What Operational Excellence Really Means (It’s Not Just “Finished on Time”)

What Operational Excellence Really Means (It’s Not Just “Finished on Time”)

So let’s go ahead and talk about what it means to be operationally excellent. I’ve heard in the past superintendents say, “I finished on time. I pulled it through the knothole.” And let me say this with passion: I don’t care at all if somebody finishes on time if they had to burn through trade partners, stay away from their families, crash-land the project, or hurt somebody to do it. I don’t care at all.

And I am tired of people saying, “Well, it finished on time.” That’s not operational excellence. That’s not success. Let me explain the true definition.

The Pain of the “Finished on Time” Mentality

Here’s what happens when “finished on time” is the only metric. You burn through trade partners. They lose money. They don’t want to work with you again. You stay away from your families. Your marriage suffers. Your kids suffer. You crash-land the project. You rush. You cut corners. Quality suffers. Safety suffers. And you hurt somebody. Someone gets injured. Someone goes home in pain. Someone doesn’t go home at all.

And then the superintendent says, “But we finished on time.” That’s not success. That’s tragedy.

Here’s the problem with the “finished on time” mentality. It treats people as disposable. It treats trade partners as expenses. It treats families as acceptable collateral damage. And it treats safety as optional. That’s not Lean. That’s not respect for people. That’s classical management. And it’s evil.

I will sit in an office gathering of superintendents in a company and everybody’s like this, almost making fun of each other and joking and giggling, and their ego, their exterior, their false sense of self, their John Wayne persona is out in the open and there’s very little collaboration. Everything is, “Oh, I already knew that. I know. I know. I know.” And it’s just very disappointing to me.

And then I go into a group of PMs and they’re joking with each other in a positive way and they’re sharing and they’re like, “Yeah, I messed this up the other day.” And I’m like, “Okay, we as superintendents have got to step up as an industry.” We can no longer be proud of banana peels falling out of our trucks. We can’t be saying, “Oh, I don’t use computers.” We can’t have voicemail boxes that are full and cannot take any messages. We can’t have screen desktops with icons everywhere with no organization. And my favorite is the superintendent walking the job with nothing in his or her hands, not taking notes, and they’re like, “I got it right here.” We have got to stop this.

And I say that with love. My mission is to help create an image where superintendents can run with PMs and use technology with PMs and do just as good of a job as anyone else on the project site.

The True Definition of Operational Excellence

So let me explain what operational excellence really means. The true definition of operational excellence and success is: I finished on time with great quality. That means that we didn’t have to rush. So we had a three-month punch list with beautiful safety—because people have all kinds of different words and they get tied up in knots about how you talk about safety, but with amazing safety. Where we met our gross profit or net profit targets. And these are the important ones.

Here’s the complete definition:

Quality: Great quality means we didn’t rush. We had time for checks and gates. We finished as we go. We had a short punch list. Not a three-month crash-land disaster.

Safety: Beautiful safety means nobody got hurt. Zero injuries. Everyone went home every day. Safe environment. Safe culture. Safe systems.

Profit: Met our gross profit or net profit targets. We made money. The company made money. The budget worked. Cash flow worked.

Trades Win Financially: All trades won financially. Not just the GC. Every trade partner made money. They want to work with us again. They trust us. That’s a win-win.

Owner Is a Raving Fan: The owner is a raving fan. Unless they’re complete jerk monkeys—if they’re reasonable human beings, the owner is a raving fan. They love the project. They love the team. They tell their friends.

Career Goals Met: Each team member met their career goals. The assistant super got promoted. The field engineer learned surveying. The PM got their next big project. People grew. People advanced. People won.

Team Had Fun: The team had fun. This is the most important one. The job site was a place people wanted to be. Positive culture. Respect. Pride. Fun. Not misery. Not chaos. Not burnout. Fun.

Now, most people would look at me and be like, “Jason, you’re smoking something.” And I’ve actually had people on YouTube be like, “Jason, this proves that you’ve never had field experience.” The funny thing is I actually didn’t go to college. I did not come out as a consultant. I’ve been in the field for 30 years running work. And all of these are possible.

The Lean Lens: Cost, Quality, and Schedule Rise Together

And one thing that I want to talk about to change the mindset: you’ve ever heard of the holy trinity of construction where you have cost, quality, and schedule? And you’ve heard somebody say, “Pick two.” Actually, that only works in classical management systems. In Lean management systems, you can’t have one without all three.

And let me explain that real quick with you. The better you focus on quality in a Lean system, the faster you go and the less money you spend on rework. The more stable your schedule is, the faster you go, the better you’re able to take care of quality, and the more money you make.

There is no such thing as a win-lose in Lean thinking. There’s only win-win or lose-lose. There is no such thing as a win-lose. Let me explain what I mean. Let’s take your marriage for example. Let’s say that you are winning in your marriage and have what you want, but your spouse doesn’t. How long is that going to last? How long until that becomes a lose-lose?

Let’s say you’re getting everything you need as a contractor—change orders, money—but your owner isn’t getting what they want. How long is that going to stay a win-lose? How long until it becomes a lose-lose? There are no win-lose situations. So there’s only win-wins.

And so when it comes to operational excellence, there’s only in Lean such a thing as a win-win-win. When we do well with quality, we go fast and make money. When we flow in our schedule, we do good quality and we make money. The real way to make money is the Lean way, even though it looks counterintuitive.

