Month: April 2026

How to Get Good Promises from Your Team and How to Promise Brilliantly

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Good Promises Require Good Relationships: The Skills Most Construction Leaders Were Never Taught

Hal Macomber’s insight, that a construction project is most powerfully understood as a fluid, complex network of promises between people who care reframes everything about what project leadership means. If the root cause of most construction failures lies in broken or badly made promises, then the fundamental discipline of project delivery is not schedule management or contract administration or even Lean tool implementation. It is the quality of the promises the team makes to each other and the quality of the relationships that make those promises reliable.

This is uncomfortable territory for an industry that has organized itself around systems, documents, and contractual protections rather than relationships. It is also unavoidable territory for anyone who wants to understand why the Last Planner System works when it works and falls short when it does not.

What Makes a Great Promise Possible

Charles Spinosa, writing in Harvard Business Review, argues that a great promise must be public, active, voluntary, explicit, and mission-based. These attributes describe the promise itself. But the promise does not emerge in a vacuum. It emerges from a relationship. And the quality of the relationship determines whether the promise will be made well and kept honestly.

The question worth sitting with is this: what is it about a work relationship that makes a great promise possible? And equally important: what is it about promises that makes great relationships possible?

The answer is not charm, politeness, or even genuine personal liking though all of those help. What actually determines the quality of a working relationship for promise-making purposes is how well two people can listen to each other, the level of trust they extend each other, and how frankly they can speak to each other. Listening deeply enough to catch what you did not expect to hear. Trust robust enough to say “I’m in trouble” before the problem has become a crisis. Frankness honest enough to share an uncomfortable assessment without the relationship collapsing under the weight of it.

Why Good Relationships Are Hard to Build in Construction

The difficulty of developing a high-trust, frank working relationship in construction is not primarily a matter of time or effort although both are required. It is a matter of what stands against it. In most project environments, there is an unspoken resignation that pervades the team: nothing will change around here. People speak enthusiastically about improvement in meetings while privately telling each other that the change is naive or impossible. They highlight the risks of the new approach to their management while appearing publicly supportive.

This dynamic does not come from bad intentions. It comes from the stress of standing against collective resignation and the risks of calling out what colleagues are actually thinking rather than what they are publicly saying. Developing a relationship where great promises emerge requires the courage to surface that resignation directly and the skill to do it in a way that opens a real conversation rather than triggering defensiveness.

The alternative developing strategies that do not require investing in high-trust, frank relationships, produces a team that can function without that investment. They coordinate. They exchange information. They meet contractual requirements. But they do not watch out for each other. They do not surface problems early. They do not go the extra mile when the team needs it. And when something goes wrong, as it always does on a construction project, they respond to the failure rather than catching it on its way.

Three Dimensions of Trust

Trust in a working relationship has three components that are worth evaluating separately when a promise feels uncertain.

The first is competence. Does the person have the skill required to deliver their commitment? A sincere, engaged person who lacks the technical capability to execute the scope will still fail the promise, not from bad faith, but from genuine incapacity. Recognizing competence limits early, when there is still time to provide support or adjust the plan, is far better than discovering them after the deadline.

The second is sincerity. Is the person being truthful and frank about the situation? A competent, engaged person who is not being honest about their progress, who is managing appearances rather than managing the commitment is making a promise that will fail in a way that is much harder to predict or prevent. Sincerity is the quality that allows the Acknowledgment stage of the commitment loop to function: the person who is falling behind says so early, which gives the team time to respond.

The third is engagement. Does the person care about the overall goals and outcomes of the project in the same way you do? Competent, sincere people who do not genuinely care about the project’s mission will execute their own scope adequately while remaining indifferent to whether the adjacent handoffs succeed. Engagement is what produces the inventiveness and the extra effort when problems hit, the willingness to find novel solutions rather than just doing the contracted minimum.

New Skills for Better Promises

The skills that support better promise-making are not taught in construction management programs. They are developed through deliberate practice in real working relationships. Three specific skills make the greatest difference.

Listening for difference means paying attention to what you did not expect to hear, the background concerns and ambitions of the person making the promise, the question that reveals something about how they actually understand the commitment. Most managers listen for confirmation of what they already expect. Listening for difference requires actively looking for the unexpected, which is where the information that matters for promise reliability usually lives.

Paying attention to shifting mood means recognizing the internal signal that a promise is at risk before it is clearly failing. When a teammate asks an insightful question or proposes a creative alternative approach, confidence in their commitment grows. When a manager finds themselves giving increasingly detailed instructions because the teammate does not seem to understand what matters, there is an internal signal of anxiety and irritation that is an early indicator of unreliability. Learning to notice and name these shifts rather than ignoring them is a diagnostic skill that experienced project leaders develop informally. Making it deliberate accelerates the development.

Examining trust assessments means regularly asking, about each significant promise: is this person competent, sincere, and engaged? Not as a judgment but as a diagnostic. When the answer to any one of the three is uncertain or negative, that is where attention needs to go — not to the task itself, but to the relationship dimension that is undermining the promise.

Here are the practices that develop these skills in real project contexts:

  • In the daily huddle, pay attention to your own mood and the mood of team members, not just the content of what they report, but what the tone reveals about how they actually feel about the commitment.
  • In project operations review meetings, listen for the qualities of the promises being made, competence, sincerity, engagement, not just the dates and percentages.
  • When a team member appears to be losing sight of the project goals, invest time understanding why and finding what would re-engage them, rather than escalating pressure.
  • Practice asking the three trust assessment questions about each significant commitment, and using the answers to guide where you invest your relationship-building attention.

Connecting to the Mission

At Elevate Construction, the pre-construction process, the trade partner onboarding, the conditions of satisfaction alignment, the pull planning session is designed in part to build the relationship foundation that makes reliable promises possible throughout the project. The pull plan is not just a scheduling exercise. It is a relationship-building exercise in which trade partners commit to a sequence they helped create, in the presence of other trade partners who will depend on those commitments. That social reality is what makes the commitment meaningful in a way that a top-down schedule never can. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The network of promises a construction project depends on is only as strong as the relationships that produce those promises. Invest in the relationships. The promises will follow.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes a work relationship capable of producing great promises?

The combination of deep listening especially for what you did not expect to hear, genuine trust extended in both directions, and the frankness to speak honestly about difficult situations without the relationship collapsing. These three qualities together create the conditions for promises that are reliable.

What are the three dimensions of trust in a promise relationship?

Competence does the person have the skill to deliver? Sincerity are they being honest about their actual situation? Engagement, do they care about the project’s overall goals in the same way you do? A breakdown in any one of the three produces an unreliable promise, even if the other two are strong.

Why is resignation such a barrier to good promise-making in construction?

Because resignation, the unspoken belief that nothing will really change, undermines the sincerity of every commitment made in its presence. People speak enthusiastically in public and privately undermine the effort. Building relationships capable of confronting and moving through resignation is one of the most important things a Lean leader can do.

What is “listening for difference” and how does it improve promise quality?

It is the practice of paying active attention to what you did not expect to hear, the background concern, the unusual question, the alternative proposal that reveals how the other person actually understands the commitment. Most managers listen for confirmation. Listening for difference finds the information that matters for reliability.

Why can these relationship skills not be developed through reading alone?

Because they are working-life skills that require practice in real relationships under real conditions. Reading can build conceptual understanding, but the actual development of deep listening, mood awareness, and frank assessment sharing happens through deliberate practice with colleagues over time, ideally with coaching support.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

How to Recover Promises that are at Risk

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Recovering At-Risk Promises: How to Spot the Signs and Have the Frank Conversation

A construction project is, at its most fundamental level, a network of promises. The trade partner who commits to having the zone ready by Friday. The designer who commits to the RFI response by Tuesday. The superintendent who commits to the pre-construction meeting happening three weeks before the first wagon. When those promises are made well and kept reliably, the project flows. When they are made poorly or broken without honest communication, the costs compound, faulty work packages, schedule slippages, cost overruns, crews waiting, quality problems discovered late.

Most experienced project leaders develop a gut sense for when a promise is failing. The manager who reports hopeful progress with an unusual number of caveats. The delivery date that has been reset twice without any coherent recovery plan. The tone in a trade partner’s update that communicates something different from the words being spoken. These are the warning signals that something is going wrong. The question is whether the leader acts on those signals quickly and directly or waits, hoping the situation resolves itself, while the problem compounds.

The Commitment Loop: Why Some Promises Are Reliably Kept and Others Are Not

Hal Malcomber, one of the founders of the Lean Construction movement, introduced a framework in 2004 called the commitment loop, a four-stage model for understanding how reliable promises are made and kept. The model is simple conceptually and sophisticated enough to apply to the complex network of commitments that a large construction project depends on.

Every reliable promise moves through four stages. Preparation is where the request is genuinely understood where both parties understand what is being asked, what conditions of satisfaction must be met, and what the consequences of the commitment are. Negotiation is where the plan is developed collaboratively, not where one party presents dates and the other passively accepts them, but where both parties work through what is genuinely achievable and commit to an outcome they both believe in. Performance is where the work is executed and problems are communicated honestly as they emerge, not held until the deadline, not surfaced only after failure. And Acknowledgment is where the completion is recognized, feedback is shared, learning is captured, and trust is reinforced for the next round of commitments.

When any one of these stages is skipped or done poorly, the promise is likely to fail. And the failure is usually visible as a warning signal before it fully materializes, if the leader knows what to look for.

The Early Warning Signals

The commitment loop provides a specific diagnostic for identifying at-risk promises before they are already failing. Each stage of the loop, when poorly executed, produces characteristic warning behaviors.

In the Preparation stage, poor listening during the request conversation produces a promise that was never genuinely understood. The person who commits without fully appreciating what was asked has not made a reliable promise, they have made a polite agreement that will not survive contact with the actual work.

In the Negotiation stage, the absence of genuine collaboration produces a plan that nobody actually owns. When dates are set and activities are planned without the people responsible for execution contributing to the design of the plan, the result is a plan that fits the schedule but does not fit reality. Nobody promised the outcome; they accepted the date.

In the Performance stage, the absence of frank communication when problems emerge is one of the clearest signals of a promise in trouble. The person who is falling behind but continues to report on track until the deadline arrives, either out of optimism, pride, or fear of the conversation is not managing a promise. They are managing an appearance. By the time the failure is acknowledged, the window for meaningful recovery has often closed.

In the Acknowledgment stage, the absence of feedback, learning, and recognition after completion is a warning signal for future promises rather than the current one. When completion goes unacknowledged when the effort was simply absorbed without recognition and the team moved immediately to the next task, trust is subtly eroded and confidence in the next round of commitments weakens.

Here are the behavioral signals that indicate a promise is at risk before it is clearly failing:

  • The person reports progress but with an unusual number of qualifications and conditions.
  • Dates have been reset once or twice without a coherent recovery plan explaining why the new date is more reliable.
  • Communication about the commitment has become less frequent or less specific.
  • The tone of updates suggests resignation rather than confidence.
  • Questions about the commitment produce defensive or evasive responses rather than direct answers.

The Practice That Recovers the Promise

The most common response to a gut sense that a promise is failing is to say nothing to the person responsible, discuss concerns with other colleagues, and quietly begin developing a Plan B. This approach fails on two levels. It adds the waste of the Plan B on top of a deteriorating situation. And it allows the relationship between the two parties to degrade silently, the mistrust builds without ever being addressed, which makes the next round of commitments even less reliable.

The better path is a frank conversation, held immediately, directly with the person making the promise. Not a blame conversation. Not a threat. A frank sharing of the assessment, what has been observed, why it creates concern, and what matters to the person raising it, combined with a genuine request for the other party’s perspective and a commitment to work together on a new promise that both parties can trust.

