Month: May 2026

Why We Focus on Entry-Level Talent

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

Why I’m Mostly Looking for Entry-Level Positions: Building People the Right Way From the Start

Here is something that catches people off guard when they hear it from someone who has trained at the highest levels of construction leadership, who has worked with major national general contractors, and who runs a company doing significant consulting work across the industry: the positions I am most interested in hiring are entry-level ones.

Not because the work is simple. Not because the expectations are low. Because entry-level is where building people right is actually possible where the mind is still open, the habits are not yet calcified, and the culture can be shaped from the foundation rather than rebuilt over the rubble of someone else’s training. The opportunity in an entry-level hire is not that they know nothing. It is that they know the right things without having been taught the wrong ones first.

The PM Who Started Over

There is a story worth telling here because it captures exactly what this mindset looks like in practice. A PM, a seasoned professional who had been a significant presence at a major national general contractor left that company and eventually came back to another large national GC. And when he came back, he did not insist on a senior role. He went back to PE. Project engineer. He started over, went through the career steps properly, learned the systems from the ground up, and proved himself again through the actual work of the role rather than through the credentials he had accumulated.

He went on to become president of a major national general contractor. Not in spite of being willing to start at PE level again, but at least partly because of it. He understood something that most experienced professionals resist: knowing the systems from the inside, having built the habits and the judgment at every level, produces a kind of leadership that credential-based advancement cannot replicate.

There is no sympathy for the version of professional pride that says “I’ve done my time, I’m above that.” The people who refuse entry-level positions because they feel beneath them are refusing the thing that would make them excellent. The willingness to start where you need to start regardless of past experience, regardless of title history is a signal of exactly the character that produces great leaders.

Why Entry-Level Hires at LeanTakt Work So Well

The team at LeanTakt has been built substantially on entry-level hires young graduates from strong programs, often in their early to mid-twenties. Many of them have come from Tec de Monterrey, bringing educational rigor, strong work ethic, and a cultural orientation toward hard work and collective excellence that has made them some of the best people I have ever worked with across an entire career.

The investment in these individuals is significant. They go to Japan with Paul Akers. They learn Lean fundamentals from the ground up. They are trained in field engineering, project engineering, superintendent fundamentals, project management, commissioning, logistics, the full production system and they are taught the right way from the beginning. They develop alongside the culture rather than in opposition to it.

The result is a team that will never be comfortable in a toxic environment because they have never learned to accept one as normal. They will always expect to be treated with respect because they have been treated with respect from the beginning. They will always pursue education as a priority because that is what was modeled for them when they were being shaped. In a sense, these hires have been ruined for bad construction. They will never be satisfied with less than what they have been taught to expect and deliver.

The Real Reason: No Deprogramming Required

Here is the honest truth behind the preference for entry-level hires. When you bring on an experienced professional who has spent years in a dysfunctional environment not through any fault of their own, but because that is where their career developed, a significant portion of the onboarding investment goes into deprogramming rather than programming. You are not just teaching the Lean system. You are teaching against the habits, assumptions, and cultural norms that previous experience installed.

That deprogramming is real work, and it is not always successful. Some patterns are too embedded. Some habits fight the new approach at every step. Some cultural assumptions are so deep that they surface as resistance even when the person genuinely wants to change. None of that reflects badly on the individual. It reflects the power of what was trained into them over years of repetition in environments that rewarded the wrong things.

Entry-level hires do not need to be deprogrammed. They need to be programmed, once, correctly, from the beginning. The same total investment of time and intention produces dramatically different outcomes because it is building on a clean foundation rather than rebuilding over a cracked one.

The School System Problem

This conversation cannot be complete without naming something uncomfortable directly. Most of what happens in career development especially in the United States is deprogramming people from what they were taught in school. Not all of it. But enough of it that it is worth naming honestly.

Sit down and be quiet. Wait for the teacher to tell you what to think. Conform to the social group even when the group is toxic. Do not ask why. Do not experiment. Do not lead without permission. These are not the explicit lessons of any curriculum, but they are the implicit lessons that years of school-based conditioning produce in most students. And they are the exact opposite of what a great Lean construction environment requires.

Great Lean environments need people who speak up when they see waste or risk. Who think independently and bring creative solutions. Who participate in the production system because they understand it and believe in it, not because they were told to. Who hold the standard even when nobody is watching. Who treat learning as a lifelong responsibility rather than a phase of life that ended at graduation.

Getting someone before these habits have formed or as soon as possible after graduation, when the programming is newest and most malleable is a genuine advantage. The mind at twenty-two is more open to rewiring than the mind at forty-two, not because of intelligence or capability, but because of accumulated repetition. Fewer years of the wrong thing means less to undo.

Warning Signs That a Candidate Is Not Actually Entry-Level in Mindset

Age does not determine entry-level orientation. Mindset does. Watch for these signals regardless of where a candidate is in their career:

  • They describe their previous approach as “how I’ve always done it” without curiosity about whether there are better ways.
  • They resist feedback or treat standard-setting as criticism rather than as clarity.
  • They expect authority based on tenure rather than demonstrated mastery of the system.
  • They are reluctant to learn from people younger or less credentialed than themselves.
  • They frame starting over or starting fresh as a demotion rather than as an investment.

These are not disqualifiers if the person is genuinely willing to address them. But they are honest signals about the gap between where someone is and where the culture requires them to be. The entry-level orientation is not about the position title. It is about the posture toward learning, growth, and the willingness to be shaped.

What It Means to Build People Before You Build Things

The Japanese concept at the heart of this conversation, we build people before we build things is not a motivational slogan. It is a production philosophy. Toyota’s sustained excellence is not built on better equipment or better process documentation alone. It is built on the deliberate, sustained development of people who understand the system deeply enough to improve it, and who have been shaped by the right culture from early enough in their development to carry that culture naturally rather than effortfully.

The same principle applies to a construction company, a consulting practice, or a project team. The most powerful investment any organization can make is in the people who will carry the system forward, and the best time to make that investment is before the wrong habits are competing with the right ones. Entry-level is not a concession. It is a strategy. We are building people who build things. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow and develop the next generation of construction leaders from the foundation up, the right way from the start.

A Challenge for Builders

Look at your own professional posture this week. Regardless of where you are in your career, ask whether you are approaching your current role with the entry-level orientation, the openness to being shaped, the willingness to start where the work needs you to start, the curiosity that treats every system as something to understand before something to judge. The leaders who hold that posture at every stage are the ones who keep developing. The ones who close it off because they feel they have earned the right to stop learning are the ones who plateau.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why prefer entry-level hires over experienced professionals?

Because entry-level hires do not require deprogramming from habits developed in dysfunctional environments. The investment goes entirely into programming the right culture, the right systems, and the right mindset from the beginning producing stronger long-term results with less resistance and less cultural friction than rebuilding over years of the wrong conditioning.

Does “entry-level” refer to age or to mindset?

Mindset. An experienced professional who approaches a new role with genuine openness, willingness to learn the system from the ground up, and no attachment to doing things the way they have always been done is operating with an entry-level orientation regardless of their age. The value is in the posture, not the years on the resume.

What does it mean practically to “build people before you build things”?

It means investing in the development of the people who will carry the system forward from training in Lean principles and field fundamentals, to cultural shaping around total participation, respect, and continuous improvement before they are deployed into production roles. The foundation of the person determines the quality and sustainability of everything they build.

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.

Coaching – Writing & Emails – Implementation Series

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 17 min

The Email Test: What Your Writing Says About Everything Else You Do

There is a principle Jason Schroeder carries into every boot camp and coaching conversation, and it applies as much to the written word as it does to the schedule or the safety walk: how you do one thing is how you do everything.

A superintendent who says “I’m a great builder but I’m not really good at writing emails” has just revealed something important. Not about their writing. About their relationship with mastery. Because the truth is there is no such thing as a great superintendent who cannot write clearly. There is no such thing as a great project manager who avoids the financials. There is no such thing as a great surveyor who cannot take legible notes. The people who have genuinely mastered the big things have also disciplined themselves to master the small things. The email is not a minor inconvenience. It is a signal.

The Career Skill Nobody Talks About

Written communication in construction shows up everywhere. It shows up in RFIs that have to be interpreted instead of understood. It shows up in daily reports that nobody reads because nobody can follow them. It shows up in emails that slow the project team down because they are either too long, too short, or too confusing to act on.

And it shows up in careers. The people who make it to president, vice president, operations manager, project director, and general superintendent are not just great builders. They are skilled communicators. Their emails are clear. Their proposals are readable. Their meeting follow ups are precise. When they walk into an interview, a design meeting, or an OAC presentation, the written materials they produce reflect the same standard as everything else they do.

If your goal is to advance in this industry, written communication is not a nice to have skill that you will develop someday. It is a fundamental that will show up in every professional setting you will ever be in. And the gap between where most construction professionals are and where they need to be on this is significant.

Jason’s Story: What a Writing Course Actually Did

When Jason was working as an assistant superintendent, he enrolled at Rio Salado Community College and took a full course load alongside a demanding job. Among the courses was a writing class. He was getting straight A’s across the board. He was also being reshaped.

The writing course gave him what he did not know he was missing: structure. Before that coursework, his emails rambled. His RFIs were long winded. He used phrasing like “as per conversation” and tangled sentence structures that barely communicated what they were supposed to communicate. After it, he had a framework. An email begins with a clear purpose. The content is concise and organized. The point is reachable without effort on the reader’s part.

He says clearly that he is still not a great writer. But people can understand him. And in professional communication, that is the whole game. If the reader cannot understand what you wrote, the writing failed, regardless of how much effort went into producing it.

Jason’s recommendation is direct: if you have gaps in your writing, find a course. A night course, an online course, something. The investment is small and the return follows you for decades.

