the plan first. They must be written, visual, and shared with the team before they are spoken. This is how you protect your project. This is how you lead with integrity. This is how you elevate construction.

Key Takeaway

Superintendents who give only verbal instructions undo all planning and destabilize projects. True leadership means documenting every change visually and verbally so teams can work with clarity and consistency.

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Batch, Balance, & Pull, Feat. Jim Johnston

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

Read 5 min

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on how our industry approaches construction management, scheduling, and leadership. Too often, we get caught up in outdated systems, clinging to processes that don’t actually make our projects better. What I want to do here is share three short but powerful thoughts that highlight where we’re stuck and how we can move forward.

The Rise of the Builders

Over the last several decades, construction has drifted toward heavy administration. Project management certifications, endless reports, and layers of administration have often taken priority over actual building. What I see now is a growing imbalance with project managers being elevated while builders in the field such as superintendents, field engineers, and foremen are sidelined. The truth is, project managers are vital. But their focus should be on what really matters, which is supporting production, not drowning teams in paperwork and reports. To truly progress, we need to restore balance. The industry must shift into what I call the rise of the builders where well-trained superintendents, field engineers, and foremen lead with strong production systems and lean practices. Our library of builder-focused resources is growing, and with each new book we are setting the stage for this shift. Builders must be empowered again, not buried under administration. That is how we return to the greatness of construction once we know.

Stop Hiding Schedules from Trade Partners

Another behavior I continue to see is hiding the schedule from trades. Some leaders think that if trades see the buffers or milestones, they will take advantage of them or try to change the plan. So they keep the real schedule locked away and only share pieces. This is a destructive mindset. Trade partners are not enemies to manipulate, they are the ones who make construction happen in spite of our broken systems. Hiding information is dishonest, it kills collaboration, and it completely undermines systems like the Last Planner System which rely on transparency and shared knowledge. When you push people by keeping them in the dark, you only create fear, burnout, and inefficiency. In reality, trades want to finish strong, be productive, and work with others. They want to get off the job quickly and profitably. If they seem resistant, it is often because the system around them is flawed, not because they are trying to sabotage. We must build trust by being transparent. Share the full plan, include buffers, and align everyone around a common path. That is how you create a team environment that can achieve remarkable outcomes.

The Hell of CPM

Finally, let us talk about the critical path method, or CPM. I have seen it stress out teams, create mountains of administrative work, and still fail to give the insights we actually need to run projects. CPM forces people to spend endless hours entering activities, linking them, adding codes, filtering by trade, and struggling with logic changes. The result is a huge, complex schedule that takes so much effort to maintain that it overwhelms the team. Even worse, CPM does not tell us how to recover or take action. It is like watching someone drown and asking for binoculars so you can see it more clearly. You can see the disaster in detail, but you cannot do anything to fix it. Takt planning is different. It is about action, collaboration, and flow. It gives teams a clear path forward, not just more data to stare at. With Takt, we focus on saving the project, not just documenting its collapse. I have personally felt the nightmare of impossible schedules, chasing after goals that were set in ways no one could realistically meet. It is exhausting and demoralizing. CPM often recreates that same nightmare for project teams. We deserve better tools, and Takt offers exactly that, a way to coordinate, recover, and actually lead projects to success.

Moving Forward

These three reflections, the rise of the builders, the need for transparency with trade partners, and the rejection of CPM’s administrative nightmare, point to one conclusion. Construction needs a mindset shift. We can no longer cling to systems and behaviors that stall progress. Instead, we need to elevate builders, empower collaboration, and embrace production systems that actually work. If we do this, we will not only deliver projects more successfully but also create workplaces where people are respected, trusted, and proud of what they accomplish. That is the future I believe in, and it starts with us making these changes today.

Key Takeaway

Construction will only progress when we empower builders, trust our trade partners with transparency, and replace outdated scheduling with systems that actually drive action.

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Leading the Orchestra, Feat. Jared Davis

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

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Today I have Jared Davis, aka Jerbert, with me. We riffed on weekly work plans, takt planning, pull planning, meeting cadence, and a bunch of practical stuff that will help anyone trying to get production flow on site.

Jared is rolling out takt and weekly work plans with his Colorado Springs team and he had great questions. The big one was this: should weekly work plans be split by trade lanes or shown together? My default answer is to show them together in a time by location format. When all trades are visible you can see the lines of balance, spot conflicts, and manage flow. The goal is to have trades moving together at the right distance and speed. If a trade is too fast it can create an inefficiency gap. If one is too slow it drags the whole chain. Seeing them together helps you tune the orchestra.

Pull planning is still the most important touchpoint. Do one on one work with trades first to surface sequences, then pull those pieces together in a collaborative session. The weekly work plan and look ahead are not meant to be a command and control tool. They are a simulated production flow to help everyone visualize handoffs and make work ready. Think of the weekly work plan as your pre-kit checklist. If tack wagon 21 needs specific labor, materials, tools, permits, layout, and preceding activities, the weekly plan is where you confirm those items are ready.

I love the sheet music analogy. The takt plan is your score and you are the conductor. You do not micromanage every craftsman. You set the tempo, identify the handoffs, and help remove roadblocks. In daily huddles the team checks to see if the notes were hit. If not, root cause it, fix it, and move on.

