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Author: Danny Jiménez⁩

Victims and Losers Love CPM (Why Bad Contractors Hide Behind Schedules)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Victims and Losers Love CPM (Why Bad Contractors Hide Behind Schedules)

Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1543. In this podcast I’m going to talk about CPM is the way to play the victim. If you’re interested in that, please stay with us.

Let me tell you, there have been some times where recently we get asked to come help a general contractor to finish the job. And actually, this has happened all throughout the life cycle of our company. And it used to be embarrassing to me, but it’s now such a commonplace that it doesn’t even bother me anymore, interestingly enough. But where the contractor will hire us and then we will go work on one or two of their projects.

And those projects will become the top performing projects for the company. And it’s not even a secret. It’s not like it was just my opinion. It’s like literally the leader of the company is like, “That is the best performing project that we have.” And that’s not me trying to brag. That’s not me trying to self-aggrandize. That’s just data that I’m sharing with you.

And then somebody usually a scheduling director or the director of the risk management legal department or vice president or somebody like that will start to fight against the job site.

The Pain of Playing Victim with CPM

And somebody, usually a scheduling director or the director of the risk management legal department or vice president or somebody like that, will start to fight against the job site. And typically, you’ll hear them say a couple of things. “Well, they’re using Takt, so they’re behind schedule.” Or, “Hey, we don’t have a legal schedule as our CPM and we’re going to get sued.”

I do want to say one more time, after the times that I’ve challenged people to present a historical case study where CPM was the determinant factor in a case or arbitration, nobody can produce that. So I still don’t believe that.

But the interesting thing is that Takt respects trades. These projects will go really well. And what will inevitably happen is that the argument they’ll hinge getting rid of us on is that they need their CPM schedule for legal purposes.

Here’s the thing. Here’s the main time that I noticed this. We had figured out the overall production plan for a massive, like $350 million plus project. And the scheduling team and the vice president who was encouraging this behavior was like, “No, no, no, no. We had gained buffers with them by zoning it properly.” They’re like, “No, we can’t do that. We’ve got to show delay claims. We got to show that we’re behind. We got to show that the owner is impacted.”

And what I realized is that lawyers and arbitration experts and scheduling departments want to always play the victim. They want to always be behind. They want to always be injured. They want to always be negatively impacted by the owner or the designer, because if they ever mess up, they need somebody to blame.

So if they become the victim first, then they can never become the victim in reality in their mind. Meaning they don’t want the Lean Takt plus superintendent project team Takt plan that actually has buffers and a path to finish. They want the schedule that shows that the contractor is the quote-unquote poor boy, the victim. And that anything that happens is the owner’s and the architect’s fault.

Why Victims and Losers Love CPM

And the problem is, is that owners, and I’m not giving you a lecture, but we’ve got to stop hiring contractors like this because they are always how could we ever have a good relationship with the owners and designers if this is the way that they’re going to treat people?

And it hit me that victims and losers love CPM because they can always excuse their bad behavior in a schedule full of lies and delays and impact notices and a false path to the finish that shows that it’s all the owner’s fault.

And so if anybody’s like ever wondering why is CPM so popular? Well, it’s because it’s a more effective tool for owners to be abusive to contractors. And it’s a more effective tool for legal departments and contractors to always play the victim. And so that they can set themselves up to not be accountable if they lose.

Here’s why victims and losers love CPM:

  • CPM shows delays and blame: The schedule is designed to show the contractor is behind and the owner is at fault. That sets up delay claims before the project even starts.
  • CPM removes accountability: If the contractor ever messes up, they already have a victim narrative built into the schedule. “We were behind because of the owner.” Not because of poor planning.
  • CPM hides buffers: Scheduling departments don’t want buffers. Buffers show you can finish on time. They want to show delays so they can blame the owner.
  • CPM creates a false path to finish: The schedule shows a path that’s impossible. When you don’t hit it, you blame the owner. Not your bad planning.
  • CPM enables excuses: Every delay, every problem, every mistake gets blamed on the owner or the designer. The contractor is always the victim. Never accountable.

Victims and losers love CPM because they can always excuse their bad behavior in a schedule full of lies and delays and impact notices and a false path to the finish that shows that it’s all the owner’s fault.

