October 2026 - Page 2 of 14 - Elevate Constructionist

Hurry Up and Plan: Why I Drive Hard in Pre-Construction Planning

Posted on October 15, 2026October 20, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 9 min

I talk a lot about keeping people balanced, about caring for people, and about comforting the workers and the foremen. Because of that, people sometimes think I am not a hard worker, or that I am encouraging project delivery team members to work 32-hour weeks and be super comfortable in life. People misunderstand me, and I want to clear it up. I wrote a little about this in my last post, but my saying is simple: hurry up and plan.

Short answer: Pre-construction planning is where I drive hard, and construction is where I never push. In the field, I want rhythm, level flow, buffers, and no late days, weekends, or overtime. In pre-construction, I start as soon as I can, keep driving, and allow a late day when it gets the construction right, because an hour of pre-construction is worth a day in construction, and a day is worth a week.

Balance Is Not Comfort

I believe in balance, and I believe in all of these things. I do believe in stopping, and I do not believe in pushing. But I pride myself on being one of the hardest-working people in the group. If I am in a group, I will regulate myself so that I am the hardest working person in the room, or at least as hard-working. This might be toxic behavior, and I am not saying it is not.

I really believe in doing a good job and adding value. I do believe in balance, but I do not believe in laziness or comfort. I think comfort is a disease.

So sometimes people see me and say, you talk about balance, but you work incredibly hard. You talk about comforting the workers, but you do not believe in the project delivery team only working 32-hour weeks and being super cushy in their jobs. You talk about not pushing, but you are always grinding in pre-construction and being urgent about everything. Jason, are you pushing?

My answer is, let’s hurry up. Let’s get this going. Hurry up and plan. Let’s go. We cannot fall asleep on this deal.

What Does “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There” Mean?

I heard a neat quote from Hal Macomber. I do not know if it came from somebody else or if he made it up, but it goes like this: don’t just do something, stand there.

In construction, that means if you do not know if it is safe, if you do not know if it is quality, if you do not know what to do, or if you do not have full kit, do not just go do any old thing. Stop. I do not like the word wait, so I say stop, call, resolve. Stop, call, resolve. Let’s get it fixed.

In pre-construction and in planning, I would adapt that quote and flip it back: don’t just stand there, do something.

How Is Pre-Construction Different From Construction?

This is where the differentiation comes in. The same principle does not apply the same way in both places:

In construction	In pre-construction
I want you to hit on a rhythm.	I want you to start as soon as you can.
I want a level flow.	I want a level flow too, but if we overburden ourselves every now and then, I do not mind.
I will stop the train.	I will keep driving.
I will advocate to try to never have late days, weekend, or overtime, or crazy work days.	I will allow it to happen.
I am looking for even flow, buffers and capacity.	I am always saying, let's hurry up and plan.

Here are the five must-do items to finish before you leave pre-construction.

Yes, I did just say I do not mind overburdening ourselves now and then in pre-construction. Somebody even said to me, Jason, you are a pusher in pre-construction, so you go against what you preach. No. I know that an hour of pre-construction is worth a day in construction, and a day is worth a week in construction.

If You Are Going to Work Late, Do It in Pre-Construction

I have said this to teams many times. If you have to work a late day every now and then in pre-construction to get the construction right, do it. It does not bother me.

If you are ever going to work late, pull an all-nighter, or burn a weekend, you do it in pre-construction. We are not going to do it in construction, where that fatigue could affect you in the field from a safety standpoint. I have said that to people 100 percent, because I do not believe in doing it in construction. I will not do it.

But one thing you will find with me is that I am not going to let us get behind in the field. I am not going to do that.

Why Is Waiting to Plan Such a Bad Idea?

The thing you cannot do is fall asleep, get complacent, or get lazy in pre-construction, and say, oh, we are just in pre-construction, I am not going to work a lot. Because then, in the field, you will try to:

Be out in the field.
Manage a number of people.
Work where you do not have any decision or reaction time.
Be in the critical moments of construction with an upcoming phase.
And on top of all that, deal with your procrastination.

I am not going to do that. It is the dumbest thing. And one of the dumbest things I hear, from good people, is this: we have plenty of time to do the planning while we are excavating and digging a hole.

Why in the world would you say you have plenty of time until the project starts, or plenty of time while you are moving dirt? You would be throwing away all the good pre-construction coordination and pre-planning time you have to take care of construction.

Here is the thing. Construction people will tell you two things. First, we are moving dirt, no big deal, no rush. Second, the best time in construction to recover, or to get out of the ground fast, is in the beginning. You have to get out of the ground fast. Those two ideas are totally incompatible. You cannot fall asleep while you are digging a hole and also say the most important phase is getting out of the hole.

By the time you are moving dirt, your supply chains are already behind. Your design is already locked in. You are already stuck with your bottlenecks and constraints. You have already thrown away all of your opportunity. And when you plan, get rid of the word should.

Planning Pusher, Never a Field Pusher

So yes, a million percent, you heard me right, and you can quote me on it. Hurry up and plan. You cannot go fast enough. If that makes me a planning pusher, so be it. Am I a field pusher? Never. In the field, I want the work to flow on a rhythm without push.

So here is the challenge. Look at the next project your team has coming up. If anyone is saying there is plenty of time to plan while you move dirt, start the planning now, and do your driving in pre-construction so you never have to push in the field.

Bottom line: Hurry up and plan, because if that makes me a planning pusher, so be it, but I will never be a field pusher.

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

Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner® System and Takt training.

On we go.

FAQ

What does “hurry up and plan” mean in pre-construction planning?

It means driving hard and starting as soon as you can in pre-construction, so you never have to push in the field. An hour of pre-construction is worth a day in construction, and a day is worth a week.

Is driving hard in pre-construction the same as pushing?

No. In the field, I want rhythm, level flow, buffers, and no late days or weekends. In pre-construction, I keep driving and allow a late day now and then, because that is how I avoid pushing in construction.

Why do late days belong in pre-construction and not construction?

Because fatigue in the field can affect people from a safety standpoint. If you are ever going to work late or burn a weekend, do it in pre-construction, not in construction.

What does “don’t just do something, stand there” mean?

In construction, if you do not know whether it is safe, whether it is quality, or what to do, or you do not have full kit, stop, call, and resolve instead of doing any old thing. In pre-construction, I flip it: don’t just stand there, do something.

Is there plenty of time to plan while you are moving dirt?

No. By then, supply chains are already behind, the design is already locked in, and you are already stuck with your bottlenecks and constraints.

People Also Read:

There Is No Such Thing as a Small Mistake With a Client
What Is a Look Ahead Plan in Construction?
Elevating Pre-Construction Planning Book
See my review of Elevating Pre-Construction Planning.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Takt Virtual Training)
-Check out our YouTube channel for more info: (Elevate Construction on YouTube)
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Elevate Construction Podcast)
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Training Programs and Certifications)
-The Takt Book: (The Takt Book on Amazon)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction. As the company’s Founder and COO, 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.

There Is No Such Thing as a Small Mistake With a Client

Posted on October 15, 2026October 20, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 10 min

This topic has come up multiple times, and I have never written about it before. I do not think I know more than you. I just wish people would share more in this industry, and this is my attempt to put my money where my mouth is and share something that might help the people I care about out on the front line. It is a strong opinion, and I would like you to test it for yourself: there is no such thing as a small mistake when it comes to a client.