What Bad Looks Like

Before you can fix a problem you have to be honest about what it actually looks like. In construction email culture, the failure modes are consistent and recognizable:

  • The all caps email with one or two sentences and no context, which reads as either aggressive or incompetent and usually both
  •  The multi paragraph email that tells the reader everything the writer was thinking without arriving at a clear point or request
  •  The email with no structure, where the random thoughts of the writer’s mind appear on screen in the order they occurred
  •  The RFI that is so poorly worded that the design team has to interpret what is being asked before they can even begin to respond
  • The response that uses unfamiliar jargon, passive construction, and ambiguous references that require follow up emails just to clarify what the first one meant

Every one of these wastes time. When an email requires interpretation, the reader has to slow down, make assumptions, or send back a clarifying question. When an RFI is unclear, the response may not address the actual problem. When a daily report is illegible or disorganized, it fails as a record. Multiply these failures across a project team over a year and the cumulative cost is significant, in time, in rework, in miscommunication, and in relationships.

The Standard That Gets You There

A well written professional email is not complicated. It follows a pattern that works in almost every situation in construction.. Open with purpose. “I am writing to discuss the concrete placement scheduled for Thursday.” That sentence tells the reader immediately what this email is about and what it requires from them. There is no winding through context, backstory, or pleasantries before arriving at the point..State the relevant information concisely. Include what the reader needs to understand the situation, nothing more. If there is supporting documentation, reference it. If there is a decision needed, say what the options are and what you recommend. Close with a clear next step or request. “Please confirm by Wednesday afternoon.” The reader should never have to wonder what is being asked of them. This structure takes practice. It also takes an honest look at your current writing and the willingness to improve it, which is where most people stop.

How You Do One Thing

The superintendent who types in all caps because it is faster is telling you something about their relationship with precision. The project manager who sends three page emails that nobody reads is telling you something about their understanding of communication. The field engineer who does not know how to type is telling you something about their investment in the tools their career requires.

None of this is about perfection. Jason is transparent about the fact that he is still developing as a writer. But the commitment to developing is itself the point. People who are serious about their craft do not accept permanent weaknesses in areas that matter. They identify the gap and close it.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Part of what that development looks like is building the full professional skill set, written communication included, that separates career builders from career plateaus.

The Challenge This Week

Pull up your last five emails. Read them as if you received them from someone else. Are they clear? Do they open with a stated purpose? Do they ask for something specific? Are they the right length? And if you read them quickly, can you act on them without needing to ask a follow up question?

That audit will tell you more about your written communication than any course description. And whatever you find is where to start.

As Mark Twain wrote, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.” In construction, the difference between a clear email and a confusing one can be the difference between a project that flows and one that constantly has to back up and ask what was meant.

Write clearly. Write concisely. Write with purpose. And master this like you would master anything else that matters in your career.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should a professional email be in a construction context?

Long enough to communicate the full point and short enough that the reader does not have to search for it. In most cases, that means a clear opening sentence, two to four sentences of relevant context, and a closing request or next step. If your email requires scrolling, it is probably too long.

What should I do if I know my writing is weak but I do not have time for a formal course?

Start with the structure: purpose in the first sentence, relevant details in the middle, specific request at the end. Apply it to every email you send for thirty days. You will improve faster through disciplined practice than through reading about writing.

Does typing speed actually matter that much for construction professionals?

Yes. If you cannot type efficiently, you will avoid written communication or rush through it, and both outcomes hurt your work. Learning to type is one of the highest return investments an early career construction professional can make.

What is the biggest mistake construction professionals make in RFIs specifically?

Not stating the actual question clearly. An RFI that describes a problem at length but never arrives at a specific, answerable question wastes everyone’s time. State the condition, identify what is unclear or missing, and ask a direct question that can receive a direct answer.

How does improving written communication affect career advancement in construction?

It signals maturity, professionalism, and systems thinking. Leaders who communicate clearly in writing are trusted with more responsibility and perceived as ready for greater leadership. It is one of the most visible indicators of executive readiness that exists in the field.

 

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.

Work Ethic!

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 17 min

Work Ethic in Construction Is Not Optional: Here Is What That Actually Means

There is a principle that Jason Schroeder says is easier to talk around than to say directly. So here it is: if you need to be coached into working harder, if someone has to convince you to show up early for a critical pour or stay through the weekend to erect a tower crane, you have a problem. And no amount of consulting, coaching, or training will fix a foundation that was never built.

Work ethic in construction is not a perk. It is not something that gets negotiated during an offer conversation. It is a baseline. And in an era where that baseline is increasingly up for debate, Jason is saying what a lot of superintendents are thinking but not saying out loud.

The Hiring Principle That Changes How You Build Teams

After years of running boot camps, coaching field teams, and building Elevate Construction from the ground up, Jason has settled on a principle that shapes how he thinks about hiring and development: it is far easier to take someone addicted to hard work and help them build balance than to take someone who has already settled into comfort and try to build urgency into them.

The direction of coaching matters. A superintendent who is burning out, skipping weekends with family, and grinding too hard needs help with boundaries, delegation, and recovery. That is a manageable coaching conversation. A person who watches football during work hours, is not reachable by the team, and considers 40 hours a ceiling before camping takes priority: that conversation is a different animal entirely. One person has too much of something valuable. The other person does not have it at all.

Jason describes this as the difference between weaning someone down versus weaning someone up. The first is possible. The second rarely works. If you are building a team or hiring for a project, look for people you will eventually have to slow down. Those are your builders.

Where Work Ethic Actually Comes From

Work ethic is not something a training program installs. It comes from home. Jason’s grandfather in law once told him to get on his knees every day and thank his parents for teaching him how to work. That landed. The people who show up to job sites ready to grind, ready to stay until the concrete is placed correctly, ready to answer the call at midnight when the basement floods, they almost always learned that posture somewhere before they ever set foot on a project.

This creates a real challenge for the industry. When parents teach kids that work is something to be minimized, that the goal is comfort and perks and personal time, and that hard manual work is somehow beneath the standard they should reach for, those kids show up to job sites without the wiring. And you cannot rewire an adult who has never experienced the satisfaction of full commitment to a hard thing.

What you can do is set clear expectations, model the culture, and hire accordingly. Not everyone will come from a family that taught this. But they need to find their way to it somehow before they can function at the level construction demands.

What the Work Actually Looks Like

Construction’s work culture is not abstract. Jason describes it in specific terms from his own career as a field engineer: four o’clock mornings before concrete pours. Staying through the night to complete lift drawings. Working Saturdays when the schedule demanded it. Answering a call at midnight about a flooded basement without checking whether it fell within designated hours.

He also tells the story of being asked to stay two weeks on a project in Southern California, flying from Texas where his family was, at a critical moment in a job’s completion. His first reaction was resistance. He wanted to go home. That was a righteous desire. But after reflecting on what the project actually needed, and what the superintendent had done for him, he recognized the moment for what it was: a time when the work required more than what was comfortable.

Construction has those moments. Critical scopes. Emergency responses. Tower cranes going up. Substantial completion deadlines. These are not optional participation events. They are the job. And the culture of a project team has to carry enough of a work ethic to respond when those moments arrive, not debate whether they are within someone’s preferred schedule.

Here is what that culture includes in practice:

  • Showing up before the crew to be prepared, not arriving when everyone else does 
  • Staying until the pour is right, not until the clock says it is time to leave 
  • Answering when the team calls, even when it is inconvenient 
  • Treating company time and resources as entrusted, not as personal to manage however feels right

The Levity Problem

One of the clearest observations Jason makes in this episode is about the relationship between perks and performance. The comfortable work environments, the flexibility, the culture events, the team celebrations: those are outcomes. They are what healthy, high performing, hard working teams earn for themselves over time. They are not entry level benefits or hiring incentives.

When someone asks for levity before they have delivered value, the organization has a problem. When a team member assumes that flexibility is a default rather than something earned through demonstrated commitment, the culture begins to erode. When the unspoken negotiation is “what do I get for showing up?” instead of “what can I contribute?”, the project is already at a disadvantage.

The inverse is also true. When a team has genuinely ground hard, delivered more than expected, and handled the critical moments without flinching, the leader who creates space for them to breathe, to celebrate, to enjoy a moment of levity is investing in people who have proven they deserve it. That is a completely different transaction.

Delivering More Than Your Paycheck

There is a standard Jason returns to repeatedly in his coaching and his leadership: deliver more value in your position than what you receive in your paycheck. Not slightly more. Noticeably more. Be the person your employer genuinely cannot afford to lose because of how much you contribute, not because of how difficult it would be to replace the institutional knowledge you are sitting on.

This is also a protection. People who over deliver do not stay anxious about their job security. They do not spend energy on office politics or positioning. They are too busy performing. And over time, they build something that cannot be taken away: a track record of showing up and delivering in situations that were genuinely hard.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. The teams that consistently perform at the highest level are not necessarily the ones with the most talent. They are the ones with the strongest culture of commitment and the clearest sense of what the job actually requires.

The Challenge for This Week

Ask yourself honestly: are you running toward your work or away from it? Are you delivering more than your paycheck or negotiating for what you want before you have earned it? And if you lead a team, are you hiring people you will eventually need to slow down, or people you are constantly trying to accelerate?

Work ethic is the foundation. Everything else gets built on top of it. As Vince Lombardi said, “The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” Construction has always known this. The question is whether the next generation coming into the industry will learn it in time.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to develop a strong work ethic if you were not raised with one?

Yes, but it requires a conscious decision followed by consistent action. Adults can build new habits, but they need environments and mentors that model what high commitment looks like and hold them to it. Surrounding yourself with hard working people accelerates the process.

How do you build a work ethic culture on a project where some team members are not there yet?

Model it from the top down. When superintendents and project managers are the first ones on site and the last to leave during critical windows, that behavior becomes the visible standard. Culture follows leadership behavior more than it follows policy or training.