The Contrast: Takt Creates Buffers and Paths to Finish

But here’s the interesting thing. So I hear the analogy on the way to Atlanta driving my son and I. We were driving with a trailer going a consistent speed limit. You have to, even if I didn’t want to, I have to drive a consistent speed because I have my trailer.

And I’m driving consistently and you would see somebody riding up, like if I’m passing a big grade, you know, a lot of the roads out here are only two lanes and somebody would get right up on my backside, which for some reason really bothers me. And then I would get out of the way. And it would be, or that person would just like speed up and look over like I’m the biggest burden on earth just to stop again.

And in CPM, that’s the thing that happens is that your fake lying schedule says that you’re going to go fast only until reality hits you in the face. And so that’s why some people will claim falsely that Takt makes you go slower, even though you end up finishing sooner.

And you know, the funny thing is on freeways, you see that too. A lot of times I’m just staying at constant speed and I’ll end up at my destination before those rushers, pushers and panickers weave in and out of traffic.

Here’s what Takt does differently:

Takt shows buffers: You zone properly. You gain buffers. You have a real path to finish on time. You don’t need to play victim because you have a real plan.

Takt respects trades: The schedule is designed for trade flow. Equal speed. Equal distance apart. No stacking. No rushing. No pushing. Respect.

Takt creates accountability: The schedule shows what’s realistic. If you don’t hit it, it’s on you. Not the owner. You own the plan because the team made the plan together.

Takt finishes sooner: Consistent speed wins. Like driving a trailer at constant speed. You end up at your destination before the rushers, pushers, and panickers.

Takt builds relationships: You’re not always blaming the owner. You’re collaborating. You’re solving problems together. You’re building trust. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Victims and losers love CPM. Winners love Takt. That’s the difference.

A Challenge for Owners and Builders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. If you’re an owner, stop hiring contractors who play victim. Look at their schedules. Do they show buffers and a real path to finish? Or do they show delays and blame? If they show delays and blame, they’re setting up to be the victim. Don’t hire them.

If you’re a contractor, stop playing victim. Build Takt plans with buffers. Own your plan. Respect trades. Finish on time. Build relationships with owners and designers. Stop hiding behind CPM schedules full of lies.

As we say at Elevate, CPM lets contractors play victim. Fake schedules show delays and blame owners. Takt creates buffers and paths to finish. Victims and losers love CPM. Winners love Takt.

And if you’re out there building it the right way, kudos to you. You’re my hero. I love you.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do victims and losers love CPM?

Because CPM lets them play victim. The schedule shows delays and blames the owner. When they mess up, they have a victim narrative built in. “We were behind because of the owner.” Not because of poor planning.

Why don’t scheduling departments want buffers?

Because buffers show you can finish on time. They want to show delays so they can blame the owner. If they show buffers, they lose the victim narrative. They can’t claim impact.

What’s the difference between CPM and Takt schedules?

CPM shows a false path to finish with delays and blame. Takt shows buffers and a real path to finish. CPM enables excuses. Takt creates accountability. CPM plays victim. Takt respects trades.

Why do Takt projects finish sooner even though they “go slower”?

Because consistent speed wins. Like driving a trailer at constant speed you end up at your destination before the rushers, pushers, and panickers. Takt maintains trade flow. CPM rushes then stops then rushes then stops.

How should owners identify contractors who play victim?

Look at their schedules. Do they show buffers and a real path to finish? Or do they show delays and blame? If they show delays and blame, they’re setting up to be the victim. Don’t hire them.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

 

On we go

Plan Reading For Field Engineers In Construction (Step By Step Guide)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 24 min

Plan Reading for Field Engineers in Construction (Step-by-Step Guide)

Plan Reading for Field Engineers in Construction: Step-by-Step Guide. In this video, I’m going to take you through a guide on how a field engineer will approach studying drawings. And if you follow this guide, you are going to be successful.

Now, before I begin, I want you to know that some people want, “Here’s how you read architectural drawings and structural drawings and these specific types of details.” We have that, and it is on our Miro boards that we have on our website. It’s all free on YouTube for field engineers, foremen, and supers. But this video is going to tell you how to approach it.

