Month: April 2026

PDCA is How We Improve the Industry

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

PDCA: The Improvement Engine That Can Transform Construction If You Complete All Four Steps

The construction industry is genuinely hard. Confrontational, personally draining, riddled with waste. Rising material and labor costs. Shrinking margins. A waning supply of skilled people. These challenges are not accidents; they are symptoms of an industry that has not yet made continuous improvement a cultural norm. And the most direct path from those symptoms to something better is a practice most people have heard of and most organizations only partially do.

Plan, Do, Check, Act. PDCA. The iterative improvement cycle that sits at the heart of Lean thinking and that, when practiced in full, gives any organization a mechanism for making tomorrow better than today. When practiced in part which is how most teams use it, it generates activity without compounding learning.

Where PDCA Comes From

The concept of PDCA emerged from scientific methodology: develop an idea through observation, test it through experimentation, and refine or abandon the idea based on results. Dr. Walter Shewhart transformed that linear sequence into an iterative cycle. Edward Deming Shewhart’s student developed and popularized it in the 1960s, and was specific about the intention: it is not about completing one cycle and moving on. It is about cycling continuously until the intended result is achieved, with each cycle generating learning that makes the next cycle more effective.

Deming’s preferred framing was Plan-Do-Study-Act, with Study emphasizing that the Check phase is not just a verification step but a genuine learning exercise. Some practitioners use Adjust rather than Act, which better captures the intent: the fourth step is not just action, it is intentional adjustment based on what was learned, either standardizing what worked or returning to the Plan phase with better understanding.

The Four Steps in Full

Plan is where most of the work should happen, even though it is consistently where the least time is invested. The planning phase has five specific components: defining value from the customer’s perspective or the goal to be achieved, understanding existing standards and best practices that serve as the baseline, clarifying the gap between current performance and the target using measurable data, getting to the root cause of the gap rather than the symptom, and identifying the specific countermeasures not solutions, but countermeasures that address the root cause.

The word countermeasures rather than solutions is deliberate and important. A solution implies the problem is finished. A countermeasure implies the improvement is tested, verified, and then either standardized or adjusted. That framing keeps the continuous improvement flywheel spinning rather than treating each fix as a final answer. Intentionally developing countermeasures is what makes the cycle iterative rather than episodic.

The tools that support the Plan phase are numerous and worth knowing. Conditions of satisfaction ensure the problem being solved actually addresses what customers value. Gemba walks going to see the problem firsthand, talking to the people closest to it, ground the analysis in reality rather than in assumptions. Process mapping makes the actual flow of work visible to everyone simultaneously. The 5 Whys drives from symptom to root cause through repeated inquiry. Cause and effect diagrams structure the identification of potential root causes. And the A3 is the one-page format that holds the entire PDCA cycle in a single visible document, forcing all phases to be completed rather than allowing the cycle to stop after Do.

Do is where countermeasures are implemented but on a test basis. Not a full rollout. A controlled experiment with limited scope so that the cost of learning from an ineffective countermeasure is minimized. The implementation plan identifies who does what by when. The data to be collected during the test is specified in advance so the Check phase has something to measure against. The scientific method is followed: execute the plan, observe the results, record the data.

Check is the most overlooked phase and the one that makes PDCA genuinely continuous rather than cyclical only in theory. The Check phase asks three questions: what did you expect to happen, what actually happened, and what did you learn? The gap between expectation and outcome is the information, it tells the team whether the countermeasure addressed the root cause effectively, whether there were unintended consequences, and what needs to be different in the next cycle.

Most teams skip Check because they assume the countermeasure worked. They move on. And then six months later the same problem surfaces again because the countermeasure was never verified, the root cause was never confirmed as addressed, and no learning was institutionalized. Only performing Plan and Do wastes most of the value of the effort already invested.

Act or Adjust is the decision step that closes one cycle and either opens the next or locks in the improvement. If the Check phase reveals that the countermeasure did not produce the intended result, the team goes back to Plan with better information: the original root cause analysis was incomplete, or the countermeasure addressed the wrong cause, or unintended consequences need to be accounted for. If the Check phase confirms the countermeasure worked, the team standardizes, updates the process documentation, trains people to the new standard, and ensures the improvement is accessible to everyone who needs it rather than living in the memory of the team that ran the cycle.

An Example from Design and Construction

The PDCA cycle is operating every time a design team produces and refines a model. The architect interprets what the customer wants and develops a design intent, this is Plan. The team uses that design to create a working model, this is Do. The team runs clash detection and coordinates with trade partners to confirm the design works as intended, this is Check. And the model is updated to resolve the issues discovered until it is ready for fabrication, this is Act. The cycle repeats until the design is resolved. When teams do this well, each iteration is faster and more productive because the Check phase genuinely informs what changes the next iteration needs to make.

Here are the warning signs that a team’s PDCA practice is incomplete:

  • Countermeasures are implemented and never followed up on to verify whether they worked.
  • The same problems surface repeatedly on different projects or in different phases of the same project.
  • Improvements are documented in lessons-learned logs but never make it into the standard work that governs how the next project begins.
  • The Check phase is replaced with an assumption that the change worked because nothing visibly went wrong immediately.
  • Learning stays with the individual who ran the improvement cycle rather than becoming organizational knowledge.

The Specific Challenge in Construction

The AEC industry has historically been good at planning and doing. The improvement opportunity is concentrated in Check and Act. One reason is organizational: projects end and teams disperse before the Check phase can fully assess whether the changes made during the project actually held and produced lasting results. Another reason is cultural: the industry’s orientation toward immediate results makes the time investment of a genuine Check phase feel like overhead rather than production.

Both of these are system problems, not people problems. Organizations that create the structural conditions for Check and Act, project retrospectives, communities of practice, shared A3 libraries, standing monthly improvement reviews build the mechanisms that make PDCA work as a continuous cycle rather than as a two-step process. The team that checks whether its countermeasures worked and adjusts accordingly is the team that compounds its improvement over time. Every cycle generates learning that makes the next cycle more effective. The value is not in any single cycle; it is in the accumulation.

At Elevate Construction, the PDCA cycle is embedded in the weekly work planning process, in the retrospective practice at the end of every training event, and in the A3 problem-solving framework that runs through project consulting engagements. Percent plan complete is not tracked to assign blame, it is tracked to generate the Check that informs the Adjust. Root cause analysis of missed commitments is not a bureaucratic exercise; it is the system design update that prevents the same miss from recurring. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

To survive and improve, we must practice all four steps. Plan with genuine depth. Do on a test basis. Check with honest measurement. Act by standardizing what works or returning to Plan with better information.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a countermeasure and a solution in PDCA thinking?

A solution implies the problem is finished and the work is done. A countermeasure implies the improvement is a tested response to a root cause, one that will be verified in the Check phase and either standardized if effective or adjusted if not. The framing keeps the improvement cycle continuous.

Why is Check the most overlooked phase?

Because most teams assume their countermeasure worked and move on once it is implemented. Without a deliberate Check, the gap between what was expected and what actually happened is never examined which means the learning that would make the next cycle more effective never happens.

What is the role of standardization in the Act phase?

When the Check phase confirms a countermeasure worked, standardizing means updating the process documentation, training people to the new standard, and ensuring the improvement is accessible to everyone who needs it, not just to the team that ran the cycle. Without standardization, the improvement lives in memory and disappears when the team moves on.

How does PDCA connect to A3 problem solving?

The A3 format is structured around the PDCA cycle, the sections of an A3 correspond to Plan, Do, Check, and Act. Using the A3 forces all four steps to be completed rather than allowing the cycle to stop after Do, which is what happens when there is no structured framework requiring follow-up.

Why does PDCA need to be iterative rather than a single cycle?

Because complex problems rarely yield their full root cause in one cycle. The learning from the first cycle especially from the Check phase reveals aspects of the problem that were not visible before the first countermeasure was tested. Each cycle generates better understanding that makes the next cycle more effective.

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

PDCA Lessons Learned

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

PDCA Done Right: Four Lessons That Make Problem-Solving Actually Work in Construction

Most people in construction have heard of PDCA. Plan, do, check, adjust. The Deming cycle. The scientific method applied to improvement. It shows up in Lean training, in retrospective discussions, in the documentation of continuous improvement initiatives. And on most projects, it never actually completes. The planning happens. Some version of the doing happens. And then the project moves on without the checking or the adjusting, because those steps feel like overhead when the next problem is already demanding attention.

The result is an industry that repeats the same problems, project after project, because the mechanism that would convert experience into learning is consistently left incomplete. This blog is about four lessons that make the difference between PDCA as a concept and PDCA as a practice.

The Problem Underneath the Problem

Before the four lessons, it is worth naming what makes PDCA difficult to practice consistently. Two specific tendencies undermine it on most project teams. The first is the organizational pressure for immediate results, the instinct to jump to a solution as quickly as possible, demonstrate action, and move on. This tendency makes the Plan phase feel like delay rather than investment. The second is the bias toward solution implementation over problem understanding, addressing what the problem looks like rather than what caused it, which produces countermeasures that address symptoms and leave the root cause untouched.

Both tendencies are understandable. Both produce the same outcome: partial PDCA cycles that invest effort without generating durable learning. Having a problem well stated is a problem half solved. The investment that looks like delay in the Plan phase is what makes the Do phase count.

Lesson One: Early Investment in Understanding Pays Back in Full

The most counterintuitive truth in PDCA is that spending more time in the Plan phase genuinely understanding the problem and its root causes before implementing any countermeasure consistently reduces the total time and effort required to close the gap between the current state and the target condition.

The math is not complicated. A countermeasure implemented without genuine root cause understanding has a high probability of addressing the symptom rather than the cause. When the symptom is addressed, the cause continues to produce new instances of the same problem. The team addresses the next instance, and the next, and the next. Each cycle consumes time and attention. The original investment in the Do phase was multiplied by repetition, and the problem was never resolved.

A countermeasure that addresses the actual root cause eliminates the recurring problem. The upfront investment in the Plan phase is larger. The total cost across the full cycle is dramatically lower. People in construction are generally skilled at planning and doing. The improvement opportunity is in how thoroughly they check and how deliberately they adjust. The checking is where the learning happens. The adjusting is where the learning becomes durable. Only performing the first two steps of PDCA which is what most teams do wastes most of the value of the effort that was already invested.

Lesson Two: People Are a Force Multiplier

Construction does not happen in isolation. It happens through teams of multi-disciplinary participants, multiple organizations, multiple layers of expertise and experience. Solving problems alone without utilizing the perspectives, knowledge, and ideas of the people closest to the work is what limits improvement to single-digit results. Involving the right people produces outcomes that are faster, more accurate, and more durable.

Toyota, which sustains industry-leading performance consistently and over decades, makes continuous improvement a cultural norm that begins with leadership and includes every stakeholder in the process. Cross-functional teams that represent every stakeholder in the problem produce solutions that account for perspectives no single expert could see alone. The person who designed the process has different visibility than the person who executes it. The foreman who runs the daily work has different visibility than the superintendent who coordinates across trades. Both perspectives are necessary to understand the problem fully and to design a countermeasure that will actually hold in the real conditions of the field.

Beyond the quality of the solution, inclusive problem-solving builds the team. When people are brought into the improvement process rather than having solutions handed down to them, they understand the reasoning behind the change, they have ownership of the outcome, and they have developed capability that carries forward to the next problem. The improvement and the team development happen simultaneously.