How do you know when grinding too hard has crossed into something unhealthy?

When your family relationships are suffering chronically, your health is declining, and the pace is constant rather than driven by genuine project need, you have crossed the line. Work ethic includes knowing when the job demands more and when it is time to recover.

What do you say to someone who thinks work life balance means working fewer hours from day one?

The balance is something you build toward, not something you start with. Early career is the time to invest heavily, develop skills, and establish a reputation. The flexibility and balance come later, once you have built the capability and track record that earns them.

How does work ethic connect to flow and the kind of construction culture Jason teaches?

They are inseparable. A Takt system or a Last Planner process requires people who show up prepared, engaged, and committed to the plan. No planning system survives contact with a team that is not invested. Work ethic is what activates the system.

Word count: 1,628

 

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.

Desire, not Circumstance! A Podcast about Boot Camps, Mindset, Heaven, and Progress

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 20 min

What Boot Camps Actually Reveal About Your People (And Why That Is the Point)

After running roughly 35 week long boot camps, plus a significant number of one and two day events and masterminds, Jason Schroeder has noticed a pattern that he used to find troubling and now finds clarifying. About five to fifteen percent of participants do not make it through. Some disengage quietly. Some leave midway. And a small number walk out completely, then turn around and criticize the program to their managers without ever sharing that feedback directly.

For a while, Jason spent energy trying to figure out how to screen those people out before they arrived. That thinking turned out to be the wrong question. Because boot camps are not failing those people. Boot camps are revealing them. And that revelation is exactly what organizations need.

The One Variable That Explains Everything

The dividing line is not personality type. It is not introversion or extroversion. It is not age, role, or time in the industry. The dividing line that predicts who thrives in a boot camp and who unravels is the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset.

A fixed mindset person defines themselves by what they already know. Challenge feels like an attack. Feedback feels like criticism of who they are. Failure feels personal. These are the people who, when pressed to grow, tend to disengage, blame the program, or leave. They have arrived. They are done learning. They want the comfort zone and nothing else.

A growth mindset person defines themselves by what they are learning. They take feedback. They embrace difficulty as a natural part of progress. They celebrate others growing rather than feeling threatened by it. When pressed, they push back harder in the right direction. These are the people who come up to the instructors at the end of a boot camp looking like something shifted inside them, because it did.

Both types show up on job sites every day. Boot camps make the distinction visible in a way that three years of routine project work never will.

The SEAL Parallel That Changed How Jason Thinks About This

Navy SEAL BUD/S training, the basic underwater demolition course, is famously demanding. Historically, around sixty percent of candidates do not complete it. The program is not designed to make every person into a SEAL. It is designed to reveal who already has what it takes and who does not. The training does not manufacture mental toughness. It surfaces it, or surfaces its absence.

The instructors do not apologize for this. The high attrition rate is not a flaw in the program. It is the program working correctly.

Elevate Construction boot camps operate on the same principle. They are not designed to be comfortable. They are designed to be a circumstance that shows people who they are. As James Allen wrote, “Circumstance does not make the man, it reveals him to himself.” A week long boot camp is a concentrated circumstance. The people who come through it with a growth mindset flourish. The people who do not have one find that out about themselves. And that information is valuable for everyone involved, including the person who did not make it.

What You Can Already See on Your Job Site

Here is what Jason has observed after years of running these programs and touring the projects of the people who went through them: the results are not subtle.

In a large organizational transformation program, eighty percent of participants chose to pursue their certifications after the boot camp experience. Twenty percent did not. When Jason and his team toured the certified group’s projects afterward, they found something remarkable across the board: clean sites, strong cultures, functioning Last Planner systems, Takt planning huddles working at a high level, workers approaching during tours to talk about how things had improved, and owners flying people in from other locations to see how a project was supposed to be run.

The twenty percent who did not certify? Their projects were still dirty, still running late, still operating on crash landings and reactive chaos.

One program. Two groups. Dramatically different outcomes. The boot camp did not create those outcomes. It identified the mindsets that would produce them.

Here are the signals you can already see on any active project:

  • People who are learning, asking questions, taking feedback, and staying curious even when things are hard are operating in growth mindset mode 
  • People who have stopped learning, avoid feedback, protect their turf, and compete instead of collaborate are operating in fixed mindset mode 
  • People who cannot work alongside others without tearing them down are a different category entirely, and they belong in a direct conversation about organizational fit

Boot camps organize these observations into a single intensive window instead of spreading them across years of slow project work.

What Your Organization Owes Every Person in It

There is a principle underneath all of this that Jason holds firmly: people should not be condemned by circumstance. A worker who spent three years on a poorly run project with bad leadership did not fail. The system around them failed. That person deserves the opportunity to be seen in a fair environment, to be given the tools and the challenge, and to choose who they want to be.

This is one of the deepest arguments for structured boot camps and organizational training programs. Without them, promotions and development opportunities get allocated based on who was on the right job with the right boss at the right time. That is not equity. It is circumstance masquerading as merit. A growth mindset person who was stuck on a broken project for two years should have the opportunity to show who they are in an environment designed to surface it.

Boot camps create that environment. They give every participant, regardless of their project history or prior circumstances, the chance to demonstrate their mindset, their adaptability, and their commitment to getting better. The people who have it shine. The people who do not reveal that too, and that clarity allows the organization to make honest decisions rather than circumstantial ones.

The System That Builds Toward This

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. The companies that invest in structured development programs are not just training people. They are building a system that surfaces their best people, identifies who needs support, and creates the organizational clarity that sustained performance requires.

The inverse of that is an organization that runs everyone through the same routine project cycle and then wonders why it cannot identify its next generation of leaders. If you have never put your team through a real diagnostic, you do not actually know who your growth mindset people are. You know who was lucky enough to be on the right job at the right time.

The Challenge for Your Organization

If your company does not have something like a boot camp, build one. It does not have to be a week long. It does not have to replicate everything Elevate Construction does. But it should be structured, challenging, and designed to push people past their comfort zone and into their growth zone. It should create the conditions for people to show who they are.

Then pay attention. Watch who rises. Watch who disengages. Watch who blames the program for their own discomfort. The data those observations generate about your people is more valuable than anything you will learn from three years of routine project reviews.

As James Allen wrote in As a Man Thinketh, “Circumstance does not make the man, it reveals him to himself.” Give your team the circumstance. Let people choose their path. Then build the organization around the ones who choose to grow.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset in practical terms on a construction project?

A fixed mindset person on a project tends to protect what they already know, resist new systems, avoid feedback, and treat challenges to their methods as personal attacks. They are often the last to adopt new planning tools, the most resistant to coaching, and the quickest to point blame outward when things go wrong. A growth mindset person on the same project asks questions, tries the new system even when it feels uncomfortable, takes feedback as information rather than criticism, and tends to improve measurably over the course of a program. The distinction shows up in behavior, not attitude surveys.

What should a company do with the five to fifteen percent who do not make it through a boot camp?

First, recognize that the boot camp revealed something important that may have stayed hidden for years otherwise. Then have an honest conversation. Some people in that group may be in the wrong role, not the wrong organization. Some may need a different kind of support or a second opportunity in a smaller setting. And some have simply made clear through their behavior that the organization is not the right fit. Treating that clarity as useful information rather than a failure of the program is the right frame. The boot camp did its job.

How do you design a boot camp that is genuinely revealing rather than just difficult?

The difficulty has to be purposeful and connected to real skills and real scenarios. Arbitrary difficulty reveals nothing useful. The best boot camp designs push people into situations that require them to make decisions under pressure, give and receive feedback with their peers, think through problems they have not encountered before, and collaborate with people they do not already know well. When those conditions are present, the fixed versus growth mindset distinction surfaces naturally. People cannot perform their way through it. They have to actually engage.

Is it fair to use boot camp performance as a predictor of long term performance?

The data Jason has observed across dozens of programs says yes, with an important qualifier. The predictor is not whether someone struggled during the boot camp. Struggle is expected and often a good sign. The predictor is how someone responds to the struggle. Someone who struggles and keeps engaging, who takes feedback and adjusts, who stays in the room even when it is hard, is showing the growth mindset that tends to produce strong long term results. Someone who disengages, blames external factors, or refuses to participate is showing the fixed mindset that tends to stagnate regardless of what the organization provides.

What if leadership has a fixed mindset? Does a boot camp still work?

It works at revealing the problem, but it cannot fix it from the bottom up. If the leaders who send people to boot camp return to a fixed mindset culture when those people come back, the growth that happened in the program will erode quickly. The most effective organizational transformations happen when leadership goes through the same kind of diagnostic experience as the people they lead. When the superintendent and the project manager have also been pushed, have also been challenged, and have also chosen growth, the culture they come back to sustains what the boot camp started.

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.

Moving Walkways How to Leverage Your Support Staff

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 21 min

Should You Have a Safety Manager on Site? You Are Asking the Wrong Question

There is a debate that keeps surfacing in construction circles. Should a project have a dedicated safety manager on site, or does that position make the rest of the team go soft? Does a quality control role sharpen performance, or does it give everyone else an excuse to stop caring? The argument goes back and forth, and most of the time, it stays stuck at the level of strategy. Add the position or do not add it. That is the wrong question entirely.

Jason Schroeder found the answer in an airport moving walkway, and once you hear the analogy, you will never look at your specialist support roles the same way again.

Three Speeds on the Same Walkway

Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport has a long corridor between gate sets, and it is equipped with the kind of moving walkways that are supposed to make the journey faster. Jason noticed something on a recent trip through that corridor. Some people stepped onto the walkway and kept walking, moving at their normal pace with the mechanical assist beneath them. They flew down the corridor. Others bypassed the walkway entirely and walked alongside it on the regular floor. They moved at a solid, steady pace. And then there was the third group: the ones who stepped onto the walkway, stopped completely, and just stood there, being carried along at a crawl, slower than the people walking on the regular floor next to them.