Let me give you the pattern that I think you will love.

The Pain of Not Knowing How to Read Drawings

Here’s what happens when you don’t know how to read drawings. You guess. You scale dimensions. You assume. And you build it wrong. Rework happens. The owner pays for mistakes. Your credibility suffers. And the team loses trust.

And here’s the deeper problem: if we don’t have the core skill of reading drawings, we’re brokers and we’re not builders. The owner pays us to know how to read drawings. This is a core skill. Without it, you can’t be a field engineer. You can’t create lift drawings. You can’t catch problems before they’re built. You can’t enable the craft.

The pattern I’m going to give you solves this. It forces you to read and understand drawings. It helps you find problems. And it creates lift drawings that enable the craft to build with everything they need.

What Are Lift Drawings (And Why They Matter)

First of all, when you’re talking about field engineering, we can’t talk about field engineering and drawings without lift drawings. A lift drawing, sometimes people don’t know what I’m talking about. Well, if you have architectural drawings, you have structural drawings, and you have mechanical, electrical, plumbing, which are not looped together, let’s say you’re on a laboratory, and you have your lab equipment drawings you’ve got drawings everywhere.

You want to build a single wall. And a lift drawing basically says, “Okay, hey, we’re going to go build this one wall with this footing.” So we’re going to go build this wall, but instead of having drawings for that wall be in a bunch of different locations, we’re going to pull information over from all of these drawings, and that’s the field engineer’s job.

And we are going to one-piece flow put that wall lift drawing, all of the relevant information on one page, if you can, but on one lift drawing that may be multiple pages so that the craft workers and foremen can build it in the field and have everything that they need.

Now, there are craft workers and foremen that don’t need this, but here’s the point, and we’ll cover this later. A field engineer must know this, and it’s the best way to force the reading and understanding of drawings. And we also are trying to find problems.

Scott Berg at Hensel Phelps used to say to me, “If we can’t draw it, we can’t build it.” And it also provides a nice drawing. In fact, one of these days, if we want to get design teams working in a better flow, we will not provide drawings by system and by discipline in a package. We will have them designed by placement or by station or by zone or by assembly.

Just in case you’re like, “Jason, what did he just say?” Designers would design their systems like in Revit, but what they would publish is drawings by zone, by station, or by assembly. If we ever want to get to a really good point where we have really great quality, we will do that. Because the design team in the industry doesn’t work that way, field engineers do this. We must research these drawings to get to a lift drawing.

Step One: Study the Front Matter (Abbreviations)

So, when I have a set of drawings, and by the way, do not fear printing these out. The whole concept of completely paperless is completely bogus. We should be paperless when we need to be paperless, and we should print from sustainable resources when we need to. For me, my brain will not fit into a screen. I need to have these printed out many times. Don’t be afraid of that. It’s complete garbage.

If you have your drawing set, the first thing that you’re going to do is study the front matter. And you have heard me talk about this before, but I want you to be very disciplined with this. Please. I want you to dig in and look at the abbreviations and get familiar. This is basically a language. It’s just like I bought a book the other day, How to Learn Japanese in 60 Days. There’s no different. How to learn construction drawings in 60 days. This is your Rosetta Stone for your spoken language to learn what the designer’s language is.

Here’s the truth: Abbreviations are the language of construction drawings. If you don’t know the abbreviations, you can’t read the drawings. Study them. Learn them. Get familiar. This is your foundation.

Step Two: Read the General Notes (Use Speechify)

Then you’re going to look at the general notes. Now, I’m going to give you some tips here. When I used to say read the general notes, I felt guilty because you got to go get some caffeine, cup of coffee. I shouldn’t joke around, but if I’m joking, I’m being playful, but you got to do something to pay attention because this is really boring.

But nowadays, you can grab your phone and an app called Speechify and just take a picture and it’ll read it to you. And what you’re going to go through is go through and understand what general notes apply to anything that might be in what you’re researching, and specifically that might apply to your lift drawing.