Short answer: There is no such thing as a small mistake with a client. Inside your own company, you can treat a mistake as a micro-failure or a two-way door and ask what was learned. With a client, you cannot devalue a mistake, because that devalues how they feel. Dig in, be empathetic, fix it, and turn the complaint into a remarkable experience, so the relationship ends up stronger than it started.

Why Can You Forgive Mistakes Inside Your Company?

You have probably been taught, much like I have, that when a mistake happens, you do not go marginalizing people and punishing them.

There’s a well-known leadership story, usually told about IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Sr. Somebody made a mistake that cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars on a deal. The person came back expecting to get fired. The senior leader asked what was learned, and the person walked through this, this, and this. And he did not get fired. The comment was, why would I fire you? I just spent all that money training you.

So when people make mistakes inside our own organization, we have an opportunity to be super benevolent and say, hey, this is not a big deal. In fact, we say that quite a bit in our organization. There is also the idea of a one-way door and a two-way door. A one-way door is a mistake or decision you cannot come back from. A two-way door is an easy mistake or decision to come back from, because it is not high stakes.

The other thing I have heard a lot from Katie with raising kids is the idea of a micro-failure. We want kids to have micro-failures at home and make their way through them well, so that if something big ever happens in life, they have the experience.

Why Differentiation Matters

One of the truest things I have ever learned is differentiation. It is actually anti-batching, meaning we cannot batch principles and assume one principle applies everywhere. I go deeper on this in Hurry Up and Plan” and link “Hurry Up and Plan, but here is one example.

Sometimes people tell me, Jason, you are pushing. If you actually notice, that so-called pushing always happens in pre-construction, before the activity. I would call it driving, to preserve my ego. And I drive in pre-construction because I know I will not push or drive on a construction project. I am not going to wing it, figure it out, or try to recover on the actual jobsite.

So does the principle of not pushing, or not starting too early, apply the same way to construction and pre-construction? I would say it does not. The more you can do, the earlier you can start, and the more effort you can put in, even working a couple of late days in pre-construction, the better. Every hour in pre-construction is worth a day, and every day is worth a week in construction, because I know I am not going to push in the field.

What a Foreman Taught Me About Being Ready

I learned this the hard way. When I was a kid, I experimented with having a business doing driveways and concrete foundations. I would put things off and procrastinate, and then the concrete was already on the way. I did not have all the forms set. I did not have the jointers ready. The ready-mix driver would be waiting on me. When I finally got everything buttoned up and placed the concrete, it would go off on me, I did not have all the construction joints, and it looked terrible.

Dennis Eccles was a foreman I worked under at Conco Construction in California when I was a young man, and he was the opposite. He would say, we are not leaving today until everything is ready. That meant:

The visqueen, the plastic that goes on the walls, all up and taped.
The truck inventoried and clean.
The soap ready. This is an old practice that works well. You mix dish soap with water, get it sudsy, and spread it over the adjacent concrete so you do not get stains from the new placement.
Everything graded, screed boards up, and rebar caps on everything.

That is how I am now. I get these things done ahead of time so that I do not have to panic, rush, and push tomorrow. Everything ready to go is a habit, and it starts before the work does.

How I Learned That No Mistake Is Small to a Client

Differentiation matters for mistakes too. Internally, a mistake might be a micro-failure, even if it is a big one, and if the person cares, maybe it works out in the end, like that expensive training. But we have to differentiate that from a client. You can devalue a mistake all you want internally, when the consequences are your own. You cannot devalue a mistake with one of your clients, because then you devalue the way they feel, and you are not responding to it properly.

I remember doing a job for the University of Arizona. The director of construction came out and said, Jason, if a butterfly farts on the jobsite, I want to know about it.

When I was a superintendent there, the director of construction asked me why I chose the color I did for the screen on the fence. I had chosen tan, and it was supposed to be dark green. I think DPR now has a standard for the screen color, but nobody told me. Another time, they wanted lights along the fence, and I thought you could see perfectly. In my head, these people were unreasonable. I was being a victim.

Becoming an Extension of the Client’s Team

Lorna Gray, who is amazing and one of the top mentors in my life, told me, Jason, you outnumber us as a project delivery team. You have resources we do not have. You have to look at yourself like an extension of our team, and look at this like you are us. It was a state university, so they were dealing with government bureaucracy. They had to deal with:

The news, and staying off the news.
Pedestrians and complaints.
Motorists.
The facilities group and other departments.
Finicky politicians.
The university itself.

I thought, oh my gosh, that is overwhelming. And they said, see, this is the world we have to live in. We are asking you to care about it, whether you think it is ridiculous or not.

DPR’s culture helped me with this too. I pivoted. I switched my perspective, and I started caring about it, like I worked for them, like I was an extension of their team. And I realized that no mistake, no matter how small, is actually small to your client.

Why Is Dismissing a Client’s Concern So Costly?

I have relearned this recently in our own business. My default has been to protect my own internal people first, and then look at client satisfaction. We have had clients be super unhappy because their own superintendent is not taking it seriously, while we are doing everything we can, short of running the project for them, to get it done. They say, we are not happy with your services, this is not what was promised to us. My first reaction is to push back. But what I should do is be empathetic, help them with it, and help them work through how they feel.

Here is the main point. If we dismiss it as small, then we do not dig in, and we lose the connection, the vulnerability, and the opportunity to fix it and lean in that we could have had. Is it painful to hear these things? Yes. But does it end up making for stronger relationships? A million percent.

	Inside your company	With a client
How to see the mistake	Often a micro-failure or a two-way door	Never small
How to respond	Be benevolent and ask what was learned	Dig in, be empathetic, and fix it
What it builds	People who learn and grow	A stronger relationship than before

Turning a Complaint Into a Remarkable Experience

I have learned a lot from Okland Construction, and one thing I will never forget is how Bill Okland responded to complaints. He would tell the project teams that this is an opportunity to say, hey, we messed this up. Let’s dig deeper and make this a remarkable experience. It will be stronger on the other end than we were in the beginning.

We actually have standard work on this at Elevate Construction and LeanTakt. So there is no such thing as a small mistake to a client, and you can never take that perspective, regardless of how mature and enlightened you are internally.

So here is the challenge. Think of the last thing a client was unhappy about that your team called small. Go back, dig in, and ask how you can turn it into a remarkable experience.

Bottom line: There is no such thing as a small mistake to a client, no matter how mature and enlightened you are internally.

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

On we go.

FAQ

Is there such a thing as a small mistake with a client?

No. Something that feels small to me may feel really big to a client, and if I dismiss it as small, I devalue the way they feel and lose the chance to fix it and build a stronger relationship.

Should you punish people for mistakes inside your company?

No. Inside the company, I would rather be benevolent, ask what was learned, and treat it as a micro-failure or a two-way door.

What is a two-way door?

It is a mistake or decision that is easy to come back from because it is not high stakes. A one-way door is one you cannot come back from.

How should a construction team respond to a client complaint?

Treat it as an opportunity. Say, we messed this up, dig deeper, and make it a remarkable experience, so the relationship is stronger on the other end than it was in the beginning.

Why is no mistake small to a client?

Because the client lives with the consequences: the news, the public, their own bosses and stakeholders. Look at yourself as an extension of their team, and treat every concern as if it were yours.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Training From the Battle Perch: Mentor Your Team From Above

Posted on October 15, 2026October 22, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 7 min

This is a short one, but it was really impactful to me when I heard it recently. It is about the battle perch, and about something I had never thought to do with it: use it to train and mentor the people around you.