Lesson Three: Practice PDCA to Develop People

PDCA is not just a problem-solving method. It is a people development method. And one of the most powerful mechanisms for combining both is A3 problem-solving run through a coach-student model.

In the coach-student model, the person working through the A3 is guided by a more experienced practitioner who does not give answers but instead asks questions, questions that guide the student to discover the root cause, develop the countermeasure, and design the implementation themselves. The student learns through discovery rather than instruction, which produces a fundamentally different kind of understanding. The knowledge is not received, it is developed through the student’s own thinking, tested against reality, and validated through the check and adjust steps of PDCA.

John Shook’s Managing to Learn is the definitive resource on this model, a detailed exploration of how A3 thinking combined with the coach-student relationship develops Lean thinkers throughout an organization. The A3 is the tool that forces all four steps of PDCA to be completed rather than allowing the cycle to stop after the Do phase. By requiring a Follow Up section that verifies whether the countermeasure produced the expected results, the A3 makes the Check and Adjust steps non-optional rather than aspirational.

Lesson Four: Think Lean to Prevent Recurrence

PDCA that produces a lesson learned filed in a shared drive is not PDCA. PDCA that produces a change to the standard work, a change to the system that makes it structurally harder for the same problem to recur is the real objective.

Several Lean thinking drivers should shape every PDCA cycle. The customer’s perspective of value should come first: is the improvement being proposed actually in service of what the customer values, or is it optimizing something that matters primarily to the producer? Fact-based data should drive the analysis: not impressions, not assumptions, not the loudest voice in the retrospective conversation, but the actual evidence of what is happening and why. A cross-functional team should be involved from problem definition through countermeasure development: the right expertise in the room is what prevents the analysis from being shaped by a single perspective’s blind spots.

When practicing PDCA on an existing process, the goal is not random brainstorming about what could be better. It is looking at the standard work with specific attention to where the flow breaks down, the places where the process produces abnormal results and implementing changes that restore reliable flow while building in mechanisms to see when the flow breaks down again in the future. Stop, call, wait, the Andon principle is the field-level expression of this. Build the system so that abnormalities are visible and addressed immediately rather than absorbed and repeated.

Here are the signals that PDCA is being practiced correctly rather than performed superficially:

  • The Plan phase produces a clear root cause before any countermeasure is designed.
  • The team that implemented the change is the same team that checks whether it worked.
  • The check produces either confirmation of the standard or a new problem statement, never a shrug and an assumption that it probably worked.
  • The adjust step produces a change to the standard work rather than a note in a lessons-learned log.
  • New team members are trained to the updated standard before they encounter the problem the change was designed to prevent.

Connecting to the Mission

At Elevate Construction, PDCA is embedded in the meeting system, in the retrospective practice, and in the daily way the team reflects on commitments and misses. Percent plan complete is not tracked for accountability, it is tracked for learning. The root cause of every missed commitment is examined not to assign blame but to identify what in the system needs to change. And the improvements that result are captured in the standard work so the next iteration of the process starts from a higher floor. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. PDCA done right is how the industry gets better. Not project by project, starting from the same place every time but cumulatively, with each cycle producing a durable improvement that compounds into organizational capability.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do most PDCA cycles in construction stop after the Do phase?

Because the Check and Adjust steps feel like overhead when the next problem is already demanding attention. But stopping at Do wastes most of the value of the effort already invested without checking, the countermeasure is never validated, and the learning never happens.

What makes a root cause analysis genuinely effective?

It requires enough time and enough cross-functional perspective to get past the symptom to the actual cause. The most common failure is confusing what the problem looks like with what produced it. A problem well stated is a problem half solved.

How does A3 problem-solving support people development?

Through the coach-student model, where the A3 practitioner develops their understanding by working through the problem themselves under guidance rather than receiving a solution. The discovery process produces durable understanding that instruction alone cannot create.

What is the goal of PDCA — a lesson learned or a change to the standard?

A change to the standard. A lessons-learned document filed somewhere is not improvement. A change to the standard work that makes it structurally harder for the same problem to recur is improvement.

What does “Lean thinking” add to a PDCA cycle?

It grounds the analysis in the customer’s perspective of value, requires fact-based data rather than impressions, insists on cross-functional involvement, and focuses improvement efforts on the places where the flow breaks down rather than on random optimization.

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 Realize Value from Conducting a Plus/Delta Evaluation

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Plus/Delta: The Tool That Gets Meetings Better — When It Is Used Correctly

No competent builder would choose a hammer to drive a screw. Everyone in construction understands that choosing the right tool matters. And using it correctly with actual understanding of its purpose and capability is what separates a result from a damaged surface. This principle is as true of facilitation tools as it is of construction tools. And Plus/Delta is a facilitation tool that the Lean construction community uses constantly and understands incompletely.

Most teams run a Plus/Delta at the end of a meeting by asking “any plusses?” and “any deltas?” collecting a few answers, and moving on. They think they are doing continuous improvement. They are actually going through the motions of it while producing almost none of the value the tool was designed to deliver. This blog is about what Plus/Delta was actually designed to do and how to use it in a way that produces genuine meeting improvement.

Where Plus/Delta Came from and Why It Matters

In the 1970s, Michael Doyle and David Straus published a book called How to Make Meetings Work. As architects, they had spent years in design and construction projects, watching the conflicts and inefficiencies that characterized most professional meetings. They decided to find out what was actually going wrong. Their method was simple: they asked people across many different contexts what went wrong in their meetings.

The answers were remarkably consistent. People did not know why they were meeting or what the meeting was supposed to accomplish. There was no agenda or time allocation. Roles and decision-making authority were unclear. Someone dominated or went off track. Ideas were captured inconsistently or not at all. Action items were not assigned or followed through. The level of detail was wrong either too granular or too high-level, moving too fast or stuck.

Here is the insight Doyle and Straus drew from that pattern: none of those problems were about what the meeting was about. All of them were about how the meeting was planned and run. They called this condition process blindness, the failure to see that meetings have a process dimension that is separate from their content dimension, and that the process dimension is what determines whether the content accomplishes anything. The cure was process awareness, supported by a designated neutral facilitator whose job was to manage the meeting process rather than the meeting content.

The Plus/Delta emerged from this work as the Check step in the PDCA cycle applied to meeting process improvement. W. Edwards Deming, whose work on Total Quality Management was influencing organizations everywhere at the same time, had established that you cannot improve a process you cannot measure. Doyle and Straus applied that principle to the meeting process itself: plan the meeting, run the meeting, check how the process worked, act on what could be improved. Plus/Delta is the Check. The improvement at the beginning of the next meeting is the Act.

LCI founders Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell attended facilitation skills training at the firm Doyle and Straus founded and brought Plus/Delta along with many other best practices into the Lean construction community. That is where the tool came from. And it is what gets lost when teams use it as a routine sign-off question rather than as a genuine process improvement mechanism.

The Problem with How Most Teams Use It

“Any plusses? Any deltas?” asked to a tired group at the end of a long pull planning session or weekly work plan meeting produces generic feedback about the content of the discussion “that was a good meeting,” “we covered a lot of ground,” “we ran long on item three.” This is not process improvement. It is an opinion poll about how people felt.

The original intent of Plus/Delta is to evaluate the meeting process, specifically, whether the process design served the meeting’s purpose and what could be done differently in the next meeting to make the process work better. Plusses about what worked in the process. Deltas about what in the process could be improved. Not what the content was, but how the meeting was planned and run.

When Plus/Delta is disconnected from the meeting process, teams lose the feedback loop that would make their meetings progressively better. They run the same kind of meeting the same way, encounter the same friction, collect the same vague responses, and file them nowhere. The tool is present. The improvement is absent.

How to Use Plus/Delta Effectively

The quality of a Plus/Delta is determined by the quality of the questions. Generic questions produce generic answers. Specific questions about the meeting process produce specific, actionable feedback.

Start by identifying the critical success factors for the kind of meeting you just ran. What would have made this meeting great? For a weekly work plan meeting, critical success factors might include: clarity of commitment from each trade, productive use of the time allocated to each zone or phase, honest identification of roadblocks rather than optimistic assumptions, and clear ownership of each action item. For a pull planning session, they might include: genuine trade partner engagement throughout the backward pass, confirmation of handoff logic from zone to zone, and the team leaving with a shared understanding of the sequence they committed to.

Then design the Plus/Delta questions around those specific success factors. Not “what worked?” but “how did we do at making sure every trade partner declared their handoffs honestly?” Not “what could be better?” but “where did we lose time in the sequence, and what in the process produced that?” Specific questions produce answers that lead somewhere.

Vary the format. Ask for feedback on sticky notes rather than through open verbal response. Suggest a two-minute paired discussion to generate one improvement suggestion per pair before the whole group shares. Create and use a Great Meetings Checklist that holds the success factors visible and audits against them at the end of each session. If feedback from the previous meeting’s Plus/Delta produced a change, put that change on a flipchart at the start of the next meeting and check back at the end: did the change produce the improvement we expected?

Here are the signals that Plus/Delta is being used as a genuine improvement tool rather than a ritual:

  • The questions asked are specific to the meeting’s process design, not about the content of the discussion.
  • Feedback from previous Plus/Deltas visibly influences how the next meeting is structured.
  • The facilitator tracks changes over time and the meeting format improves measurably from session to session.
  • Trade partners and team members give honest feedback rather than polite agreement because they have seen the feedback used.
  • The meeting’s critical success factors are visible and shared before the meeting begins, so the Plus/Delta at the end can measure against them.

The Most Important Commitment

All of this only works if the meeting leader is genuinely committed to using the feedback. A Plus/Delta run without follow-through is worse than no Plus/Delta at all, it signals to participants that their input is collected but not valued, which is more demoralizing than not being asked in the first place. If the team gives the same feedback three meetings in a row and nothing changes, they will stop giving feedback. The ritual will continue and the improvement will stop.

The actions of the meeting leader demonstrate either commitment to excellent meetings or the absence of that commitment. The tool will not do the work on its own. The leader’s decision to actually read the feedback, adjust the process, and track whether the adjustment produced improvement is what turns Plus/Delta from a meeting habit into a genuine continuous improvement cycle.

At Elevate Construction, every meeting from the strategic planning session to the foreman huddle to the training event has a process design that can be evaluated and improved. The retrospective at the end of the Super PM Boot Camp runs a structured Plus/Delta with specific questions about what served the learning objectives and what should be adjusted for the next cohort. The feedback is read, the improvements are made, and the next iteration is better because of it. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Plus/Delta done right makes every meeting better than the last. Done wrong, it is a question asked into the air at the end of a long day, producing nothing durable and consuming everyone’s time. Be purposeful. Ask the right questions. Use the feedback.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Plus/Delta and what was it originally designed to do?

Plus/Delta is a meeting process improvement tool developed by Doyle and Straus in the 1970s. It was designed as the Check step of the PDCA cycle applied to meeting process, evaluating whether the meeting’s process design served its purpose and identifying specific improvements for the next session.

Why is the standard “any plusses, any deltas?” approach insufficient?

Because generic questions produce generic answers about how people felt, not about what in the meeting process worked or failed. Process improvement requires process-specific feedback, which requires process-specific questions.

What is process blindness and how does Plus/Delta address it?