So that is the definition of a project well done.

What Operational Excellence Looks Like on the Job Site

Now let me show you something more specific. If a project is running safe, then:

• Everyone on the job site knows how to be safe in their tasks because they had great pre-task planning meetings
• Everyone knows what they are installing because they had a great quality pre-construction meeting with visuals and work packages
• Everyone makes improvements daily to their work because the environment is clean, safe, and organized
• The bathrooms are clean, which sets the culture for the project site—if bathrooms are clean, everything else is clean
• The job site team are good neighbors to the community and surrounding properties
• Nothing hits the floor because we finish as we go—no trash, no debris, no waste sitting around
• Materials are not in people’s way because they come just-in-time, not early, not stacked everywhere
• Cords are off the floor and managed so that you have good access through your access ways, and everything’s on wheels so things move properly
• All access ways are clear—you don’t stage in them, and contractors instead of being pushed on top of each other are pulled behind each other in sequence

This is what operational excellence looks like in the field. Clean. Safe. Organized. Flowing. Respectful.

The Pre-Construction Essentials Checklist

And the way that we get this done is by making sure that we start with a good pre-construction plan. And so we need the following at a minimum to run a project in an operationally excellent way:

Macro-Level Takt Plan: A full macro-level and normal-level or at least the beginnings of a normal Takt plan which is created by a pull plan.

Accountability Chart: A complete accountability chart for the team, having the right staff in the right roles.

Procurement Log: An amazingly operational procurement log that was created early on to queue up the supply chain and prevent material delays.

Risk and Opportunity Register: To make sure that you know your risks and you have a plan to overcome them before they become problems.

Active Logistics Plan: So you can maintain and operate the site—laydown, access, deliveries, cranes, hoists, all planned.

Well-Established Budget: That considers your general conditions and general requirements durations according to the Takt plan, not just guessing.

Trailer and Signage Design: You might think that’s funny, but we have to have the right visuals in order for this to work. People talk about what they can see.

Team with Experience: A team that has experience and loves working together—chemistry matters, culture matters, respect matters.

This is the pre-construction foundation for operational excellence. Without these, you’re guessing. With these, you’re planning. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Visual Management: People Talk About What They Can See

When you hear the term “set up your trailers,” I want you to know this quote: People talk about what they can see. Let me say it one more time. People talk about what they can see. Just in case it didn’t land, one more time. People talk about what they see.

And so if you have a baby-poop-brown, nasty, dusty trailer with corners filled and no organization that nobody enjoys being in, then you will not have good interaction systems. And here’s the key: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Everybody’s heard that quote. But you can’t measure what you can’t see. Let me say that again. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. And that’s what people typically know. But the rest of the quote goes like this: But you can’t measure what you can’t see.

And so we have got to have beautiful interaction spaces where you can build your team with the right team boards, and then beautiful visuals so that you and your trade partners can mark roadblocks on the boards. Screens that are on the front of the trailer. And then solving boards where you can put things visually on the board. And then obviously areas where you can do pull planning and lookahead planning.

And then, not now, but one of these days in the field, we will have worker huddle boards, area boards on every floor, and each crew will have the information to know exactly where they’re supposed to be so that we can get improvement at that level.

Everything Points to the Foremen

But before I go, where do all of these systems point? There’s arrows that point from each system. Where do they point? They all point to the trade partners and the foreman. That is where value is received. Everything—all of us on this call—are necessary but non-value-added overhead or indirect costs. We’re needed to build a project, but we’re actually not putting up drywall. We are not finishing concrete. We are not drilling caissons.

These people, the foremen, are the heroes. These are the ones that we should optimize. And so the planning should get everything that the foreman needs when they need it. The production system should get the trade partners what they need when they need it. The collaboration should get the trade partners what they need when they need it. Every last single thing in this system points to the foreman.

So operational excellence means that foremen can do their work in their work package in a zone successfully and plan, build, finish, move on. That’s operational excellence.

A Challenge for Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Stop measuring success by “finished on time” alone. Start measuring success by the complete definition: quality, safety, profit, trades winning, owner as raving fan, career goals met, and team having fun. If you’re missing any of these, you don’t have operational excellence. You have partial success at best. And tragedy at worst.

As we say at Elevate, operational excellence means finishing on time with quality, safety, profit, trades winning, owner as fan, career goals met, and team having fun. That’s the complete definition. That’s win-win-win. That’s Lean.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s wrong with just “finished on time” as the success metric?

Because you can finish on time by burning through trade partners, staying away from families, crash-landing the project, and hurting people. That’s not success. That’s tragedy. Operational excellence requires all seven metrics.

What are the seven metrics of operational excellence?

Quality, safety, profit, trades winning financially, owner as raving fan, career goals met, and team having fun. All seven. Not just one or two. All seven together.

Why can’t you “pick two” from cost, quality, and schedule?

That only works in classical management. In Lean, you can’t have one without all three. Better quality = faster speed and less rework cost. Stable schedule = better quality and more profit. They rise together.

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

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. And you can’t measure what you can’t see. Visual management—boards, screens, maps, solving boards—lets people see the plan, see roadblocks, see progress. That creates conversation and improvement.

Why does everything point to the foremen?

Because foremen are where value is received. Everyone else—PMs, supers, engineers—are necessary but non-value-added overhead. Foremen put up drywall, finish concrete, drill caissons. They’re the heroes. Everything should optimize for them.