Short answer: A battle perch is an elevated spot on or near your jobsite, such as a hill, an adjacent building, scaffolding, or a second-story trailer, where a senior leader can get a bird’s eye view and watch the work. Training from the battle perch means bringing assistant superintendents, field engineers, project engineers, and the project manager up there with you, and using that time to mentor them.

What Is a Battle Perch?

The concept is senior commanders being able to observe the ground, or the front, from an elevated position. I do not even remember exactly where I learned it. I think I learned it from a biography of General George S. Patton.

On a jobsite, the idea is to go up there, get a bird’s eye view, and see what is actually happening. It is going to the Gemba from a strategic and tactical standpoint as a senior leader. You spend some time up there, and you watch and observe and let it teach you.

We even have a Lean image for this. It is on the website under the Lean images, and I have shared it and talked about it quite a bit in books and other places.

The Building Will Talk to You

The other concept is that the building will talk to you. I do not know what it is out there in the universe, or the jobsite, or whatever it is that is talking to us, but something is talking to us. I am not educated enough to know what that is. But something is talking to you.

That only happens if you give it the time. A battle perch is where you stop moving long enough to see the whole job, and it is one of the best ways I know for a senior leader to go to the Gemba without getting pulled into one conversation or one problem.

Where Can You Set Up a Battle Perch?

I have set up a battle perch in a few different places:

On a hill next to the project.
On an adjacent building. I remember one project in downtown San Diego where there was an adjacent building you could easily walk up through the egress stairs. It was super safe, and I think we even had some survey points up there.
By climbing the tower crane, if you’re trained and authorized to climb it and you follow the crane’s fall protection rules.
On scaffolding. Somebody recently asked me how I set up my battle perch, and he brought up scaffolding. I said, yeah, that is a really good idea, and I have seen it before.
On stacked trailers. Ideally, I would love to stack trailers to make a second story, and then have handrail on top of the roof where you could actually go out and look at the job, or have exterior windows, kind of like you are in a command center. I have not seen that a lot in the United States without quite high expense, but I think it would be really neat.

Whichever one you use, the goal is the same. You want a spot where you can get a bird’s eye view of the work.

How Do You Use a Battle Perch to Mentor Your Team?

This is the part that got me. The person who brought up scaffolding told me what he likes to do, and I want to be clear that this is his idea, and I do not get any credit for any of it.

He said that what he likes to do is bring people up with him and mentor them while he is up there on the actual battle perch:

Assistant superintendents.
Field engineers.
Project engineers.
The project manager.

I was like, whoa. Honestly, I had never thought about that. I have brought people up to the battle perch in the past, in different situations. But I had never actually thought about institutionalizing it, and every day being like, who wants to come with me?

What a cool mentoring opportunity. What a cool opportunity to give them. What a cool opportunity to develop other people’s careers. I just think it is super fantastic.

Why Make It an Everyday Habit?

Bringing someone up now and then is good. Making it the way you work every day is something else. When the invitation is always open, the people around you learn to see the job the way a senior leader sees it, from a strategic and tactical standpoint, and not only from the one area they are responsible for.

It also means the building gets to talk to more than one person. Everybody who comes up with you gets the chance to watch, observe, and let the job teach them.

So here is the challenge. Set up your battle perch, whether that is a hill, an adjacent building, scaffolding, or a stack of trailers. Then make it a daily habit to ask your assistant superintendents, field engineers, project engineers, and project manager, who wants to come with me? Have you used your battle perch to train and mentor others?

Bottom line: Go up to your battle perch, let the building teach you, and bring someone with you.

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

On we go.

FAQ

What is a battle perch in construction?

It is an elevated position where a senior leader can get a bird’s eye view of the jobsite and see what is actually happening. It is going to the Gemba from a strategic and tactical standpoint.

Where can you set up a battle perch?

I have used a hill, an adjacent building, and a tower crane. Scaffolding works too, and ideally I would love stacked trailers with a rooftop handrail, like a command center.

How do you use a battle perch to mentor your team?

Bring assistant superintendents, field engineers, project engineers, and the project manager up with you, and mentor them while you are up there. Make it a daily habit by asking, who wants to come with me?

What does “the building will talk to you” mean?

When you spend time up on the battle perch watching and observing, the job teaches you something. I do not know exactly what it is, but something is talking to us.

Where does the idea of a battle perch come from?

I think I learned it from a biography of General George S. Patton. It comes from senior commanders observing the front from an elevated position.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Never Find Yourself in the Middle: Jobsite Safety Standards That Work

Posted on October 15, 2026October 20, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 9 min

There is a concept I want to coin, and maybe there is a better way to say it, but here it is: never find yourself in the middle. It came out of a recent jobsite visit, and out of the wisdom of one of the general contractors there, who is also a manufacturer and a trade on that same job. Safety glasses are the easiest way to explain it, but the idea applies to almost any standard you set on a project.

Short answer: Jobsite safety standards are easiest to manage at the two ends. Either engineer the hazard out so the rule is not needed, or require it 100 percent of the time with zero tolerance. The middle, where a rule applies only in certain circumstances, is the hardest to manage and the most disrespectful to human nature, because the human brain cannot reliably remember, notice, and decide in the moment.

What Does It Mean to Never Find Yourself in the Middle?

Take safety glasses as an example. It is really easy on a jobsite to say they are not required. You do not have any monitoring of that. If it is not a rule, it is not a thing, and each trade monitors its own stuff.

The other end is 100 percent safety glasses. They have to be worn all the time, and it is zero tolerance. The middle is a rule like you only wear glasses when needed. That middle is where I see projects get into trouble.

I have done all three. I have done nothing, I have done mediocre, and I have done all the way. And I can tell you that the only thing almost as easy as not having a requirement at all is having it 100 percent implemented, perfectly. Very, very strict.

Three Ways to Handle a Safety Rule

Here is how the three options compare:

Approach	What it looks like	How hard it is to manage
Not required	No rule and no monitoring. Each trade monitors its own stuff.	Pretty easy
In the middle	The rule applies only in certain circumstances, such as wearing glasses only when needed.	Quite difficult, and disrespectful to human nature
100 percent	Required all the time, with zero tolerance and clear consequences.	Pretty easy, because deviations stick out

Start by Engineering the Hazard Out

When you talk about safety, you can engineer the hazard out so that it is not a hazard in the first place. Or you can work down the hierarchy of controls (substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and finally personal protective equipment), where people actually have to wear PPE because the root cause of the hazard has not been engineered out.

A good example is a SawStop table saw. You have probably seen the demonstrations where they put a hot dog up to the blade instead of a real finger. When the blade touches flesh instead of wood, it senses it and immediately stops the saw, so you get a small nick instead of a serious injury. You could actually make an argument that some of the other guards or gloves would not be required, because you have engineered the hazard out in the first place.

In Japan, many construction companies do not wear safety glasses, because for the most part they have engineered out the root cause. That is the first end of the spectrum. If something is not required because the hazard is gone, it is pretty easy to manage.

What Does a 100 Percent Safety Rule Look Like?

If something does need to be managed, like safety glasses, the second easiest way to handle it is to say 100 percent. It has to be done all the time, and it is zero tolerance. If you do not abide by the rule, you are escorted off the site.

