SCRUM!

Why No Scheduling System Is One-Size-Fits-All—And Why Scrum Might Be the Closest

Every once in a while, a topic comes along that challenges the way we think about the entire construction planning experience. For me, Scrum did exactly that. When I first encountered it, I realized something that made me uncomfortable. We have spent decades building scheduling systems that require specialized knowledge, technical training, and constant oversight. CPM requires schedulers. Takt requires planning. Last Planner requires discipline. And yet Scrum, in its simplest form, requires almost none of that. It just requires a team, a milestone, and a board with four columns. That simplicity is what makes it powerful. And that simplicity is what makes it dangerous to ignore.

No scheduling system in construction is truly one-size-fits-all. CPM doesn’t do it. Microsoft Project doesn’t do it. The Last Planner doesn’t do it. Takt doesn’t do it. They are all valuable. They all serve a purpose. But none of them work universally across every project type, every milestone, every team dynamic. Scrum gets closer than anything I have encountered because it doesn’t require you to be an expert in scheduling theory. It requires you to be clear about what needs to be done and committed to working together to get it done.

The Pain We All Know Too Well

You begin a project with energy. You build the schedule. You mobilize the trades. You walk the site. And then slowly, almost invisibly, the rhythm begins to slip. Work starts stacking. Milestones fall behind. Teams move unpredictably. Foremen make decisions in reaction to yesterday’s problems instead of preparing for tomorrow’s work. The superintendent throws more hours at the issue, hoping it fixes the hurt. Owners add changes that get absorbed without structure. And suddenly, the job begins spiraling, not because people don’t care, but because the planning system never created true collaboration in the first place.

It is a painful pattern. And if you have been in the field long enough, you have probably lived it more times than you wanted. I have too. I remember standing on a research laboratory project watching trades collide in zones with no clear rhythm. The team was frustrated. The schedule was behind schedule. Someone suggested we implement Last Planner across the entire project. I remember thinking, “That’s not going to solve this.” The problem wasn’t that we lacked a scheduling system. The problem was that we lacked true collaboration. We were dictating. We were pushing. We were not planning together.

The Failure Pattern: We Try to Plan Without True Collaboration

Here is the pattern that breaks schedules everywhere. We create a schedule. We present it to the team. We tell them when they need to start and when they need to finish. We call that planning. But it is not planning, it is dictating. And dictation does not create ownership. It does not create alignment. It does not create a team that feels responsible for the outcome. It creates compliance at best and resistance at worst.

The system failed them. They didn’t fail the system. When trades show up and the work isn’t ready, that is a planning failure. When foremen cannot get clarity on what to prepare next, that is a leadership failure. When superintendents are managing chaos instead of engineering flow, that is a system design failure. The people are not the problem. The planning process is the problem. And Scrum fixes that by making collaboration the center of the entire system.

A Field Story That Opened My Eyes

I remember the research lab project vividly. Lean practitioners came down and said, “Jason, you need to implement Last Planner throughout the entire system.” They wanted my assistant superintendent to use the BIM 360 Plan for Last Planner with concrete crews. I watched him try to make it work. He was frustrated. The crew was frustrated. It wasn’t that Last Planner was bad. It is fantastic. But in that specific context, with that specific scope, it didn’t fit. It required too much overhead. It required too much structure. The crew just needed clarity on what to do next and when to do it. They didn’t need a six-week lookahead. They needed a simple visual board that showed the next sprint.

That moment taught me something critical. Scheduling systems are tools, not mandates. They work when they fit the context. They fail when they don’t. And Scrum fits more contexts than almost any other system I have encountered because it doesn’t require you to be a scheduling expert. It requires you to be clear about your milestone and committed to working together to get there.

Why Scrum Matters for Construction

Scrum matters because it protects the team from chaos. It matters because it creates clarity. It matters because it builds ownership. And it matters because it respects people by giving them visibility, voice, and control over their own work. When teams can see what needs to be done, when they can pull work into sprints based on what they can realistically accomplish, and when they can meet daily to adjust and collaborate, they win. They don’t just survive. They win. And that is what we are after.

Scrum also matters because it exposes problems early. When you run a sprint and the team cannot complete the tasks they committed to, that is not a failure. That is feedback. That is the system telling you something is wrong. Maybe the backlog wasn’t realistic. Maybe the tasks weren’t broken down correctly. Maybe a roadblock appeared that the team couldn’t solve. Whatever it is, you learn it fast. You adjust. You improve. And you move forward. That is lean thinking. That is respect for people. That is how teams get better.