Three options. Three different results. Same walkway, same corridor, same destination.

Walk without the walkway: you make solid progress at a consistent pace, fully responsible for your own momentum. Walk on the walkway: you add your effort to the mechanical assist and cover ground at roughly double the pace, with less friction and more output. Stand on the walkway and stop: you go slower than if you had never used the walkway at all, and you block everyone behind you in the process.

The Analogy That Changes Everything

Now apply those three modes to a construction project that has a dedicated safety manager, a quality control specialist, a BIM coordinator, or a survey support position.

A project team without any of those support roles is walking on its own. It can be done. The team owns everything, carries everything, and moves at whatever pace their discipline allows. Results depend entirely on the strength and habits of the people in the field.

A project team with a dedicated safety manager, where the superintendent and the project manager stay fully engaged, use the resource, coordinate actively, and treat it as an amplifier: that team is walking on the moving walkway. The support role multiplies the team’s effort. Safety gets sharper. Quality gets tighter. The specialist handles documentation and systems while the leaders stay locked in on culture, behavior, and accountability. The whole team moves faster with less friction.

A project team with a dedicated safety manager, where the superintendent checks the box, delegates ownership, disengages from the work, and assumes the specialist will handle it: that team has stepped onto the walkway and stopped. The support position does not amplify anything because the team stopped adding their own effort. The project becomes slower, less safe, and less accountable than it would have been if the team had simply owned it without any specialist help at all.

This is the insight that reframes the entire debate. The question was never whether to have a safety manager on site. The question is always: what is the culture of the team that will use that resource?

Culture Is the Variable That Controls Everything

Here is the principle that sits underneath the analogy: culture eats strategy for breakfast. Every time.

The strategy is the walkway. The strategy is the safety manager or the quality role or the BIM coordinator. Strategies are tools. They can be excellent tools. But a tool in the hands of the wrong culture produces the wrong result. A walkway designed to accelerate movement becomes an obstacle when the culture of the people using it defaults to passivity. A safety manager designed to elevate a project becomes a liability when the culture around them defaults to delegation and disengagement.

What is culture? It is the common beliefs and actions of a group. It is the story the team tells about who they are and what they do. A culture of ownership says: this help makes us faster, so we will add our effort to it and go. A culture of passivity says: this help is here, so we do not have to go anymore. Both cultures can exist inside the same company, on the same type of project, with access to the same resources. The resource does not determine the result. The culture does.

This is why the debate about whether to add a specialist position never resolves cleanly. Two teams can receive the same resource and produce completely opposite outcomes. The conversation needs to move upstream, past the strategy question, and land on the culture question.

What Cannot Be Delegated

There is an eternal truth that Jason carries into every boot camp and coaching conversation, and it applies directly here: superintendents and project managers do not delegate safety and quality. It does not happen. It cannot work. You can have people help you. You can lead a team. You can use every specialist resource available. But the moment a superintendent points to the safety manager and says that person is in charge of safety on this job, the project is already in trouble.

Safety is not a checklist item to hand off. Quality is not a role to assign and forget. These are leadership responsibilities that sit inside the superintendent and the project manager regardless of who else is on the team. The safety manager exists to amplify and support, not to absorb ownership that belongs to field leadership. When that distinction collapses, the team has stepped off the walkway in the worst possible way.

Here is what that looks like in practice:

  • A superintendent who conducts their own daily site walks and uses the safety manager to sharpen the system is walking on the walkway
  •  A superintendent who waits for the safety manager to flag a hazard before acting is standing still and hoping the walkway carries them 
  • A project manager who integrates quality ownership into every schedule conversation is walking on the walkway 
  • A project manager who signs off on a quality report without reading it because there is a QC manager on site has stepped on and stopped

The distinction is not subtle once you see it. And the results are not subtle either.

Building the Right Culture First

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. The teams that get the most out of specialist support positions are the ones that already carry a culture of ownership. They use the resource as an accelerant, not a substitute.

The diagnostic question for any leader adding a support role to a project is not: will this position help? Of course it will help, if the culture uses it correctly. The question is: does our team understand that this resource is meant to multiply their effort, not replace it? Have we made that expectation explicit? Do we hold people accountable to it?

If the answer to those questions is yes, add the resource and watch the project accelerate. If the answer is uncertain, the work to do first is cultural. Get the team clear on their identity. Build shared expectations around ownership. Establish that every specialist resource on the project exists to help the team go faster together, not to take something off anyone’s plate.

The Challenge This Week

Look at the specialist support positions on your current project. Safety, quality, BIM, survey, field engineering, whatever they are. Now be honest about which of the three modes your team is operating in. Are you walking alongside the walkway, fully capable but not using the resource fully? Are you walking on it and amplifying your effort? Or have you stepped on and stopped, delegating ownership and losing ground?

The process is not the problem. The walkway is not the problem. The question is always the same: is the culture of the people using it one of adding their efforts, or subtracting them?

As W. Edwards Deming wrote, “Quality is everyone’s responsibility.” Not the quality manager’s. Not the safety manager’s. Everyone’s. Every superintendent. Every project manager. Every foreman on the crew. The specialist supports that responsibility. It does not replace it.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you know if your team has the right culture to benefit from a specialist support role?

Watch what happens when a problem surfaces. In a culture of ownership, the superintendent and the project manager are already aware of the problem before the specialist flags it, and they are working the solution together. In a culture of delegation, the specialist becomes the primary source of awareness, and the leaders respond reactively rather than proactively. The culture shows itself in how quickly field leadership notices problems and how directly they engage with solving them.

What if I inherited a project team with a passive culture? Can it be corrected?

Yes, but it requires explicit language and visible behavior from leadership. The first step is naming the expectation clearly: the safety manager, quality position, or support role is here to make us faster, not to take ownership away from the team. Follow that statement with accountability. Conduct your own walks. Ask your own questions. Show the team what engaged ownership looks like, and hold people to that standard consistently. Culture shifts when behavior shifts, and behavior shifts when leadership models and enforces the change.

Should every project have a dedicated safety manager, or only certain size projects?

The analogy points to culture as the determining variable, not project size. A large project with a passive culture will be less safe with a dedicated safety manager than a smaller project with a culture of ownership and no dedicated position. That said, project scale, complexity, trade count, and regulatory environment all affect the practical need for specialist support. The decision should factor in both the operational need and an honest assessment of whether the team culture is prepared to use the resource as an amplifier rather than a substitute.

How do you explain this principle to a team that has been operating in delegation mode for a long time?

Use the walkway analogy directly. It is concrete, visual, and easy to remember. Walk the team through the three modes. Show them where the project currently sits. Then paint a clear picture of what operating in walk on the walkway mode looks like in practice on your specific project. People generally do not resist ownership when they understand what is expected and when the leader models it alongside them. The problem in delegation cultures is usually that no one ever made the expectation clear.

Can a team start in walk alongside mode and move to walk on the walkway mode over time?

Absolutely, and this is often the healthiest progression. A team that builds strong ownership habits without specialist support has already developed the cultural foundation needed to amplify those habits with a dedicated resource. When the specialist position is added later, the team knows exactly how to use it because they already carry the identity of full ownership. The risk runs the other way: adding specialist support before ownership culture is established can interrupt the development of that culture entirely.

 

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.

Widen Your Circle!

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 20 min

When Your Field Engineer Asks How to Make Decisions Without Causing Trouble, the Answer Isn’t More Caution. It’s More Communication.

A field engineer reached out asking how to make decisions in the field without stepping on the superintendent’s toes. How do you stay confident you’re making the right calls without making somebody angry? That’s the wrong question. The real question is: why are you making decisions alone in the first place? The answer is widening your circle and bringing your team into every decision before you execute. Not because you need permission. Because great teams operate as units, not as isolated individuals making solo calls.

The Industry Trains Us to Operate in Silos

Construction teaches us the wrong lesson about decision making. We glorify the field leader who makes the tough call under pressure without consulting anyone. We celebrate the superintendent who solves the crisis alone. Then we act surprised when those same people step on toes, miss critical details, or create problems that could have been avoided with one quick text to the team. The system trained them to operate in silos. Then we blame them when operating in silos creates chaos.

The Failure Pattern Shows Up on Every Project

People make decisions without looping in the team. Field engineers push back concrete placements without telling superintendents. Superintendents change the plan without telling project managers. Foremen solve problems without telling anyone until it’s too late. Nobody is trying to cause trouble. They’re just trying to get work done. But when you make decisions in isolation, you force your team to react to outcomes they never saw coming.

The failure pattern looks like this: somebody tells you something after the fact. You find out later and you’re completely surprised. The decision could have been quality controlled with a second set of eyes. Now you’re in trouble because the call was made without coordination. You never know what’s going on. You’re never in sync with your team members. That’s not efficiency. That’s chaos disguised as independence.

The System Failed Them

The industry calls this autonomy. It’s not. Real autonomy is having the authority to make decisions while keeping your team informed so they can support you, catch mistakes, and move in the same direction. Fake autonomy is making decisions alone and hoping nobody gets mad. The system failed them. They didn’t fail the system. We never taught them that great teams operate with transparency, not secrecy.

The Fire Truck Incident That Changed Everything

Jason learned this lesson the hard way at DPR Construction working with Ryan Young and Derek. He came from a mindset of authority and hierarchy. Why do I have to check in with my boss? Ryan and Derek broke him in on a different concept: copying everybody on emails, sharing texts, coordinating together. It wasn’t about having bosses. It was about acting as a team. If we’re going to make a play together, we should do it together. Widen your circle.