You can set the consequence up one of two ways:

You are escorted off the site once, and you are done.
You are escorted off the site, you can come back through orientation, and only the second violation removes you from the project permanently.

When you are expecting perfection, there is very little inertia or gravity working against you. Deviations stick out like a sore thumb, and because the consequences, from a respect standpoint, are so extreme, it does not happen very often. So it is very easy to manage.

Why Is the Middle Disrespectful to Human Nature?

If you are somewhere in between, like you only wear glasses when needed, I do have a very strong opinion on this. Obviously, you can choose to believe me or have your own opinion. But I believe that the middle is not in line with the concept of respect for human nature.

If you understand human nature, you understand the brain’s tendency to lose discipline and decision-making ability in certain conditions:

After a certain period of the day.
After a certain amount of fatigue.
In certain sleep cycles.
When you are low on calories or energy, meaning you have not eaten in a while.

The brain has a very difficult time managing so many things and also deciding, right in the moment, what to do and what not to do. That is why I think it is very disrespectful to have a rule on site that says wear glasses only in these circumstances. First of all, it is hard for a human being to remember a rule like that without help. And even if they did remember it, they may not even be aware of the moment it applies to.

This is a big part of why I care so much about respect for people, nature, and resources. A standard has to be designed around how people actually work, not around how we wish they worked.

The Gorilla Nobody Sees

A recent chapter in the book Elevating the Construction Mind, which is not out yet, talks about radiologists. In a 2013 Harvard study, 20 of 24 trained radiologists (83 percent) looking at lung scans for nodules missed a gorilla that researchers had put into one of the scans, even though it was 48 times bigger than a typical nodule. Most of them looked right at it.

That comes from the famous video where you count how many times the people in the white shirts pass the basketball. You are counting, and you think, they passed it 15 times. Then at the end of the video, it asks whether anybody saw the gorilla. A large share of people say no, because they were not paying attention to it.

So the human mind, even if it knew the standard, and even if it was paying attention, would not actually notice the thing you are talking about if it was not looking for it. That, plus many other conditions of the human brain, affects a person’s ability to notice and do what they are supposed to do from a compliance standpoint. So it is really disrespectful to humanity to say that a rule applies only in certain circumstances. It is just not how the human brain works.

Perfect Is Easy and the Middle Is Hard

My argument is, has been, and always will be to be stubborn and fixed-minded about this. Perfect is pretty easy. Not a requirement is pretty easy. But the middle, mediocre, is quite difficult to manage and quite disrespectful. I believe that so much, and I have seen it over and over on jobsites. It just does not work.

The same goes for any standard you set. A standard that holds every time is easy to see and easy to keep. A standard that holds only sometimes turns every moment into a judgment call, and that is exactly where people get hurt. That is also why a clean, safe, and organized jobsite comes down to standards that do not bend.

So I want to say it three times. Never find yourself in the middle. Never find yourself in the middle. Never find yourself in the middle.

So here is the challenge. Walk your project and find the rules that sit in the middle, the ones that apply only in certain circumstances. For each one, decide whether you can engineer the hazard out so the rule is not needed, or hold it at 100 percent with clear consequences.

Bottom line: Not a requirement is easy and perfect is easy, so never find yourself in the middle.

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

On we go.

FAQ

What does “never find yourself in the middle” mean for jobsite safety standards?

It means a standard should either not be required, because the hazard has been engineered out, or be required 100 percent of the time. The middle, where a rule applies only sometimes, is the hardest to manage.

Why is a “wear it only when needed” rule disrespectful?

Because it ignores human nature. Fatigue, sleep, hunger, and the limits of attention make it very hard for anyone to remember and decide in the moment when a rule applies.

What is the best way to handle a safety hazard?

Engineer the hazard out first, so it is not a hazard in the first place. Personal protective equipment is a lower-tier measure for hazards whose root cause has not been engineered out.

What does a 100 percent safety glasses rule look like?

Glasses are worn all the time, with zero tolerance. Anyone who breaks the rule is escorted off the site, and either that ends it or a second violation removes them from the project permanently.

Which is easier to manage: no rule, a partial rule, or a 100 percent rule?

No rule and a 100 percent rule are both easy to manage. The middle is the hardest. I’ve done all three, and the middle never works.

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Multi-Train Takt Planning: How Trains of Trades Flow Through a Phase

Posted on October 12, 2026October 22, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 10 min

Here’s the deal. You do not have to have everybody on a project site going the same speed and the same distance apart. All you have to do is have every train of trades going the same speed and the same distance apart. That one idea changes how a Takt plan should be built, and in my experience it is how the large majority of Takt planning in the United States actually gets done.

Short answer: Multi-train Takt planning breaks a project into phases, such as foundations, superstructure, exterior, and interiors, and runs one or more trains of trades through each phase. Each train is a sequence of trades moving at the same speed and the same distance apart. Different trains can move at different paces. As long as every train has rhythm, it is still Takt, and it adapts to real projects better than forcing one Takt time on the whole job.

What Is Multi-Train Takt Planning?

When most people think of Takt planning, they picture a cascaded visual with a bunch of colored boxes. It is really beautiful, and everything in it is going the same speed and the same distance apart. That picture is helpful for the calculator, and it is helpful for teaching. It just is not how most projects in the United States actually run.

Multi-train Takt planning starts with phases. Inside each phase, you run one or more trains of trades, each with its own rhythm.

In this post, I will cover phases, trains of trades, and four mistakes to avoid. If you are new to the method, start with my overview of the Takt Production System.

Single-Train vs. Multi-Train Takt Planning

Single-train Takt planning is where you force everything into one Takt time. Typically, people do it with a five-day Takt time. Crews then have to adjust their crew composition to fit into what is called a Takt wagon.

I do not have a problem with that. There are times when it is appropriate. But most of the time, the way to look at construction is that you have phases of work, and each phase has its own trains of trades. I cover the difference in my post on what is a multi-train Takt plan.

	Single-train Takt planning	Multi-train Takt planning
Takt time	One Takt time for everything, usually five days	Each train of trades has its own Takt time
Zoning	One set of zones	Each phase has its own unique zones
Crews	Crews change their composition to fit one Takt wagon	Trades are grouped into trains that flow together
After a delay	Hard to get back on rhythm, so trades get pushed	Move the Takt times wherever they fit inside the week
Where it fits	Teaching, the calculator, and some projects	Most projects in the United States

What Is a Phase in Takt Planning?

Here is how I break a typical job into phases, each one start to finish:

The overall site make-ready
The foundations
The superstructure
The exterior
The interiors
The site work

A phase is a start-to-finish geographical location with its own unique zones. Phases are not durations of time.

That means you are not going to have the same zoning on your structure as you will on your exterior. Those are two different phases with two different sets of zones. You are also not going to have the same trades flowing through those two phases. The trades that flow through your structure are not the ones that will be installing your exterior components.

So it is not everybody on the job following one Takt time. We break the project down into phases first.

What Is a Train of Trades?

Inside a phase, you have trains of trades. A train of trades is a sequence of trades going the same speed and the same distance apart within the train. Notice I said within the train, not within the phase.

That train flows through the phase on its own rhythm, and other trains of trades can flow through that same space too.

Two Trains in One Phase on Commercial Interiors

Here is a clear example, and it happens on commercial interiors all the time. The finish trades will be a separate train. They are more variable, and they have more of what we call zone transitions. That train of finish trades will sometimes even go at a different pace as it flows through.

So you have two trains in one phase. On interiors, you can actually have as many trains as you need.