Process blindness is the failure to see that meetings have a process dimension, how they are planned and run that is separate from their content. Plus/Delta creates process awareness by explicitly evaluating the process at the end of each session and generating improvements for the next one.

What makes a Plus/Delta question effective?

Specificity. Questions tied to the meeting’s identified critical success factors produce answers that lead to specific, actionable changes. “How did we make sure every trade partner declared their handoffs honestly?” produces useful feedback. “What worked?” almost never does.

What happens when Plus/Delta feedback is not acted on?

Participants stop giving honest feedback because they have learned it is not used. The ritual continues and the improvement stops. The tool becomes theater rather than a genuine improvement mechanism.

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

Teaching Lean Construction I: Pull & Flow

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Teaching Pull and Flow in Construction: The Simulation That Makes It Real

One of the most persistent challenges in Lean construction education is that most of the foundational tools for teaching Lean principles were developed in manufacturing. Pull planning. Kanban. Flow balance. Takt time. These concepts emerged from factory floors where partially assembled products move from one stationary machine to the next. When a new Lean learner from construction is put through a manufacturing-based simulation, something is always slightly off, the analogy requires translation, and the translation creates a gap between the principle and the construction context where it needs to apply.

Construction works differently. The product is stationary, the building stays in place while the crews move through it. Trades flow from zone to zone, completing work that is prerequisite to the next trade’s entry. The flow is not the material; it is the crews. And understanding pull and flow in construction means understanding how a parade of trades can be organized into a train that moves through a sequence of zones in a rhythm that protects handoffs and eliminates waiting.

The Flow Building Lean Game was developed specifically to teach pull and flow to construction practitioners in a context that matches their actual work simulating the construction of apartment buildings with LEGO bricks, using crews as the moving element and zones as the stationary element.

Round One: The Push System and Its Costs

The first round of the game simulates a traditional push production system. The logic of a push system is intuitive and familiar: produce as much as you can as fast as you can, move the output downstream regardless of whether the downstream process is ready to receive it, and rework whatever does not meet the standard after the fact. The assumptions baked into this logic are the same assumptions that most traditional construction management is built on. The faster I produce, the better for the project. Do not stop to check quality, we will fix it if necessary. The company does not pay me to think.

These assumptions produce predictable outcomes when simulated. Overproduction creates inventory that piles up between stations because the downstream process is not ready for it. Waiting appears when upstream work was produced too slowly or in the wrong sequence. Rework appears because quality was not checked at the source. Transportation and motion waste appear as materials are moved unnecessarily or workers travel to find what they need. And because each operator is focused on their own speed rather than on the flow of the whole, the system produces fragmentation rather than coordination.

Participants in Round One experience this directly. The wastes are not described to them, they live them. The frustration of producing work that the next trade cannot use yet, of waiting for upstream work that was not ready, of discovering quality problems that require disassembly and reassembly of work that was already counted as complete, these are felt rather than observed. That felt experience is what makes the contrast with Round Two meaningful.

Round Two: Pull, Flow, and Takt

The second round implements a set of Lean principles that address the specific failures the first round produced.

The first principle is pull. In a pull production system, downstream activities signal their needs to upstream activities rather than upstream processes pushing output forward regardless of downstream readiness. Kanban is the mechanism, a visual signal that authorizes the upstream process to produce the next unit when the downstream process is ready to receive it. Pull eliminates overproduction by making demand visible and making production response to actual demand rather than to forecast. In the construction apartment simulation, this means each trade produces what the next trade is ready to receive, not more, not faster, not in the wrong sequence.

The second principle is continuous flow. Pull alone is not sufficient to achieve flow if the pace of each trade is significantly different from the others. When one trade is significantly faster than the next, the faster trade produces inventory that waits and the slower trade becomes the bottleneck that everyone else is waiting behind. Continuous flow requires that the pace of each operator or each trade be balanced to the Takt time. The game uses an Operator Balance Chart to make this balance visible.

The Operator Balance Chart is a graphical tool that shows the total cycle time for each trade as a stacked bar, with individual work elements shown as proportional segments within the bar. All bars are compared against the Takt time, the available production time divided by customer demand. In the game’s scenario, the customer wants ten buildings per day in ten-minute shifts, producing a Takt time of one minute per building. The OBC immediately reveals which trades have cycle times above the Takt time, these are bottlenecks and which are below it, these have capacity that can absorb additional work elements to bring slower trades closer to the rhythm. The process of redistributing work elements to balance all trades to the Takt time is not a theoretical exercise in the simulation. It is a visible, collaborative design problem that participants solve together.

The third set of principles is 5S, standardization, and poka-yokes applied to the construction process itself. The workspace is organized for the current scope. Standard work is established for each trade’s activities so that consistency and therefore reliability is possible. Error-proofing mechanisms prevent the most common quality failures from occurring in the first place rather than being caught in rework. Visual management makes the plan and the performance visible to everyone so the team can see as a group, know as a group, and act as a group. And a set of KPIs including percent plan complete and Takt health indicators enables PDCA cycles at the end of each simulated period so the team continuously improves the system rather than accepting its current performance.

Here are the core insights that Round Two consistently produces for participants:

  • Pull is not just a scheduling technique; it is a signal system that aligns production to actual demand and eliminates the inventory accumulation that push systems produce.
  • Flow is only achievable when cycle times are balanced to the Takt time, one fast operator upstream of a slower one creates the same waiting and stacking that poor planning does.
  • Takt time is not a target imposed on the team, it is the translation of customer demand into production rhythm, a number derived from reality that the team designs its system around.
  • Visual management is not an add-on; it is the mechanism that allows the team to see problems when they are still small rather than when they have compounded into schedule crises.
  • Continuous improvement is not a quarterly initiative, it is what happens at the end of every week when the team asks what they committed to, what they actually did, and what in the system needs to change.

The Connection to Pull Planning

The Flow Building game addresses the production system principles that underlie the Last Planner System: pull and flow. The next step, as participants move from the one-day simulation to the full LPS implementation, is collaborative planning: the pull planning session, the six-week look-ahead, the weekly work plan, and the daily worker huddle that communicates the plan to the people executing it. The production system principles learned in the simulation are the foundation. The collaborative planning practices of the LPS are how those principles become operational in the field, across multiple trades, across multiple zones, across the full life of a construction phase.

What the simulation proves consistently and across different participant groups is that the Lean approach produces dramatically better results than the push approach when everyone is working from the same system. The apartments get built in less time, with fewer defects, with less waste, and with more genuine collaboration between the simulated trades. That experience is what makes the subsequent investment in pull planning, look-ahead planning, and weekly work planning feel worthwhile rather than burdensome.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Experience the difference between push and pull. Then design your project to deliver the pull.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the Flow Building game designed for construction rather than adapted from manufacturing?

Because in construction the product is stationary and the crews move which is the inverse of manufacturing where products move between stationary machines. A construction-specific simulation makes the pull and flow principles directly applicable without requiring translation.

What is the Operator Balance Chart and why is it used in the simulation?

The OBC is a graphical tool that shows each trade’s cycle time as a stacked bar compared to the Takt time. It makes bottlenecks immediately visible and provides a collaborative framework for redistributing work elements to balance all trades to the production rhythm.

What is Takt time in the context of this simulation?

Takt time is the available production time divided by customer demand in the game’s scenario, one minute per building. It synchronizes the pace of production to match the pace of customer demand and provides the rhythm that all trades must design their cycle times around.

What does the simulation demonstrate that lecture cannot?

It creates the felt experience of the difference between push and pull production, the frustration of overproduction and waiting in Round One, and the stability and collaboration of balanced flow in Round Two. That contrast produces behavioral understanding rather than conceptual familiarity.

How does this simulation connect to the Last Planner System?

The Flow Building game teaches the production system principles: pull, flow, Takt, balance that are the foundation of LPS. Collaborative planning through pull planning, the six-week look-ahead, and the weekly work plan are the next layer that makes those principles operational in real construction projects.

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

Teaching Lean Construction II: Last Planner System

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Teaching the Last Planner System Through Simulation: Why Experience Beats Explanation

The Last Planner System is one of the most powerful tools in Lean construction. It is also one of the most frequently misunderstood, partially implemented, and prematurely abandoned, not because the concepts are wrong, but because the transition from understanding them theoretically to implementing them practically is harder than most training approaches acknowledge. Reading about pull planning, percent plan complete, and the six-week look-ahead is a useful starting point. Watching someone explain it is better. But actually, experiencing the difference between a traditional planning approach and a Lean planning approach feeling the chaos of one and the stability of the other in a compressed simulation is what makes the concepts genuinely operational for the people who have to implement them.

This is the case for simulation-based LPS training, and it is the reason the Pull Planning Lean Game has become a meaningful educational tool in the Lean construction community.

Why Theory Alone Is Not Enough

Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell developed the Last Planner System through the 1990s. Lauri Koskela was developing the theoretical production framework that gave LPS its intellectual foundation at the same time. The theory is solid. The track record of successful implementation is growing. And yet the transition from concept to practice remains difficult particularly for the foremen, superintendents, trade partners, and project managers who lead production and have to run the system in real project conditions with real trade partners and real stakes.

The gap between theory and practice is not primarily a knowledge gap. Most practitioners who have been through an LPS training program understand the deliverables: master schedule, pull plan, six-week look-ahead, weekly work plan, day plan, percent plan complete. What they do not always understand not in the visceral way that changes behavior is why the system works and what traditional planning fails to produce. The simulation provides that understanding by letting participants experience both.

Round One: The Traditional System and Its Failures

The Pull Planning Lean Game is structured in two rounds. The first-round assigns participants roles, owner, general contractor, subcontractors, designer and asks them to build a Playmobil house using a traditional scheduling and production system. A Gantt chart governs the plan. Thirty minutes is given. Most groups build half the house or a little more.

What happens in that thirty minutes is exactly what happens on real construction projects managed through traditional systems. Overproduction building before preceding work is ready creates rework and confusion. Inventory accumulates in the wrong places. Waiting appears when upstream work is not ready for the downstream trade. Quality problems go undetected until they are embedded in work that has to be undone. Motion and transportation waste appears as participants search for pieces or move materials inefficiently. The Gantt chart fails early and the team has no mechanism to recover from the deviation. Problems explode rather than surface early. And there is very little collaboration between the parties each is executing their own plan in relative isolation, discovering conflicts at the moment they collide rather than anticipating and preventing them.

The experience of Round One is deliberately uncomfortable. The frustration is productive. It creates the felt sense of what a traditional planning system actually produces not as a description, but as something the participants have just lived through. That felt sense is what makes Round Two land differently.

The Pull Planning Session and Look-Ahead

Between rounds, participants experience the full LPS preparation cycle. The pull planning session about an hour simulates a real collaborative planning process. Each trade partner receives colored cards representing their scope. Working backwards from the completion milestone, they declare their activities, identify what they need from predecessors, and build the sequence collaboratively. The handoffs become visible. The constraints surface. The sequence the team agrees to is one they helped create which produces a fundamentally different relationship to commitment than a sequence handed down from a scheduler who was not in the room.

The six-week look-ahead follows. Participants work through the near-term planning horizon, confirming what is ready to execute and identifying what needs to be removed as roadblocks before the work begins. The target for Round Two is building the complete house in twenty minutes or less, five minutes per simulated week, one per day. The look-ahead is how the team gets ready to make that target achievable.