In case you’re like, “Yeah, I love Jason. He looks like Brad Pitt, but I’m not doing that.” I just want you to know, massive project in the Northeast didn’t read this. Didn’t know that as they were going up the building, they had to be a certain amount of levels down in their basement and the excavation in their placement rhythm. And they blew their schedule by 6 months, and it was a massive problem. And that was in the general notes. You’ve got to read them. So, pull out things that are applicable.

Here’s the truth: General notes govern everything. They contain sequencing requirements, placement rhythms, and critical constraints. If you skip them, you’ll blow the schedule. Read them. Use Speechify if you need to. Pull out what’s applicable. This is non-negotiable.

Step Three: Study the Typical Details

The other thing is the typical details. The typical details will govern the rest of everything that you see. Everything else is specific, but it will reference back and anchor to the general notes and the typical details.

Here’s the truth: Typical details are the standard. Everything else references back to them. Study them first. Understand the standard. Then when you see specific details, you’ll understand how they relate to the typical.

Step Four: Trace Details from Plan View (Go 2D to 3D)

Then what I want you to do when you’re studying plans is go to the plan view. And I’ve never drawn this before, so this video is a little bit better. But if you have a plan view, and like let’s say this is the outline of your slab on grade or something, and you see a detail in here, I would say go to that detail, okay? And go look at the associated page where that detail points to.

Go ahead and research all this, and then you can highlight it or put a check mark, and then highlight this or put a check mark, and then move to your next detail, and you start tracing the details, and then you’ll start to go from a 2D to a 3D representation of the building. You’ll really understand it.

And then once you start going through your plan view, trace details. This is one of the best things because in your brain, you start to think and see the building in 3D. And I know that we have building information modeling, but this is a skill we want everyone to have. It’s absolutely crucial.

Here’s how to trace details from plan view:

  • Start with the plan view: Find a detail callout on the plan (like a wall section or foundation detail)
  • Go to the referenced detail: Follow the callout to the associated page and study the detail
  • Highlight or check mark both: Mark the plan view callout and the detail page so you know you’ve studied both
  • Move to the next detail: Repeat the process for every detail on the plan
  • Build a 3D mental model: As you trace details, your brain will start seeing the building in 3D instead of 2D

This is the best way to force reading and understanding of drawings. If you can’t draw it, you can’t build it. Tracing details from plan view builds your 3D mental model.

Step Five: Eat the Frog (MEP and Complex Drawings)

The other thing is I’m going to write this: eat the frog. If you’ve ever heard of this concept, it says if you have this big, nasty thing you got to do in a day, eat the frog first at the beginning of the day or else you’ll keep procrastinating.

And what I mean by this is there’s other things like the mechanical, electrical, plumbing drawings, which are harder to understand than architectural or structural. Or you’re going to go research the one-line, the single-line diagram for the electrical. Or you’re going to go research the flow diagram for your HVAC system or your hydraulic piping system. These are things you need to know.

And you can’t just be like, “Oh, I know architectural and structural,” and avoid eating the frog. Go eat the frog and get familiar with these because you need to understand those as well.

Here’s the truth: MEP drawings are harder than architectural and structural. Single-line diagrams and flow diagrams are complex. And most field engineers avoid them. Don’t. Eat the frog first. Study MEP early in the day. Get familiar. You need to understand these. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Step Six: Ask Questions (Trade Partners Love Helping)

And then the last thing that I would say: ask questions when you have them. There is no exception to this. Trade partners love answering your questions and being the subject matter expert. So, you’ve got to take this approach if you ever want to understand it or be able to draw it so you can build it.

Here’s the truth: Trade partners love being the subject matter expert. They love answering questions. Don’t be shy. Ask. That’s how you learn.

Critical Rule: Never Scale Dimensions

One other thing. Don’t ever scale dimensions from the drawings, and don’t ever assume. If it’s not on the drawings, our legal precedent for this is you must write an RFI and receive a response and post it to the drawings. We never assume. We do not design through the submittal, and we do not guess, and we do not scale dimensions. If it ain’t on here, don’t go out and try and build it that way. You’ll get yourself in trouble. The drawings are our base.

Here’s the truth: Scaling dimensions creates legal liability. If it’s not dimensioned on the drawing, write an RFI. Get a response. Post it to the drawings. Never assume. Never guess. Never scale. The drawings are the legal base.

