Review Of Book: Elevating Pre-Construction Planning

Why Pre-Construction Planning Determines Project Success Before a Single Trade Shows Up

Here’s the deal. Planning a project right is one of the single most important things you can do to determine whether it actually succeeds. Not one factor among many. One of the biggest. Most of what goes wrong on a construction project traces back to gaps that existed long before anyone broke ground, which is exactly why we built an entire system specifically for the pre-construction phase.

Why This Deserves Its Own Complete System

We pulled together research from a wide range of sources to identify what genuinely strong construction pre-planning actually requires. That research aligns directly with integrated project delivery, target value design, and every established Lean approach to pre-construction that exists today. The book How Big Things Get Done makes a strong research case for why early planning matters so much. What we built is the practical field guide for actually doing it, the step by step system that turns that research into something a real project team can execute.

This is deliberately the second book in a two part series. The first, focused on building genuine project teams, exists because we build people before we build things. This second one is the system part, the actual mechanics of planning a project correctly before construction begins.

A Visual System Built Around Reflection and Scoring

The core of this system is highly visual, walking through pre-construction step by step. At the end of every critical section, there is a genuine reflection page, functioning both as a checklist and as a way to actually score your own project against that specific component. Implement what that section covers, move to the next one, and repeat the same reflection and scoring process there too.

That structure matters because it turns pre-construction planning from a vague, good intentions exercise into something genuinely measurable. You are not simply told to plan well. You are given a specific standard for each component, a way to check your own project against it honestly, and a clear next step once you have scored yourself. Followed all the way through, that process helps a project genuinely implement a real Lean foundation, not just talk about wanting one.

Most teams treat pre-construction as a single, undifferentiated phase, a stretch of time before the real work begins rather than a distinct discipline with its own standards. Breaking it into scored components changes that instinct entirely, because it forces a specific answer to a specific question at each stage, rather than a general sense that things feel mostly ready.

Watch for these signs your own pre-construction process is missing this kind of structure:

• No specific checkpoint or scoring mechanism to confirm a planning step was actually completed well
• Pre-construction treated as a single phase rather than broken into distinct components with their own standards
• No clear path from identifying a gap to actually closing it before construction starts

The Trade Partner Preparation Process

The middle of the system focuses specifically on what some in the industry call the six step process, the same general approach used at companies like Hensel Phelps under that name. We call it the trade partner preparation process, and it covers buying out the contract, holding a genuine pre-mobilization meeting, running a real pre-construction meeting, establishing first in place work, following up consistently, and completing a final inspection.

Every piece of that process is included in detail, meeting agendas and all, alongside the visuals and real examples that make each step concrete rather than abstract. This section exists specifically because trade partner preparation is where a huge amount of downstream schedule and quality risk actually originates, and most projects handle it far too casually.

Consider what actually happens when this process gets skipped or rushed. A trade partner shows up without a genuine pre-mobilization meeting behind them, unclear on expectations, unclear on the sequence, unclear on what a clean handoff even looks like on this specific project. Every problem that follows from that gap gets blamed on the trade later, when the actual root cause was a missing step months earlier that nobody treated as essential.

Partnering With Designers Before Construction Even Starts

The third major component of the system covers the design side of pre-construction, specifically how a project delivery team should partner directly with designers during this phase to actually build the plan together, rather than receiving a finished design with no input into it. That process moves through schematic design, design development, construction documents, and finally mobilization, with a clear method for genuine collaboration at each stage.

Here is a simple way to think about how the whole system fits together, using an analogy worth remembering. What is the cake, meaning what are you actually building? Who eats the cake, meaning who is this entire project ultimately for? The answer is always the trade partners, since everything in this system exists to support the people who will actually execute the work. And how do you make the cake, meaning how do you actually build the plan step by step? That last question is where the system’s three major components, the visual step by step framework, the trade partner preparation process, and the design partnership process, come together into one complete answer.

Content Built for However You Actually Learn

Every section links out through QR codes to supporting videos and reference guides, so the visual content never stands alone without deeper support behind it. We also recognized that not everyone wants to sit down with a thick, highly visual book, so the entire body of content also exists as a complete textbook, titled The First Planner System, available on Audible for anyone who would rather listen during a commute than sit down and read.

Why This Deserves a Serious Look, Not a Skim

None of this is designed as filler content dressed up to look useful. It is built specifically so that when someone hands you a project and says you need to plan this, you have an actual, complete answer ready, rather than assembling one from scratch under real time pressure.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams apply this same pre-construction system directly to a real project, working through the reflection and scoring process together rather than leaving your team to interpret it alone. Getting pre-construction right is consistently one of the highest leverage investments available on any project, precisely because so much of what goes wrong later traces directly back to gaps here.

So here is the challenge. Before your next project moves into pre-construction, pick just one component, the trade partner preparation process is a strong place to start, and run it through a genuine reflection and scoring exercise rather than assuming it is already handled. That single exercise will likely reveal more real risk than most teams expect to find.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “Planning a project right is one of the single most important things you can do to determine project success.” Treat pre-construction with that level of seriousness, and the rest of the project has a real chance to follow.

On we go.

FAQ

Why is the trade partner preparation process specifically singled out as a major component of pre-construction planning?

Because a significant amount of downstream schedule risk and quality risk originates in how trade partners are brought onto a project, from contract buyout through the first work actually placed in the field. Steps like a genuine pre-mobilization meeting and a real pre-construction meeting set the tone for how a trade partner will perform for the rest of the project, which is why this process gets detailed attention rather than being treated as a formality.

What is the value of scoring a project against a checklist rather than just following the checklist itself?

Scoring turns a passive checklist into an active diagnostic tool, forcing an honest assessment of how well each specific component was actually implemented rather than simply confirming a step was technically completed. That distinction matters because a step can be checked off without genuinely being done well, and a scoring mechanism is what surfaces that gap before it becomes a problem during construction.

Why does genuine designer partnership during pre-construction matter more than simply receiving a finished design?

Because a design finalized without input from the people who will actually build it tends to carry constructability problems that surface expensively once construction begins. Partnering with designers through schematic design, design development, and construction documents lets the project delivery team catch and resolve those issues while changes are still relatively cheap to make, rather than discovering them in the field.