What I do not recommend is having every individual trade going its own speed. On a typical interiors phase, my trains look like this:

The rough-in train of trades goes through first.
The finishes train of trades follows.
Punch list goes through at a faster pace. You should have very little punch list in the Takt Production System.

A Multifamily Example With Four to Five Trains

Here is another easy example. In multifamily, the structure is a lot of times separate, but framing is usually part of the interiors phase. In that interiors phase, you might see these trains:

Framing goes up with the plumbing.
If the team decides to build top down, you will have another train for your Gypcrete.
The main train of trades then flows down through the building.
A very fast train follows for your meter banks, final clean and closeout, labeling of the rooms, and maybe flooring.

That is at least four to five trains going through the interior sequence. In my experience, that is how Takt works best in the United States.

Takt Means Rhythm

Some people push back on this. They tell me you have to have one Takt plan with one Takt time. I disagree. Takt is more about the flow of trades than it is about Takt time. Takt time is only one component.

Takt is an older German word for rhythm. We could have called it flow planning or rhythm planning.

So whether you force one Takt time within a phase or run a couple of different trains of trades through it, they usually finish at about the same time. Here is a secret, though. In my experience, the multi-train Takt planning method often finishes sooner. It is also more adaptable, and Americans understand it better.

Why Multi-Train Planning Is Still Takt

Multi-train planning is still Takt because every train of trades is still flowing. From there, the work comes down to three things:

Bring the trains closer together.
Make sure each train magnetizes as many independent activities as it can.
Manage the intersections between trains so that everybody can flow.

That’s it. That is how simple it is.

You also do not have to have rhythmic work to do Takt. The key is to identify your phases, get the right zoning through the calculator, and then run as many trains of trades through each phase as you need. As long as each train has rhythm, you are good to go.

What Are the Four Things You Never Do in Takt?

These are some of the biggest misconceptions in the industry:

Never force a five-day Takt time.
Never use the weekends as the Takt time drumbeat.
Never use Saturdays as a buffer day. For how buffers should actually work, see my guide on how buffers work in Takt planning.
Never use a one-to-one setup for Takt wagons. Mechanical will typically have multiple wagons, and finishes will naturally and consensually have multiple activities within a wagon.

What Goes Wrong With One Five-Day Takt Time

If you teach that everything has to be one Takt time, that it has to be a five-day Takt time, and that the weekends are your Takt time drumbeat, you will get into some pretty big problems.

First, you will waste a lot of time. Usually your Takt time is four, three, two, or one day, or even a portion of a day.

Second, using the weekends overburdens and hurts people. That is the opposite of respect for people.

Third, if you have a delay, try getting back on rhythm when you are using five-day Takt times between the weekends. It just does not work. You have to keep your Takt times smaller and let them land wherever they fit inside the week.

Fourth, a Takt plan with one five-day Takt time between the weekends, laid out at a high level using wagons, is still a push schedule. Once you get into a delay, you will start pushing trades to work Saturdays. You will start pushing trades to make up time. You will keep pushing and pushing. I have written before about the truth about overtime, and this is exactly how it creeps in.

Here is how you should see it instead. A phase has your trains of trades flowing on a rhythm. The Takt time hits wherever it needs to inside the week, not on the weekends. Everybody is flowing, the plan can absorb the impact of a day, you just move the Takt times, and you do not even worry about the weekends.

How Do Toyota and BMW Run Multiple Lines?

Multi-train Takt planning is superior, and it surprises me that people get stuck on single-train Takt planning. It is not how it works, and it is not how Toyota does it.

In Toyota’s manufacturing plants and at BMW, wherever they use in-line manufacturing, they run multiple lines, even when they are building one type of car or one type of component. Construction is the same. One phase can and should have multiple trains.

For the details, see our books Takt Planning and Takt Steering & Control. Pull Planning for Builders shows how to package it all together. For a guided walkthrough, see the Takt Production System Masterclass.

So here is the challenge. Pull up your current Takt plan. If it forces one five-day Takt time across the whole job or leans on Saturdays, break the project into phases, give each phase its own zones, group your trades into trains, and let each train flow on its own rhythm.

Bottom line: Identify your phases, zone them right, and run as many trains of trades as you need, because as long as each train has rhythm, you are still doing Takt.

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

Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner® System and Takt training.

On we go.

FAQ

What is multi-train Takt planning?

It breaks a project into phases and runs one or more trains of trades through each phase, so the whole job does not have to share one Takt time.

What is a train of trades in Takt planning?

A train of trades is a sequence of trades going the same speed and the same distance apart within that train. Several trains, such as rough-in, finishes, and punch list, can flow through the same phase.

Does Jason Schroeder recommend a five-day Takt time?

No. I never force a five-day Takt time, because most Takt times are four, three, two, or one day, or a portion of a day.

Can you use Saturdays as a buffer in Takt?

No. Using Saturdays or weekends as a buffer or a drumbeat overburdens people and turns the plan back into a push schedule. Keep your Takt times inside the week instead.

Is multi-train Takt planning still real Takt?

Yes. Takt means rhythm, and every train of trades still flows on a rhythm.

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The Trade Partner Preparation Process: 6 Steps

Posted on October 6, 2026October 13, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 9 min

Months to Buy Out, Thirty Minutes to Prepare: The Six Step Trade Partner Preparation Process

Here’s the deal. We might spend months buying out a trade partner and no more than thirty minutes preparing them to actually build. That is a mismatch. We invest heavily in choosing the trade, and then we leave the preparation to chance. I want to walk you through the key steps we should follow as part of the trade partner preparation process, so that we can be successful.

Short answer: The trade partner preparation process is six steps that get a trade ready to build after buyout: (1) purchasing, (2) a pre-mobilization meeting within two weeks of the executed contract, (3) a pre-construction meeting three weeks before the trade starts, (4) an initial (first-in-place) inspection, (5) follow-up inspections, and (6) a final inspection.

Why This Is Most of the Game

People hear pre-construction meetings and say, oh, that again. I would rather eat black licorice than do this. But I am telling you, if you master this, it is most of the game won.

Ask why projects drift at the two-thirds point. Most of the time, it is because of dissolving logic in a CPM schedule that pushes everything to the last third. But the other part of it is complexity. In the middle third of the project, the project delivery team is building complex things and doing less of the actual preparation. That is why the latter part of projects typically drifts, and I do not want that for you. The preparation work does not go away. It simply gets pushed later, into the part of the project where the team has the least capacity for it.

The 47 Things

Let’s say you are looking at a phase of work in construction. This is not our focus, because our focus is everything that happens before it. Pretend that every first task, or wagon, has forty-seven things that need to be prepared ahead of time. All of those things have to be done ahead of time by the project delivery team, and they have to be leveled by level of effort, according to how much that person can accomplish in a week.

We have to understand that a person only gets about twelve to sixteen productive hours in a week amidst everything else. We have to consider PTO and all of their interruptions. And that is for one wagon. It matters, because the team’s time is limited and every item competes for it. Across many work packages, it is forty-seven times forty-seven things that have to be moved back and leveled forward, so they can be started on time and the project delivery team can get them done on time.

Now you may be thinking, Jason, you are freaking me out. Here is the deal. This can all be broken down into different phases, and that is exactly what we do in our construction company. My favorite way of doing it is the trade partner preparation process.

The Six Steps

Here are the six steps.