The assessment-sharing conversation structure provides a practical framework for this:

Ask for permission: “I’d like to share an assessment with you about this commitment. Is that okay?” If permission is given, acknowledge it: “Thank you for allowing me to say what’s on my mind.” Then share the assessment directly and specifically: “The date has slipped twice in three weeks, which puts the whole sequence at risk. I don’t believe the new date is any more reliable than the previous ones.” The person receiving the assessment accepts it at face value, not arguing or defending, but expressing genuine acknowledgment: “Thank you for your sincerity. I can see why you would say that. I’ll reflect on this and come back to you by this afternoon.” The conversation closes with appreciation: “I appreciate the conversation and look forward to talking later today.”

Both a negative and a positive assessment should be shared when possible and the conversation should be reciprocal, inviting the other party to share their own assessments in return. The structure is not a performance script, it is a set of stabilizers for a type of conversation that most people find difficult to initiate. Once the practice of frank assessment-sharing becomes comfortable, the structure fades into the background and the conversation becomes natural.

Why Relationships Are the Foundation

Frank conversations recover promises. Relationships are what make frank conversations possible. When the relationship between two project professionals is built on mutual respect and genuine care for the project’s success, a difficult conversation about a failing promise is recoverable without permanent damage. When the relationship is primarily contractual and adversarial, the same conversation becomes a dispute.

This is why the quality of relationships in the Last Planner System between the general contractor and trade partners, between the superintendent and the foreman, between the project manager and the designer is not a soft consideration. It is the foundation of the reliability of the commitment network the whole system depends on. A technically perfect pull plan with perfect zone sizing and perfect sequencing, executed by teams that do not trust each other enough to speak frankly when a promise is at risk, will produce inconsistent results.

At Elevate Construction, the pre-construction process, the trade partner onboarding, the pull planning session, the conditions of satisfaction alignment exist in part to build the relationship foundation that makes frank promise conversations possible when they are needed. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Reliable projects are built from reliable promises. Reliable promises require frank conversations. And frank conversations are only possible when the relationship can support them.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the four stages of the commitment loop and why does each one matter?

Preparation ensures the request is genuinely understood. Negotiation ensures the plan is collaboratively designed and the outcome is genuinely committed to. Performance ensures problems are communicated honestly as they emerge. Acknowledgment ensures completion is recognized, feedback is shared, and trust is reinforced. Skipping or doing any one poorly makes the promise likely to fail.

What is the most common sign that a promise is at risk before it is clearly failing?

Dates that have been reset without a coherent explanation of why the new date is more reliable, and communication that becomes less frequent or more qualified as the deadline approaches. Both signal that the person responsible may already know the promise is in trouble but is not saying so.

Why is developing a Plan B without speaking to the person responsible a poor response to an at-risk promise?

Because it adds the waste of the Plan B on top of a deteriorating situation while allowing the relationship to erode silently. The mistrust that builds without being addressed makes the next round of commitments even less reliable.

What makes the assessment-sharing conversation effective for recovering a failing promise?

It is direct and specific rather than vague or accusatory, it invites the other party’s perspective rather than delivering a verdict, and it aims for a new promise that both parties can trust rather than just documenting the failure.

Why do relationships determine the quality of promises on a construction project?

Because frank conversations, the mechanism for recovering at-risk promises are only possible when the relationship can support them. Adversarial relationships suppress the honest communication that the commitment network depends on, making the entire Last Planner System less reliable than it should be.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

The Lean Leadership Pattern Puts People at the Center of a Challenge

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Lean Leadership: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How the Pattern Actually Works

Leadership is one of the most commonly discussed topics in any industry, and also one of the most commonly misunderstood. The traditional view that leadership is a position, that leaders know more than the people they lead, and that the leader’s job is to direct others toward outcomes the leader has already identified is deeply embedded in how construction organizations are structured and how they develop their people. It is also inadequate for the challenges that Lean construction asks organizations to take on.

Lean leadership is something different. It begins with a different definition of leading itself: helping and supporting others to get from where they are to where they want to be. And it goes further than that growing others’ skills and capabilities while meeting a challenge. The growth is not incidental. It is the point.

The Foundation: Toyota’s Leadership Model

Jeffrey Liker and Gary Convis describe Toyota’s leadership model in The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, and it provides a useful structure for understanding what Lean leadership requires in practice.

The first element is committing to self-development as a leader. Toyota says they make people while they make cars. The leader’s responsibility is to learn to lead and to show the way to model learning openly rather than projecting certainty. Leaders who are not visibly learning are not modeling what they want to see in the people around them.

The second element is learning to coach and develop others. Toyota and other Lean organizations emphasize teaching as the central role of the supervisor and manager. The supervisor’s primary contribution is not the work they do; it is the capability they build in the people doing the work. Training within Industry Job Instruction is the foundation. Coaching follows from that.

The third element is supporting daily Kaizen. Doing better every day, everywhere, and by everyone is the operational expression of growing people through their work. When every person is solving problems defined as the gap between what is desired and what currently exists, the organization is continuously improving through the combined contribution of every person’s attention and effort.

The fourth element is creating a vision and aligning goals. Toyota leaders paint a picture of where they are headed and the major steps along the way. This is not just communication, it is enrollment. It aligns the actions of many people toward a shared direction rather than leaving each person to define success on their own terms.

Leading Is About We, Not Me

One of the most important reframes in Lean leadership is the shift from ME to WE. Leadership is not fundamentally about the individual leader’s expertise, authority, or decisiveness. It is about the recognition that complex challenges require collective capability, and that the leader’s role is to create the conditions under which that collective capability can be applied.

This means leading starts with a disposition to take on challenges with others, not to solve them alone and communicate the solution. The people who know the work best are the people doing the work. Who better to lead improvement than the experts closest to the problems? Lean leadership develops leaders at every level of the organization, not just at the top. The challenge of most organizations is not finding one exceptional leader. It is developing the leadership capacity distributed throughout the organization that makes continuous improvement possible everywhere and every day.

Katie Anderson, author of Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn, captures the essential humility this requires: being a people-centered leader requires accepting that you are not perfect, that you do not have all the answers, and that you need to always grow and learn more as a leader and as a learner. The posture is not knowing, it is becoming. Leading to learn is putting in the practice that builds proficiency over time.

The Lean Leadership Pattern

Lean leaders follow a recognizable pattern that applies regardless of the specific challenge they are addressing.

First, they establish a challenge to take on with others. Not a task to complete alone. A challenge, something that will not be immediately accomplished, for which the path is not fully known, that requires people beyond the immediate working group, and that will not follow a straight line. The word challenge carries weight: it communicates that this is genuinely hard, that it will require experimentation and learning, and that the outcome is not guaranteed.

Second, they start experimenting through the PDCA cycle which in the Lean leadership context often begins with Study rather than Plan. The leader first studies the current condition carefully: what does standard work actually look like, what is the current performance, and what observations are relevant to the challenge? From that study, the leader establishes a next target condition, a meaningful interim step toward the challenge that creates the context for the team’s experiments. Plans are made explicitly: what change will be made, what outcome is expected, and why. The experiment is run. The results are studied. The learning informs the next experiment. Throughout this entire cycle, the leader’s primary attention is on growing the skills of the people doing the experimenting, their problem-finding skills, their problem-solving skills, and their skills for making effective change.

Third, Lean leaders approach challenges at the systems level. Most real challenges are not simple; they are complex and changing. Simple linear causality (A causes B causes C) does not explain them. Instead, circular causality operates: A causes B which causes A again, as in reinforcing cycles where the rich get richer and the skilled get more skilled. Understanding this means that when adopting something new, Lean leaders deliberately identify what needs to stop as well as what needs to start and what needs to continue. This systems-level thinking stabilizes change rather than destabilizing it by introducing something new while the old system is still operating.

Fourth, learning is paramount. The leader is not there to be helpful in a transactional sense. The leader is leading to learn for themselves, for the workgroup, for the customers, and for the company. Improvements and problem-solving are done to grow people. The leader supports the learning and ensures it is shared broadly rather than staying with the individual who did the experimenting.

Here are the signals that a Lean leadership pattern is operating correctly in an organization:

  • Leaders are visibly learning and sharing what they are learning rather than projecting certainty.
  • Problems are brought to the surface by the people closest to the work rather than suppressed until they become crises.
  • Experiments are run deliberately with a specific expected outcome and a genuine check on what actually happened.
  • Improvements are standardized and shared broadly rather than staying with the team that made them.
  • The leader’s attention in any improvement cycle is on the development of the people doing the work, not just on the outcome.

Why This Matters in Construction

The construction industry is full of leaders in the positional sense, project executives, general superintendents, project managers, foremen. It has far fewer leaders in the Lean sense, people who are genuinely growing others’ capabilities while taking on challenges together. That gap is one of the primary reasons the industry struggles to sustain Lean improvements across projects and across time.

When Lean is treated as a set of tools to be implemented rather than a leadership practice to be developed, the tools work on the projects where the tool champion is present and stop working when they move on. The knowledge stays with the individual. The capability is not distributed. And the next project starts from the same place as the previous one.

Lean leadership closes that gap by making development the product of every improvement effort. The target condition matters. The experiment matters. And the growth of the people who ran the experiment matters equally. When all three compound together, improvement, learning, and capability development, the organization becomes genuinely better across time rather than cycling through the same challenges repeatedly.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Lean leadership starts with a challenge and ends with better people. Everything in between is the practice.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes Lean leadership different from traditional leadership?

Traditional leadership focuses on directing others toward outcomes the leader has identified. Lean leadership focuses on growing others’ capabilities while taking on challenges together, the development of people is as much the goal as the achievement of the outcome.

Why does Lean leadership require starting with Study rather than Plan?

Because effective planning requires understanding the current condition accurately first. Jumping to solutions without studying what is actually happening produces countermeasures that address the wrong problems. Study grounds the planning in reality rather than assumption.

What does it mean to approach a challenge at the systems level?

It means recognizing that complex challenges involve circular causality rather than simple linear cause-and-effect. Lean leaders identify not just what to start doing but what to stop doing and what to continue which stabilizes the change at the system level rather than introducing disruption that undermines the improvement.

Why is self-development the starting point of the Toyota leadership model?

Because leaders cannot develop others if they are not actively developing themselves. Modeling visible learning showing that growth is ongoing regardless of position or experience is the most powerful signal a leader can send about the culture they want to build.

What is the role of a next target condition in the Lean leadership pattern?

It is the interim step toward a larger challenge that creates the context for focused experimentation. Setting a target condition at roughly 60 percent of the gap to be closed makes progress visible and motivation sustainable, while the experiments designed to reach it build the knowledge and capability that make the next target condition achievable.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

Leaders Start by Aligning and Committing to a Challenge

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Lean Leadership and the Challenges Worth Solving

There is a version of Lean practice that is focused entirely inward on the efficiency of the immediate production system, the reduction of waste in the current workflow, the improvement of this project’s percent plan complete. That focus is legitimate and valuable. But Lean leadership at its fullest extends further outward than the current project or the current organization. It asks what challenges are worth solving, who benefits from solving them, and how the capability that Lean builds can be directed toward problems that matter at the scale of people’s lives.

Sustainability. Infrastructure resilience. Housing availability and affordability. Social equity. These are not abstract concerns, they are the downstream consequences of how the construction industry does or does not build well. And Lean leaders who train their attention outward, who ask what their organization’s work is doing for customers, partners, supply chain participants, communities, and the planet, are taking on the challenges that compound over time into genuine transformation.