During preparation, participants also implement Lean tools they have been introduced to in the workshop: 5S for their workspace, visual management so the plan is readable at a glance, standardization of key processes, and poka-yoke error-proofing for the most common failure points in their assembly sequence. The preparation is not overhead; it is the system design that makes execution reliable.

Round Two: The Lean System in Practice

The second round runs with the same participants in the same roles building the same house. The difference is the system. Time is stopped every five minutes representing one week and a brief simulated weekly meeting is held. The team checks what was committed, confirms what was actually completed, calculates percent plan complete for the week, discusses the root causes of any misses, and identifies what needs to change before the next week begins. A PDCA cycle runs at the end of every simulated week.

The outcome is almost always dramatically better. Teams regularly complete the house in twenty minutes or less, the full scope in two-thirds of the time that traditional management produced half the scope. More importantly, the participants feel the difference. The collaboration is real. The handoffs are anticipated rather than discovered. Problems surface early enough to be solved rather than late enough to cause damage. And the plan because everyone helped build it is treated as a shared commitment rather than an external constraint.

Here are the most important things simulation reveals that lecture cannot:

  • The waste of a traditional system is not a description; it is an experience that produces genuine frustration and recognition.
  • The stability of a Lean system is not a promise; it is a felt contrast that the participant carries forward into their actual work.
  • Collaborative planning produces a different kind of commitment than top-down planning, and that difference is visible in behavior.
  • Percent plan complete is not just a metric, it is a learning mechanism, and the debrief after each missed commitment is where the improvement happens.
  • The PDCA cycle is not a framework to memorize, it is a rhythm that becomes natural through practice.

Why This Matters for Lean Adoption

The challenge of Lean construction adoption is not primarily that the tools are unknown. It is that knowing about the tools and being able to run them reliably in real project conditions are different skills, developed through different kinds of learning. Reading about pull planning produces familiarity. Running a pull planning simulation in which you have experienced the failure mode it corrects produces understanding that changes behavior.

Simulation-based learning accelerates the translation from theory to practice because it compresses the full experience, the failure, the reflection, the collaborative redesign, the improved execution, and the measurable result into a time frame short enough to experience in a training context. The participants leave with more than knowledge. They leave with a reference experience they can return to when they encounter resistance or confusion in real implementation.

At Elevate Construction and LeanTakt, the Takt simulation uses the same principle: a 3D printed building model, real zone-by-zone production planning, real Takt time calculations, and the felt experience of flow versus chaos. The simulation makes the concept of a train of trades moving through zones more than an analogy, it makes it something you have done with your hands and felt in real time. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Experience beats explanation. Simulation bridges the gap between them. If you have a team that needs to understand the Last Planner System, do not just explain it, let them live the difference.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is simulation more effective than lecture for teaching the Last Planner System?

Because simulation creates a felt experience of both the traditional planning failure and the Lean planning improvement. The contrast lived rather than described produces the behavioral understanding that lecture alone cannot create.

What happens in Round One of the Pull Planning Lean Game?

Participants build a house using a traditional Gantt-based planning system and experience the seven wastes firsthand: overproduction, waiting, rework, motion waste, transportation waste, and the cascade of problems that occur when collaboration is absent and the plan fails early.

What is the purpose of stopping the simulation every five minutes in Round Two?

Each five-minute stop represents one week and triggers a weekly meeting reviewing what was committed, calculating percent plan complete, identifying root causes of misses, and running a PDCA cycle. It teaches the improvement rhythm that the Last Planner System depends on.

Why does collaborative pull planning produce better outcomes than top-down scheduling?

Because the people who built the plan commit to it differently than the people who received it. Ownership of the plan produces accountability that compliance never does and the handoffs are anticipated rather than discovered because everyone understands the sequence they helped create.

Can this simulation approach be adapted for Takt planning as well?

Yes. The Takt simulation uses a 3D printed building model and real zone-by-zone production planning to create the same kind of experiential learning, the felt difference between chaotic batch scheduling and Takt flow that the LPS game creates for Last Planner principles.

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

Applying Lean Thinking to Improve Safety Performance in Construction

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 17 min

Lean Design and Construction Safety: How Prevention Through Design Changes the Risk Equation

Construction remains one of the most hazardous industries in the United States. Workers who account for roughly five percent of the total workforce absorb approximately twenty percent of all occupational fatal and non-fatal injuries. In 2014 alone, 874 fatal work-related injuries were reported in the construction industry. These numbers are not random. They are patterned. And one of the clearest patterns in the research is that a significant portion of construction fatalities 42 percent of 224 fatalities studied between 1990 and 2003 can be traced back to decisions made during design, before a single worker set foot on site.

That finding changes the conversation about construction safety fundamentally. If nearly half of fatalities are connected to decisions made in the design phase, then safety management that focuses only on the field is addressing the symptom while leaving the cause untouched. The most effective intervention is upstream. And Lean design practices, it turns out, are well-positioned to enable exactly that intervention.

Waste and Injury Are Connected

The alignment between Lean thinking and safety management is not coincidental. Both are oriented toward identifying and eliminating conditions that produce bad outcomes before those conditions cause harm. Lean asks: where is the waste in this process, and how do we design it out? Safety management asks: where are the hazards in this environment, and how do we eliminate them before they injure someone?

The hierarchy of controls, a widely used framework in occupational safety establishes that eliminating a hazard at the source is the most effective control measure available. Engineering controls that reduce or isolate exposure come next. Administrative controls that change the way work is done follow. Personal protective equipment is the last line of defense. The further down the hierarchy, the more a safety measure depends on human behavior being consistently correct which, under real field conditions with variable crew experience, fatigue, and time pressure, is an unreliable foundation.

Eliminating the hazard entirely is the gold standard. And eliminating a hazard often means changing the design of the facility rather than changing the behavior of the worker who would otherwise face the hazard. This is Prevention through Design, the concept of protecting construction workers by addressing their safety during the design process, before construction begins.

Where Lean Design Practices Support Prevention Through Design

Several Lean design practices align directly with the PtD concept in ways that make early safety hazard elimination more practical and more systematic.

Set-based design generates different design alternatives upfront and defers narrowing to a single solution until the last responsible moment when the most information is available to make the right choice. In a safety context, this means that instead of committing early to one design approach and then discovering its safety implications when it is expensive to change, the team maintains a set of alternatives that includes options specifically developed to eliminate construction and maintenance hazards. The parapet versus guardrail example is a direct illustration: if the set of alternatives had been narrowed early to temporary engineering controls, the option to eliminate the hazard through a permanent design modification might never have been fully evaluated.

Cross-functional teams bring different perspectives into the design process simultaneously rather than in sequence. When specialty contractors, safety professionals, facilities managers, and maintenance personnel contribute to design decisions alongside architects and engineers, the knowledge required to see construction and maintenance hazards clearly is in the room when the decisions are being made. Without that cross-functional involvement, design teams may not recognize the hazards that workers will face during construction and throughout the building’s maintenance lifecycle. The hazard does not appear until someone is on the roof with fall protection that was specified by someone who never worked on a roof.

Early involvement of specialty contractors is one of the most direct mechanisms for surfacing constructability and safety issues while the design is still flexible. A structural steel contractor who participates in the design phase can identify connection details that create fall hazard exposure during erection and propose modifications that eliminate the hazard before it is built into the documents. That conversation, happening at the design phase, costs a fraction of what a field modification costs and the safety outcome is incomparably better.

Choosing by Advantages: Making Safety Decisions Transparently

When multiple design alternatives have been developed, the team faces the challenge of selecting one. This is where Choosing by Advantages, a collaborative, transparent decision-making system that evaluates options based on the importance of their advantages over each other rather than on cost alone provides a structured framework for making safety-integrated design decisions.

The rooftop fall protection case study from a medical facilities campus in Portland, Oregon illustrates this directly. Three alternatives were evaluated: a temporary guardrail system meeting code requirement, a permanent roof anchor system providing tie-off points, and a design modification incorporating a tall parapet around the entire rooftop perimeter. The CBA process evaluated each alternative based on the importance of its advantages to construction stakeholders — not just cost, not just code compliance, but value generated across the full lifecycle of the facility.

The parapet solution was selected because its primary advantage eliminating the risk of falling over the sides of the roof during both construction and maintenance operations, permanently and without ongoing behavioral compliance requirements was evaluated as the most important advantage available. No temporary system. No tie-off dependency. No behavioral compliance condition. The hazard is eliminated by the design itself, for every worker who will ever access that roof for the life of the building.

That outcome, a safer building, a safer construction site, and a safer maintenance environment is the product of a design process that included the right stakeholders, maintained the right set of alternatives, and made the final decision through a transparent framework that valued long-term safety benefits appropriately.

Here are the signals that a project is incorporating Prevention through Design principles effectively:

  • Specialty contractors and safety professionals are involved in design decisions, not just construction execution.
  • Design alternatives are evaluated for their safety implications during construction and throughout the building’s maintenance lifecycle.
  • Hazard elimination is explicitly considered alongside cost and aesthetic alternatives, not treated as secondary.
  • Decisions between design alternatives are made through a transparent, collaborative process that documents the reasoning.
  • The final design reflects permanent hazard elimination wherever possible rather than relying on personal protective equipment as the primary control.

Why This Belongs in Every Lean Conversation

Lean is fundamentally about respect for people and resources. The worker who faces a preventable fall hazard because a design decision was made without safety input is in exactly the same position as the trade partner whose production system was not designed to support their flow: the system failed them. The hazard was built into the environment by decisions made before they arrived. And the most respectful thing a design and construction team can do for the people who will build and maintain the facility is to eliminate those hazards before the workers ever encounter them.

Improving workplace safety is waste reduction and value generation in the fullest sense. Workplace accidents impose costs, on schedules, on quality, on the project budget, on the workers and families affected, and on the organizations responsible. Eliminating the conditions that produce accidents through intentional design is Lean thinking applied to the most important outcome of all: the health and lives of the people doing the work.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Lean design is not separate from safety management. It is one of the most powerful tools safety management has.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Prevention through Design and how does it connect to Lean?

Prevention through Design is the practice of protecting construction and maintenance workers by addressing safety hazards during the design process before construction begins. It connects to Lean because both prioritize eliminating problems at their source rather than managing them after they occur.

Why does the hierarchy of controls favor design-based hazard elimination over personal protective equipment?

Because PPE depends on human behavior being consistently correct under variable field conditions, which is inherently unreliable. Design-based elimination removes the hazard entirely, regardless of worker behavior or experience level.

What is Choosing by Advantages and how is it used for safety decisions?

CBA is a collaborative decision-making system that evaluates alternatives based on the importance of their advantages to stakeholders rather than on cost alone. In safety contexts, it ensures that long-term hazard elimination benefits are evaluated appropriately against shorter-term cost considerations.

Why does early specialty contractor involvement improve construction site safety?

Because specialty contractors can identify construction sequence hazards that architects and engineers may not recognize, and can propose design modifications that eliminate those hazards while the design is still flexible enough to change.

How does set-based design support safety integration in the design process?

By maintaining multiple design alternatives until the last responsible moment, set-based design ensures that options specifically developed to eliminate construction and maintenance hazards remain on the table long enough for their safety advantages to be fully evaluated before a final design decision is made.

