So far in this series, we’ve covered getting the right foremen or crew leaders on the bus, understanding your phases and functional areas, and making sure you have trained, oriented foremen for each area, using the meeting space, visuals, takt plan, and visual systems to carry the planning they were part of all the way to the workers. Now we’re going to talk about deciding on a meeting schedule.
Short answer: Post a rolling Monday-through-Friday meeting calendar that shows not just when the pull plans, weekly work planning meetings, and huddles happen, but the cycle beneath them: when weekly work plan drafts go out, when trades review them, when they’re aggregated, when they’re committed, and when they’re distributed. Great builders build schedules of schedules.
Is This Real Builder Stuff?
This isn’t something I came up with. I learned it from real builders, and you’re a real builder too. Looking at work geographically is bridge-building, dam-building, megastructure stuff. So pay attention to the phases and functional areas from the last post, because it’s really great stuff.
What Does Tom Corey’s Trailer Look Like?
Let me tell you a story, and it rhymes, about a man named Tom Corey. He’s a general superintendent at DPR, a really great guy. Every time I walk on his projects, they’re super clean, organized, and beautiful. When you walk into his office, you see the signage, the look-ahead plans, the project’s conditions of satisfaction, inspirational signs, many specific to DPR, the logistics, the zone maps, everything on the wall.
One of the most important things on the wall is the meeting cycle: a Monday-through-Friday schedule showing all the trade partners, foremen, and anyone on site how to interact with the meeting systems on the project. Everyone knows when the pull plans are, when the weekly work planning is, and when the huddles are. I want to give credit where I first saw this and who inspired me. It was Tom, and I think he’d appreciate the shout-out.
What Is the Cycle Beneath the Meetings?
There’s a layer beneath that I don’t think I’ve talked about before. From the master schedule, you select which pull plans you’ll do. From the master schedule, you also print templates for your weekly work plans. Those templates run on a cycle: they’re distributed, the foremen have time to review and comment, they send them back, Tom aggregates everything into the weekly work plan, and it’s queued up at the right time for the weekly work planning meeting.
Sometimes people ask trade partners to fill out their weekly work plans from whole cloth. I personally don’t believe in that. It should be filtered from the takt plan, as the master schedule, into a template. Then the trades have some clay to mold, something they can put their hands on to make sure there’s flow. See Filter Weekly Work Plans from the Pull Plan.
What Does the Rolling Calendar Look Like?
If your weekly work planning meeting is on Thursday, for next week, you don’t start on Thursday. You start on Monday. Here’s how I’ve seen Tom put it on the calendar:
| Day | Weekly work plan cycle |
|---|---|
| Monday | Weekly work plan draft sent to trade partners from the takt plan template |
| Tuesday | Trade partners and last planners review, research, make adjustments, and add one-off activities |
| Wednesday | Comments due back in the morning. The superintendent or engineer aggregates the data and completes the analysis. |
| Thursday | Weekly work planning meeting: check for trade stacking and zone stacking, and discuss handoffs and commitments as a team |
| Friday | Weekly work plan distributed to trade partners for next week |
Then, Monday through Friday of next week, everyone knows what they collaborated on, talked about, and committed to. The foreman or last planner huddles are more effective, and you execute the day plan on that basis. Read Weekly Work Planning Explained.
Why Is the Rolling Calendar So Powerful?
One of the most powerful things I’ve ever seen in a really good Last Planner implementation is that rolling calendar. Every week, you know the cycle of how the pull plans, the look-aheads, the weekly work plans, and the day plans are created, collaborated on, committed to, and distributed. It’s one thing to say we’re going to do all these things. It’s another thing to actually do them. It has to be common knowledge, not tribal knowledge, among the last planners, on a continuous rolling cycle, so we can feed information all the way to the field.
If you don’t have it:
- Trade partners won’t prepare early enough for their pull plans.
- They won’t prepare early enough for the six-week make-ready look-ahead plans or follow the roadblocks.
- They won’t look far enough ahead to create the weekly work plans on time.
- You won’t have the information distributed when you need it.
I always love the quote: discipline will always beat mere talent. If you put it on a visual schedule people can follow, the team can be disciplined with it and really follow the system. A lot of times when people try to implement Last Planner, there’s so much verbal communication and so few consistent standards that they fail with the system.
What Is the Schedule of a Schedule?
In scheduling, we never forget the schedule of a schedule: the schedule for creating the master schedule, and the schedule for creating your short-interval planning tools. Great builders don’t just build schedules. They also build schedules of schedules. And I say that in the name of construction scheduling. Amen.
Is Your Schedule Worth Your Family?
I’ve never heard anyone at a Boot Camp or anywhere else say, I regret having spent too much time with my spouse and children. Build schedules that leave room for the people you go home to.
So here is the challenge. Draw your project’s Monday-through-Friday meeting cycle, including the drafts, reviews, aggregation, and distribution, and post it on the trailer wall this week.
Bottom line: Decide on a meeting schedule, put it on the wall, and build the schedule of your schedules.
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.
Takt and Last Planner Implementation series:
Previous: Phases & Functional Areas
Next: Conference Room, Trailer, & Visuals
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a rolling meeting calendar in Last Planner?
A visual Monday-through-Friday schedule posted in the trailer showing how pull plans, look-aheads, weekly work plans, and day plans are created, collaborated on, committed to, and distributed every week, so the process is common knowledge, not tribal knowledge.
When should weekly work planning start?
Days before the meeting. If the weekly work planning meeting is Thursday, the draft goes to trade partners Monday, they review it Tuesday, it’s aggregated Wednesday, the meeting is Thursday, and the final plan is distributed Friday for next week.
Should trade partners write weekly work plans from scratch?
No. I don’t believe in that. The weekly work plan should be filtered from the takt plan, as the master schedule, into a template, so trades have some clay to mold and something to work with to make sure there’s flow.
People Also Read:
Lean Onboarding Series – The Weekly Work Plan
What Is the Last Planner System Weekly Work Plan?
Conditions Of Satisfaction
Foreman Series: Making a Weekly Work Plan
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.