The fire truck incident made it stick. A fire truck ran past the job site heading to the neighboring project. Jason went back to the trailer, didn’t say anything. Derek called. Dude, why didn’t you tell me? I just got a call from the university. What’s going on? Jason explained it wasn’t their job site, not a big deal. Derek’s response cut through the excuse. That’s not being good stewards of our customer because that project site is theirs too. Second, why am I getting calls from the university about things you should have already called me about? Then the line that changed everything: Jason, I’m a member of your team.

That’s when it sank in. It’s important to loop in your team. They’re members of the team. After that incident, Jason started copying everybody on emails. If he was going to go do something, he’d shoot out a text to the group. Everybody always knew what was going on. They saw as a group, knew as a group, thought as a group, and acted as a group because they were communicating as a group.

What Communication Looks Like in Practice

Here’s what that communication cadence looked like:

  • If there was a problem, shoot out a text so everyone knows immediately what’s happening
  • If there was a decision that would change the plan, shoot out a message before executing
  • If there was something going on, copy everyone on the email so information flows to all stakeholders
  • If somebody else needed to know, walk over and loop them in with the right information
  • Make it a habit to ask who do I need to loop in instead of operating in a siloed world

The Fire Alarm Success That Proved the Concept

A fire alarm went off in an adjacent building. Jason heard it. He texted the entire project team. Hey, we’re heading over to check it out. Everybody mobilized. It turned out to be a routine test they weren’t notified about. The owners were so impressed that even though it wasn’t their building, the team took it seriously. As soon as Jason sent the text, Ryan Young sent it to the owner and project executive. Everybody, within 60 seconds, knew what was going on. That’s widening the circle.

How to Prevent Stepping on Toes

If you’re about to push back a concrete placement as a field engineer, if you’re about to make a call, what’s wrong with pulling out your phone and sending a quick message to everybody saying, hey, this is what we’re doing? That’s a surefire way to keep everybody in the loop and make sure you’re not stepping on people’s toes.

The system Elevate follows: when about to make a decision, put it on WhatsApp. Somebody has about two hours to respond. If nobody responds, that person is expected to move forward. People are expected to think, decide, act, move forward. But checking in with the team is powerful. It’s not about asking permission. It’s not about bureaucracy. It’s about go do what you’re supposed to be doing, but widen your circle and loop in the team.

Great Teams Always Know What Each Other Is Doing

Your team should always know where you are, what you’re doing, what decisions you’re making. Everybody should be heading in the same direction. That’s how great teams work. Do football teams have siloed players and win? Do SEAL teams have siloed players and win? Never. They always know what’s going on and work as a team.

Trust is built when we know each other and when we know what each other is doing. There is no stress that is so bad that it can’t get worse by bearing it alone. If you want a heart attack at 36, go deal with that problem by yourself. There’s no problem that belongs to an individual. All problems belong to the team. Use the widen the circle principle for that as well.

If you want to be in line with your boss, if you want autonomy, if you want to make decisions while going with the team, widen your circle. Use platforms like WhatsApp. Create a system with your team and move forward. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

What Widening the Circle Protects You From

Here’s what widening the circle protects you from:

  • Making decisions that conflict with the plan because nobody had a chance to flag the issue
  • Creating rework or coordination failures that could have been prevented with one question
  • Losing trust with your superintendent because they’re finding out after the fact
  • Carrying stress alone when the team could have helped solve the problem in five minutes
  • Operating with incomplete information when someone on the team had the missing piece

Building Teams That Actually Function

This concept of widening the circle is one of the single most important concepts of working as a team. Yes, you should build trust. Yes, you should have healthy conflict. Yes, you should set goals together. Yes, you should hold each other accountable. Yes, you should perform. But nobody’s going to trust each other until you know each other and know what each other is doing. When you widen the circle, you’re not slowing down the work. You’re protecting the work from chaos.

The construction industry will change when we stop glorifying the lone hero and start celebrating the team player who brings everyone into the decision before executing. When we stop treating communication as bureaucracy and start treating it as the foundation for coordination. When we stop blaming people for stepping on toes and start building systems that make it easy to keep everyone in the loop.

As Patrick Lencioni said in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, “Trust is knowing that when a team member does push you, they’re doing it because they care about the team.” Widening the circle builds that trust. It shows your team you care enough to bring them into the play before you make it. That’s not weakness. That’s respect.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I widen my circle without slowing down decision making on fast moving projects?

The WhatsApp system solves this. Post your decision to the team group. Give them two hours to respond. If nobody responds, move forward. Most of the time, you’ll get feedback in five minutes or less. Fast projects need faster communication, not less communication. Widening the circle speeds things up by preventing rework from decisions made with incomplete information.

What if my superintendent doesn’t want to be copied on every decision?

Have that conversation and define what needs to be shared versus what doesn’t. The principle is bring the team into decisions that affect the plan, schedule, coordination, or quality. Start by overcommunicating, then dial it back based on feedback. Most leaders would rather filter out extra information than be surprised by decisions they should have known about.

How do I know which decisions need the team involved versus which ones I can just make?

Ask yourself: does this decision change the plan, affect coordination, impact schedule, require resources, or create risk if it goes wrong? If yes to any of those, loop in the team. When in doubt, send the message. The cost of overcommunicating is low. The cost of under-communicating is rework, conflict, and lost trust.

What’s the best platform for widening the circle on construction projects?

WhatsApp works best for real time team coordination. It’s free, works internationally, handles group messages well, and most people already have it. Whatever platform you choose, the key is having one central place where the whole team communicates so nothing gets lost in multiple channels.

How do I widen my circle when my project culture doesn’t support open communication?

Start with your immediate team. Field engineers can widen the circle with their superintendent and foreman even if the whole project isn’t bought in. Model the behavior and let the results speak. When your part of the project runs smoother because everyone knows what’s happening, others will notice and start adopting the practice.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

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

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

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

Can They Hear You?

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 21 min

Can Your Team Actually Hear You? The Communication Problem Every Construction Leader Has

Think about the last time you flew. The flight attendants were impossible to miss. Clear voice, direct language, eye contact, no ambiguity. You knew exactly what was expected and where things stood. Then the pilot came on the intercom. And you heard something like a distant mumble from a half asleep person somewhere behind a closed door. Something was said. You have no idea what. You went back to whatever you were doing and assumed it was not important.

Here is the question that Jason Schroeder could not stop thinking about after one of those flights: does the pilot know that nobody can hear them? And more importantly, on your job site, in your company, in your department, are you the pilot?

The Problem With Believing You Have Communicated

There is a comfortable illusion that a lot of leaders live inside. They say something. They mean it. They believe it landed. And then they are genuinely surprised when their team is not moving in the direction they intended, when people ask questions about things that were already “covered,” or when a project drifts without anyone seeming to understand why.

The assumption underneath that surprise is that speaking equals communicating. It does not. Speaking is just one person making sounds. Communicating is when another person receives the message, understands it, and can act on it. Those are two entirely different things. And in construction, where projects are loud and complex and leaders are pulled in a dozen directions, the gap between speaking and communicating can be enormous.

If your team is not heading where it needs to go, the honest first question is not what is wrong with the team. The honest first question is: can they actually hear you? And do they know where you are trying to take them?

Three Questions Every Leader Needs to Answer

Jason came back from that flight with a framework for thinking about leadership communication that breaks down into three connected questions. They are simple. They are also diagnostic in a way that most performance conversations never get to.

Do you have clarity yourself?

This is the question that has to come first, because you cannot transmit a message you do not have. Vague direction from leadership produces vague effort from teams. If you are not sure exactly where the project is headed, what success looks like at each milestone, what the expectations are for each role, and what the standards are for the work, your team definitely does not know. They are operating on assumptions, and those assumptions are almost certainly different from person to person.

Getting clear is not a communications problem. It is a thinking problem. It requires the leader to do the upstream work of deciding before communicating. Where are we going? What does it look like when we get there? What does each person on this team need to know and do to make that happen? Until those answers exist inside the leader’s head with real specificity, the message will not get through no matter how loudly it is delivered.

Is your message landing with passion and volume?

Jason watched a female captain project her voice through the intercom with energy and presence, and everyone in the plane heard every word. Then he sat through dozens of pilots who mumbled through the same equipment and produced nothing but background noise. Same tools. Completely different results. The difference was not the microphone. It was the person using it.

Passion is not performance. It is signal. When a leader communicates a direction with genuine conviction and energy, the people around them take it seriously. When a leader delivers the same words without energy or investment, the message reads as low priority even if the content is urgent. Teams read their leaders constantly. They can feel the difference between a leader who believes in where they are going and a leader who is going through the motions of updating people.

If you want your message to land, you have to actually mean it when you say it.

Have you said it enough times?

This is the piece that most leaders underestimate dramatically. Jason’s internal standard is seven. Say the key direction, the key expectation, the key standard at least seven times before assuming it has been absorbed. That number sounds high until you map out how communication actually works in a construction environment. Someone misses a meeting. Someone is deep in the work on a problem when the message goes out. Someone hears it once and files it under “I’ll think about that later.” Someone else hears it and interprets it through the filter of last year’s priorities.

One pass does not do it. Two passes might start to land it. Seven passes is where it starts to become part of the team’s operating reality. Some of the best leaders in business repeat their core message year after year, in every setting, and never feel the need to replace it with something new until the team has genuinely mastered it. That kind of persistence feels like overkill to the person delivering the message and like clarity to the people receiving it.

Making Direction Visible, Not Just Audible

One of the adjustments Jason made inside Elevate Construction after recognizing this problem was to stop relying entirely on spoken or written communication and to make direction physical and visible. Vision boards that map where the company is headed. Visual representations of what the future training facility should look like. Clear diagrams of the organizational structure, the marketing approach, the company’s growth path. Not because people cannot understand words, but because visual representations remove ambiguity in ways that spoken direction never fully can.

