Lean Onboarding Series – Finding & Removing Roadblocks

We Do Not Need Problem Solvers, We Need Problem Preventers

Here’s the deal. There is a genuine, important difference between pushing harder against something and actually creating real capacity to move past it. Understanding that difference changes how every worker, foreman, superintendent, and project manager should actually think about their daily work.

Why Pushing Harder Rarely Solves the Real Problem

Picture a kink in a garden hose. If you increase the pressure behind that kink, ask yourself honestly whether more water actually makes it to the other side. Maybe a little. Genuinely not much. What actually fixes the problem is removing the kink itself, opening up real capacity at the actual restriction, rather than simply pushing harder against something that was never going to move that way.

Construction runs into this exact same trap constantly. Pushing harder behind a bottleneck feels like effort and looks like progress. It rarely produces the actual flow a project genuinely needs.

Why We Do Not Actually Need Problem Solvers

There is no real merit in arriving at a problem and solving it on the spot. The actual merit lies entirely in identifying and removing a roadblock before it ever has the chance to impact real work. We cannot be reactive, solving problems only once they have already appeared. We have to be preventing them well out ahead instead.

If someone prides themselves on being a genuinely good problem solver, I have to ask honestly, why does that matter so much to us. If someone can react and respond to almost anything that goes wrong on a project, why is that treated as a genuine strength. We do not actually need problem solvers. We need problem preventers.

Watch for these signs your own team is quietly rewarding reactive problem solving rather than genuine prevention.

• A worker or foreman consistently praised for how well they handle emergencies, rather than for how rarely emergencies actually happen on their watch.
• Visible, constant busyness and crisis response treated as proof of hard work, rather than as a sign something upstream was never properly prepared.
• Recurring problems solved repeatedly in the same way, without anyone ever asking why that same problem keeps appearing in the first place.

A worker or foreman constantly running around in emergency mode, believing themselves to be working hard and impressing others by doing so, is not actually the standard we want. We want genuine stability. We want the actual work itself to proceed smoothly because every real problem was already identified and solved well before it ever reached the field.

This requires a genuine mindset shift for anyone who has spent years being praised specifically for their ability to handle a crisis well. Stability can feel boring compared to the visible intensity of firefighting a problem in real time. It is also the actual goal, and learning to value quiet, uneventful progress over dramatic, last minute saves is a genuine skill worth developing deliberately.

Why Looking Further Ahead Changes Everything

This requires a genuine shift in mindset. Workers and foremen need to spend real time preparing work and preventing problems out ahead, rather than focusing purely on what is directly in front of them right now. That means planning at minimum twelve hours ahead, ideally two to twelve days ahead, and in many cases genuinely twelve weeks or even twelve months out, depending on what is actually being planned for.

A foreman genuinely earns their value specifically in this space, preparing work and actively hunting for roadblocks well before they ever become a real problem on site.

What a Roadblock Actually Looks Like

A roadblock is anything that could eventually produce waste, unevenness, or overburden for a crew. That could be an unanswered RFI. A missing material. A piece of equipment that was never actually ordered. A genuine lack of available manpower. A scheduling conflict. A layout problem discovered too late. Anything at all that genuinely prevents work from proceeding smoothly counts as a roadblock worth hunting down early.

Here are a few of the most common forms a real roadblock actually takes on a jobsite.

• An RFI sitting unanswered, quietly blocking a decision the field genuinely needs to move forward.
• Material or equipment that was never actually ordered in time to arrive when the work genuinely requires it.
• A layout or sequencing issue discovered only once a crew has already reached that specific point in the work.

Success on a real project comes specifically from finding and removing these roadblocks far out ahead, creating genuine capacity before the kink in the hose ever actually forms, rather than scrambling to locate and fix it once water has already stopped flowing. The goal is a hose stretched out clear and ready, so that when you actually turn the water on, it simply flows straight through to the end.

That image is worth returning to whenever a project starts to feel like constant firefighting. A hose that keeps kinking in new places every single day is not a hose that needs faster emergency repairs. It is a hose that was never actually stretched out and checked carefully enough before anyone ever turned the water on in the first place.

The Actual Benchmark Worth Measuring Yourself Against

Here is a genuinely concrete way to measure this. If you are finding and removing roadblocks on average zero days ahead of the actual work, that is a real problem. One day ahead is acceptable at minimum. Two, three, four, or five days ahead is genuinely good. But the real target should be well beyond fifteen days ahead of the work on average.

That said, even the day before work happens still counts as genuine prevention for whatever roadblocks can only be caught that close to the actual activity. The goal is simply pushing that average further and further out ahead over time, rather than settling permanently at whatever distance currently feels comfortable.

Treat this number the way you would treat any other genuine performance metric. Track it honestly, review it regularly, and expect it to improve gradually over time rather than jumping immediately from zero days to fifteen. Real progress here tends to come in small, consistent increments rather than one dramatic overhaul.

Why This Changes the Entire Industry if We Actually Commit to It

Finding and removing roadblocks well before they ever happen genuinely changes how crews work day to day. It shifts the entire posture of a project from constant reaction toward genuine, deliberate preparation, which is exactly what creates real, sustainable flow across an entire team.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build genuine roadblock hunting into daily and weekly habits, shifting the entire culture away from rewarding reactive problem solving and toward genuinely preventing problems before they ever reach the field.

So here is the challenge. Track, honestly, how far ahead of actual work your own team is currently identifying and removing roadblocks. If that average sits anywhere near zero days, pick one specific roadblock this week and find it at least five days earlier than you normally would. That single shift is exactly where real, lasting improvement actually begins.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “We don’t need problem solvers. We need problem preventers.” Build your own habits around that standard, and watch how much smoother the actual work becomes.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does the article compare pushing harder against a bottleneck to increasing pressure behind a kinked hose?

Because increasing pressure behind a genuine restriction rarely improves actual flow on the other side of it, the same way pushing a crew or a schedule harder against an unresolved bottleneck rarely produces the real improvement it appears to promise. Removing the actual restriction, the kink itself, is what genuinely improves flow, not simply applying more force behind it.

Why does the article argue against praising someone for being a good “problem solver”?

Because celebrating reactive problem solving quietly rewards a pattern where problems are allowed to happen in the first place, rather than prevented well before they ever reach the field. The article argues that genuine value comes from preventing a problem entirely, which produces far less visible drama but far better outcomes than solving the same problem after it has already disrupted real work.

What is the actual significance of planning twelve hours, twelve days, or twelve weeks ahead specifically?

These time horizons represent different scales of roadblock a team should be actively watching for, from immediate next day preparation up through longer term planning for material, equipment, or scheduling needs that take much longer to resolve. Different roadblocks require different amounts of lead time to identify and remove, which is why the article recommends watching multiple time horizons simultaneously rather than focusing on just one.

Why does the article treat finding a roadblock zero days ahead of work as a genuine problem, even if the roadblock does get resolved?

Because resolving a roadblock at the last possible moment still disrupts the planned flow of work, even if the team manages to work around it successfully. The actual goal is removing roadblocks far enough in advance that work proceeds smoothly without any disruption at all, rather than simply avoiding a complete stoppage through a last minute scramble.