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 Path to Mastery

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 17 min

They All Were Trainers: The Pattern Behind Every Master You Have Ever Admired

Think about the people in any field who have reached genuine mastery. The ones whose work you study, whose books you read, whose careers you hold up as the standard. Look closely at the pattern and you will find the same thing almost every time. They were trainers. Not just practitioners trainers. People who took what they had learned and implemented, and then taught it to others, and then went back to learning and implementing again.

Jocko Willink and the leadership work he did in Ramadi he was a trainer. Mark Divine, building the mental toughness systems that have developed thousands of operators trainer. Chuck Norris, who spent decades training martial artists alongside his own continued practice trainer. Tony Robbins trainer. General Patton, who developed his approach to armored warfare through the Desert Training Center before commanding in the field trainer. The pattern is consistent enough that it becomes a principle rather than a coincidence.

The Pattern Is Not Coincidence

It would be easy to say that these people taught because they were already great. But that gets the sequence backwards. The teaching is part of what made them great. Training others forced a clarity about the work that self-practice alone cannot produce. When you have to explain something to someone who does not yet understand it, you discover every assumption you had not examined, every gap in your own understanding that competent performance had allowed you to avoid, and every place where what you thought you knew does not hold up under scrutiny.

Teaching is the pressure that reveals whether understanding is genuine or just practiced. It is one of the most reliable diagnostics of mastery that exists.

Learn, Implement, Teach Not in Any Other Order

The sequence matters. It is not learn, learn, teach. It is not learn, learn, learn until you feel ready to teach. The sequence that produces mastery is learn, implement, teach and then repeat all three. Not as three separate phases but as an interlocking cycle where each one feeds the others.

Learning without implementation produces theory. It gives the learner a vocabulary and a framework, but without the friction of real application those frameworks are not tested against reality. The practitioner who has never implemented what they teach cannot bring the human dimension of the work into the teaching the moments where the theory collides with the actual conditions of a project, a crew, a supply chain problem, or a leadership failure. That collision is where the most important learning happens. Without it, the teaching is incomplete.

Implementation without teaching produces competence that stays contained. The practitioner gets better and better at what they do, but the learning does not spread. The insights gained through doing accumulate privately and then retire or depart with the person when they move on. The organization does not get smarter. The next practitioner starts close to the same place the previous one did.

Teaching without ongoing learning and implementation produces something worse the practitioner who has stopped growing but continues to teach from what was learned years ago as if the field has not advanced. There is a version of this in construction that is recognizable: the Takt planning teacher who has never implemented Takt on an actual project, or the superintendent course instructor who has never been a superintendent. Knowledge without implementation is not power. Knowledge and action together are power.

What Teaching Actually Develops

When you explain something you understand to someone who does not yet understand it, several things happen that do not happen in solo practice.

You encounter questions you had not considered. A learner’s question about why something works the way it does a question that would not have occurred to you because you have been doing it long enough that it feels obvious forces you to articulate an answer you have never had to articulate before. Sometimes the answer reveals something you did not fully understand. Sometimes it reveals a better explanation that improves your own mental model. Either way, the question moved you forward.

You see the difficulty from the outside. When you watch someone implement what you have taught them and struggle with the specific places where the theory does not immediately translate into practice, you learn something about the gap between explanation and application. That information makes your teaching better. It also reveals assumptions in your own practice that you had never examined.

You create something that outlasts you. Gino Wickman stated that you are not truly a leader until a leader you have trained has trained another leader. That chain is the measure of genuine leadership impact not the direct reports you developed, but whether those direct reports developed the next generation. If you trained an assistant superintendent who became a project superintendent, and that project superintendent is now training the next assistant superintendent who will become a project superintendent, the chain extends beyond you. That is mastery that compounds.

Here are the signals that someone is genuinely on the learn-implement-teach cycle rather than just one of the three:

  • They can describe the specific places where the theoretical framework did not match their field experience and explain how they adapted
  • They regularly host training sessions, boot camps, or structured learning moments with their team
  • When a mentee struggles with something they once struggled with, they recognize it and have a field-tested answer
  • Their teaching gets better over time because implementation keeps revealing new things to teach
  • They credit sources and experiences rather than presenting their expertise as self-generated

The Obligation at Every Level

Here is the implication that most leaders resist: if you are a project superintendent, a general superintendent, a project executive, or a project director, you have automatically signed up to be a trainer. Not occasionally. Continuously. Not delegated to HR or people development. Done by you, directly, through boot camps, field walks, shoulder-to-shoulder mentorship, and the daily practice of explaining what you are doing and why.

A project executive should know how to do every function in the project delivery office. A general superintendent should be able to run a total station, fill out a pre-task plan, execute a safety walk, as-built a gravity line, and build a production plan not because they will do those things daily at that career stage, but because you cannot effectively lead work you cannot do. And because the moment you stop being able to demonstrate, you stop being a credible trainer for the people who report to you.

None of this is “I don’t do computers” or “I don’t use technology.” Those phrases are learned ignorance presented as a personality trait. They are excuses that disconnect leaders from the tools their teams use daily and eliminate the credibility that comes from genuine mastery. The leader who cannot demonstrate has to depend on compliance. The leader who can demonstrate earns genuine respect.

Connecting to the Mission

At Elevate Construction, every boot camp, every YouTube shoot, every podcast, every free resource exists because the learn-implement-teach cycle is how the industry gets better. Not just individual practitioners the whole industry. When someone learns Takt planning in a simulation, goes back to their project and implements it, and then teaches their foremen and trade partners what they learned from that implementation, the knowledge compounds in a way that a lecture or a book alone cannot produce. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The path to mastery runs through teaching. If you ever have the opportunity to be a trainer take it. If your role requires you to be a trainer own it. And if the people you have trained are now training others, you are doing the work that the pattern of every great practitioner confirms: this is what mastery actually looks like.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is teaching considered part of the path to mastery rather than a byproduct of it?

Because teaching forces a clarity about the work that self-practice alone cannot produce. Explaining something to someone who does not understand it reveals every assumption that competent performance had allowed you to avoid examining.

Why must implementation come before teaching in the learn-implement-teach cycle?

Because knowledge without implementation produces theory that has not been tested against real conditions. A teacher who has never implemented what they teach cannot bring the human dimension of the work into the teaching which is where the most important learning lives.

What does it mean that you are not a leader until a leader you have trained has trained another leader?

It means that genuine leadership impact is measured not by the direct reports you developed but by whether those direct reports developed the next generation. The chain that extends beyond you is the measure.

Why should senior leaders remain capable of doing every function their teams perform?

Because you cannot credibly train work you cannot demonstrate. Leaders who are detached from the technical reality of their teams’ daily work lose the credibility that comes from genuine mastery and must depend on compliance rather than respect.

Is “I don’t use technology” an acceptable position for a construction leader?

No. It is learned ignorance presented as a personality trait. Construction leaders at every level should be capable of using the tools their teams use daily both to train effectively and to maintain the credibility that genuine mastery requires.

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 Missing Piece! The Production Laws!

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 26 min

Are You Disobeying the Production Laws?

You push more manpower onto the project. You push more materials into the area. You push information before it’s ready. You push variation on people changing their daily routines to start two days earlier affecting thirty-five different people. And every push makes the project slower, not faster. Duration extends. Coordination chaos multiplies. Crews stumble over each other. Productivity crashes. And you wonder why harder work creates worse results when the answer is you’re violating production laws that govern how work flows through systems. Nicholas Modig explains these laws in his book “This is Lean.” Hal Macomber and Adam Hoots teach them. They’re proven in Toyota manufacturing plants and German factories. They’re physics, not preferences. And when you obey them through Takt planning, projects accelerate with less cost, better work-life balance, and superior performance. When you violate them through CPM and push-based approaches, you fight laws you can’t win against.

Here’s what most teams miss. There are four production laws governing construction projects: Little’s Law, the Law of Variation, the Bottleneck Law, and Kingman’s Formula. CPM violates every single one. Takt planning obeys and encourages all of them. Little’s Law proves throughput time increases when work in progress increases or cycle time extends. CPM spreads work across the entire project simultaneously, maximizing work in progress and extending cycle time. Takt limits work in progress through small batch sizes enabling faster throughput. The Law of Variation shows variation is the enemy creating chaos and unpredictability. CPM creates variation through constantly changing critical paths that shift seventeen times as projections get adjusted. Takt creates rhythm, consistency, and continuity absorbing variation predictably instead of reactively. The Bottleneck Law proves systems move at the speed of their slowest process. CPM focuses on critical path, not bottlenecks. Takt makes bottlenecks visible through workflow, trade flow, and logistical flow enabling optimization. Kingman’s Formula requires realistic buffering for variation. CPM packages work assuming perfect conditions. Takt packages work with realistic buffers for variation and productivity dips.

The challenge is the entire industry has been saying “production” for decades without understanding what production means. When projects fall behind, everyone defaults to throwing more manpower and materials at problems. This is literally the worst thing you can do. It violates every production law simultaneously. But nobody teaches this. So teams keep pushing wondering why harder work creates worse results when the answer is they’re fighting physics governing how work flows. Companies in Illinois are cutting twenty percent off project schedules simply by following production laws through Takt planning instead of violating them through traditional approaches.

The Four Production Laws You Must Obey

These laws govern construction production. Violate them and your project slows. Obey them and your project accelerates:

  • Little’s Law: Throughput Time = Work in Progress × Cycle Time.

  • Smaller batches move faster than large batches.

  • Limit work in progress to reduce throughput time.

  • Don’t spread crews across entire project simultaneously.

  • Complete one zone before starting the next.

  • Finish as you go instead of coming back later.

  • Law of Variation: Variation is the enemy of predictability.

  • Every random plan change multiplies through the system creating chaos.

  • Absorbing owner changes without structure spreads disruption.

  • Reacting emotionally to pressure instead of systematically compounds problems.

  • Stable rhythm blocks variation waves protecting trades from unnecessary starts and stops.

  • Takt absorbs delays predictably instead of reactively maintaining stability.

  • Bottleneck Law: Systems move at the speed of their slowest process.

  • Every project has a bottleneck; relieving one reveals another.

  • Optimizing non-bottleneck resources doesn’t improve system performance.

  • Only optimizing the bottleneck increases throughput.

  • Pushing harder doesn’t help; bottlenecks respond to increased capacity, not pressure.

  • Takt makes bottlenecks visible in the train of trades enabling targeted optimization.

  • Kingman’s Formula: Waiting Time = Cycle Time × Utilization × Variation.

  • Crews need buffers for variation and productivity dips during onboarding.

  • Four-day Takt time doesn’t mean crews can fit four days of perfect-condition work.

  • Package work realistically accounting for capacity utilization and variation.

  • Unrealistic packaging creates constant system breakdowns and frustration.

Why CPM Violates Every Production Law

Picture how CPM operates. It spreads activities across the entire project timeline. Work happens everywhere simultaneously. The critical path identifies longest dependency chain. When the project falls behind, the critical path shifts. It changes seventeen times because it’s projection and guess, not based on consistency, continuity, and rhythm. This approach violates every production law.

CPM violates Little’s Law by maximizing work in progress. When you’re working everywhere simultaneously across the entire project, you’ve maximized the number of flow units in the process. Little’s Law proves this extends throughput time. Smaller batches would move faster. But CPM doesn’t batch work into zones completed sequentially. It spreads work across the entire project creating maximum work in progress and maximum cycle time.