On a construction project, this looks like:

  • A clearly maintained visual schedule that shows where the project is in real time and where it needs to be
  • Trailer walls that communicate the production plan and current priorities at a glance 
  • Daily huddles that repeat and reinforce the same core direction with updated specifics 
  • Written expectations posted where people actually work, not buried in a project manual

When direction is both spoken with passion and made physically visible, the chances of it landing across an entire project team increase dramatically. People who missed the meeting can still see the board. People who heard but forgot can refresh by looking at the wall. The message becomes part of the environment instead of a memory that fades.

Ownership Means Starting With Yourself

Jason’s wife Katie has a standing rule in their house: everything is your fault. Not as a punishment, but as a leadership posture. When something is not going right, the first place to look is inward. Was the expectation clear? Was it communicated with enough conviction? Was it repeated enough times for it to take root?

That framing is uncomfortable. It is also correct. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. But before bringing in support, the leader has to be willing to ask the harder question: has the team been given a clear enough direction, delivered with enough energy, repeated with enough consistency, to actually have a chance?

Most of the time, the answer reveals something the leader can act on immediately. And that is a good thing. It means the solution is within reach. Clarity is a leadership skill. Passion is a leadership choice. Repetition is a leadership discipline. None of them require budget approval or a restructured team. They require the leader to decide to show up differently.

The Challenge This Week

Pick the single most important direction you need your team to move in right now. Then ask yourself honestly: do I have full clarity on it myself? Have I communicated it with real energy and conviction, not just covered it in a meeting? And have I said it in enough different ways, in enough different settings, often enough that it has become part of how the team thinks about their work .If the answer to any of those questions is no, that is your work for this week. Not a new initiative. Not a new system. Just the discipline of being heard.As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Do not be the pilot. Do not mumble into a microphone and assume the plane knows where it is going. Project. Lead. Be clear. Repeat.

 On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I know if my team is actually receiving my message or just nodding along?

Ask them. One of the most reliable tests of whether communication has landed is to ask a few team members separately to describe where the project is headed, what the current priorities are, and what is expected of them in the next two weeks. If the answers are consistent and match your intent, the message landed. If the answers vary significantly or reveal gaps, you have information about where to focus your communication effort. This is not a gotcha exercise. It is a feedback loop that helps leaders calibrate.

What if I am genuinely clear and still not being heard? What else could be causing the disconnect?

Clarity from the leader is the first variable to check, but it is not the only one. Trust matters: if a team has been through cycles of shifting priorities or ignored feedback, they may have learned not to invest too much in any single direction until they see it sustained over time. Consistency matters: clarity communicated once and then contradicted by behavior will not hold. And channel matters: some people absorb verbal communication best, others absorb written, others need visual. Using multiple formats for the same core message increases the chances of it reaching everyone.

How do you maintain message consistency across a large project team when there are multiple layers of leadership?

The key is making sure that every layer of leadership carries the same core direction in their own language. A superintendent who knows the project’s priority should be able to explain it in their own words to their foremen. Foremen should be able to explain it to their crews. When that chain works, the message multiplies. When it breaks, usually at one of those handoff points, the team below the break is operating without context. Training foremen and superintendents on how to communicate the mission clearly, not just execute tasks, is one of the highest leverage investments a project leadership team can make.

Is there a point where repeating the message too often becomes counterproductive?

The repetition becomes counterproductive when the message stops being true or when circumstances have changed and the direction has shifted but the old message keeps being delivered. Repeating a message that is still accurate and still relevant is almost never too much in construction, where crews change, foremen rotate, and new people join the team constantly. The seven time rule is a floor, not a ceiling. What kills a message is not repetition but inconsistency between the words being said and the behavior being modeled.

What is the most common reason leaders are not communicating clearly on construction projects?

Usually it is one of two things. The first is that the leader does not have enough clarity themselves because they are too deep in reactive mode to step back and decide on direction. The second is that the leader assumes people know more than they do, overestimating how much context the team already carries. Both are solvable. Carve out time to think before communicating. Develop the habit of over explaining rather than under explaining. Get comfortable with repetition as a feature of leadership, not a failure.

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.

What Should We Actually Be Recording?

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 20 min

What We Should Be Recording: The Hard Question Nobody Is Asking

There is a question that almost nobody on a construction project ever asks about their documentation practices: why are we doing this? Not “what is this for?” in the broad, liability-aware sense but specifically, when this document is complete, who will use it, for what purpose, and what would go differently if it did not exist? When that question gets asked honestly, the answer for a significant portion of construction’s documentation workload is uncomfortable. Most of it will never be referenced again. Most of the detail nobody will ever extract. And the people producing it are spending time they could use to build the project right instead building a record of how things went wrong.

That is not an argument against documentation. It is an argument for being ruthlessly intentional about which documentation is genuinely necessary and what it takes to produce it in the simplest, most frictionless form possible. The standard of “we’ve always done it this way” is not a justification. It is a habit dressed up as a reason. And there is nothing so useless as doing well what should not be done at all.

The Documentation Landscape Is Full of Waste

Let’s be clear about what Lean thinking says about documentation that processes information without adding value to the installed product. RFIs are waste. Not because design clarifications are not sometimes necessary, they occasionally are but because the RFI exists primarily because the design was not complete enough when it was issued for construction, or because the information management process that should have allowed a simple documented clarification instead requires a formal multi-step approval cycle with wait times, batching, and administrative overhead that have nothing to do with getting the answer to the field. If the design were properly complete and packaged by zone and work package, most RFIs would never need to be written. If the documentation process were frictionless, the ones that remained could be resolved and posted in a fraction of the current time.

Submittals are waste for similar reasons. Submittals exist because the contract documents are not detailed enough and not packaged properly. If the specifications and drawings clearly communicated the installation requirements at the work package level, the submittal process would be dramatically simplified or in many cases unnecessary. Instead, entire administrative operations exist to manage the circulation, review, and approval of documents that are compensating for design gaps that should have been closed in preconstruction.

Monthly narratives, extensive daily reporting beyond the essential record, layers of documentation produced for “later” all of it follows the same logic. The documentation exists not because someone defined what it would be used for and confirmed that use was real, but because the industry has accumulated documentation requirements that nobody has critically examined.

The Scheduling System Story

Here is a specific example of how documentation appetite distorts decisions. A client was being challenged to move to a proper scheduling application, one that would produce a real production plan visible to the trades and oriented toward flow. The response was resistance: “We’re not going to use that because we want to track all the details. We want to document what people are doing down to the minute.”

That desire for minute-level documentation of individual activity is the documentation instinct at its most counterproductive. The purpose of a schedule is to manage production, to show where the project is relative to where it should be, to identify where the constraint is, to confirm that the trades are in the right zones at the right time, and to give the superintendent and PM the information they need to support the field. A schedule that produces that information in a clean, visible, actionable form is serving its purpose. A schedule that is instead designed to record granular detail about past activity, so that something can be blamed later, is serving a legal protection function at the cost of a production management function. And the legal protection function, it turns out, is far less reliable in practice than most teams assume.

Major general contractors have reviewed their daily reporting archives and asked the hard question: when was this information actually used? When was the granular documentation of individual worker activity in a specific zone on a specific afternoon ever extracted and applied in a way that changed an outcome? The honest answer, in case after case, is rarely. Not because documentation is never useful in disputes, it can be, but because the level of detail that gets captured at tremendous daily cost rarely produces the specific information that matters when a dispute actually arises.

What Documentation Is Actually For

None of this means construction should have no documentation. Some things are genuinely necessary, and the minimum for those is not zero, it is exactly what it needs to be. Daily reports should function, at minimum, as a clear record of what was done and not done on a given day, with enough specificity to support a factual account if a claim arises. Notifications and formal notices need to be in writing because legal and contractual requirements demand it. Contracts need to exist because they define the working relationship. Payment records need to be accurate and accessible because trade partners depend on them.

The test for any specific documentation requirement is whether you can articulate exactly what it will be used for and who will use it. If the answer is “we might need it someday” or “legal says to have it,” the follow-up questions are: has legal ever used this specific type of documentation in a case, and what was the outcome? If nobody can answer those questions with specifics, the documentation requirement is probably habit.

Warning Signs That Documentation Waste Is Consuming the Project

Before the administrative burden compounds into a real productivity problem, watch for these signals that the documentation practices are costing more than they protect:

  • PEs and PMs are spending significant portions of their day producing reports and narratives that nobody reads and nobody asks about until the end of the month when the schedule says they are due.
  • Daily reports are capturing granular activity detail that requires significant daily effort to produce, and nobody on the leadership team can point to a specific instance where that detail was extracted and used.
  • Trade partner coordination is being slowed by documentation cycles, RFI wait times, submittal review periods, approval chains that exist for administrative reasons rather than for quality assurance.
  • Field engineers and PEs are being consumed by administrative tracking when their time would more directly protect the project by being in the field or coordinating with trades.
  • The scheduling approach is oriented toward documenting what happened rather than managing what is happening.

Every one of those signals is documentation serving itself rather than serving the project. The project is paying the cost in the most scarce and non-renewable resource there is: the time of good people who could be doing something that adds real value.

The Better Question to Ask About Everything We Record

Here is the question that should precede every documentation requirement: what decision or protection does this record create that could not be created more efficiently? Not “is this legally required?” that is a separate question with its own answer. Not “has anyone asked for this?” requests accumulate without examination. The question is whether this specific document, produced at this level of detail, in this format, through this process, is the minimum necessary version of the protection or communication it is supposed to provide.

When that question gets asked honestly, several things tend to happen. Some documentation gets confirmed as genuinely necessary and stays. Some documentation gets streamlined, the same information captured in half the time because nobody has ever questioned the format. And some documentation gets removed entirely because the only honest answer to “what is this for?” is “we don’t know.”

The goal is the most frictionless, most Lean version of every documentation requirement that actually needs to exist. AI can already do significant portions of the daily reporting synthesis, meeting minutes consolidation, and narrative generation from structured inputs. The technology is not the barrier. The barrier is the willingness to ask which documentation requirements are real and which are habit.