Purchasing.
The pre-mobilization meeting.
The pre-construction meeting.
The initial inspection.
Follow-up inspections.
The final inspection.

Let me take them one at a time.

Step One: Purchasing

The first step is purchasing, which means an executed contract. That means actually buying out the trade properly, with the right inclusions, making sure everything is compliant, and making sure we have selected the right trade partner.

We have to do this on a buyout schedule. Take your actual production schedule for the project and work it back to the supply chain. Find out when you have to have that trade bought out. That tells you when you have to have your executed contract, and before that, when you have to have finished design. Do the purchasing on time, so the trade can start long lead procurement, coordination, and any permitting on time. If the buyout is late, everything that follows is late, because the trade cannot start the preparation until it has an executed contract.

Step Two: The Pre-Mobilization Meeting

The second step is the pre-mobilization meeting, held no later than two weeks after you have an executed contract. It can be a meeting or an email, but I prefer a meeting. You sit down with the trade and say, we have an executed contract, and we have all of your inclusions. Now we need to start coordination, permitting, long lead procurement, supply chain management, and getting our quality and safety plan in place. Start, start, start. This is the start of all of the trade preparation for the project. Two weeks is the maximum, and you can do it right away. The point is that the preparation starts as soon as the contract is executed, not weeks later.

Step Three: The Pre-Construction Meeting

Some people call it pre-install. Hensel Phelps calls it the preparatory meeting. Whatever you call it, it is the meeting three weeks before the trade starts, not two. This is where you collect all of it and make sure all of the items are done, and where the foreman and the superintendent for the trade are brought together to understand the plan.

The purpose, and I cannot stress this enough, a visual definable feature of work. I will call it a card, a board, an installation work package, or a checklist, however you want to do it. It is visual instructions of what is expected from the crew when they go build, so they have a visual, boots on the ground.

The foreman, the superintendent for the trade, and the PM should leave one hundred percent aligned with the team, with a visual that says, this is what I am going to do out in the field. Let AI take your notes for Procore, and let the project engineer or project manager create that visual with the trades during the meeting. Do they know what is going on, and are we one hundred percent ready?

Why Three Weeks, and Why I Cancel the Meeting

The reason it is three weeks before is that if the foreman and the superintendent come not ready, I cancel the meeting. I say, we will host it next week, which is two weeks before the start. I am not punishing them. They have to come prepared, one hundred percent ready to go.

Everything should hit the crew as a full kit. That is how you get a full kit, and the pre-construction meeting is key.

All of the information.
All of the materials.
The equipment.
Clear space.
Permissions.

Step Four: The Initial Inspection

Once the trade has started in its first zone, you do a first in place mock-up or a first in place inspection, which Hensel Phelps calls an initial inspection. This is where you ask the crew whether they are building first out of the gate according to the visual definable feature of work, the installation work package. It is really cool stuff.

Step Five: Follow-Up Inspections

The fifth step is to continually inspect handoffs with that visual definable feature of work, the installation work package. The visual keeps the inspection tied to what was agreed in the pre-construction meeting, so the handoffs are checked against the same standard the crew was given before they started.

Step Six: The Final Inspection

The final inspection is where you do not let them go. Hold on to them until you have reconciled change orders, punched everything out, finished as you go, and made sure the work is complete. If you let them go before you are done, try getting them back. That is just human nature, and I am not making fun of anybody.

Putting the Six Steps Together

That is purchasing, the pre-mobilization meeting, the pre-construction meeting, the initial inspection, the follow-up inspections, and the final inspection. Those six steps are the trade partner preparation process. Each step prepares the next one, from the executed contract, to the meetings that get the trade ready, to the inspections that confirm the work and the handoffs match the plan.

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

So here is the challenge. Look at your current project and ask how much time you spent buying out your trade partners compared with preparing them to build. Then pick the next trade starting and schedule its pre-mobilization meeting and its pre-construction meeting.

Bottom line: We might spend months buying out a trade partner and no more than thirty minutes preparing them to actually build.

On we go.

FAQ

What are the six steps of the trade partner preparation process?

Purchasing, the pre-mobilization meeting, the pre-construction meeting, the initial inspection, follow-up inspections, and the final inspection.

When do the pre-mobilization and pre-construction meetings happen?

The pre-mobilization meeting happens within two weeks of the executed contract, and it can happen right away. The pre-construction meeting happens three weeks before the trade starts. The pre-construction meeting happens three weeks before the trade starts.

What is the trade partner preparation process?

It is the six steps a general contractor uses to get each trade ready to build after buyout: purchasing, a pre-mobilization meeting, a pre-construction meeting, an initial inspection, follow-up inspections, and a final inspection.

Why does Jason cancel the pre-construction meeting if the foreman and superintendent are not ready?

Because they have to come prepared, one hundred percent ready to go. He is not punishing them. He hosts the meeting the next week, which is two weeks before the start.

Why hold a trade until the final inspection?

Because if you let them go before the work is complete, change orders are reconciled, and everything is punched out, it is hard to get them back.

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Decision by Council, Not Consensus

Posted on October 6, 2026October 13, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 10 min

Council, Not Consensus: Ask How, Not What, Once the What Is Decided

Here’s the deal. There is a defective behavior, or culture, that is eating into progressive companies and hurting them. I did not decide to talk about this because I was annoyed. I have been mulling it over in my head for quite some time, doing a little research, and I finally came to a conclusion that I think will save you a lot of time. First, a quick sidebar that connects to it.

Short answer: Decision by consensus lets one person stop an idea everyone else supports. Decision by council works better: everyone weighs in once, then the leader or the most qualified person makes the call, and the whole team backs it. Once the ‘what’ is decided, ask people ‘how,’ not ‘what.’

A Meeting Is Not a Briefing

I heard this definition from a colonel in the Marines, and I really liked it. There is a difference between a meeting and a briefing. A meeting is where you bring people together intentionally, for the purpose of weighing in on something and making a decision together. It has to have a purpose, and it needs to be focused. A briefing is where there is a plan and you are getting people up to date.

His point was that if it is a briefing, keep it a briefing. You can do briefings through phone calls, texts, or other messages. Do not talk at people and call it a meeting, because you waste their time. If it is a meeting, have an agenda, keep it focused, and do it the right way. Here is how I think about the ones we use.

The team meeting, the strategic planning and procurement meeting, and the trade partner weekly tactical are meetings.
The foreman huddle, the worker huddle, and the crew huddle are huddles.
A huddle is really a combined briefing, a multidirectional briefing.

So there are differences between meetings and briefings, and between meetings and huddles.

The Culture I Am Warning Against

Now to the main topic. I have been working with organizations that are progressive and dynamic, but they only progress with inside influences, and in individual silos. Even some of my favorite companies do this. They do not network. They do not share. They do not scale, and they do not standardize anything. For the most part, they do not invite or allow outside input. Any of their innovation, and they have a lot because they hire brilliant people, comes internally, not from the collective or from outside sources.

You can have a progressive culture and still take outside influence and scale, if you have the right culture and mindset. Here is the mentality I am warning you against. These companies get trapped in decision by consensus.

How One Person Stops an Idea Everyone Likes

Decision by consensus is not a thing. It will stall you every step of the way. Here is an example, and nobody knows who I am talking about, so please do not get offended. I have been working with some interesting progressive companies, and I told them we have the solution right now. We can implement Takt and the Integrated Production Control System, and we have the visuals, the tools, and the support team.