CPM violates the Law of Variation by creating constantly changing critical paths. The projection shifts. Dependencies change. Activities move. This creates variation instead of absorbing it. Teams react to yesterday’s critical path instead of following stable rhythm. Foremen make field decisions reactively instead of planning systematically. The system becomes unpredictable exactly when stability would enable flow.

CPM violates the Bottleneck Law by focusing on critical path instead of bottlenecks. Critical path shows longest dependency chain. But that’s not the same as identifying bottlenecks constraining system capacity. You’re looking at random squirrels across the project instead of the actual constraints limiting throughput. Optimizing critical path activities doesn’t necessarily optimize bottlenecks. So the system still moves at bottleneck speed while you waste effort elsewhere.

CPM violates Kingman’s Formula by packaging work without realistic buffers. Activities show durations assuming perfect conditions. No buffer for variation. No allowance for productivity dips during crew onboarding. When reality introduces variation, the system breaks. Then teams push harder creating more variation compounding the problem. The packaging was unrealistic from the start.

This is why Jason says if you’re still defending CPM, please stop. You sound stupid. It’s really not ever going to work. You can do some of those things in CPM, but it takes twelve times as long. Meanwhile, teams using Takt beat you with shorter schedules, less cost, better employee treatment, better work-life balance, and superior performance.

How Takt Planning Obeys Production Laws

Takt planning works because it obeys production laws instead of violating them. It creates rhythm, consistency, and continuity. It makes bottlenecks visible. It limits work in progress. It packages work realistically. It absorbs variation predictably. This isn’t magic. It’s law. It’s eternal truth. It’s physics.

Takt obeys Little’s Law through small batch sizes. You divide the project into zones. Work moves through one zone at a time completing it fully before moving to the next. This limits work in progress dramatically. Little’s Law proves this reduces throughput time. Instead of spreading crews across the entire project, you concentrate them in sequential zones. Smaller batches. Faster movement. Shorter overall duration.

Takt obeys the Law of Variation by creating stable rhythm. The Takt time establishes consistent cycle. Trades move through zones in predictable sequence. When delays occur, they’re absorbed through planned buffers instead of reactive chaos. The system maintains rhythm instead of breaking into variation. This stability protects trades from unnecessary starts and stops enabling them to work productively instead of reacting constantly.

Takt obeys the Bottleneck Law by making bottlenecks visible. You can see workflow, trade flow, and logistical flow. You can see histograms with manpower and cost. You can see crew counts. You can analyze which trades are slowest, which processes take longest, which Takt areas have the most complex work. The bottlenecks become obvious. Then you optimize them. When you optimize one bottleneck, the next appears. You optimize that too. The system continuously improves instead of randomly pushing everywhere.

Takt obeys Kingman’s Formula by packaging work realistically. You identify work steps within each Takt wagon. You execute first-in-place runs identifying cycle time, capacity utilization, and variation. Then you package subsequent zones accounting for these realities. Crews see packages that match reality instead of fantasy. The system stays stable instead of constantly breaking because expectations were unrealistic.

What You Must Do to Follow Production Laws

Stop pushing. Everyone stop pushing. Superintendents, stop pushing manpower into areas. Stop pushing materials before they’re needed. Stop pushing information before it’s ready. Stop pushing variation on people. You need rhythm. You need consistency. You need continuity. You need to plan a schedule with flow and hold to that flow.

Here’s what following production laws requires:

  • Small batch sizes instead of working everywhere simultaneously.
  • Limit work in progress by completing zones sequentially.
  • Finish as you go instead of coming back later.
  • See and prevent roadblocks before they disrupt flow.
  • Create standards and consistency enabling predictability.
  • Optimize bottlenecks instead of pushing everywhere randomly.
  • Reduce queuing and waiting times through proper sequencing.
  • Package work realistically with buffers for variation.
  • Take more time preparing work and finishing it right.
  • Hold to flow instead of reacting to daily pressures.

Why This is the Most Important Information Jason’s Ever Shared

Jason calls this the single most important bit of information he’s ever shared. The most important thing we need to understand in construction right now. And he’s not exaggerating. For his entire career, he’s never heard anybody talk about or seen anybody talk about or had anybody get close to knowing how to pick up time on projects until he learned production laws. Everyone just says throw more manpower and materials at it. That is not the answer.

Jason has been using Takt planning for ten to fifteen years. It’s been working great. It shaped his mind creating phrases like “plan it first, build it right, finish as you go” and “hold start dates” and “hold the line.” He came up with those for himself without knowing production laws. Takt shapes you. It forces you to think correctly about production even if you don’t understand the underlying physics.

But now Jason understands why Takt works. And it’s not magic. It’s law. It’s eternal truth. It’s physics proven in manufacturing and validated by companies cutting twenty percent off schedules simply by following production laws. The industry needs full-scale shift right now into this. We cannot keep defending CPM. We have to follow production laws through Takt planning creating rhythm, consistency, and continuity instead of violating laws through push-based chaos.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When teams don’t know production laws, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching “production” without teaching what production means. Teams used the word for decades without understanding the physics governing how work flows. Nobody taught Little’s Law. Nobody explained the Law of Variation. Nobody showed the Bottleneck Law. Nobody demonstrated Kingman’s Formula. The system assumed people would figure it out. But they didn’t. So teams keep pushing manpower and materials wondering why it makes things worse when the answer is they’re fighting physics nobody taught them existed.

The system also failed by creating CPM as standard scheduling approach. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. But CPM violates every production law. It maximizes work in progress. It creates variation through constantly changing critical paths. It focuses on dependencies instead of bottlenecks. It packages work without realistic buffers. Yet everyone uses it because the system taught this approach as standard when it was wrong from the start.

The system fails by not teaching that pushing is the enemy. When projects fall behind, everyone pushes. More manpower. More materials. Faster pace. Start earlier. Work in more areas. This violates every production law simultaneously. But nobody teaches that pushing extends duration instead of reducing it. So teams keep pushing wondering why harder work creates worse results when the answer is they’re fighting laws they can’t win against.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop disobeying production laws. Start following them through Takt planning creating rhythm, consistency, and continuity.

Learn the four production laws. Little’s Law shows work in progress times cycle time equals throughput time. The Law of Variation shows variation is the enemy. The Bottleneck Law shows systems move at bottleneck speed. Kingman’s Formula requires realistic buffering. These are physics, not preferences.

Stop pushing. Stop pushing manpower into areas. Stop pushing materials before needed. Stop pushing information before ready. Stop pushing variation on people. You need rhythm, consistency, and continuity instead.

Use small batch sizes. Divide projects into zones. Complete one zone before starting the next. Limit work in progress. Little’s Law proves this reduces throughput time even though it feels slower because less apparent activity exists.

Make bottlenecks visible. Use Takt planning showing workflow, trade flow, and logistical flow. Identify which processes constrain system capacity. Optimize those. When you relieve one bottleneck, the next appears. Optimize that too.

Package work realistically. Account for variation. Account for productivity dips during onboarding. Don’t assume perfect conditions. Kingman’s Formula proves you need buffers. Package realistically. The system stays stable instead of constantly breaking.

Create rhythm and hold to it. Plan a schedule with flow. Protect that flow. Take time preparing work. Build it right. Finish as you go. This is how we make a difference in this industry. One hundred percent.

We now know what we have to do. This is probably the single most impactful information you will hear this year. Let’s find ways to implement it.

On we go.

FAQ

What are the four production laws?

Little’s Law (throughput time = work in progress × cycle time), Law of Variation (variation is the enemy creating chaos), Bottleneck Law (systems move at speed of slowest process), and Kingman’s Formula (waiting time = cycle time × utilization × variation requiring realistic buffers). These are physics governing how work flows through systems.

Why does CPM violate production laws?

CPM maximizes work in progress violating Little’s Law. Creates variation through constantly changing critical paths violating Law of Variation. Focuses on dependencies instead of bottlenecks violating Bottleneck Law. Packages work without realistic buffers violating Kingman’s Formula. It violates every production law simultaneously.

How does Takt planning obey production laws?

Limits work in progress through small batch zones obeying Little’s Law. Creates stable rhythm absorbing variation predictably obeying Law of Variation. Makes bottlenecks visible enabling optimization obeying Bottleneck Law. Packages work realistically with buffers obeying Kingman’s Formula. It follows physics instead of fighting it.

Why does pushing make projects slower?

Pushing manpower increases work in progress extending cycle time per Little’s Law. Pushing creates variation destroying predictability per Law of Variation. Pushing doesn’t address bottlenecks per Bottleneck Law. Pushing assumes perfect conditions without buffers violating Kingman’s Formula. It violates every production law simultaneously extending duration despite increased effort.

How are companies cutting 20% off schedules?

By following production laws through Takt planning. Limiting work in progress. Creating stable rhythm. Making bottlenecks visible and optimizing them. Packaging work realistically with buffers. Not working harder but working with physics instead of fighting it. Better results with less cost and better work-life balance.

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

Making Mistakes

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 26 min

Are You Making Mistakes? Are You Okay with That?

You need to be perfect now. No mistakes allowed. Every error proves incompetence. Every failure reveals inadequacy. So you hide your struggles. You don’t ask for help. You deal with problems alone hoping nobody discovers your weaknesses. And this mindset destroys you. It makes you less human. It prevents growth. It blocks transparency. It eliminates the courage to take risks, lead boldly, and fulfill your potential. Meanwhile, the belief that perfection is required right now keeps you stuck in patterns preventing the very excellence you’re pursuing. Because striving for perfection is beautiful. Striving for excellence is beautiful. Striving for outstanding is beautiful. But thinking we need to be perfect now puts us in a bad mindset taking us in a bad direction. It makes us hide who we really are. It prevents us from reaching out for help when we need it most.

Here’s what most people miss. Everyone makes mistakes. The question isn’t whether you’ll make them. The question is whether you’re okay with that reality. Whether you’ll be transparent when mistakes happen. Whether you’ll widen your circle getting help instead of hiding. Whether you’ll confess, repent, rally your team, and get through it with courage. Or whether you’ll hide your feelings, keep silent, and attempt to deal with it alone. Jason made massive mistakes throughout his career. He mislocated a two-million-dollar guard station requiring demolition and rebuild. He helped put his wife’s father’s company out of business through unfair treatment. He almost got fired as lead field engineer for having fixed mindset offending people and getting layout wrong all over the building. He got suspended for not speaking up and defending someone who needed defending. He supervised installation of a duct bank right where a sewer line should go costing $350,000. He flooded a basement with four inches of water. And every mistake taught him that transparency works better than hiding. The more open he was, the less painful mistakes became as teams rallied helping him through them.

The challenge is most people have fixed mindsets instead of growth mindsets. Fixed mindset says mistakes prove inadequacy. Growth mindset says mistakes create learning opportunities. Fixed mindset hides problems. Growth mindset exposes them systematically looking for, finding, elevating, and removing roadblocks creating flow. Fixed mindset isolates. Growth mindset widens circles rallying teams. And the transformation from fixed to growth mindset changes everything. Jason went from almost getting fired to training throughout the United States within six months. From being demoted with people not wanting to work with him to being asked to teach at 24 or 25 years old. The change came from reducing pride, increasing humility, learning from lessons of history through the Field Engineering Methods Manual, and implementing everything he learned. That’s the power of accepting mistakes and choosing growth over perfection.