Leaders Shape the Problems People Are Solving

Toyota and Subaru both set a challenge more than a decade ago: achieve net-positive environmental impact everywhere they do business. Nothing leaving their facilities that goes to landfill. The achievement of that goal required thousands of people contributing in many ways over many years. It also built something the goal did not explicitly target: a workforce that got very good at problem finding, creative thinking, and making changes that stick. While they did well for the planet, they reduced costs and developed people more capable of taking on the next challenge.

This is the compounding effect of Lean leadership directed at real challenges. The challenge creates the context for the capability. As people work together to solve problems that matter, they develop the problem-solving instinct, the creative flexibility, and the collaborative discipline that makes them better at everything they do. The improvement is not a program. It is what happens when the challenge is real and the people solving it are trusted to find the way.

MIT is another illustration. In 2019, their conclusion was that taking the curriculum virtual would require many years of preparation. In March 2020, they did it in three days. The arrival of COVID-19 forced organizations everywhere to make changes they had never thought possible, and they made them. The evidence from that period is clear: we are capable of far more than our normal operating assumptions suggest. The constraint is usually not capability. It is the presence of a challenge significant enough to unlock it.

This means that leaders shape the problems people are solving, not just by assigning tasks, but by naming the challenges that are worth the team’s highest effort, and by creating the conditions in which people can bring their full capability to bear on those challenges.

The Questions That Surface the Right Challenges

Finding the right challenges to pursue is itself a practice that benefits from divergent thinking with others. Before converging on a challenge to address, explore these questions with stakeholders, customers, partners, and team members:

What needs are we not meeting for our customers? What is making it difficult to meet those needs? What do our supply chain partners need that we are not currently providing, and what makes that difficult? What needs do people inside our organization have that are not being met, and what do others find difficult in working with us? What do I need that is not available, and what is difficult for others working with me?

These questions are most valuable when explored with the people who would benefit from the challenge being addressed not just leadership deciding alone what the challenge should be. Involving stakeholders in defining the challenge produces a better challenge definition and generates the buy-in that makes the subsequent effort sustainable.

Flow as the Primary Improvement Indicator

Once the challenge is identified, flow is the principal indicator of what needs attention and how improvement efforts are performing. The goal is always to be able to finish what we are about to start without interruption. Flow efficiency optimizing the whole system rather than individual resources is the mechanism that makes that goal achievable.

Carla Ciepliski, National Director of Lean Practice with Colliers, describes it precisely: Lean is foundationally about supporting smoother flows in work execution. We want flow efficiency holistically, and we want to ensure time is productively utilized. Both together not either alone.

The condition for flow is that work is ready for people and people are ready for work. When both conditions are true simultaneously, productivity is at its highest and flow is possible. When either condition is false, when the work is not ready, or when the people lack the skills or tools to execute it flow stops and waste appears.

Flow interruptions are the signals that identify where improvement is needed. Process quality problems interrupt flow when defects require rework before the next step can begin. Material unavailability interrupts flow when crews are ready but their materials have not arrived. Wrong tools or equipment interrupt flow when setup is impossible or unsafe. Work that is not genuinely ready interrupts flow when the crew arrives to find that the predecessor has not actually cleared the zone. Skills gaps interrupt flow when the crew is present but unable to execute the scope in the expected time.

Noticing the interruption is the first step. Recording it, taking a picture, documenting the present cause, and capturing the data even before the root cause analysis makes the pattern visible over time. The Pareto principle applies: roughly 80 percent of flow interruptions come from 20 percent of causes. Finding and working on that 20 percent is where improvement effort produces the most leverage.

Here are the signals that a team is using flow as a genuine improvement indicator rather than just a concept:

  • Flow interruptions are recorded at the point of occurrence, not reconstructed from memory in the weekly meeting.
  • The team has identified the most frequent causes of interruption and is actively working on the top one or two.
  • The work readiness check is the work actually ready for the crew, and is the crew actually ready for the work? happens before the crew starts, not when they arrive to find the zone is not clear.
  • Root cause analysis follows each interruption when time permits, and the data informs the next improvement experiment.
  • The improvement agenda is driven by data about where flow actually stops, not by what leaders think should be improved.

Target Conditions as the Structure for Experimentation

Improvement toward a large challenge, 98% on-time delivery, zero landfill waste, fully reliable weekly work plan commitment requires a structured approach that keeps progress visible and motivation sustained. The concept of target conditions provides that structure.

Think of the ultimate challenge as the moon shot, the ambitious destination that defines the direction. Then think of a target condition as a roof shot, a meaningful step toward the moon shot that is achievable within a defined timeframe and serves as the context for the team’s improvement experiments.

If current on-time delivery performance is at 73 percent and the challenge is 98 percent, the first target condition might be 88 percent at least halfway to the goal. The team designs a series of experiments to discover what changes will move performance to 88 percent. When they reach that target condition, the next one might be 95 percent. Each roof shot creates the context for a focused improvement agenda. Each achievement confirms that the direction is right and that the effort is producing results. Both are essential for sustaining the long effort that large challenges require.

The target condition is not a performance requirement; it is a learning goal. The experiments conducted on the path to the target condition generate the knowledge that makes the next step possible. Sometimes an experiment reveals that the root cause was different from what was assumed. That is valuable information that refines the next experiment. The progress is not just toward the target; it is the development of the capability that will eventually reach the challenge.

Connecting to the Mission

At Elevate Construction, the mission to build remarkable people who build remarkable things is a Lean leadership statement. Remarkable people are the ones who are growing through challenges. Remarkable things are the result of that growth applied to problems that matter. The outward perspective asking who benefits from what we do and what challenges are worth the team’s highest effort is what connects the production system to the purpose that makes it worth sustaining. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Set challenges worthy of the people you lead. Use flow to find where to improve. String roof shots toward the moon shot. And build the capability that makes every next challenge possible.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a target condition and how does it differ from a goal?

A target condition is an interim performance level on the path to a larger challenge, a meaningful step that is achievable in the near term and serves as the context for focused improvement experiments. A goal states what you want to achieve. A target condition structures the experiments that get you there.

Why is flow the primary indicator of improvement opportunity?

Because flow interruptions are where waste lives, every stop in the production process is a signal that something in the system is not designed to support uninterrupted work. Addressing the most frequent causes of interruption produces the highest leverage improvement in overall productivity.

How does setting big challenges develop people and organizations?

Because solving real challenges develops the problem-solving capability, creative thinking, and collaborative discipline that people cannot develop through routine tasks. Toyota’s zero-landfill challenge built a workforce better at taking on future challenges as a direct result of the effort required to meet the original one.

What does “work ready for people and people ready for work” mean in practice?

It means that before a crew begins any zone or scope, two conditions are confirmed: the work is genuinely ready (predecessor complete, materials staged, information available, permissions in hand) and the people are genuinely ready (skills present, tools available, crew sized correctly). When both are true simultaneously, flow is possible and productivity is high.

Why is the Pareto principle useful for prioritizing improvement efforts?

Because approximately 80 percent of flow interruptions come from approximately 20 percent of causes. Identifying and addressing that top 20 percent produces dramatically more improvement than spreading effort evenly across all observed causes.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

The Truth About RFIs

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 17 min

RFIs Are Rework for Information: The Construction Industry’s Most Normalized Waste

There is something the construction industry has decided to accept as just how things are done, and it is worth sitting with how strange that acceptance is. A request for information an RFI is treated as a normal, expected, routine part of construction project management. Software systems are built to track them. Contracts specify turnaround times. Teams measure how many they have open and how fast they are being closed. And almost nobody stops to ask whether the entire practice represents a failure that the industry should be embarrassed about rather than systematically managing.

Let me say it directly. An RFI is not a request for information. It is rework for information. It is waste for information. It is a symptom of incomplete design, batched communication, disrespect pushed downstream, and a production system that has been organized to tolerate defects rather than eliminate them at the source.

What an RFI Actually Is

When a contractor submits an RFI, it means the information they needed to perform the work was not in the drawings or specifications. Full stop. The drawings were incomplete, the coordination was insufficient, or the quality control on the design package did not catch the gap before the package was issued. The RFI is the field team’s way of requesting what should have been provided before they ever received the documents.

That is a defect. Not a feature of construction project delivery a defect. And like all defects, it carries cost: the cost of identifying the gap, the cost of formulating the request, the cost of routing it through a documentation system, the cost of processing it on the design side, the cost of waiting for the response, the cost of the delay to the work that cannot proceed, and sometimes the cost of the coordination problems that arise when related work continues without the missing information. Every one of those costs is pure waste effort expended to correct a problem that should not have existed.

The Arrogance of the 15-Day Turnaround

Here is where the normalized disrespect becomes most visible. A contractor submits an RFI which is a request for information the design team was supposed to provide and did not and the response is: we have fifteen days to respond per the contract. The design team is not embarrassed that their work was incomplete. They are exercising a contractual right to make the field wait three weeks for information the field should never have had to ask for.

If you had an error on lift drawings you produced for a crew and told them you would have the correction back in three weeks because contractually that was your turnaround time the response would be immediate and obvious: that is not their fault, they are waiting on information you owe them, and three weeks is not acceptable when work is stopped. Yet that same logic, applied to architects and engineers responding to RFIs, is treated as professional practice.

The arrogance of waiting for the contract deadline when a crew is stopped or worse, making decisions without the information and doing work that may require rework is the ultimate downstream disrespect. You pushed a defective product to the field, and the field is paying for it with waiting, improvisation, and potential rework. The least the design team can do is treat the response as urgent.

The Better Alternative

The goal should not be to manage RFIs more efficiently. The goal should be to eliminate the need for most of them. That requires attacking the problem at two levels.

The first level is design quality. Better design coordination, more complete documents, more rigorous quality control before issue, and earlier involvement of the people who will build the project all reduce the gap between what the drawings show and what the field needs to know. When specialty contractors participate in design coordination before documents are issued identifying clashes, flagging constructibility problems, and asking the questions before the documents go out many of the RFIs that would have been submitted never need to be submitted.

The second level is communication systems. Even with excellent design quality, some questions will arise in the field. The question is how those questions are answered. The current RFI process is a batched, documented, routed, logged, tracked communication system that treats a question as something requiring multi-step administrative processing rather than something requiring a fast, reliable answer. The alternative is a communication system that provides that answer directly, quickly, and by the most appropriate means and documents it formally only when the official record genuinely requires it.

A fifteen-minute morning huddle between the contractor’s team and the design team answers questions before the crew is waiting. A WhatsApp channel between the field engineer and the design coordinator answers questions in real time instead of in a queue. A co-located design and construction team the big room model that IPD enables answers questions the moment they arise rather than routing them through a documentation system. Frank Gehry was known for running submittal and RFI review parties where teams gathered together and resolved questions in a shared session rather than passing them through individual channels over weeks. The result was dramatically faster turnaround and dramatically fewer open items.

Here are the specific waste categories that the RFI process produces:

  • The defect itself information that should have been on the drawings was not
  • The work required to identify, formulate, and submit the request all non-value-adding effort
  • The communication channels and documentation systems required to route and track the request
  • The waiting the delay to work that cannot proceed until the information arrives
  • The revise-and-resubmit cycle when the first response does not fully resolve the question
  • The coordination problems that arise when related work proceeds without the missing information

Every one of those is waste. The whole process is waste, generated by a defect that should have been prevented upstream.

What Better Looks Like

A small number of RFIs will always exist on complex projects information that could not reasonably have been captured in the documents given the standard of care in the industry, questions that arise from genuinely unforeseeable field conditions. That is acceptable. What is not acceptable is treating the current volume of RFIs as a normal baseline and optimizing the process for managing them rather than for eliminating them.