One person says, I love this. A second person says, I love this. A third says, I love this. The fourth says, we have to do this, this is going to save our clients so much money and unburden hundreds of people. Then you ask one person in one department who, because of the system they are in, has to say, I do not like the idea. If the company got outside help, networked, or scaled, they could not take credit for it. So they say, let’s keep this in house. Let’s wait. I am not sure we are ready. The entire idea fails, and now we are heading ever backward instead of ever forward.

Council, Not Consensus

I remember a quote from someone at DPR that described what the culture was supposed to be. He said, yes, we are all equal, but some of us get paid to make riskier decisions. Everybody is equal, and everybody has a voice, but somebody has to make a decision.

So here is the pattern I follow instead of decision by consensus. It is decision by council, and it works everywhere. I have tried it. Here is how it works.

Either the leader makes the decision, or, regardless of who the leader is, there is a person on the team who is most qualified to make it.
Everybody gets to weigh in, like Patrick Lencioni and Gino Wickman write about, but only once, because more than once is politicking.
The leader, or the person the team has appointed because they are best suited, makes the call.
Because everyone has weighed in and has faith in the person making the call, they all back the decision, get on board, and move forward together in unison.

This is not the same as Nemawashi, building consensus before acting. Nemawashi is about laying the groundwork with people before a decision, not giving one person the power to block it.

I am borrowing the phrase ever forward from DPR, and I love that core value. When a bureaucrat or fear-based person says no to an idea everyone else supports, we are no longer ever forward. Think about someone whose role depends on the current system, say a senior scheduler who does not yet know the Takt system. They may understandably hesitate, because it could feel like a threat to their role. In a council system, they weigh in, and the leader can still make the call and do what is right.

The Difference Between What and How

Here is the point I most want to make. There is a difference between what decisions and how decisions. If you ask a group of people what they want to do, you will get answers shaped by where they sit. The leader says, I want to improve operations and make money. The superintendent says the same. The project manager says the same. The trade partner says, I want a schedule I can follow. The senior scheduler says, I want a department where my intelligence, wisdom, and experience are valued, and I feel safe, with job security in my role.

We should not ask people what they want to do when the company is already heading in a direction. It is like asking my kids, do you want to take a shower, do you want to go to school, do you want to be nice to each other, or do you want to do anything besides play video games? They would say no. Most adults are not kids, and I am not being disrespectful, but if you truly ask people the what question, you will not always get the answer you need.

Do not ask what questions if the what has already been decided. If you are the senior leader on a project, and you know you need to finish on time with a better schedule, that it needs to flow, and that you want to respect people, the what is decided. Do not ask the senior scheduler whether you should hire an outside consultant to show there is a better system. You will not get the right answer. Ask how.

We are going to clean this job, and the question is how we can do it.
We are going to learn Takt construction, and the question is how we are all going to lean in and do it.
This is the milestone we are hitting, and we pull planned and scheduled it together, so the question is how we are going to get there.

Sometimes you do ask what. But if the what is decided, do not patronize people by telling them they have a say.

An Example From a Company in Canada

I was working with a company in Canada, and we were talking to a trade partner about jobsite cleanliness and safety. I said, this is already decided. The leader of that company has said they will build the safest, cleanest, most organized, and happiest jobs in Canada. The what is decided. You get to weigh in on how.

What and How Questions

Be very careful when you ask what and how questions, because most of the time the what is already decided. With the Last Planner system, you do not ask trade partners, do you want to hit this milestone? You say, you get to hit this milestone, so how are we going to do it? Create a council culture, where people weigh in, buy in, and then somebody makes the decision. Never decide by committee, or by consensus, where you need a unanimous decision. You will never make the right decision that way.

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

So here is the challenge. Before your next decision, ask whether the what is already decided. If it is, ask how, and give everyone one chance to weigh in.

Bottom line: Don’t ask people what questions if the what has already been decided.

On we go.

FAQ

What is the difference between a meeting and a briefing?

A meeting brings people together intentionally to weigh in and make a decision together, with a purpose, an agenda, and focus. A briefing gets people up to date on a plan. Do not talk at people and call it a meeting.

What is decision by council?

Everyone weighs in once, and then the leader or the person best suited makes the call. Because the team has weighed in and trusts that person, they all back the decision and move forward together.

Why is decision by consensus a problem?

Because it stalls everything. One person who disagrees, often because of their role in the current system, can stop an idea everyone else supports, and the company goes ever backward.

When should you ask how instead of what?

When the what has already been decided. Ask how the team will get there, and do not tell people they have a say in something already decided.

What is the difference between decision by council and decision by consensus?

Consensus needs everyone to agree, so one person can stop an idea. In decision by council, everyone weighs in once, then one qualified person decides and the team backs the decision.

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Decision by Consensus

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They Talk About What They See

Posted on October 6, 2026October 13, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 7 min

People Will Talk About What They See

Here’s the deal. I have been doing field walks that have been really impactful on me, and I want to share a lesson I am learning from them. I do not know if I have covered it enough in the podcast format, and if not, I apologize, because it is really killer stuff. People will talk about what they see.

Short answer: People on a construction project only talk about what they can see. If your huddle only shows the schedule, you get status updates. Put zone maps, the six-week make-ready lookahead, roadblocks, constraints, and the Takt plan in front of the team, and the conversation moves to the issues that actually drive the project.

Why Do Huddles Only Cover Status Updates?

This is a big thing for me, because if you are going to be on a construction project and manage it properly, you have to be able to see it. You cannot manage what you cannot measure, and you cannot measure what you cannot see. There is a corollary to that, and it is this. People will talk about what they see.

What Should a Visual Huddle Board Show?

In the Integrated Production Control System graphics I put together, there is a picture of a train going down the tracks, with the tracks out ahead. I have asked this before. How would you like to be on a train going 80 miles an hour and not see but five feet in front of you? How would you like to drive that train and never be able to get out of the cab and inspect it?

Out ahead are roadblocks, which are items that need to be cleared ahead of the train of trades. Part of the train itself are constraints. These are items that are part of the design of the train, and they can be adjusted to remove constraints and to increase your capacity, flow, or speed.

Now imagine that you can see a quarter of a mile out ahead of you, and that you can inspect the train. Now you can control the speed of the train. You can keep the train maintained, and you can stop it if there is ever a problem.

The Cow on the Tracks

Say you only see five feet ahead, and somebody tells you there is a cow a quarter of a mile (about 1,300 feet) ahead. If you cannot see it, you do not have all the information. You would want to know the following.

Whether the cow is standing still.
Whether it is five feet away from the track.
Whether it is a herd of cattle heading toward the front of the train.
Whether it is heading toward you.
Whether it is on the track, or fifty feet away, and whether it is an issue at all.

If you do not have visibility, you cannot really do anything.

What Happens in a Last Planner Huddle

Here is what I want to say. In Last Planner meetings, I want to say one hundred percent of the time, people talk about what they can see. If you get a team in a huddle saying, I am on level five today, I am on level two, I am doing this, I am over here, I am going to go do that thing that you can already see and read on the schedule, that we have already covered multiple times, that I did yesterday, and I am not doing anything new today, that is all they are talking about.

The reason they are talking about it is not that they are boring, ignorant people. It is that it is the only thing they can see.

Show More, and They Will Talk About More

The more visual you make your system, the more discussion you will have around a team. Here is how it builds.