We are building people who build things. The good people on every project deserve to spend their time on work that matters building cleanly, enabling trades, protecting quality, solving problems before they reach the field. They should not be spending their days producing documents that nobody will read for purposes that nobody can articulate. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow including the documentation discipline that keeps administrative overhead from consuming the time and attention the field actually needs.

A Challenge for Builders

Pick three recurring documentation requirements on your current project this week, three reports, three tracking logs, three recurring deliverables. For each one, ask the question: who uses this, for what specific purpose, and what has happened in the last six months as a direct result of this document existing? If you cannot answer all three parts of the question with specifics, that documentation requirement deserves a harder look. Lean it out. Simplify the format. Reduce the frequency. Or eliminate it entirely. The time you save belongs to the project.

As Jason says, “It’s more important to build the job right than to document whose fault it was when we did it wrong.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are RFIs and submittals actually waste in a Lean construction system?

They are in their current form. RFIs exist primarily because design is incomplete or the information management process is batched and slow. Submittals exist because contract documents are not packaged at the work package level. Both processes could be dramatically streamlined and in a truly advanced production system, largely eliminated through better upstream design and information management.

What should daily reports actually capture at a minimum?

A clear record of what work was done and not done on a given day, with enough factual specificity to support an accurate account if a claim arises. Not granular minute-by-minute activity logs. Not extensive narrative that nobody reads. The minimum record that creates the protection or communication the project actually needs no more.

How do you decide which documentation requirements to keep and which to challenge?

Ask three questions: who uses this, for what specific purpose, and can you point to a recent instance where this document was extracted and made a real difference? Documentation that passes all three questions stays. Documentation that cannot be defended on those terms gets streamlined, reduced, or eliminated. The standard is not “might be useful someday.” It is provable, specific value.

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.

If A Trade Partner Won’t Fill Out The Pull Plan Homework

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 19 min

If a Trade Partner Won’t Fill Out the Pull Plan Homework, You Already Have Your Answer

There is a moment in preconstruction that most teams treat as a minor logistical frustration and should treat as one of the most revealing signals in the entire project. A trade partner receives the pull plan homework, the document asking for their fastest, median, and slowest production speeds by scope with historical data to back it up and they do not send it back. A reminder goes out. Still nothing. A follow-up call happens. The response is “we’ll get to it.”

That is not a scheduling inconvenience. That is an interview result. The trade just showed you how they will handle prefab coordination, material deliveries, weekly planning meetings, safety documentation, RFI requests, and every other system the project depends on their participation to function. The pull plan homework is not the important thing. The pattern of not completing it is.

Pull Planning 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0

Understanding why the homework matters requires understanding how pull planning evolves. Pull planning 1.0 is the foundational version executing the collaborative sequence with zones and creating diagonal trade flow from area to area. That alone is a significant improvement over CPM, and for teams new to the process, it is the right starting point. Pull planning 2.0 goes deeper, actively analyzing and optimizing bottlenecks rather than accepting whatever pace the initial session produces.

Pull planning 3.0 is the most powerful version, and it is where the homework enters the picture. The project team sends out the Lego sheet asking each trade for their fastest, median, and slowest production speeds per scope, backed by historical reference class data, four weeks before the pull planning session. The homework comes back three weeks before the session. That creates a window to analyze the production data, identify bottlenecks before the session, and optimize those constraints ahead of time. By the time the pull plan happens, the team is not discovering problems in the room. They are confirming solutions already designed. But that sequence only works if the trades participate. The trades who will not participate in the homework are giving the team critical information about exactly how they will participate in everything else.

The Homework as an Interview

The trade partner preparation process is one of the most important ongoing assessment mechanisms in construction, and most teams use it as a checklist rather than as a diagnostic. Every touchpoint, the contracting phase, the pre-mobilization meeting, the pre-construction meeting shows how the trade will show up when the pressure is real. The pull plan homework is one more data point in that pattern, and it is notable because it arrives four months before the phase starts. Four weeks before the pull plan, which is three months before the phase itself, the team is asking the trade for historical production data.

If the trade will not provide that data, the team has a four-month runway to address the problem. That runway is everything. A trade partner who is not performing as expected at month four of construction, when crews are already on site and the Takt plan is already running, is a crisis. A trade partner who is not participating in the homework four months before the phase starts is a solvable problem, if the team treats it as the signal, it is and acts on it immediately rather than waiting for the pattern to become a crisis.

The Leadership Question

Here is the honest question that has to be asked when trade partners are not participating: is the leadership being appropriately clear about expectations, or is it being accommodating to the point of ineffectiveness? The two situations produce the same symptom; the homework does not come back but they require different responses.

When the issue is weak leadership, the fix is direct: establish expectations at onboarding, communicate what participation looks like at every step, and enforce those expectations with documented escalation. When a trade foreman receives the homework with four days to complete it and does not respond, the project team follows up the next day not three days later. If the foreman still has not responded, the conversation escalates to the trade’s project manager. If the pattern continues, the grading system makes it visible: did the trade complete the homework or not? That documentation becomes the basis for the performance evaluation that determines whether this trade gets considered for future work.

The safety sheet example from DPR is instructive. When trades were required to submit weekly safety inspection sheets and some were not, the response was a trade partner grading sheet where submission was a binary data point, A, B, C, D, or F. Non-subjective. Visible. The submissions started coming in, not because of coercion, but because the expectation was clear, the accountability was visible, and the grade mattered.

Warning Signs That a Trade Partner Is Signaling Future Performance Problems

Before the pattern becomes a field crisis, watch for these signals in preconstruction that tell you what you will get once the phase starts:

  • The trade does not return the pull plan homework despite a clear deadline, a follow-up, and escalation to their PM.
  • The trade attends the pre-construction meeting without having prepared the submittals or documentation they were told to bring.
  • Communication from the trade is slow, vague, or stops after the contract is executed and the initial onboarding is done.
  • The foreman assigned to the scope has not been identified or introduced by the time the pull plan session approaches.
  • Questions that require the trade’s historical production data produce responses based on opinion rather than record.

Every one of those signals is the same signal. The pattern of engagement before the phase is the pattern of engagement during it. Do not ignore it because the pre-construction phase feels too early to make hard decisions about trade selection.

When the Leadership Is Not the Problem

The harder situation is when the project team is doing everything correctly, expectations are clear, onboarding was explicit, escalation has happened and the trade partner still will not participate. That points to a different root cause. A trade partner who will not fill out the homework, will not attend preparation meetings, and will not engage despite clear expectations and direct accountability conversations is not going to change when the phase starts. The historical reference class for this scenario is consistent: it does not get better.

The decision at that point is clear even if it is not comfortable. Go through the pain of replacing the trade now finding a different partner, contracting them, onboarding them, possibly adjusting the timeline. Or go through the pain of accepting the non-participating trade into the phase and absorbing the ongoing cost in lost productivity, schedule risk, and the burden placed on every other trade that is flowing well. Those downstream costs are almost always greater than the replacement cost. Pick the pain that actually resolves the problem rather than the one that postpones it.

Why the Four-Month Window Matters

The pull plan homework exists at the 3.0 level not just to optimize bottlenecks before the session but because the process of obtaining it or not obtaining it produces information more valuable than any sequence the session could generate. A plan built on solid historical production data, with bottlenecks pre-optimized and trade buy-in confirmed, is a plan the team can execute. A plan produced in a session where some trades participated genuinely and others were present in body only is built on partial information.

What strong participation in the homework actually looks like:

  • Historical production data submitted on time, in the requested format, with enough specificity to build a reference class.
  • Fastest, median, and slowest speeds differentiated by zone type and scope condition, not a single number that covers every situation.
  • A foreman or lead who can speak to the data and explain what drives the variance between the fast and slow ends.
  • A trade partner PM who follows up proactively if the homework reveals a constraint that needs to be discussed before the pull plan session.

When all four of those are present, the pull plan session starts from a position of real information rather than collaborative optimism. The duration it produces will be honest. The bottlenecks will have already been identified. And the milestone the session confirms will be one the team can keep.

A Challenge for Builders

On your next phase, send the homework four weeks before the pull plan session. Set the expectation at onboarding that the homework is required, not optional, required. Track who responds and who does not. For the trades who do not respond by the deadline, escalate immediately and document it. Then look at the correlation: the trades who participated in the homework will engage more effectively in the pull plan session, commit more realistically to the sequence, and perform more reliably once the phase starts. That pattern is your reference class for whether pull planning 3.0 is worth the investment. The answer will be yes.

We are building people who build things. The trades who participate in the homework, commit to the sequence, and show up to the zone ready to execute are the trades who build the project successfully. The system is designed to identify them before the phase starts, four months before, if you run it correctly. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow including the pull planning discipline that produces real production data and real trade commitment before the work begins.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the pull plan homework and when should it be sent?

The homework is a document asking each trade for their fastest, median, and slowest production speeds per scope area, backed by historical reference class data. It is sent four weeks before the pull planning session, which is typically three months before the phase starts giving the team four months of early warning if a trade will not engage.

Why is a trade’s failure to complete the homework a signal about overall performance?

Because the pattern of not completing a required pre-work task despite clear expectations and follow-up is the same pattern that will appear in how they handle material coordination, meeting participation, safety documentation, and every other production system requirement. The homework is not the point. The pattern it reveals is.

What should a project team do when a trade won’t participate despite clear expectations and escalation?

Treat it as a definitive signal and make the replacement decision before the phase starts. The historical reference class for non-participating trade partners is consistent, the pattern does not improve once work begins. The pain of replacing them now is almost always smaller than the pain of managing around them for the duration of the phase.

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.