Better looks like design quality control that catches coordination gaps before the documents are issued. Better looks like specialty contractor involvement in design coordination so the questions that would have become RFIs are answered before the documents go out. Better looks like communication channels between design and construction teams that provide fast, reliable answers when questions do arise. Better looks like answering the RFI by updating the electronic contract documents rather than creating a parallel documentation trail. And better looks like a culture on both the design and construction sides that is embarrassed by high RFI volumes rather than resigned to them.

The measure of a Lean production system is not how efficiently it processes waste. It is how effectively it eliminates waste at the source. RFIs are waste. The source is incomplete design and slow, batched communication. Address the source.

At Elevate Construction, the production planning system exists to put the right information in the hands of the right people at the right time the pre-construction meeting, the installation work package, the look-ahead that confirms information readiness before the crew enters the zone. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

We should let the RFI process disgust us just a little bit. That disgust is what motivates the improvement that gets rid of it.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is wrong with treating RFIs as a normal part of construction project management?

Because RFIs are symptoms of defects incomplete drawings, insufficient coordination, or inadequate quality control not features of a well-managed project. Normalizing them means accepting the waste they generate rather than eliminating the conditions that produce them.

Why is a 15-day RFI turnaround time a form of disrespect?

Because the crew waiting for the information did not create the gap. The design team did, by issuing incomplete documents. Making the field wait weeks for information they need to work because the contract allows it treats the design team’s schedule as more important than the production time the field team is losing.

What is the better alternative to the traditional RFI process?

Fast, direct communication channels morning huddles between design and construction teams, instant messaging platforms, co-location, or structured review sessions that answer questions before work stops rather than after a documentation queue is processed.

Why should RFIs be answered by updating the contract documents rather than creating a parallel record?

Because a parallel documentation trail creates another layer of waste managing two information systems rather than one. The answer belongs in the source of truth that everyone references, which is the contract documents themselves.

What is the acceptable baseline for RFI volume on a well-coordinated project?

A small number of RFIs arising from genuinely unforeseeable field conditions is acceptable. The large volumes that are typical on most construction projects are not acceptable they indicate design coordination failures that should be embarrassing to all parties rather than normalized as standard practice.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

Using Study-Adjust-Plan-Do for Experimental Learning

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Lean as a Human Development Strategy: The Leadership Shift That Changes Everything

There is a framing of Lean that has been gaining ground among the practitioners who have been at it the longest and seen the most implementations succeed and fail. Lean is a human resources development strategy that masquerades as an operations strategy. The operations improvements, better flow, less waste, more reliable commitments, faster handoffs are real and important. But they are the output of something more fundamental: a culture in which people are engaged in making their work better for themselves, for each other, for the customer, and for the organization. When leaders put people at the center of their attention, the operations improvements follow naturally. When leaders pursue the operations improvements without putting people at the center, the improvements are temporary.

This blog is about what Lean leadership looks like when it starts from that premise.

The Learning Cycle Starts with Study

The standard framing of PDCA places Plan at the beginning of the cycle. The premise is that the practitioner knows enough at the outset to choose a good experiment. In most real situations, that premise does not hold. Beginning with Study SAPD rather than PDCA is more honest about the actual conditions at the start of any improvement effort.

Study starts by examining the gap between the current condition and the next target condition. What is the standard work? How well is the current approach performing? What difficulties appear? What variation is being encountered? This examination grounds the improvement effort in reality rather than in assumption, and it makes the subsequent Plan more honest about what an experiment can actually test.

From that study, a target condition is set not the final destination, but the next step. An ambitious long-term goal is useful for direction. The experiment needs a target that is achievable enough to be tested in a reasonable time frame. Between where the team is now and where it ultimately wants to be, there is a next step. That next step is the target condition for the current experiment.

The Plan phase then establishes a hypothesis: where are we now, what specific change will we take, why do we think that action will be a step forward, and what do we expect to learn? These four questions turn the plan into a genuine scientific experiment rather than a confident guess. And because the hypothesis makes the expectation explicit, the Study phase after the experiment can compare what was expected against what actually happened and extract genuine learning from the gap.

One common trap in the Plan phase is trying to plan a series of actions rather than a single next experiment. The attempt to figure out in advance which sequence of actions will work most efficiently is usually a form of avoidance staying in the planning space rather than entering the learning space. The learning happens in the Do phase. The most productive thing a team can do is get into action quickly rather than trying to think their way to a solution.

Listening as a Leadership Skill

The Lean leader’s contribution to an experimental learning culture is not primarily methodological. It is relational. Three skills matter most: listening, engaging others’ thinking and action, and coaching.

Listening is the master skill. It requires deliberate, concerted practice not because listening is technically complex, but because the instinctive mode of leadership is to advocate for positions, provide direction, and give advice. Listening requires temporarily setting that instinct aside. The listening leader uses inquiry rather than advocacy, asking questions that help people express their concerns and articulate the possibilities they see. The leader’s advocacy, when it comes, encourages advocacy from the people being supported, it creates space for honest input rather than filling that space with the leader’s own conclusions.

What leaders listen for matters. Information is often the least useful thing in a conversation. More important is the mood of the people whether what they are expressing sounds like aspiration or resignation, confidence or fear, energy or depletion. A person who is exhausted or discouraged will not experiment effectively regardless of how good the methodology is. A leader who attends to mood has early information about what the team needs that a leader listening only for content will miss entirely.

Engaging people requires patience and persistence, especially with those who hold back. Some people are introverted. Some are carrying something outside of work that is consuming their attention. Some have been in environments where speaking up led to bad outcomes, and they need time to trust that this environment is different. The Lean leader who shows up as help rather than as authority who focuses on what is already important to the person, not on what the leader needs from them creates the conditions under which engagement eventually develops.

Coaching Over Advising

Coaching has become increasingly recognized as a critical leadership skill, but the most common misunderstanding of coaching is that it is sophisticated advice-giving. It is not. Coaching is the practice of asking questions that help the person being coached think through their own situation, identify their own next step, and commit to their own action rather than receiving the leader’s solution to their problem.

Michael Bungay Stanier’s seven questions from The Coaching Habit provide an accessible and immediately practical framework:

What’s on your mind? And what else? What’s the real challenge here for you? What do you want? How can I help? If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to? What was most useful for you?

These questions work because they move the conversation from the leader’s analysis of the situation to the person’s own. They surface what is actually on the person’s mind rather than what the leader assumes is there. They get to the real challenge rather than the presenting symptom. And they make the help the leader can provide responsive to what the person actually needs rather than to what the leader would do in their position.

One important note: coaching is not giving advice. That misunderstanding is common enough that Stanier wrote an entire follow-up book, The Advice Trap specifically to address it. The impulse to give advice feels helpful. It often prevents the person being coached from developing the capacity to solve the problem themselves which is the actual point of the coaching relationship.

Here are the signals that a leader is coaching effectively rather than advising:

  • The person being coached leaves the conversation with their own next step, not the leader’s recommendation.
  • The leader asks more questions than they make statements during the conversation.
  • The person being coached does most of the talking.
  • The conversation ends with the person more clear about their situation than when it started.
  • The leader resists the urge to share what they would do even when asked directly, instead turning the question back.

What Lean Leadership Actually Produces

When leaders practice experimental learning, deep listening, and genuine coaching rather than directing, something shifts in the people around them. They start engaging with their work differently. They surface problems rather than hiding them. They generate improvement ideas rather than waiting to be told what to change. They develop the skills of problem-finding, problem-solving, and making effective change skills that the organization accumulates as they develop.

This is the leverage point of Lean leadership. Individual productivity improvements are important. They are also finite and temporary if they exist only in the system design. But people who have learned to find problems, solve them, and make change that holds those people improve every system they encounter, project after project, year after year. The investment in their development compounds in a way that no single process improvement ever could.

This is why Lean, properly understood, is a human development strategy. The operations improvements are real. They are the evidence that the human development is working. When leaders put people at the center of their attention, firms resolve their engagement problem, their inclusivity problem, and create a workplace that is genuinely more worthwhile for the people doing the work, not as a side effect, but as the primary purpose.

At Elevate Construction, everything, the boot camps, the field implementation support, the free content, the coaching engagements exists in service of that purpose. Build remarkable people. The remarkable things follow. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Embrace Lean as what it actually is: a people development strategy that, as a natural consequence, produces better operations.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why start the improvement cycle with Study rather than Plan?

Because it is naive to assume we know enough at the outset to choose a good experiment. Starting with Study grounds the improvement effort in the actual current conditions rather than in assumptions, which makes the subsequent Plan more honest and the experiment more likely to generate genuine learning.

What is the difference between listening for information and listening for mood?

Information is what is said. Mood is how the person is oriented whether they are expressing aspiration or resignation, confidence or fear, energy or depletion. Mood tells the leader what the person needs from the environment to be able to engage effectively with the work, which is often more important than the content of what is being communicated.

Why is giving advice the wrong response in a coaching conversation?

Because advice substitutes the leader’s solution for the person’s own thinking. It may solve the immediate problem while preventing the person from developing the capacity to solve similar problems themselves. Coaching builds that capacity. Advice bypasses it.

What does “Lean is a human development strategy” mean in practice?

It means that the primary investment of Lean leadership is in developing people’s capacity to find problems, solve them, and make effective change and that the operations improvements follow from that investment rather than being pursued directly. When people develop those capacities, every system they touch improves continuously.

How does coaching differ from mentoring or managing?

Managing directs performance against defined expectations. Mentoring shares the mentor’s experience and knowledge. Coaching asks questions that help the person being coached think through their own situation and identify their own next step. All three have value coaching is specifically designed to develop the person’s own thinking and problem-solving capacity rather than transferring the leader’s.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

Leaders Take a Systems Thinking Perspective for Making Change

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Systems Thinking in Lean Construction: The Missing Piece That Explains Why Lean Stalls

In 2020, Jeffrey Liker revised the first of Toyota’s fourteen management principles for the second edition of The Toyota Way. The revision was small in word count and significant in implication. The principle now reads: base your management decisions on long-term systems thinking. That addition was not a minor update. It was Liker’s acknowledgment of something that had been embedded in Toyota’s practice since the 1950s but had never been made fully explicit: the entire Toyota Production System is built on a view of organizations as open systems, and you cannot successfully implement any part of it without understanding the system in which the implementation is happening.

This is the missing piece that explains why so many Lean construction implementations stall. The tools are not the problem. The tools are straightforward. The problem is that the tools are being added to a system that was not designed to accommodate them, and the system left unchanged pushes back until the new practice is abandoned and the old one resumes.

What a System Actually Is

When the word system is used in this context, it does not mean software, mechanical systems, or continuous industrial processes. It means an open system, one where people are actors affecting the behavior and performance of the system through their decisions, habits, policies, expectations, and mental models. Economies are open systems. Workgroups are open systems. Construction projects are open systems. Companies are open systems. The actors inside the system both shape the system and are shaped by it.

Two insights from the study of systems are particularly important for anyone trying to change how a construction organization or project team operates.

The first is the iceberg effect. The events visible above the waterline, the missed milestone, the failed pull plan session, the superintendent reverting to directive scheduling are produced by what lies below: patterns of behavior that repeat, structural conditions that reinforce those patterns, and the mental models that make those structures feel normal and inevitable. Responding only to the visible events without examining the patterns, structures, and mental models underneath them is what produces the feeling of addressing the same problems over and over without making progress. The root cause is always below the waterline.

The second is that seemingly unrelated acts are connected through flows of resources and reinforcing loops. Learning the basics of a subject creates the capacity for learning more advanced aspects, a reinforcing loop. But the time available for learning competes with the demands of ongoing work, a counteracting flow. When the competing demands win, the stock of learning capacity decreases and the reinforcing loop weakens. Understanding these dynamics explains why Lean learning in organizations so often loses to the urgency of daily project work, and it points toward the intervention needed: reducing the competing demands rather than simply asking people to do more.