Understanding Scrum: The Framework

Scrum is an agile planning framework built on transparency, collaboration, and constant feedback. It works by breaking work into time-boxed periods called sprints. Each sprint has a clear goal, a defined list of tasks, and a team committed to completing those tasks together. At the end of the sprint, the team reviews what they accomplished, reflects on what they can improve, and moves into the next sprint with better clarity and better systems.

There are four key roles in Scrum. The product owner defines the milestone and prioritizes the work. The Scrum master facilitates the process and removes roadblocks. The team does the work. And the stakeholders provide input and feedback. In construction, the product owner might be the superintendent or the project manager. The Scrum master might be the assistant superintendent or a foreman. The team is the crew. And the stakeholders are the owner, the trades, and the design team. Everyone has a role. Everyone has visibility. Everyone is working toward the same goal.

The backlog is the master list of everything that needs to be done to reach the milestone. It includes every task, every material order, every inspection, every coordination meeting. The team scores the backlog based on what is most important and most achievable. Then, in the sprint planning meeting, the team pulls tasks from the backlog into the sprint backlog. That is the list of tasks the team commits to completing during the sprint. Every day, the team meets for a quick standup to share progress, identify roadblocks, and adjust the plan. At the end of the sprint, the team reviews what they accomplished and holds a retrospective to identify what they can improve for the next sprint.

That is it. That is the entire framework. Four columns on a board. A clear milestone. A committed team. Daily standups. Sprint reviews. Retrospectives. Simple. Visible. Collaborative. And incredibly effective.

The Signs Your Team Needs Scrum

Here are the symptoms that indicate your project would benefit from Scrum:

• Your team struggles with alignment and everyone seems to be working on different priorities • Foremen and superintendents spend more time reacting to yesterday’s problems than preparing for tomorrow’s work • Trade coordination happens through texts and phone calls instead of structured daily meetings • The schedule exists but nobody uses it because it doesn’t reflect reality • Milestones keep slipping and nobody knows why until it’s too late

These are not moral failings. These are system design failures. And Scrum fixes them by creating visibility, ownership, and daily collaboration.

How to Implement Scrum on Your Project

Here is the practical sequence for implementing Scrum in construction. Start by identifying a clear milestone. It could be a substantial completion date, a phase handoff, a commissioning deadline, or a trade coordination milestone. Whatever it is, it needs to be specific and achievable within a reasonable timeframe. Write that milestone at the top of your board.

Next, create the backlog. Gather the team and list every task that needs to be done to reach the milestone. Break big tasks into smaller tasks. Be specific. Include make-ready work, material orders, inspections, coordination meetings, and punch list items. Score each task based on importance and ease of completion. The team should agree on the scoring system together. Tasks that are high-value and easy to complete get prioritized first.

Once the backlog is built, hold your first sprint planning meeting. Decide how long the sprint will be. One week is typical for fast-moving projects. Two weeks works for most construction milestones. Pull tasks from the backlog into the sprint backlog based on what the team can realistically accomplish during the sprint. Do not overload the sprint. Be honest about capacity. This is where collaboration happens. The team decides together what they can commit to.

Create a visual Scrum board with four columns: backlog, sprint backlog, in progress, and completed. Use sticky notes. Use a whiteboard. Use a digital tool if that works better for your team. The key is visibility. Everyone should be able to see the board and understand where the work stands.

Hold daily standups. Keep them short. Five to ten minutes maximum. Each person answers three questions: What did I accomplish yesterday? What will I accomplish today? What roadblocks are in my way? The Scrum master writes down the roadblocks and works to remove them immediately. This is where flow is protected. This is where the team stays aligned.

At the end of the sprint, hold a sprint review. Show what the team accomplished. Celebrate the completed tasks. Tally the score. Then hold a retrospective. Ask three questions: What went well? What didn’t go well? What can we improve for the next sprint? Write down the improvements and implement them in the next sprint. That is continuous improvement. That is how teams get faster, smarter, and more effective over time.