One quick myth to bust. Many people worry that sharing the schedule with trades gives them the power to stall or use buffers willy nilly. That is not what trade partners do. They want to be productive and move on. Hiding the schedule breeds fear and mistrust. Transparency creates buy in. Share the plan, invite feedback, and use the plan to clear the path for the trades.

Practical tips Jared and I discussed that you can use immediately. First, set a five minute timer in the trade meeting and ask participants to name the top roadblock preventing them from doing the work. Make that the focus. Second, mark daily completions on the visual plan so it becomes a real time production tool. Third, treat the look ahead as the place where work is made ready and the weekly plan as the place where commitments are validated.

Tools like Canva, Miro, and simple QR codes can make the plan accessible to everyone on site. You can print boards, post QR links on the fence, and let the trades pull the plan up on their phones. It does not have to be high tech, but it must be visible, accurate, and actionable.

Finally, remember that the hardest part is the meeting cadence and the flow of information from strategic planning to look aheads to weekly work plans to the day plan and down to the workers. It takes practice to tune the cadence and the visuals. Expect to iterate. Expect to try several different huddle formats before you land on the one that actually works for your crew.

Jared closed with one of the best reminders. Be the change you want to see. If you want trades to collaborate, create the conditions for them to do it. Make yourself available, be present, and learn something. Do better. Do far better. On we go.

Key Takeaway

I lead like a conductor. When I show all trades together in a takt plan, I can spot inefficiencies, make work ready, and help the team flow as one.

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Short, But Good Thoughts

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Jason Schroeder

Read 5 min

Three Critical Shifts We Need in Construction

I am writing this blog from California while taking a little PTO, and it feels refreshing. Out here, mornings are cool and quiet, unlike Phoenix where the heat lingers through the night. That change of pace got me thinking about construction in the same way. Sometimes, we get stuck in old patterns, but a shift in perspective helps us see what really matters. Today, I want to share three short but important thoughts that could change the way we build.

1. The Rise of the Builders

For years now, I have noticed a troubling trend. Many companies are leaning heavily toward project management, placing PMs above superintendents rather than treating them as equals. This imbalance has created a culture where administration outweighs production.

We have lived through two eras of construction. The first was Taylorism, where efficiency was forced on workers through micromanagement. The second has been the rise of administration, fueled by certifications, paperwork, and endless reporting. What has suffered in the process is the role of the true builder, the field engineer, the foreman, the superintendent.

It is time for a third era. An era focused on profitability, productivity, and production systems. That means developing skilled builders who know production theory, lean principles, and collaborative practices. Project managers still have a role, but it must be refocused on supporting real work, not drowning teams in useless reports.

That is why the book series The Art of the Builder is so important. By building a library of resources for foremen, superintendents, and field leaders, we can restore balance. The future belongs to the builders who lead with clarity and production based thinking.

2. Stop Hiding Schedules from Trades

Another issue that comes up far too often is hiding project schedules from trade partners. I have heard multiple times that leaders withhold the full schedule because they do not want trades to see buffers, adjust dates, or challenge milestones. The idea is to keep trades in the dark so they will work harder under a false sense of urgency.

This is destructive thinking. First, it is dishonest. Second, it erodes trust with the very people doing the work. Third, it undermines the Last Planner System, which depends on shared information and collective planning. Collaboration cannot happen in secrecy.

Trade partners are not trying to game the system. They want to do quality work, finish on time, and move on to the next project. When leaders withhold information, it only creates fear, mistrust, and delays. The truth is, hiding the schedule is not a strategy, it is incompetence or fear.

When schedules are open, transparent, and aligned with production principles, trade partners can buy in, coordinate effectively, and take ownership of outcomes. Trust drives results. Hiding schedules destroys them.

3. Escaping the Hell of CPM

The last thought I want to share is about CPM scheduling. I have talked about this before, but it is worth repeating because of how destructive it is in practice.

Two of our integrators were recently on a massive project where the senior scheduler demanded that every weekly work plan be entered into CPM, networked together, and exported. The process was so overwhelming that it drained time, energy, and morale. Instead of leading the project, the team was drowning in administration.

This is the nightmare of CPM. It consumes hours of work but provides no clear path to recover a project. It is like standing by a river while your child is drowning and choosing to watch through binoculars instead of jumping in to save them. CPM gives you data, but it does not save the project.

Takt planning, on the other hand, provides actionable systems that help teams align, adapt, and execute. It turns planning into a proactive tool instead of a bureaucratic burden. If construction is going to move forward, we have to leave behind the nightmare of CPM and embrace production systems that actually work.

Final Thoughts

These three ideas, the rise of the builders, transparency with trade partners, and the shift away from CPM, are not just random thoughts. They are urgent calls to action. We need to equip field leaders with knowledge, trust our trade partners with full information, and adopt systems that actually drive production.

If we want construction to thrive, it starts with building differently. It starts with elevating the builders.

Key Takeaway

We must bring back the rise of the builders, trust our trade partners with transparency, and abandon CPM for systems that truly drive production.

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2. Stop Hiding Schedules from Trades

3. Escaping the Hell of CPM

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