Why Lean Practices Stall After Implementation

The existing practices on any project or in any organization are not random. They are coherent with each other. The prescriptive scheduling practices are matched to the performance metrics. The performance metrics are matched to the expectations of stakeholders. The expectations are matched to the mental models of what good project management looks like. This coherence is what makes the system stable and what makes it resistant to introducing new practices without adjusting the system as a whole.

When collaborative pull planning is introduced alongside prescriptive CPM scheduling, the two practices are in conflict. One requires trade partners to declare their own activities and commitments collaboratively. The other requires compliance with a sequence determined upstream. Trying to run both simultaneously does not produce a hybrid benefit, it produces a destabilized system where neither practice works well and the team eventually defaults to whichever practice has stronger institutional support, which is almost always the familiar one.

The Lean leaders who succeed at implementing Lean practices understand this dynamic and work with it rather than against it. They recognize that adding a new practice requires adjusting the surrounding system stopping some things, starting others, continuing what remains consistent. Three questions make this systematic:

What will we start doing? What will we stop doing? What will we continue doing?

These questions apply to processes and to leadership style simultaneously. The superintendent who wants collaborative pull planning to succeed must also shift from directive leadership to facilitative leadership not as a personality change, but as a deliberate adjustment to the role the superintendent plays in the planning meeting. The pull plan session facilitated by a superintendent who is used to giving direction will not produce the same result as one facilitated by a superintendent who brings questions rather than answers and creates the conditions for the foremen to think through the sequence together. The practice and the leadership style must adjust together for either one to work.

Delay as an Enemy of System Stability

One of the most direct applications of systems thinking to Last Planner practice is the timing of the daily stand-up or huddle. The purpose of the daily commitment management meeting is to manage promises among project participants to give each trade partner’s foreman the opportunity to report on the completeness of their commitments, make new ones, ask for help, and offer help, all in service of the team’s larger commitment to the phase milestone.

The systems thinking argument for holding that meeting at the end of the day rather than the beginning is straightforward: the more delay you have in a feedback loop, the less able you are to steer the system. If a commitment from yesterday was not met, waiting until tomorrow morning to communicate that variation creates an entire night of unnecessary urgency accumulation. Trades who need to adjust their plan, materials that need to be restaged, sequences that need to be reorganized, all of those adjustments can happen more smoothly and at lower cost if the information travels at end of day rather than at the start of the next morning.

This is not a minor scheduling preference. It is a systems principle: timely feedback enables steering. Delayed feedback undermines it. Making feedback timely, prompt notice of variation to plans, deliveries, quality outcomes, and staff availability is one of the highest-leverage adjustments a project team can make to the system of how it manages its commitments.

If a morning huddle is also needed to address site safety, crane time limitations, or material deliveries, there is nothing preventing one. And the morning huddle should communicate what actions are being taken in response to the variation that occurred yesterday which the end-of-day commitment review has already surfaced and processed.

Here are the warning signs that a project team is adding Lean practices without adjusting the surrounding system:

  • CPM scheduling and pull planning are running simultaneously with no deliberate decision about which governs production planning.
  • Leadership style in planning meetings has not changed, so collaborative tools are producing directive outcomes.
  • New Lean practices are added to an already full agenda without stopping anything that the new practices are designed to replace.
  • Variation in commitments is communicated at the next morning’s meeting rather than at end of day when the variation occurred.
  • The team reports that Lean is adding work rather than reducing it, a sign that the system has not been adjusted to accommodate the new practices.

Connecting to the Mission

At Elevate Construction, the integrated production control system, First Planner, Takt, Last Planner is designed as a coherent whole precisely because individual tools added to a non-Lean system produce the stalling described above. The system is designed together so that each component reinforces rather than conflicts with the others. The Takt plan informs the pull plan. The pull plan informs the look-ahead. The look-ahead informs the weekly work plan. The weekly work plan informs the day plan. The day plan is communicated in the morning huddle. And the end-of-day commitment review provides the feedback that steers the next day’s execution. Nothing in that chain is optional because removing any link destabilizes the whole. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Systems thinking is not an academic exercise. It is the lens that explains why the tools work when the system is right and fail when it is not and it is the lens that guides the adjustments that make the system right.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an open system and why does it matter for Lean construction?

An open system is one where people are actors who affect the system’s behavior through their decisions, habits, policies, and mental models. Construction projects and organizations are open systems which means Lean practices must be implemented with attention to the system conditions they are entering, not just to the practices themselves.

Why does adding a new Lean practice without stopping old practices create conflict?

Because existing practices are coherent with existing policies, metrics, and expectations. Adding a new practice destabilizes that coherence without creating a new equilibrium. The system pushes back until the new practice is abandoned unless the surrounding system is deliberately adjusted at the same time.

What are the three questions for adjusting a system when introducing new Lean practices?

What will we start doing? What will we stop doing? What will we continue doing? These questions ensure that new practices replace rather than add to the existing system, which is what prevents Lean from becoming an additional burden.

Why should commitment management stand-ups happen at end of day rather than the start of the next day?

Because the more delay in a feedback loop, the less able the team is to steer the system. End-of-day reporting of variation gives the team time to adjust before the next day’s work begins, rather than discovering the variation at the moment it affects the next crew’s ability to start.

What is the iceberg effect in systems thinking?

The visible events above the waterline, the missed commitment, the failed implementation are produced by patterns, structural conditions, and mental models that lie below. Addressing only the visible event without examining what produced it is what generates recurring problems.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

How to Onboard New Team Members in Construction (Lean Method)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Lean Leadership: Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn

Katie Anderson describes the Lean leader’s journey as “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.” That framing is more precise than it might appear at first. It is not just that Lean leaders happen to learn while they lead. It is that the act of leading genuinely, in the field, with real people and real problems is one of the most effective mechanisms for learning available to any practitioner. The two activities are not sequential. They are mutually reinforcing, and when a leader understands that relationship, the entire orientation of their leadership shifts from directing to developing.

What It Actually Takes to Learn

Before the question of how to lead for learning, there is the more foundational question of what learning requires. Formal education’s answer that learning happens through instruction, is demonstrated through examination, and eliminates those who cannot keep pace is a failure model. Construction’s equivalent that experience accumulates through proximity to work and eventually produces competence is better, but still insufficient. Both models treat learning as something that happens to people rather than something people actively do.

Erika Andersen, writing in the Harvard Business Review, identifies four attributes that genuinely skilled learners develop and sustain: aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability.

Aspiration is about where the attention goes. When a new skill or subject initially feels challenging or unappealing, learners who sustain engagement shift their focus from the difficulty to the benefit. They ask not “why is this hard?” but “what becomes possible when I understand this?” In construction, this is the difference between the leader who views Lean as an additional burden on an already demanding schedule and the one who asks what the project could look like if flow were working correctly.

Self-awareness is about honest perception of one’s own performance. The inner voice of an effective learner functions as what Andersen calls a “fair witness” reporting what is actually happening without either harsh self-criticism that shuts down engagement or protective rationalization that prevents clear seeing. Leaders who cannot see their own contribution to the problems around them cannot improve the systems that produce those problems.

Curiosity is the instinct that great learners retain from childhood or consciously rebuild. Instead of reinforcing initial disinterest in an unfamiliar subject, they learn to ask genuine questions about it and follow those questions with action. The curiosity is not passive it generates investigation, experimentation, and engagement with people who know what the curious learner does not yet know.

Vulnerability is the willingness to be a beginner to be at the start of a learning curve, to make mistakes in front of others, to not know things that the role might be expected to know. Andersen describes this as getting good at being bad. It is the attribute that determines whether a leader will actually try something new or whether their need to appear competent will prevent them from ever developing the next level of capability.

Reflection as a Planned Practice

Learning does not happen automatically from experience. It happens through reflection on experience the deliberate examination of what was set out to do, what was actually done, and what specifically was learned along the way. The Study or Adjust step in the PDCA cycle is where this reflection is formally built into an improvement process. The Plus/Delta at the end of a meeting is a lightweight version of the same practice. Retrospectives, journaling, and reflection in action are all expressions of the same underlying discipline: pausing to examine what just happened in order to extract durable learning rather than just moving to the next thing.

Kaizen at Toyota includes two components that are rarely taught together: hansei reflection on what happened and yokoten sharing what was learned broadly. Without hansei, the learning is lost. Without yokoten, the learning stays with the individual rather than becoming organizational knowledge. The pattern requires both, and it requires leadership to model them. When leaders reflect visibly, when they share their own learning openly, when they create structured time for the team to reflect rather than immediately pivoting to the next task, they communicate that learning is a legitimate and valued use of time on this project.

Bringing Out the Best in Others

The traditional view of leadership is that the senior person knows the most and therefore provides direction. This view is understandable in contexts where expertise is genuinely concentrated at the top. It is not the right view for construction, where the person who performs a specific job knows the most about that specific job, and where the challenges that matter require coordination across multiple people, roles, disciplines, organizations, and companies.

Lean leadership begins from a different premise: the person closest to the work has the most relevant knowledge about that work. The leader’s role is to create the conditions under which that knowledge can be applied to remove obstacles, to surface problems that individuals cannot solve alone, to facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries, and to connect people who have solved a problem with people who are encountering it for the first time.

This reframe changes the fundamental question a leader asks in any situation. The traditional question is “what should I tell them to do?” The Lean leader’s question is “what do they need from me so they can do what they already know how to do?” Those are very different questions, and they produce very different leadership behavior.

Here are the ways Lean leaders expand learning rather than contain it:

  • They ask what can be learned from the mistakes others have already made, so those lessons do not have to be re-experienced by every person on every project
  • They bring additional expertise or perspectives into experiments rather than running them in isolation
  • They identify who else could benefit from what was learned and share it proactively
  • They find out who has already solved the problem they are facing before beginning their own analysis from scratch
  • They partner with other people who are also on a Lean leadership journey, because growth accelerates in relationship

The Systems Thinking Dimension

Lean leadership also requires taking a long-term, systems-thinking perspective seeing individual problems in the context of the systems that produce them rather than as isolated events. A worker making a repeated error is a systems problem until the system has been examined and adjusted. A trade partner who consistently delivers late materials is a supply chain design problem until the procurement and production plan alignment has been examined. A superintendent who is perpetually in firefighting mode is a project design problem until the planning, staffing, and production control systems have been examined.

This perspective is difficult for leaders who are rewarded primarily for short-term results. The system-thinking orientation asks: what produced this outcome, and what would need to change so that the system produces a different outcome reliably? The answer to that question often requires investment in the present in planning, in people development, in process improvement before the benefit is visible. Leaders who can hold that longer view are the ones who produce genuinely better projects rather than just better-looking ones in the short term.

The Learning Partnership

One of the most underrated practices for Lean leadership development is the learning partnership finding another leader who is also on the Lean journey and committing to learning together rather than separately. The value of a partner is not that they have the answers. It is that they ask different questions, surface different blind spots, and provide the accountability that keeps the learning continuous rather than episodic. The partnership does not require proximity. In an era of video communication, a Lean leadership partner can be on the other side of the country or the world.

The Toyota Way’s principles nine and ten grow leaders and develop people and teams are stated as organizational responsibilities. But they begin with individuals who decide to develop themselves, who model the learning behaviors they want to see in their teams, and who treat leadership not as a position they have arrived at but as a practice they are continuously developing.