A Challenge for Field Engineers

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Pick a drawing set. Study the front matter. Read the general notes with Speechify. Study the typical details. Trace details from plan view. Eat the frog study MEP. Ask questions. And never scale dimensions.

And I recommend that you study these 20 to 30 minutes a day so that you’re always familiar and always out ahead. The owner pays us to know how to read drawings. This is a core skill. If we don’t have it, we’re brokers and we’re not builders.

As we say at Elevate, plan reading for field engineers: study front matter, trace details from plan view, eat the frog (MEP), ask questions, never scale dimensions. That’s how you build the skill.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are lift drawings and why do field engineers create them?

Lift drawings pull information from architectural, structural, MEP, and specialty drawings onto one page so craft workers can build with everything they need. They force field engineers to read and understand drawings and help find problems before construction.

Why study the front matter and abbreviations first?

Because abbreviations are the language of construction drawings. If you don’t know the abbreviations, you can’t read the drawings. Study them first. They’re your Rosetta Stone for learning the designer’s language.

How do you trace details from plan view?

Start with the plan view, find a detail callout, go to the referenced detail page, study it, highlight both, then move to the next detail. This builds a 3D mental model in your brain.

What does “eat the frog” mean for field engineers?

Study the hardest drawings first MEP, single-line diagrams, flow diagrams. These are harder than architectural and structural. Most field engineers avoid them. Don’t. Eat the frog first thing in the day.

Why should you never scale dimensions from drawings?

Because scaling creates legal liability. If it’s not dimensioned on the drawing, write an RFI, get a response, and post it to the drawings. Never assume, never guess, never scale.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

On we go

Field Engineer Habits In Construction (Daily Practices That Prevent Rework)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 25 min

Field Engineer Habits in Construction (Daily Practices That Prevent Rework)

Field Engineer Habits in Construction: Daily Practices That Prevent Rework. In this video, I’m going to talk to you about habits that will literally make you as a field engineer. And the good part about that is it will make you for your future roles. Because that doesn’t mean that people are smarter, but the most successful, meaning the person has supported the most people in construction, have been through the field engineering role.

And people don’t like to hear that a lot because, you know, some people are like, “Well, I didn’t get there, and I’m still special.” You are still special. I think you’re A+. Like, you all know that I freaking love you. But that means that I want the best for you, and I want the best for everybody.

Let me give you the seven habits that will make you as a field engineer.

The Pain of Skipping Field Engineering Basics

Here’s what happens when you skip the field engineering basics. You don’t learn to figure things out. You rely on others to solve problems. You don’t ask questions. You assume you should already know. You don’t respect the craft. You look down on workers. You don’t wear your bags. You’re unprepared and slow. You don’t focus and drive. You jump around without mastering each skill. You don’t communicate. Problems don’t surface. And you don’t double-check your work. Rework happens. Mistakes compound. And your career suffers.

Field engineering is where you learn the fundamentals. It’s boots in the mud, shoulder to shoulder with the craft. It’s figuring things out when nobody’s there to hold your hand. And if you skip these habits, you’ll suboptimize and turn into a classical management business manager instead of a construction leader.

Let me give you a quick analogy. Let’s say you have beautiful teeth, right? And I’m like, “The people that go to the dentist often have the most healthy teeth.” And people are like, “Well, I don’t go to the dentist, and I still have beautiful teeth.” I know you have beautiful teeth. I love your teeth. I think they’re great. But going to a dentist and getting that deep cleaning and making sure that they’re straight is a jam. And we’ll take your A+ teeth with A+ care and get you an A+ experience.

Same thing. You’re an A+ human, but you’ve got to have A+ experiences. And if you’ve already passed the field engineer role and you’re on to bigger and better things, at least help me teach it to the folks that can go through it that this is the way. I’m telling you, if we want to take construction to 2.0, we will go back to the field engineering basics.

Habit One: Figure It Out

First thing: figure it out. This is how I visualize it in my brain. When you go to a project site, you can have a brown field, you can have a green field, or you can be demolishing a building and then building something new, or it could be a renovation. But I think of an open field. There’s nobody here anywhere, actually, except for you and the project delivery team for the general contractor and your trades.