Bring the six week make ready look ahead into the huddle with visual zone maps, and they will talk more about make ready.
Show on visual maps where people are supposed to be, where they are, and how close they are to other contractors, and they will talk about more.
Show roadblocks on those maps, like I talked about in the last podcast, and they will talk about how to remove them.
Show the Takt plan, how work is packaged, and how the pull plan is working, and they will talk about the sequence and the flow of the train.
Put constraints up on your visual board and teach them, and they will talk about constraints.

You cannot have a good team without that team seeing the plan and anchoring around something. It is absolutely crucial.

Benign Conversation Means Benign Visuals

If you go to a huddle, a briefing, or anything on your project site, and you hear them talking about benign, milquetoast things, it is because they can only see and measure milquetoast things. If you want them to get down into the meat of the issue, you have to have meat visuals.

When people argue with me about CPM and say, yes, this is a more visual schedule, but what about this, I would say that even if nothing else about Takt were good, and there are a million things, the visual nature of the system alone is a big reason to choose it. The Takt plan, Last Planner, and the huddles are already visual, and they are already good. Last Planner, Takt, visual environments, really good huddles, and roadblock tracking maps where you literally track by zone are great. People start to talk about those things because they can now see them. Once they talk about them, you have engaged the wisdom of the team. Once you have engaged the wisdom of the team, now you can win.

A Schedule That Hides Information

I am at a loss when somebody says they want a seventy-six page schedule that hides the information from people. I believe that is holding on to classical management principles that care about the money and not about the people.

I just want to say one more time, people will talk about what they see. Audit your meetings. If they are not talking about it, they cannot see it. You had better find a way for them to see it, or your project is not going to progress.

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

Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner System and Takt training.

So here is the challenge. Audit your next meeting or huddle. Notice what people are talking about, and ask what they cannot see yet.

Bottom line: Audit your meetings. If they’re not talking about it, they can’t see it.

On we go.

FAQ

What does “people will talk about what they see” mean?

It means the topics a team discusses are limited by what they can see. If the huddle only shows the schedule, people only talk about where they are and what they are doing. If it shows zone maps, roadblocks, and constraints, they discuss those.

Why does Jason use the train and the cow example?

To show that you cannot control what you cannot see. A driver who only sees five feet ahead cannot tell whether a cow a quarter mile away is a problem, and a team that cannot see roadblocks cannot act on them.

How do you get a team to talk about roadblocks?

Show the roadblocks on visual maps in the huddle. Once they are visible, people start talking about how to remove them.

What should you do if your meetings are shallow?

Audit them. If people are not talking about something, they cannot see it, so add the visuals that bring it into view.

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Roadblock Tracking Maps

Posted on October 6, 2026October 13, 2026 by Team Jason Schroeder

Read 7 min

Roadblock Tracking Maps: See the Speed, the Distance, and the Roadblocks

Here’s the deal. I chose this topic because it is really relevant to where we want to go with operational control and steering. It is a really neat concept, and I feel like I have not done a good enough job in the past explaining it, although I have mentioned roadblock tracking maps before. The idea is that we want to see where we are.

Short answer: A roadblock tracking map is a floor plan (we build ours in Bluebeam) where every room or zone is colored to match the Takt wagon that has finished work there, with roadblocks marked on top. One look shows where each trade is, how fast it’s moving, how far apart the trades are, and which roadblocks are in their path.

Speed and Distance

One of the things on my mind is being able to see speed and distance. I think that one day, when we have the best Takt software in the world out and available, that software will automatically notify us if the trades are not going the right speed together, and if they are not the right distance apart. It would work from where the trades are in the zones, in their rooms, or at a certain station along a pipe run, or wherever it is.

What we are trying to do is prevent trades from hitting each other. We want to keep everybody going the same speed, because that is really how you flow. Those are important considerations to me.

We Visualize Things Spatially

Not very many people like to look at any kind of schedule. We like to visualize things spatially. It helps with memory, it helps with comprehension, and it is the way we plan and prepare work.

The Map I Borrowed From a Project at DPR

I loved this, and I borrowed it from a project at DPR on the Banner Good Samaritan campus. They were building an emergency department and a bed tower expansion, and they had everything in Bluebeam. The zones were on Bluebeam, and they changed the status of each room to show where that room was, meaning which activities had been completed.

Say one trade is pink. If that trade had gone through all the rooms in the building, all the rooms would be pink. If the trade behind the pink trade was green, that green would start to show up room by room throughout the building. I could tell where every trade was based on where their colors were, and the colors matched the Takt wagons.

I also put roadblocks on this map. The key thing for me was that I could tell, right then and there, whether the trades were going the same speed and the same distance apart. I loved it, and these maps were huge. Here is what they showed.

Each room or area was color coded to match its Takt wagon.
I could see where each trade was.
I could see the distance between trades.
I could see the speed they were going.
I could see whether they were going to finish within their Takt time and meet their end date.
I could see the trades in relation to any roadblocks.

When a Wagon or a Room Has to Come Out of the Train

Another thing I could see wonderfully is when we had to detach a wagon or boxcar from the train, or detach a room or an area from the zones of the Takt plan, because of an owner change or an owner design change, I could see that and keep everyone going and focused on contract work.

How to Build One in Bluebeam

Set up statuses per wagon. Create one Bluebeam status for each Takt wagon.
Give each wagon one color. When a wagon finishes a room, mark the room in that wagon’s color.
Add a roadblock markup layer. Mark roadblocks on their own layer so they sit on top of the colors.
Assign an owner and a rhythm. Name who updates the map, and update it daily before the huddle.

How to Use It

I do not understand how people run Takt plans without these maps, and I do not mean that as a criticism. Everything is about the visualization of time and space. If you are heading in the direction of creating these, I want to encourage you that it is worth it. Here is how.

Build it in a Bluebeam project and status the actual rooms themselves.
Bring the maps up in every one of your meetings and huddles, in real time.
Have field engineers and project engineers keep them up to date with the foreman and the trades.
Talk in your meetings and huddles about problems, and about variations in the speed and distance the trades are apart from each other.

With this, you make better decisions. You talk about the how in meetings instead of the when.

The Time Is Now

If you have not implemented roadblock tracking maps, the time is now, and I promise you it is worth it. You will be able to monitor the speed and the distance of the trades, and how they relate to roadblocks and certain constraints. You will see which areas or zones may have been taken out and put onto a separate schedule, and which boxcars may no longer be part of the train. You can pull the map up in any one of your meetings.

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

Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner System and Takt training.

So here is the challenge. Status your rooms in the color of each Takt wagon, add your roadblocks, and bring the map to your next huddle.

Bottom line: Everything is about the visualization of time and space.

On we go.

FAQ

What is a roadblock tracking map?

A map of the project where each room or area is color coded to match its Takt wagon and statused as work is completed, with roadblocks shown on it. It lets you see where each trade is, how fast they are going, and how far apart they are.

Why use a map instead of only a schedule?

Because people like to visualize things spatially. It helps with memory and comprehension, and it matches how we plan and prepare work.

What software do you use for a roadblock tracking map?

We build ours in Bluebeam, using status markups on each room, colored to match the Takt wagons.

What can the map show when an owner makes a change?

You can see when a wagon, room, or area has been detached from the train or the zones, so everyone stays focused on contract work.

How should the map be used?

Build it in Bluebeam, status the rooms, and bring it to every meeting and huddle, kept up to date by the field engineers and project engineers with the foreman and trades.

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