At Elevate Construction, the mission to build remarkable people who build remarkable things is a learning mission. The boot camps, the training programs, the free content all of it is designed to accelerate the learning journey of people who want to lead differently. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Learning to lead. Leading to learn. Both at the same time, in service of the people and projects that deserve better than the industry has typically given them.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “learning to lead, leading to learn” actually mean in practice?

It means that the act of leading taking on real challenges with real people is itself one of the most effective learning mechanisms available. Leadership and learning are not sequential stages. They are mutually reinforcing practices that accelerate each other.

Why is vulnerability important for a construction leader?

Because developing new capabilities requires being at the start of a learning curve, making mistakes in front of others, and not yet knowing things the role might be expected to know. Leaders who cannot tolerate that state will avoid new learning rather than pursue it.

What is hansei and why does it matter for continuous improvement?

Hansei is the Japanese practice of honest reflection on what happened examining what was set out to do, what was actually done, and what was learned. It is the reflection component of Kaizen that generates the learning yokoten then spreads broadly. Without hansei, experience produces neither learning nor improvement.

How does the Lean view of leadership differ from the traditional view?

The traditional view concentrates direction at the top the senior person knows the most and tells others what to do. The Lean view recognizes that the person closest to specific work knows the most about that work, and the leader’s role is to create conditions that allow that knowledge to be applied effectively.

Why does Lean leadership require systems thinking?

Because individual problems are almost always produced by system conditions. Addressing the symptom without examining the system produces recurring problems. Systems thinking asks what would need to change in the design, staffing, planning, or process for the system to produce a different outcome reliably.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

Leaders Make Learning the Ongoing Payoff for the Team and Themselves

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Lean Leadership: Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn

Katie Anderson describes the Lean leader’s journey as “Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn.” That framing is more precise than it might appear at first. It is not just that Lean leaders happen to learn while they lead. It is that the act of leading genuinely, in the field, with real people and real problems is one of the most effective mechanisms for learning available to any practitioner. The two activities are not sequential. They are mutually reinforcing, and when a leader understands that relationship, the entire orientation of their leadership shifts from directing to developing.

What It Actually Takes to Learn

Before the question of how to lead for learning, there is the more foundational question of what learning requires. Formal education’s answer that learning happens through instruction, is demonstrated through examination, and eliminates those who cannot keep pace is a failure model. Construction’s equivalent that experience accumulates through proximity to work and eventually produces competence is better, but still insufficient. Both models treat learning as something that happens to people rather than something people actively do.

Erika Andersen, writing in the Harvard Business Review, identifies four attributes that genuinely skilled learners develop and sustain: aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability.

Aspiration is about where the attention goes. When a new skill or subject initially feels challenging or unappealing, learners who sustain engagement shift their focus from the difficulty to the benefit. They ask not “why is this hard?” but “what becomes possible when I understand this?” In construction, this is the difference between the leader who views Lean as an additional burden on an already demanding schedule and the one who asks what the project could look like if flow were working correctly.

Self-awareness is about honest perception of one’s own performance. The inner voice of an effective learner functions as what Andersen calls a “fair witness” reporting what is actually happening without either harsh self-criticism that shuts down engagement or protective rationalization that prevents clear seeing. Leaders who cannot see their own contribution to the problems around them cannot improve the systems that produce those problems.

Curiosity is the instinct that great learners retain from childhood or consciously rebuild. Instead of reinforcing initial disinterest in an unfamiliar subject, they learn to ask genuine questions about it and follow those questions with action. The curiosity is not passive, it generates investigation, experimentation, and engagement with people who know what the curious learner does not yet know.

Vulnerability is the willingness to be a beginner to be at the start of a learning curve, to make mistakes in front of others, to not know things that the role might be expected to know. Andersen describes this as getting good at being bad. It is the attribute that determines whether a leader will actually try something new or whether their need to appear competent will prevent them from ever developing the next level of capability.

Reflection as a Planned Practice

Learning does not happen automatically from experience. It happens through reflection on experience, the deliberate examination of what was set out to do, what was actually done, and what specifically was learned along the way. The Study or Adjust step in the PDCA cycle is where this reflection is formally built into an improvement process. The Plus/Delta at the end of a meeting is a lightweight version of the same practice. Retrospectives, journaling, and reflection in action are all expressions of the same underlying discipline: pausing to examine what just happened in order to extract durable learning rather than just moving to the next thing.

Kaizen at Toyota includes two components that are rarely taught together: hansei: reflection on what happened and yokoten sharing what was learned broadly. Without hansei, the learning is lost. Without yokoten, the learning stays with the individual rather than becoming organizational knowledge. The pattern requires both, and it requires leadership to model them. When leaders reflect visibly, when they share their own learning openly, when they create structured time for the team to reflect rather than immediately pivoting to the next task, they communicate that learning is a legitimate and valued use of time on this project.

Bringing Out the Best in Others

The traditional view of leadership is that the senior person knows the most and therefore provides direction. This view is understandable in contexts where expertise is genuinely concentrated at the top. It is not the right view for construction, where the person who performs a specific job knows the most about that specific job, and where the challenges that matter require coordination across multiple people, roles, disciplines, organizations, and companies.

Lean leadership begins from a different premise: the person closest to the work has the most relevant knowledge about that work. The leader’s role is to create the conditions under which that knowledge can be applied to remove obstacles, to surface problems that individuals cannot solve alone, to facilitate collaboration across organizational boundaries, and to connect people who have solved a problem with people who are encountering it for the first time.

This reframe changes the fundamental question a leader asks in any situation. The traditional question is “what should I tell them to do?” The Lean leader’s question is “what do they need from me so they can do what they already know how to do?” Those are very different questions, and they produce very different leadership behavior.

Here are the ways Lean leaders expand learning rather than contain it:

  • They ask what can be learned from the mistakes others have already made, so those lessons do not have to be re-experienced by every person on every project.
  • They bring additional expertise or perspectives into experiments rather than running them in isolation.
  • They identify who else could benefit from what was learned and share it proactively.
  • They find out who has already solved the problem they are facing before beginning their own analysis from scratch.
  • They partner with other people who are also on a Lean leadership journey, because growth accelerates in relationship.

The Systems Thinking Dimension

Lean leadership also requires taking a long-term, systems-thinking perspective seeing individual problems in the context of the systems that produce them rather than as isolated events. A worker making a repeated error is a systems problem until the system has been examined and adjusted. A trade partner who consistently delivers late materials is a supply chain design problem until the procurement and production plan alignment has been examined. A superintendent who is perpetually in firefighting mode is a project design problem until the planning, staffing, and production control systems have been examined.

This perspective is difficult for leaders who are rewarded primarily for short-term results. The system-thinking orientation asks: what produced this outcome, and what would need to change so that the system produces a different outcome reliably? The answer to that question often requires investment in the present in planning, in people development, in process improvement before the benefit is visible. Leaders who can hold that longer view are the ones who produce genuinely better projects rather than just better-looking ones in the short term.

The Learning Partnership

One of the most underrated practices for Lean leadership development is the learning partnership finding another leader who is also on the Lean journey and committing to learning together rather than separately. The value of a partner is not that they have the answers. It is that they ask different questions, surface different blind spots, and provide the accountability that keeps the learning continuous rather than episodic. The partnership does not require proximity. In an era of video communication, a Lean leadership partner can be on the other side of the country or the world.

The Toyota Way’s principles nine and ten, grow leaders and develop people and teams are stated as organizational responsibilities. But they begin with individuals who decide to develop themselves, who model the learning behaviors they want to see in their teams, and who treat leadership not as a position they have arrived at but as a practice they are continuously developing.

At Elevate Construction, the mission to build remarkable people who build remarkable things is a learning mission. The boot camps, the training programs, the free content, all of it is designed to accelerate the learning journey of people who want to lead differently. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Learning to lead. Leading to learn. Both at the same time, in service of the people and projects that deserve better than the industry has typically given them.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “learning to lead, leading to learn” actually mean in practice?

It means that the act of leading taking on real challenges with real people is itself one of the most effective learning mechanisms available. Leadership and learning are not sequential stages. They are mutually reinforcing practices that accelerate each other.

Why is vulnerability important for a construction leader?

Because developing new capabilities requires being at the start of a learning curve, making mistakes in front of others, and not yet knowing things the role might be expected to know. Leaders who cannot tolerate that state will avoid new learning rather than pursue it.

What is hansei and why does it matter for continuous improvement?

Hansei is the Japanese practice of honest reflection on what happened examining what was set out to do, what was actually done, and what was learned. It is the reflection component of Kaizen that generates the learning yokoten then spreads broadly. Without hansei, experience produces neither learning nor improvement.

How does the Lean view of leadership differ from the traditional view?

The traditional view concentrates direction at the top, the senior person knows the most and tells others what to do. The Lean view recognizes that the person closest to specific work knows the most about that work, and the leader’s role is to create conditions that allow that knowledge to be applied effectively.

Why does Lean leadership require systems thinking?

Because individual problems are almost always produced by system conditions. Addressing the symptom without examining the system produces recurring problems. Systems thinking asks what would need to change in the design, staffing, planning, or process for the system to produce a different outcome reliably.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

First Run Video Studies: Plan-Do-Check-Adjust

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

First Run Studies: How to Eliminate Waste Before It Becomes the Standard

There is a principle embedded in the way Taiichi Ohno taught that never loses its relevance. He would walk onto the shop floor, draw a circle on the ground, stand in it, and observe. Not to manage. Not to direct. To see what was actually happening, to study it with enough patience and depth to understand what the real process was, where the waste lived, and what could be improved. From that observation, he would develop enough knowledge to change the system rather than just the people.

Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell applied the same spirit to construction in 1997 through what they called First Run Studies, a method of observing work methods in the field, identifying waste, designing better methods, and establishing the improved approach as the new standard before the work pattern becomes entrenched. The name captures the intent: study the work on the first run, before the method hardens into habit, and use what you learn to set a better standard from the beginning.

The Opportunity Most Projects Miss

Every scope of work on a construction project is performed for the first time, then repeated, sometimes hundreds or thousands of times. The method used in the first few cycles tends to become the de facto standard for every cycle that follows. If the method contains waste, unnecessary motion, waiting, over-processing, material handling that could be eliminated, that waste is replicated every time the scope repeats. A crew that installs drywall inefficiently in week one will install it the same way in week eight unless something deliberately interrupts and improves the method.

Most projects never deliberately interrupt the method. The work gets done. The schedule advances. And the waste is embedded in every unit of work from start to finish not because the crew does not want to work better, but because nobody has created the time and structure to examine the method and improve it.

First Run Studies create that time and structure. They apply the PDCA cycle specifically to work method improvement, using video as the observation tool and craft worker expertise as the primary input to the improvement design.

Step One: Plan

The planning phase determines which activity to study, assembles the right people, and designs the most effective possible work method before the first run begins. Activities that are either highly repetitive where a small improvement multiplies across many cycles or that carry high risk for the project in terms of safety, quality, or schedule are the highest-leverage candidates.

The people assembled in the planning phase must include the craft who will perform the work. This is non-negotiable. The craft know the activity in ways that the superintendent and project manager do not. They know where the friction is, where the waiting happens, what the right tool for each motion is, and where the setup creates unnecessary walking. Brainstorming the most effective work method without the people who will execute it is not planning, it is guessing. Planning also covers safety, quality, productivity, and the assignment of the labor, tools, equipment, and resources the first run will require.

Step Two: Do

The first run is performed, and it is recorded on video. Not eight hours of footage, ten to twenty minutes of recording that captures several complete cycles of the activity. A drywall installation study, for example, captures planning, measuring, cutting, material handling, and installation of complete sheets. The video is not a surveillance tool. It is a learning tool. That distinction must be communicated clearly to the craft before filming begins, and it must be honored in how the footage is used.