The Pull Plan & The Reference Class

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 22 min

The Pull Plan and the Reference Class: Why Data Has to Come Before Optimism

There is a moment in every pull planning session that feels like a breakthrough. The trades are in the room. The sticky notes are on the wall. The sequence is taking shape. And then somebody stands back and looks at the overall duration the collaborative process just produced and it is dramatically shorter than what any previous experience with this type of work would suggest is realistic. Everybody in the room is excited. The energy is good. The plan feels achievable because the people who built it believe in it.

That moment is where projects go wrong. Not because pull planning is wrong, pull planning, done correctly, is one of the most powerful production tools in construction. But because collaborative optimism, when it is allowed to override historical data, produces timelines that cannot be executed and milestones that will be missed. The pull plan is a sequence. The reference class is the reality check. You need both, and you need them in the right order.

The Pendulum: CPM on One End, Rigid Single-Train Takt on the Other

Before getting to the reference class, there is a related pendulum that needs to be named because it shapes how pull plans get built. On one end of the pendulum is CPM, trade stacking, trade burdening, no flow, everything piled into zones without regard for the sequence dependencies that allow trades to move cleanly. CPM produces overloaded zones, constant interruption, and schedules that look full of activity while the project falls behind.

On the other end of the pendulum is something equally problematic: single-train Takt planning applied rigidly, where one universal Takt time is forced on every trade regardless of their natural crew compositions, natural cycle times, and natural production rhythms. When trades are forced into a single Takt time that does not fit their scope, the crew compositions get distorted, the work gets done in ways that do not match how those trades actually perform, and the production system looks theoretically clean while producing real-world dysfunction. The United States has gotten CPM wrong. Some European practitioners have gotten rigid single-train Takt wrong. Both extremes fail the trades and the project.

The right answer is multi-train Takt planning where trades flow at the rhythms that are natural for their scope, trains that share phases move at compatible speeds and proper spacing, and multiple trains intersect correctly rather than being forced into an artificial uniformity. The pull plan is the tool through which that multi-train logic gets built collaboratively with the people who will actually execute it. But the pull plan only works if the duration it produces is grounded in historical reality.

What a Reference Class Actually Is

A reference class is a historical dataset that tracks the schedule and budget outcomes for similar projects of a certain type, a certain program category, a certain size and complexity range, so that planners have a data-driven baseline to evaluate their plans against. Not one person’s memory of how long something took. Not a gut feeling from the most experienced person in the room. A systematic record of how this category of work has actually performed across multiple real instances.

The Macro Takt plan establishes the high-level schedule that the owner and the project will be held to. The reference class is one of the most important inputs to that plan, because it tells the team what this type of work historically requires before anyone has the chance to talk themselves into something more optimistic than the data supports.

The principle behind reference class forecasting developed in planning research and applied in major infrastructure and construction programs worldwide is straightforward: the single best predictor of how long a future project will take is how long similar past projects actually took, not how long the people planning the current project believe it will take. Individual project teams are almost always optimistic. The data is almost always more accurate.

A Story That Makes This Unforgettable

Here is a real example of what happens when the reference class gets ignored. A project team was planning a phase. The historical data for phases like this, same project type, same program, same complexity showed consistently that the phase took somewhere between twelve and a half and thirteen months. That was the reference class. That was what the data said.

The team did a pull plan. The collaborative session was energetic. The trades came together, worked through the sequence, committed to the zones, and produced an eight-month duration. Eight months. The room was excited. The plan felt like a breakthrough, a genuinely improved outcome produced by better coordination, better sequencing, and stronger trade commitment than previous projects had managed.

The team talked themselves into it. The rose-colored glasses went on. The reference class got set aside because the pull plan felt so convincing, so collaboratively built, so committed to by the people who would actually do the work. The milestone was set at eight months.

It took thirteen months. Exactly what the reference class said it would. The enthusiasm in the planning session did not change the underlying production reality. It just delayed the point at which that reality became visible.

Why This Happens: The Psychology of Pull Planning

The reason this failure pattern is so consistent is not that pull planning is wrong. It is that pull planning, when done well, creates genuine conviction. The trades who built the plan feel ownership of it. The sequencing feels tight and logical. The collaborative energy produces a sense that this time will be different, that the coordination, the buy-in, and the shared commitment will overcome whatever caused previous phases to take longer.

Sometimes that conviction is justified. Genuinely improved preconstruction, better trade selection, better logistics, and a more disciplined production system can compress a phase beyond what historical averages show. But the improvement has to be real and accountable, specific changes to specific constraints that explain specifically why this phase will perform differently than the reference class. “We’re more committed this time” is not a sufficient reason to override thirteen months of historical data with an eight-month plan. Commitment is an input to the plan. It is not a reason to ignore the data.

The Right Relationship Between Pull Plan and Reference Class

Here is the discipline that protects the project without dismissing the value of the pull plan. The pull plan and the reference class are not competing tools. They are complementary, and the reference class comes first.

Before the pull planning session, the team reviews the reference class for this type of work. They know going in what the historical performance data says. They know the range of outcomes for phases like this one, what the fast end looks like, what the slow end looks like, and what the typical case looks like. That knowledge shapes the conditions of satisfaction they bring into the session and the validation they apply to the duration it produces.

After the pull planning session produces a duration, the team asks one question before accepting it: does this match the reference class? If the pull plan says eight months and the reference class says thirteen, the team does not accept eight months as the milestone. They may target eight months as an aspirational performance goal, something the team works toward without promising to the owner or locking into a contract. But the milestone, the external commitment, the number the owner is counting on that number reflects the reference class until the pull plan can demonstrate specifically how the constraints that caused previous phases to take thirteen months have been eliminated.

The pull plan is for sequence, trade buy-in, and constraint identification. The reference class is for schedule reality. Use both. Weight the reference class when they disagree.

Warning Signs That the Reference Class Is Being Ignored

Before the milestone gets locked to an optimistic pull plan duration, watch for these signals that the data conversation is being skipped:

  • The team references how committed the trades are but cannot identify specific constraints from previous phases that have been structurally eliminated in this one.
  • The pull plan duration is dramatically shorter than anything the reference class for this project type has ever achieved, without a specific explanation for why this phase is fundamentally different.
  • The energy in the room has shifted from “does the data support this?” to “everyone believes in this plan” with conviction replacing analysis.
  • The milestone is being set to the pull plan output before anyone has confirmed that the output is consistent with historical performance data.
  • The project team is using the phrase “this time will be different” without being able to say exactly which specific conditions have changed.

Every one of those signals is the pull plan running ahead of the reference class. The correction is straightforward: go back to the data. Compare. If the data supports the plan, move forward with confidence. If it does not, adjust the milestone to reflect what the data actually says.

Data Is the Foundation of Every Good Plan

The pull plan is a remarkable tool. Done correctly with real trade input, genuine buy-in, a backwards pass that honors predecessor needs, and a diagonal flow check that confirms the sequence holds, it is the most accurate construction schedule that exists, because it was built by the people who will actually do the work. But it is still built by people who want to succeed and who naturally believe in the plan they just made. The reference class is the check on that natural optimism. It is the historical reality that holds the plan accountable to what this type of work actually requires. Together, they produce a plan that is both collaboratively owned and data-grounded, the only combination that consistently produces accurate milestones.

We are building people who build things. That includes building the discipline to check our optimism against the data and to make commitments we can actually keep, to owners, to trade partners, and to the families whose plans depend on the projects we deliver on time. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow including the preconstruction discipline that uses both pull plans and reference class data to produce milestones grounded in reality.

A Challenge for Builders

On your current project’s next phase pull plan, build in one step: before accepting the duration the session produces, pull the reference class data for this project type and compare. If there is a gap, name it explicitly and explain what specific structural changes justify the deviation from historical performance. If you cannot name those changes specifically, revise the milestone to reflect what the data says. The commitment you protect by doing this is worth far more than the optimism you preserve by skipping it.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a reference class and why does it matter for pull planning?

A reference class is a historical dataset of actual schedule and budget outcomes for similar projects, same type, program, and size that gives planners a data-grounded baseline to validate their pull plan against. It matters because individual project teams are almost always optimistic, and the historical record is almost always more accurate than the plan produced by a collaborative session.

What should happen when a pull plan produces a duration that disagrees with the reference class?

The reference class should be given precedence for the external milestone commitment. The pull plan duration can become an internal performance target, something the team works toward but the owner-facing milestone should reflect what the historical data says until the team can identify specific, structural reasons why this phase will perform differently than previous comparable phases.

Why is multi-train Takt planning the right answer between CPM and rigid single-train Takt?

Because CPM stacks trades without regard for flow, and rigid single-train Takt forces all trades to one Takt time that distorts their natural crew compositions. Multi-train Takt allows trades to run at the rhythms natural for their scope, with trains moving at compatible speeds and proper spacing, and multiple trains intersecting correctly. It respects how each trade actually works while still protecting Trade Flow and buffers across the whole phase.

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.

    Related Books

    The First Planner System: The Project Planning System for Executives, Project Managers, and Superintendents in Pre-construction - Book 2
    Get Book
    Pull Planning For Builders: How to Pull Plan Right, Respect People, and Gain Time (The Art of the Builder)
    Get Book
    The Ten Improvements to Production Planning: What Lean Builders Can Do To Improve Short Interval Planning (The Art of the Builder)
    Get Book

    Related Books

    The First Planner System: The Project Planning System for Executives, Project Managers, and Superintendents in Pre-construction - Book 2
    Get Book
    Built to Fail: Why Construction Projects Take So Long, Cost Too Much, And How to Fix It
    Get Book

    Related Books

    The First Planner System: The Project Planning System for Executives, Project Managers, and Superintendents in Pre-construction - Book 2
    Get Book
    The 10 Myths of CPM: How The Critical Path Method Systematizes Disrespect for People
    Get Book
    Calumet "K"
    Get Book

    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