Why Needing to Be Perfect Now Hurts You

Picture the person who needs to be perfect now. They hide their struggles. When they make mistakes, they cover them up hoping nobody notices. They don’t ask for help because asking reveals they don’t know everything. They deal with problems alone because admitting challenges proves inadequacy. They present a facade of competence while internally drowning in issues they can’t solve alone.

This approach destroys people. It makes them less human. Humans are designed to work together, not alone. COVID-19 showed us that isolation destroys wellbeing. Yet the perfection mindset creates voluntary isolation preventing the very help that would enable success. You won’t take risks because risks might create visible failures. You won’t lead boldly because bold leadership exposes you to criticism. You won’t fulfill the measure of your creation because attempting something remarkable risks remarkable failure.

The perfection mindset also prevents systematic improvement. If you can’t admit mistakes exist, you can’t systematically find, elevate, and remove roadblocks. You can’t create flow because creating flow requires exposing problems blocking it. The belief that you should be perfect now prevents the very growth creating excellence later.

Striving for perfection is beautiful. That’s different from needing to be perfect now. Striving means moving toward excellence acknowledging you’re not there yet. Needing to be perfect now means pretending you’ve already arrived creating pressure to hide the gap between current reality and claimed perfection. That gap destroys people.

The Science of Momentum and Growth Mindset

Tony Robbins teaches the science of momentum explaining why most people fail to achieve their goals. They never take the first steps. Here’s the proven model for creating momentum:

  • Put yourself in peak state through performance, physiology, focus, and language.
  • Find your passion: what fuels your drive, what you love, what you hate, what you really want.
  • Commit, decide, and resolve – that’s when your power is unleashed.
  • Take immediate, intelligent, and massive action with a proven plan.
  • Reflect on your goal, see if it’s working, adjust and take massive action again.
  • Keep going with massive action until you find lasting happiness.

The challenge is we often lack leverage. Until we’re told we’re dying of cancer, we don’t quit smoking. Until our spouse threatens to leave, we don’t improve our marriage. We need leverage. Every time we start doing something wrong, we must break that pattern and reframe. Associate pain with what you want to stop. Connect pleasure with what you want to do. Then enter the momentum cycle.

Another key concept: reduce your friction and increase your addiction with things you want to start. If you want to exercise but find it too hard, reduce friction by getting equipment in your bedroom instead of driving to the gym. Increase addiction by watching your favorite show only while exercising. Connect the habit you’re building with things that release hormones and chemicals reinforcing that habit. Reduce friction. Increase addiction. Get leverage against bad habits. Break patterns. Reframe. Associate pain with what you want to stop. Associate pleasure with what you want to start.

Jason’s Major Mistakes and What They Taught

Jason shares stories proving he’s okay with making mistakes because transparency works better than hiding:

  • Mislocated two-million-dollar guard station requiring demolition and rebuild.
  • Helped put his wife’s father’s company out of business through unfair treatment and documentation.
  • Almost got fired as lead field engineer for fixed mindset, offending people, getting layout wrong everywhere.
  • Got suspended for not speaking up and defending someone who needed defending.
  • Supervised installation of duct bank in the middle of where sewer line should go (cost $350,000 from contingency).
  • Flooded basement with four inches of water requiring midnight response and restoration companies.

Every mistake taught lessons. The guard station taught the importance of systems preventing errors. His wife’s father’s company taught him to take care of trade partners instead of unfairly breaking them. Almost getting fired transformed him from fixed to growth mindset through reading scriptures and the Field Engineering Methods Manual. Getting suspended made him sensitive and appropriate with social equality and opportunity. The duct bank taught him to check coordination thoroughly. Flooding the basement taught him that transparency and openness with the owner made problems less painful.

The pattern Jason noticed: the more transparent and open he was about mistakes, the less painful they became. The more he widened his circle getting help, the more teams rallied helping him through problems. The more he confessed and addressed issues directly, the more people respected him. Hiding creates isolation and pain. Transparency creates support and solutions.

Fixed Mindset to Growth Mindset Transformation

Jason was a lead field engineer with fixed mindset. He was offending people. Getting layout wrong all over the building. Not listening. Not doing a good job. People didn’t want to work with him. He was stubborn. So siloed that management had to remove the door to his office. He was about to get fired.

Then two books entered his life: the scriptures from a religious standpoint and the Field Engineering Methods Manual. That began his journey of attempting to read a book a week. That changed his entire life turning him into a growth mindset person. He started being more open. More humble. More willing to learn.

What helped him? A reduction in pride. A desire to be more humble and open. That’s what he got from the scriptures. From the Field Engineering Methods Manual, he learned we don’t belong recreating the wheel. A lot of this knowledge already exists. We need to learn from lessons of history.

Jason started implementing everything from religious texts and the field engineering manual. Everything changed within a couple months. He turned to growth mindset. He started winning so much they asked him to start training throughout the United States at 24 or 25 years old. How often do we have a 25-year-old asked to teach concepts throughout the United States for a company? It doesn’t happen very often. That was the change from fixed to growth mindset in six months.

Why We Succeed as Teams, Not Individuals

General Patton said something Jason loves despite rough language. All this individuality stuff is garbage. The people who say you deal with problems by yourself or you’re an individual or you can handle this on your own don’t understand reality. Humans aren’t designed to do things by themselves. COVID-19 showed us that. We are not designed to do things alone.

You’ve got to become really good at understanding you’re going to make mistakes. You’ve got to become okay with that and realize you’re human. If not, you won’t take risks. You won’t fulfill the measure of your creation. You won’t be out there leading. You won’t have the confidence you need. And you won’t be able to respond well when mistakes happen.

The other consequence: you won’t start looking for, finding, elevating, and removing roadblocks and mistakes and problems as a systematic approach to creating flow. If you can’t admit mistakes exist, you can’t systematically fix them. If you need to be perfect now, you can’t expose problems. If you can’t expose problems, you can’t create flow. The entire system depends on accepting that mistakes happen and addressing them transparently as a team.

When mistakes happen, it’s a decision right then. Be transparent. Widen your circle. Tell everybody who needs to be told. Confess. Repent, whatever the situation requires. If you’re struggling in darkness, get help. If you’re dealing with challenges, speak up. Rally as a team. Get through it with courage. When you do that, people will respect you more than if you attempted to hide it or hid your feelings or kept silent or tried dealing with it alone.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When people think they need to be perfect now, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching that mistakes prove inadequacy instead of teaching that mistakes create learning opportunities. Nobody showed that transparency works better than hiding. Nobody explained that the more open you are about mistakes, the less painful they become as teams rally helping you through them. Nobody demonstrated that growth mindset transforms careers while fixed mindset destroys them. The system created perfection expectations preventing the very growth creating excellence.

The system also failed by not teaching that humans are designed to work together, not alone. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. But cultural messages say “be an individual,” “handle it yourself,” “don’t ask for help.” This isolates people exactly when team support would enable success. The system taught self-sufficiency as virtue when actually humans thrive through collaboration and struggle through isolation.

The system fails by not teaching the science of momentum. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they never take first steps. Peak state, passion, commitment, massive action, reflection, and adjustment create momentum. Reducing friction and increasing addiction with desired habits enables change. Getting leverage, breaking patterns, and reframing associations drives transformation. But the system doesn’t teach this. So people stay stuck wondering why they can’t change when the answer is they don’t know the proven model for creating momentum.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Accept that you’re going to make mistakes. Get okay with that reality. Realize you’re human.

Shift from fixed to growth mindset. Fixed mindset says mistakes prove inadequacy. Growth mindset says mistakes create learning opportunities. Fixed mindset hides problems. Growth mindset exposes them systematically.

Be transparent when mistakes happen. Widen your circle. Tell everybody who needs to be told. Confess. Get help. Rally as a team. Get through it with courage. People will respect you more for transparency than for hiding.

Use the science of momentum. Put yourself in peak state. Find your passion. Commit and decide. Take immediate, intelligent, and massive action. Reflect and adjust. Keep going.

Reduce friction and increase addiction with habits you want to build. Make them easier to start. Connect them with things you love. Get leverage against bad habits. Break patterns. Reframe associations.

Systematically look for, find, elevate, and remove roadblocks and mistakes as approach to creating flow. You can’t improve what you won’t acknowledge. Accept mistakes exist. Address them transparently. Create flow through honest problem-solving.

Take risks. Lead boldly. Fulfill the measure of your creation. You won’t do this if you need to be perfect now. But you will if you accept mistakes happen and choose growth over perfection.

Remember you succeed as a team, not as individual. Humans aren’t designed to handle everything alone. Widen your circle. Get help. Rally together. That’s how you win.

On we go.

FAQ

Why is needing to be perfect now harmful?

It makes you hide who you really are, prevents asking for help, and makes you less human. You won’t take risks or lead boldly because mistakes might expose inadequacy. It blocks the very growth creating excellence. Striving for perfection is beautiful, but needing to be perfect now destroys people.

What’s the difference between fixed and growth mindset?

Fixed mindset says mistakes prove inadequacy, so hide them. Growth mindset says mistakes create learning opportunities, so expose them. Jason went from almost getting fired with fixed mindset to training throughout the United States at 25 with growth mindset in six months through reducing pride and increasing humility.

How do you create momentum?

Put yourself in peak state through performance, physiology, focus, and language. Find your passion. Commit, decide, and resolve. Take immediate, intelligent, and massive action. Reflect, adjust, and keep going with massive action. Reduce friction and increase addiction with habits you’re building.

Why does transparency about mistakes work better than hiding?

The more transparent and open Jason was about mistakes, the less painful they became. Teams rallied helping him through problems when he widened his circle. People respected him more for confessing and addressing issues directly than for hiding. Transparency creates support and solutions; hiding creates isolation and pain.

What should you do when mistakes happen?

Be transparent immediately. Widen your circle. Tell everybody who needs to be told. Confess. Get help. Rally as a team. Get through it with courage. Systematically look for, find, elevate, and remove roadblocks. You can’t improve what you won’t acknowledge. Accept mistakes exist and address them honestly.

Word Count: 1,996 words

 

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

Being Curious, Feat Joe Donarumo

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 24 min

Are You Teaching People to Be Curious About Lean?

You overwhelm people with complete lean systems. Pull planning. Last Planner. Daily huddles. Percent plan complete. Visual management. 5S. Standard work. Continuous improvement. All at once. Presented as comprehensive methodology requiring total commitment. And people shut down. They feel intimidated. They see massive change requiring enormous effort. They resist because you’re asking them to abandon thirty years of experience for something unfamiliar and complex. Meanwhile, they’re working eighty-hour weeks dragging projects barely across the finish line at the expense of families, health, and quality of life. They know something’s wrong. But your approach asking them to embrace complete systems makes lean feel like additional burden instead of solution. And they walk away unconvinced because you tried teaching complete methodology when you should have created curiosity about small improvements solving immediate pain.