The common pushback from craft workers is understandable: being filmed at work raises concerns about evaluation, job security, and management using the footage for purposes other than what is stated. The response to that concern is genuine and specific: the video exists to help the workers improve their method, make the work easier, reduce the physical burden of unnecessary motion, and make the company more competitive. It will not be used for monitoring, for performance evaluation, or as grounds for any employment decision. That commitment must be real, not just stated.

Step Three: Check

The most valuable step, and the one that most improvement efforts skip. The Check phase in a First Run Study involves reviewing the video with the craft who performed the work breaking the recording down into three categories: value-added work, necessary non-value-added work, and waste.

Value-added work is any activity that transforms the product in a way the customer would pay for, the installation itself, the cut that makes a piece fit, the measurement that ensures quality. Necessary non-value-added work is activity that does not directly transform the product but is required given current conditions, material staging, tool retrieval, workspace preparation. Waste is everything else: motion that produced nothing, waiting caused by sequence or material delivery problems, double-handling of materials, over-processing that created extra work without adding value.

The craft who performed the work can classify every segment of the video. They know what each motion was for. They know which parts of the sequence felt efficient and which felt forced. They are much closer to the waste in the process than any observer watching from a distance could ever be. The Check phase exists to extract that knowledge rather than leaving it unutilized.

Here are the categories of improvement that First Run Studies consistently reveal:

  • Motion waste from tools or materials stored at distances greater than the ten-foot rule allows.
  • Waiting waste from material delivery timing that does not align with the installation sequence.
  • Over-processing from assembly sequences that could be reorganized to eliminate steps.
  • Material handling waste from delivery in batch sizes that require additional sorting, staging, and repositioning at the work face.
  • Safety exposure from setup conditions or sequencing that creates unnecessary risk.

Step Four: Adjust

The improvement phase synthesizes everything the craft identified in the Check phase into a new, better work method that becomes the standard. This is where the craft’s ownership of the improvement is most clearly expressed. They identified the waste. They proposed the improvements. The method they helped design is theirs in a meaningful way which is why they implement it with more fidelity and more care than a method that was designed for them by someone who never performed the work.

The new standard is documented, practiced, and then subjected to the next First Run Study cycle. The improvement does not stop at one cycle. The adjusted method becomes the new starting point, and the next observation cycle looks for waste in the improved version. Continuous improvement means continuously cycling, each time from a higher floor.

The Outcomes Are Measurable

The benefits that First Run Studies produce are real and documented. Labor productivity improves when waste is eliminated from repetitive operations. Safety hazard identification improves when the observation process examines the work method with safety explicitly in the frame. Material inventory batching and stocking locations improve when the video reveals how material delivery timing creates or eliminates waiting. Crew size is optimized when the observation makes visible where crew members are waiting or redundantly performing the same motion. And craft morale and work satisfaction improve when workers experience that their expertise is valued and their input produces real changes in how the work is done.

That last outcome deserves emphasis. Craft worker salaries represent the single largest expense on most construction projects. And yet the knowledge, expertise, and improvement potential of craft workers is one of the most consistently underutilized resources in the industry. The First Run Study gives those workers a genuine mechanism for contributing to the work method design, not as a token gesture, but as the primary source of improvement insight. When workers realize they play a significant role in designing the method, solving the problems, and making the project better, they share ideas more openly and implement the improved method more fully.

At Elevate Construction, respect for people is not a poster on the wall, it is the reason the worker huddle communicates the plan before the shift begins, the reason pre-task plans are built with the crew rather than handed to them, and the reason improvement processes like First Run Studies treat craft expertise as the primary input rather than a secondary consideration. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Go and see. Ask why. Show respect. Involve the craft. See the waste. Make the improvement. Create the standard. Repeat.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a First Run Study and why does it matter?

A First Run Study is a structured method for observing a work activity on its first cycle, identifying waste through video review with the craft performing the work, and designing a better method before the current method becomes the entrenched standard.

Why must the craft who performed the work participate in the Check phase?

Because they are closest to the waste and know the work in ways that outside observers cannot replicate. Their knowledge of where the friction, waiting, and unnecessary motion occur is the primary input to the improvement design.

Why is video recording used rather than direct observation?

Video captures complete cycles with more accuracy than memory and allows the full team including the craft to review the same footage multiple times, classify each segment, and build a shared understanding of where the waste is.

How do you address craft worker resistance to being filmed?

By being specific and genuine about the purpose, the video is a learning tool for improving the work method, not a surveillance or performance evaluation tool and by honoring that commitment consistently in how the footage is actually used.

How does the First Run Study cycle connect to PDCA?

The First Run Study is PDCA applied specifically to work method improvement: Plan the first run with the craft, Do the run and record it, Check the recording by classifying activities as value, necessary non-value, or waste, and adjust by designing and standardizing the improved method.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

On we go

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    faq

    General Training Overview

    What construction leadership training programs does LeanTakt offer?
    LeanTakt offers Superintendent/PM Boot Camps, Virtual Takt Production System® Training, Onsite Takt Simulations, and Foreman & Field Engineer Training. Each program is tailored to different leadership levels in construction.
    Who should attend LeanTakt’s training programs?
    Superintendents, Project Managers, Foremen, Field Engineers, and trade partners who want to improve planning, communication, and execution on projects.
    How do these training programs improve project performance?
    They provide proven Lean and Takt systems that reduce chaos, improve reliability, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate project delivery.
    What makes LeanTakt’s training different from other construction courses?
    Our programs are hands-on, field-tested, and focused on practical application—not just classroom theory.
    Do I need prior Lean or takt planning experience to attend?
    No. Our programs cover foundational principles before moving into advanced applications.
    How quickly can I apply what I learn on real projects?
    Most participants begin applying new skills immediately, often the same week they complete the program.
    Are these trainings designed for both office and field leaders?
    Yes. We equip both project managers and superintendents with tools that connect field and office operations.
    What industries benefit most from LeanTakt training?
    Commercial, multifamily, residential, industrial, and infrastructure projects all benefit from flow-based planning.
    Do participants receive certificates after completing training?
    Yes. Every participant receives a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion.
    Is LeanTakt training recognized in the construction industry?
    Yes. Our programs are widely respected among leading GCs, subcontractors, and construction professionals.

    Superintendent / PM Boot Camp

    What is the Superintendent & Project Manager Boot Camp?
    It’s a 5-day immersive training for superintendents and PMs to master Lean leadership, takt planning, and project flow.
    How long does the Superintendent/PM Boot Camp last?
    Five full days of hands-on training.
    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp curriculum?
    Lean leadership, Takt Planning, logistics, daily planning, field-office communication, and team health.
    How does the Boot Camp improve leadership and scheduling skills?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    Who is the Boot Camp best suited for?
    Construction leaders responsible for delivering projects, including Superintendents, PMs, and Field Leaders.
    What real-world challenges are simulated during the Boot Camp?
    Schedule breakdowns, trade conflicts, logistics issues, and communication gaps.
    Will I learn Takt Planning at the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Takt Planning is a core focus of the Boot Camp.
    How does this Boot Camp compare to traditional PM certification?
    It’s practical and execution-based rather than exam-based. You learn by doing, not just studying theory.
    Can my entire project team attend the Boot Camp together?
    Yes. Teams attending together often see the greatest results.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    Improved project flow, fewer delays, better team communication, and stronger leadership confidence.

    Takt Production System® Virtual Training

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training?
    It’s an expert-led online program that teaches Lean construction teams how to implement takt planning.
    How does virtual takt training work?
    Delivered online via live sessions, interactive discussions, and digital tools.
    What are the benefits of online takt planning training?
    Convenience, global accessibility, real-time learning, and immediate application.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    What skills will I gain from the Virtual TPS® Training?
    Macro and micro Takt planning, weekly updates, flow management, and CPM integration.
    How long does the virtual training program take?
    The program is typically completed in multiple live sessions across several days.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. Recordings are available to all participants.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses for the virtual training?
    Yes. Teams and companies can enroll together at discounted rates.
    How does the Virtual TPS® Training integrate with CPM tools?
    We show how to align Takt with CPM schedules like Primavera P6 or MS Project.

    Onsite Takt Simulation

    What is a Takt Simulation in construction training?
    It’s a live, interactive workshop that demonstrates takt planning on-site.
    How does the Takt Simulation workshop work?
    Teams participate in hands-on exercises to learn the flow and rhythm of a Takt-based project.
    Can I choose between a 1-day or 2-day Takt Simulation?
    Yes. We offer flexible formats to fit your team’s schedule and needs.
    Who should participate in the Takt Simulation workshop?
    Superintendents, PMs, site supervisors, contractors, and engineers.
    How does a Takt Simulation improve project planning?
    It shows teams how to structure zones, manage flow, and coordinate trades in real time.
    What will my team learn from the onsite simulation?
    How to build and maintain takt plans, manage buffers, and align trade partners.
    Is the simulation tailored to my specific project type?
    Yes. Scenarios can be customized to match your project.
    How do Takt Simulations improve trade partner coordination?
    They strengthen collaboration by making handoffs visible and predictable.
    What results can I expect from an onsite Takt Simulation?
    Improved schedule reliability, better trade collaboration, and reduced rework.
    How many people can join a Takt Simulation session?
    Group sizes are flexible, but typically 15–30 participants per session.

    Foreman & Field Engineer Training

    What is Foreman & Field Engineer Training?
    It’s an on-demand, practical program that equips foremen and engineers with leadership and planning skills.
    How does this training prepare emerging leaders?
    By teaching communication, crew management, and execution strategies.
    Is the training on-demand or scheduled?
    On-demand, tailored to your team’s timing and needs.
    What skills do foremen and engineers gain from this training?
    Planning, safety leadership, coordination, and communication.
    How does the training improve communication between field and office?
    It builds shared systems that align superintendents, engineers, and managers.
    Can the training be customized for my team’s needs?
    Yes. Programs are tailored for your project or company.
    What makes this program different from generic leadership courses?
    It’s construction-specific, field-tested, and focused on real project application.
    How do foremen and field engineers apply this training immediately?
    They can use new systems for planning, coordination, and daily crew management right away.
    Is the training suitable for small construction companies?
    Yes. Small and large teams alike benefit from building flow-based leadership skills.

    Testimonials

    Testimonials

    "The bootcamp I was apart of was amazing. Its was great while it was happening but also had a very profound long-term motivation that is still pushing me to do more, be more. It sounds a little strange to say that a construction bootcamp changed my life, but it has. It has opened my eyes to many possibilities on how a project can be successfully run. It’s also provided some very positive ideas on how people can and should be treated in construction.

    I am a hungry person by nature, so it doesn’t take a lot to get to participate. I loved the way it was not just about participating, it was also about doing it with conviction, passion, humility and if it wasn’t portrayed that way you had to do it again."

    "It's great to be a part of a company that has similar values to my own, especially regarding how we treat our trade partners. The idea of "you gotta make them feel worse to make them do better" has been preached at me for years. I struggled with this as you will not find a single psychology textbook stating these beliefs. In fact it is quite the opposite, and causing conflict is a recipe for disaster. I'm still honestly in shock I have found a company that has based its values on scientific facts based on human nature. That along with the Takt scheduling system makes everything even better. I am happy to be a part of a change that has been long overdue in our industry!"

    "Wicked team building, so valuable for the forehumans of the sub trades to know the how and why. Great tools and resources. Even though I am involved and use the tools every day, I feel like everything is fresh and at the forefront to use"

    "Jason and his team did an incredible job passing on the overall theory of what they do. After 3 days of running through the course I cannot see any holes in their concept. It works. it's proven to work and I am on board!"