Why Traditional Systems Fall Short

CPM is fantastic for large-scale coordination and milestone sequencing. But it requires schedulers. It requires software. It requires expertise. And most importantly, it doesn’t create collaboration. It creates a schedule that gets presented to the team, not a plan that the team builds together. Last Planner is fantastic for commitment-based planning and weekly coordination. But it requires discipline, structure, and buy-in from every trade. It works when the system is mature. It struggles when the team is new or the project is chaotic. Takt is fantastic for rhythmic, zone-based production. But it requires detailed planning, trade coordination, and stable conditions. It works beautifully when those conditions exist. It struggles when they don’t.

Scrum doesn’t require any of that. It requires a milestone, a backlog, a committed team, and a willingness to collaborate daily. That is it. That is why it is so powerful. That is why it fits so many contexts. And that is why every superintendent, foreman, and project manager should learn how it works.

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

The Vision: Winning Instead of Worrying

Imagine a project where the team isn’t worrying about being behind. Imagine a project where the team is gaining on the schedule instead of barely meeting it. Imagine a project where daily standups create alignment, sprint reviews create accountability, and retrospectives create continuous improvement. That is what Scrum makes possible. That is the vision. And that is what we are after.

The current condition is that we aren’t truly collaborative in construction. We use the CPM mentality and pull it into the Last Planner. We dictate schedules and call it planning. We add labor when we fall behind and call it problem-solving. But if we want true collaboration, we need to embrace the Scrum mentality. We need to build plans together, not present plans to people. We need to protect flow, not react to chaos. And we need to create systems where teams win, not systems where teams barely survive.

What Breaks Scrum in Construction

Even though Scrum is simple, it can still fail if you violate a few key principles:

• The product owner isn’t clear about the milestone or keeps changing priorities mid-sprint • The Scrum master doesn’t remove roadblocks quickly and the team gets stuck • Daily standups turn into long problem-solving sessions instead of quick coordination check-ins • The team overloads the sprint backlog and sets themselves up for failure • Sprint retrospectives don’t happen or the team doesn’t implement the improvements they identify

Avoid these pitfalls and Scrum will work. Protect the simplicity. Protect the collaboration. Protect the rhythm. That is how teams win.

Read the book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland. Learn the system. Implement it on your next milestone. See what happens. See how the team responds. See how clarity increases. See how ownership grows. See how the rhythm stabilizes. This is one of the four books I am actually asking you to read. Not suggesting. Asking. Because this system can change the way your projects flow. And flow is what protects people, schedules, quality, and families.

A Challenge for Leaders

Walk your project this week and ask yourself whether your planning system creates true collaboration. Ask yourself whether your team feels ownership over the plan or compliance with the plan. Ask yourself whether your daily coordination creates alignment or just checks a box. If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that is good. That discomfort is the first step toward better systems. Scrum can help you get there. Start small. Pick one milestone. Build the backlog. Run one sprint. See what you learn. Then do it again. That is how teams improve. That is how leaders grow. That is how projects win.

As Jeff Sutherland said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” Scrum gives you the framework to create a future where your team wins instead of worries. Where your schedules stabilize instead of spiral. Where your people thrive instead of burn out. That future is possible. And it starts with one sprint.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Scrum and how does it work in construction? Scrum is an agile planning framework that breaks work into time-boxed sprints. Teams create a backlog of tasks, pull tasks into sprints based on what they can realistically accomplish, hold daily standups to coordinate, and review their progress at the end of each sprint. It creates collaboration, visibility, and continuous improvement.

How is Scrum different from CPM or Last Planner? CPM focuses on milestone sequencing and requires schedulers and software. Last Planner focuses on commitment-based planning and requires structure and trade buy-in. Scrum focuses on collaboration and visibility and requires only a milestone, a backlog, a team, and daily standups. It is simpler to implement and fits more contexts.

What is a sprint and how long should it be in construction? A sprint is a time-boxed period where the team commits to completing a defined set of tasks. In construction, sprints typically last one to two weeks depending on the pace of the project and the complexity of the milestone. The team decides the sprint length together based on what makes sense for their work.

How does Scrum help teams gain on schedules instead of falling behind? Scrum creates visibility, ownership, and daily alignment. Teams know what needs to be done, commit to realistic workloads, coordinate daily to remove roadblocks, and improve continuously through sprint retrospectives. This creates flow instead of chaos and allows teams to gain momentum over time.

Can Scrum work alongside Takt or Last Planner? Yes. Scrum, Takt, and Last Planner are all rooted in Lean principles and complement each other. Scrum can be used for milestone-based coordination, Takt can be used for zone-based production, and Last Planner can be used for weekly commitment planning. The key is using the right tool for the right context.