Here’s what most lean advocates miss. People don’t need complete systems immediately. They need curiosity about whether better approaches exist. Joe Donnarummo from Linbeck Group encounters skeptical thirty-year superintendents saying “Why should I change? I’ve been with my firm thirty years. Never missed a CO. Made lots of money. Clients ask for me by name. Nothing’s wrong with how I run work.” Joe doesn’t argue. He shifts spotlight from their experience to industry’s current state. The industry today isn’t the same as thirty years ago. Tools that worked then don’t work for today’s challenges. And he asks simple question: “Aren’t you tired of working eighty hours a week? Aren’t you tired of push-pulling-dragging projects barely across the finish line at the expense of family, health, quality of life? There’s a better way. I’m not saying lean’s a silver bullet. But start with one small thing. See if it creates value. If it does, come back and we’ll talk more.”

The challenge is most lean advocates focus on teaching complete systems instead of creating curiosity about specific improvements. They present comprehensive methodology overwhelming people with complexity. But curiosity starts small. Fix something that bugs you. Let the job speak to you. Look for waste. Find pinch points. Try one thing creating value. Then try another. Build incrementally instead of demanding total transformation immediately. Success isn’t just finishing projects on time and budget. It’s finishing well—safely, with quality, team health intact, careers advanced, families preserved, and owners becoming raving fans. Create curiosity about that vision. Then provide small starting points enabling people to experience value instead of drowning in comprehensive systems they can’t implement.

Why Current State Creates Curiosity

Joe Donnarummo’s approach works because it focuses on pain people already feel. Skeptical superintendents resist when you tell them their methods are wrong. But they engage when you acknowledge what they’re experiencing:

  • Working eighty-hour weeks destroying health and family relationships.
  • Push-pulling-dragging projects barely across finish lines.
  • Achieving schedule and budget but at terrible personal cost.
  • Sacrificing quality of life for project completion.
  • Feeling exhausted despite decades of experience.
  • Wondering if there’s better way but not knowing where to start.
  • Resisting change because additional complexity feels overwhelming.
  • Knowing something’s wrong but seeing no clear path to improvement.

The Industry Changed—Old Tools Don’t Work Anymore

The construction industry thirty years ago was different. Tools in superintendents’ toolboxes then were sufficient for challenges they faced. But today’s industry isn’t the same. Complexity increased. Owner expectations escalated. Technology transformed coordination requirements. Collaboration became essential. Culture and soft skills matter now in ways they didn’t before. And superintendents using thirty-year-old tools for today’s challenges struggle because the tools don’t match the problems.

This isn’t about disrespecting experience. It’s about recognizing context changed. A superintendent who succeeded thirty years ago using certain approaches might struggle today not because they’re incompetent but because the industry evolved requiring different capabilities. The lean tools and processes address today’s challenges in ways traditional approaches don’t. But presenting this as “your way is wrong, my way is right” creates resistance. Presenting it as “the industry changed, let’s explore whether different tools help you succeed in new context” creates curiosity.

Joe never tells skeptical superintendents they’re doing it wrong. He asks if they’re tired of working eighty hours a week at the expense of family and health. Most are. That acknowledgment creates opening. Then he offers: there’s better way. Not claiming it’s easy. Not promising silver bullets. Just suggesting one small experiment seeing if it creates value. If it does, explore more. If it doesn’t, no harm trying. This low-pressure approach invites curiosity instead of demanding compliance.

Start Small: Fix Something That Bugs You

Paul Akers teaches this perfectly. Fix something small that bugs you. Don’t try transforming complete systems immediately. Just look around. What’s bugging you? What creates frustration daily? What wastes time, energy, or resources? Pick one thing. Fix it. See if it creates value. Then pick another. This incremental approach builds momentum through small wins instead of overwhelming people with comprehensive transformation.

For example: Information arrives late to the field creating delays. Instead of implementing complete visual management system, start with daily huddles. Fifteen minutes. Stand-up meeting. What’s happening today? What do you need? What’s blocking you? That’s it. See if communication improves. If it does, people experience value. They become curious about what else might work. Then you can introduce next small improvement. But if you start by demanding complete Last Planner System implementation, people feel overwhelmed and resist.

Or: Materials arrive wrong creating rework. Instead of redesigning complete procurement system, implement just-in-time delivery for one trade package. Get materials arriving exactly when needed in exactly right quantities. See if it reduces waste. If it does, expand to another package. Small wins create believers. Comprehensive system changes create skeptics. Start small. Build from there.

What “Finishing Well” Actually Means

Traditional project success measures are insufficient. Did you finish on time? On budget? Make profit? Owner happy? These matter. But they’re incomplete. Joe and Jason both advocate broader definition of success:

  • On time. Project completed per schedule commitments.
  • On budget. Financial targets met with healthy profit.
  • Safely. No injuries, near-misses minimized, culture of safety maintained.
  • Quality. Work meets or exceeds standards, minimal defects, pride in craftsmanship.
  • Team health. People aren’t burned out, working reasonable hours, families preserved.
  • Career advancement. Foremen and team members grew capabilities, advanced professionally.
  • Raving fans. Owner so delighted they request your team for next project.

If you finished on time and budget but destroyed your team’s health, sacrificed families, and barely dragged project across finish line, you didn’t succeed. You survived. Success means finishing well—achieving all measures simultaneously. This broader definition creates curiosity because most people have finished projects while sacrificing some of these measures. They want to know if achieving all of them is actually possible. When you show them it is through small improvements creating value, curiosity grows.

How to Create Curiosity Instead of Overwhelm

Stop presenting complete lean systems. Start creating curiosity about specific improvements:

  • Ask questions revealing current state pain people already feel.
  • Acknowledge their experience while noting industry changed requiring different tools.
  • Share your own struggles instead of positioning yourself as expert with all answers.
  • Offer one small starting point instead of comprehensive transformation.
  • Invite experimentation with low commitment: “Try this one thing, see if it helps.”
  • Focus on their problems, not your solutions or methodology.
  • Let them discover value through experience instead of convincing them through explanation.
  • Build from small wins instead of demanding complete system adoption.
  • Create safe environment where trying and failing is learning, not career risk.
  • Celebrate improvements regardless of size instead of waiting for perfect implementation.

Joe’s Challenge: Fix Something Small That Bugs You

Here’s Joe Donnarummo’s challenge to the industry. After listening to this, walk onto your jobsite. Let the job speak to you. Think about what’s happening. Find things bugging you. Find areas of waste. Then use resources from The Lean Builder blog exploring how to address them. If information arrives late creating delays, consider daily huddles. If you’re tired of weekly subcontractor meetings that don’t create value, try different approach. Start small. See if it works. If it creates value, do it again. Find another area bugging you. Fix that. Build incrementally.

Don’t try transforming complete systems immediately. Fix something small that bugs you. Then fix another. Then another. This approach builds culture and collaboration through incremental value creation instead of overwhelming people with comprehensive change they can’t implement. Every small improvement creates believers. Every small win generates curiosity about what else might work. Build from there.

Jason’s Challenge: Master Scheduling Creating Flow

Jason’s challenge focuses on master scheduling techniques serving collaborative processes. Takt planning creates three types of flow—workflow, trade flow, and logistical flow—visible to everyone. When foremen enter weekly work planning meetings or sprint planning sessions, they can commit because materials are there, RFIs are answered, and work is actually ready. The system planned far enough ahead that supply chains delivered. This prevents frustration where foremen say “I could commit to Wednesday but I don’t have materials.”

Consider whether your master scheduling techniques serve collaborative processes well. Pull planning creates collaboration. Last Planner creates commitment. But what upstream planning system ensures work is actually ready when trades commit? Takt planning with proper make-ready provides that foundation. The weekly work planning becomes more effective because the master schedule created flow enabling commitments instead of forcing hedges.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When people feel overwhelmed by lean instead of curious about it, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching lean as complete methodology requiring total commitment instead of teaching it as incremental improvement building from small wins. Nobody showed that curiosity starts with acknowledging current state pain and offering small experiments, not demanding comprehensive transformation. Nobody explained that skeptical superintendents resist being told they’re wrong but engage when asked if they’re tired of eighty-hour weeks destroying families. Nobody demonstrated that small wins create believers while complete systems create resistance.

The system also failed by not teaching that finishing well means more than schedule and budget. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Success includes team health, career advancement, family preservation, and owner delight—not just time and money. But teams never taught this keep measuring only traditional metrics wondering why people feel empty despite hitting targets when the problem is they’re sacrificing everything else to achieve narrow definition of success.

The system fails by overwhelming people with comprehensive lean systems instead of creating curiosity through small improvements. Paul Akers teaches fix something small that bugs you. But most lean advocates present complete methodologies. This overwhelms people who already work eighty hours weekly. They can’t add comprehensive system implementation on top of existing burden. But they can fix one thing bugging them. Then another. Then another. That approach builds capability through incremental wins instead of creating resistance through overwhelming demands.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop overwhelming people with complete lean systems. Start creating curiosity about small improvements solving immediate pain.

Ask skeptical people about their current state. Aren’t you tired of working eighty hours a week? Aren’t you tired of dragging projects across finish lines at expense of family, health, quality of life? Don’t argue about methodology. Acknowledge their pain. Offer one small experiment.

Fix something small that bugs you. Walk your jobsite. Let the job speak to you. Find areas of waste. Pick one thing. Fix it. See if it creates value. Then do it again. Build incrementally instead of transforming comprehensively.

Expand your definition of success beyond time and budget. Include safety, quality, team health, career advancement, family preservation, and owner delight. Finishing well means achieving all these simultaneously, not sacrificing some to achieve others.

Consider whether your master scheduling techniques create flow enabling collaborative processes. When foremen commit in weekly work planning meetings, is work actually ready? Or are they hedging because materials aren’t there and RFIs aren’t answered? Plan far enough ahead that commitments become real instead of hopeful.

Create curiosity through small wins. Don’t demand comprehensive transformation. Invite experimentation. Let people discover value through experience. Build from there.

On we go.

FAQ

How do you create curiosity in skeptical superintendents?

Acknowledge their experience while noting the industry changed. Ask if they’re tired of working eighty hours weekly dragging projects across finish lines at expense of family and health. Don’t argue their methods are wrong. Offer one small experiment seeing if it creates value. Low-pressure invitation creates curiosity; demanding compliance creates resistance.

What does “finishing well” actually mean?

On time, on budget, safely, with quality, team health intact, careers advanced, families preserved, and owner becoming raving fan. Traditional measures focus only on time and budget. But if you achieved those by destroying team health and sacrificing families, you survived rather than succeeded. Finishing well means achieving all measures simultaneously.

Why start small instead of implementing complete lean systems?

Small improvements create believers through immediate value. Comprehensive systems overwhelm people already working eighty hours weekly. Fixing one thing that bugs you builds momentum through quick wins. Then fix another. Then another. Incremental approach builds capability. Comprehensive transformation creates resistance.

How do you “let the job speak to you”?

Walk your jobsite. Observe what’s happening. Notice what bugs you. Find areas of waste or pinch points creating frustration. Don’t impose solutions from books or training. Let problems reveal themselves through observation. Then experiment with small improvements addressing what you discovered.

Why does Joe Donnarummo focus on current state pain?

People resist being told their methods are wrong. But they engage when you acknowledge pain they already feel—eighty-hour weeks, destroyed families, exhausted health. Acknowledging current state creates opening. Then offering small experiment feels like invitation rather than criticism. This approach creates curiosity instead of resistance.

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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    The Ten Improvements to Production Planning: What Lean Builders Can Do To Improve Short Interval Planning (The Art of the Builder)
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    Calumet "K"
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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