    "Loved the pull planning, Takt planning, and logistic model planning. Well thought out and professional"

    "The Super/PM Boot Camp was an excellent experience that furthered my understanding of Lean Practices. The collaboration, group involvement, passion about real project site experiences, and POSITIVE ENERGY. There are no dull moments when you head into this training. Jason and Mr. Montero were always on point and available to help in the break outs sessions. Easily approachable to talk too during breaks and YES, it was fun. I recommend this training for any PM or Superintendent that wants to further their career."

    agenda

    Day 1

    Foundations & Macro Planning

    • Introduction to Takt Production System® principles
    • CPM vs TAKT comparison
    • Macro planning, zoning, and density analysis
    • Quantities and production rates
    • Hands-on application to participants’ projects with LeanTakt PM experts

    day2

    Norm Planning & Flow Optimization

    • Review and refinement of Day 1 work
    • Pull planning and sequence optimization
    • Work packaging for balanced flow
    • Project integration session with LeanTakt PM coaching

    day3

    Advanced Tools & Comparisons

    • Macro work packaging and example walkthrough
    • Calculator Norm for production optimization
    • Stacking comparison to avoid trade conflicts
    • Hands-on application to participants’ own schedules

    day4

    Buffers, Controls & Finalization

    • Review of Day 3 implementation
    • Buffer management strategies and placement
    • Takt control principles and steering methods
    • Project plan finalization with expert guidance

    day5

    Control Systems & Presentations

    • Takt steering, control systems, and real project examples
    • Participant project presentations with LeanTakt PM feedback
    • Wrap-up, feedback, and action planning for post-training implementation

    faq

    UNDERSTANDING THE TRAINING

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training by LeanTakt?
    It’s an expert-led online program designed to teach construction professionals how to implement Takt Planning to create flow, eliminate chaos, and align teams across the project lifecycle.
    Who should take the LeanTakt virtual training?
    This training is ideal for Superintendents, Project Managers, Engineers, Schedulers, Trade Partners, and Lean Champions looking to improve planning and execution.
    What topics are covered in the online Takt Production System® course?
    The course covers macro and micro Takt planning, zone creation, buffers, weekly updates, flow management, trade coordination, and integration with CPM tools.
    What makes LeanTakt’s virtual training different from other Lean construction courses?
    Unlike theory-based courses, this training is hands-on, practical, field-tested, and includes live coaching tailored to your actual projects.
    Do I get a certificate after completing the online training?
    Yes. Upon successful completion, participants receive a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion, which validates your knowledge and readiness to implement Takt.

    VALUE AND RESULTS

    What are the benefits of Takt Production System® training for my team?
    It helps teams eliminate bottlenecks, improve planning reliability, align trades, and reduce the chaos typically seen in traditional construction schedules.
    How much time and money can I save with Takt Planning?
    Many projects using Takt see 15–30% reductions in time and cost due to better coordination, fewer delays, and increased team accountability.
    What’s the ROI of virtual Takt training for construction teams?
    The ROI comes from faster project delivery, reduced rework, improved communication, and better resource utilization — often 10x the investment.
    Will this training reduce project delays or rework?
    Yes. By visualizing flow and aligning trades, Takt Planning reduces miscommunication and late handoffs — major causes of delay and rework.
    How soon can I expect to see results on my projects?
    Most teams report seeing improvement in coordination and productivity within the first 2–4 weeks of implementation.

    PLANNING AND SCHEDULING TOPICS

    What is Takt Planning and how is it used in construction?
    Takt Planning is a Lean scheduling method that creates flow by aligning work with time and space, using rhythm-based planning to coordinate teams and reduce waste.
    What’s the difference between macro and micro Takt plans?
    Macro Takt plans focus on the overall project flow and phase durations, while micro Takt plans break down detailed weekly tasks by zone and crew.
    Will I learn how to build a complete Takt plan from scratch?
    Yes. The training teaches you how to build both macro and micro Takt plans tailored to your project, including workflows, buffers, and sequencing.
    How do I update and maintain a Takt schedule each week?
    You’ll learn how to conduct weekly updates using lookaheads, trade feedback, zone progress, and digital tools to maintain schedule reliability.
    Can I integrate Takt Planning with CPM or Primavera P6?
    Yes. The training includes guidance on aligning Takt plans with CPM logic, showing how both systems can work together effectively.
    Will I have access to the instructors during the training?
    Yes. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, share challenges, and get real-time feedback from LeanTakt coaches.
    Can I ask questions specific to my current project?
    Absolutely. In fact, we encourage it — the training is designed to help you apply Takt to your active jobs.
    Is support available after the training ends?
    Yes. You can access follow-up support, coaching, and community forums to help reinforce implementation.
    Can your tools be customized to my project or team?
    Yes. We offer customizable templates and implementation options to fit different project types, teams, and tech stacks.
    When is the best time in a project lifecycle to take this training?
    Ideally before or during preconstruction, but teams have seen success implementing it mid-project as well.

    APPLICATION & TEAM ADOPTION

    What changes does my team need to adopt Takt Planning?
    Teams must shift from reactive scheduling to proactive, flow-based planning with clear commitments, reliable handoffs, and a visual management mindset.
    Do I need any prior Lean or scheduling experience?
    No prior Lean experience is required. The course is structured to take you from foundational principles to advanced application.
    How long does it take for teams to adapt to Takt Planning?
    Most teams adapt within 2–6 weeks, depending on project size and how fully the system is adopted across roles.
    Can this training work for smaller companies or projects?
    Absolutely. Takt is scalable and especially powerful for small teams seeking better structure and predictability.
    What role do trade partners play in using Takt successfully?
    Trade partners are key collaborators. They help shape realistic flow, manage buffers, and provide feedback during weekly updates.

    VIRTUAL FORMAT & ACCESSIBILITY

    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. The training is fully accessible online, making it ideal for distributed teams across regions or countries.
    Is this training available internationally?
    Yes. LeanTakt trains teams around the world and supports global implementations.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. All sessions are recorded and made available for later viewing through your training portal.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses?
    Yes. Teams can enroll together at discounted rates, and we offer licenses for enterprise rollouts.
    What technology or setup do I need to join the virtual training?
    A reliable internet connection, webcam, Miro, Spreadsheets, and access to Zoom.

    faq

    GENERAL FAQS

    What is the Superintendent / PM Boot Camp?
    It’s a hands-on leadership training for Superintendents and Project Managers in the construction industry focused on Lean systems, planning, and communication.
    Who is this Boot Camp for?
    Construction professionals including Superintendents, Project Managers, Field Engineers, and Foremen looking to improve planning, leadership, and project flow.
    What makes this construction boot camp different?
    Real-world project simulations, expert coaching, Lean principles, team-based learning, and post-camp support — all built for field leaders.
    Is this just a seminar or classroom training?
    No. It’s a hands-on, immersive experience. You’ll plan, simulate, collaborate, and get feedback — not sit through lectures.
    What is the focus of the training?
    Leadership, project planning, communication, Lean systems, and integrating office-field coordination.

    CURRICULUM & OUTCOMES

    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction, team health, communication systems, and more.
    What is Takt Planning and why is it taught?
    Takt is a Lean planning method that creates flow and removes chaos. It helps teams deliver projects on time with less stress.
    Will I learn how to lead field teams more effectively?
    Yes. This boot camp focuses on real leadership challenges and gives you systems and strategies to lead high-performing teams.
    Do you cover daily huddles and meeting systems?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    You’ll work through real project schedules, logistical constraints, leadership decisions, and field-office communication breakdowns.

    LOGISTICS & FORMAT

    Is the training in-person or virtual?
    It’s 100% in-person to maximize learning, feedback, and team-based interaction.
    How long is the Boot Camp?
    It runs for 5 full days.
    Where is the Boot Camp held?
    Locations vary — typically hosted in a professional training center or project setting. Contact us for the next available city/date.
    Do you offer follow-up coaching after the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Post-camp support is included so you can apply what you’ve learned on your projects.
    Can I ask questions about my actual project?
    Absolutely. That’s encouraged — bring your current challenges.

    PRICING & VALUE

    How much does the Boot Camp cost?
    $5,000 per person.
    Are there any group discounts?
    Yes — get 10% off when 4 or more people from the same company attend.
    What’s the ROI for sending my team?
    Better planning = fewer delays, smoother coordination, and higher team morale — all of which boost productivity and reduce costs.
    Will I see results immediately?
    Most participants apply what they’ve learned as soon as they return to the jobsite — especially with follow-up support.
    Can this replace other leadership training?
    In many cases, yes. This Boot Camp is tailored to construction professionals, unlike generic leadership seminars.

    SEO-BASED / HIGH-INTENT SEARCH QUESTIONS

    What is the best leadership training for construction Superintendents?
    Our Boot Camp offers real-world, field-focused leadership training tailored for construction leaders.
    What’s included in a Superintendent Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction systems, huddles, simulations, and more.
    Where can I find Lean construction training near me?
    Check our upcoming in-person sessions or request a private boot camp in your city.
    How can I improve field and office communication on a project?
    This Boot Camp teaches you tools and systems to connect field and office workflows seamlessly.
    Is there a training to help reduce chaos on construction sites?
    Yes — this program is built specifically to turn project chaos into flow through structured leadership.

    agenda

    Day 1

    Agenda

    • Intro to Camp
    • Set Expectations
    • Morning Routine
    • Plan Day
    • Explain "Why"
    • Teams Intros + Yells + Expectation
    • Focus, Physiology, Words + Yells
    • Blocks to Leadership
    • 50 Million
    • Biggest Thing
    • Choose Your Word
    • Marketing Exercise
    • Interview for the Project
    • PO Homework and Close the Day

    Outcomes

    • Understand how to get into a proper state to lead
    • Understand how to dig deep to find the confidence to lead
    • Team work and collaboration
    • Understand marketing
    • Understand how to interview for and win a project

    Day 2

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Macro Takt planning
    • Setup jobs + Signs + Logistics
    • Explain the IPCS™
    • Detailed logistics training
    • Team balance & health training

    Outcomes

    • Learn the IPCS™ understand how to integrate the entire project from start to finish with First Planners™ and Last Planners® through the Takt Production System®
    • Learn how to review a project
    • Learn advanced logistics
    • Learn team balance and health

    Day 3

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Review How Big Things Get Done
    • Review IPCSTM
    • Fix (Schedule, zone, logistics, trailer, org & procurement)
    • Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Pre-Con Overview
    • TAKT SIMULATION
    • Recap and Review

    Outcomes

    • Understand why and how to plan
    • Understand the benefits of using a Takt production plan
    • Learn the steps to proper pre-con that sets the project up for success
    • Learn how to review a project in a Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Learn flow from Takt planning

    Day 4

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Opposing Squares
    • Pull Plan
    • Takt Remaining
    • Norm Update
    • Re Zoning
    • Risks & Pre-Con Align
    • Meeting System
    • Problems
    • Recap

    Outcomes

    • Understand the Norm level Takt plan for weekly/daily planning
    • Benefits and outcomes of rezoning strategies
    • Using meetings to feed information through the system and to the Foremen

    Day 5

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Huddle I.D.S
    • Day Plan
    • Worker Huddle
    • Norm Update
    • Team Huddle
    • Lean Systems Recap
    • Feedback Exercise
    • Final & Close

    Outcomes

    • Know what information is needed and how to get it to the Workers
    • Better understand how to give feedback and why it’s crucial for everyone
    • How to problem solve as a team
    • Understand how all systems tie together
    • Know how the information gets all the way to the worker
    • Have perfect clarity on the individual’s personal organization planner