There’s nobody that’s going to come tell you how to go build a building, right? You literally, when you start this, you might have two control points, a design benchmark which will provide your basis of bearings, and then you have this open field of land. The reason I’m explaining this is because figuring things out, although I do believe in shoulder-to-shoulder mentoring and guiding because that’s the ideal way to teach and mentor, figuring things out is a skill that everyone should adopt.

Because when it comes down to, okay, now we’re going to go ahead and build this building, you know, we’re going to do primary, secondary, working control. We’re going to get the materials jamming. We’re going to build roadways. We’re going to whatever the case may be. This right here, nobody’s going to come and hold our hand to get this where it’s got to be. You’re going to get an open piece of dirt. That’s what you got most of the time.

So figuring things out, the reason this is important is because new folks in the industry will be like, “Hey, I didn’t know that seal detail or I didn’t know that that color wouldn’t work with that type of brick. Jason, how do I get to know everything?” You don’t get to know everything. There’s nobody that knows everything. Even the most experienced people in construction will not know those things.

But what do we have? We have the ability to figure things out. That means you ask the question, you go do the research, you go drive to that office. You go with a go-getter, go-giver attitude, and you figure things out. That’s the only way you’re going to get from your basis of bearings to a vertical or horizontal building or whatever it is that you’re building is this ability to figure things out. And it’s going to take grit, determination, and the ability to ask questions and do research.

Habit Two: Ask Questions (100+ Daily)

Let’s go on to the next one. Ask questions. Let’s say in a day you’re asking 10 questions on average. And I’ve been there. I don’t want to sound stupid, like, “Oh my gosh, they know this. What is this acronym?” Let me tell you, I’m 44 years old. It’s not that old, but I’ve been in construction 30 years, and I am in meetings all the time where I’m like, “What does that mean? You did this new acronym. What does that mean?”

And I ask, and a bunch of other adult humans, some of them over 60, are like, “Oh, thank you for asking that, Jason. I didn’t know what that meant either.” Stop being embarrassed. This number is weak sauce. These are rookie numbers. I want you at least to get to 100. If you then took it to 250, I’d be even happier. Questions, questions, questions, questions.

There’s no such thing as a dumb question, but there are lazy questions. Meaning, if I’ve got ChatGPT or the Field Engineering Methods Manual or I’ve got Google here and I go interrupt somebody to ask them, that’s probably a lazy question. I can do this myself. But if I can’t figure this out myself, I’m going to ask it. And I’m telling you what, unless your supervisor is a dirt monkey, they will not mind answering the questions. They like it; it feeds their ego to answer those questions.

Habit Three: Respect for the Craft

Number three: respect for the craft. The reason I believe that field engineering is so crucial is because your boots in the mud, shoulder to shoulder with the craft. How can you disrespect somebody that you’ve worked next to? How can you be discriminatory? How can you look down on somebody? How can you not understand and see somebody that you’re working with shoulder to shoulder every day? I don’t think that you can.

So there’s a bond here where you and the craft are going to get super close. And I want you to know craft workers and foremen are the kings and queens of construction. They are our heroes. Everything we do supports them. It’s your job to enable them. And I want you to go develop that relationship so that throughout your career everybody can hear it from you, smell it on you, see it on you that you love the craft.

And this will change everything. Otherwise, you’ll suboptimize, and you’ll turn into a classical management business manager instead of a construction leader.

Habit Four: Wear Your Bags

Number four: wear your bags. These folks out here, they are wearing their tool bags, and they’re jamming out. There’s nothing like seeing a field engineer in the negative that won’t wear their bags and you’re waiting on them. They’re like, “Hey, let me walk 100 feet over there. Let me go all the way back to the office.” It’s nonsense.

Get your bags, get your tools, be out there with your total station, your automatic level, your legs, and be ready to go and show that you’re actually willing to do the do and gain their respect.

Habit Five: Focus and Drive

On to number five: focus and drive. Here’s what I want you to do. This is an analogy. If you have, let’s just take your tool bags, right? There’s lots of tools in your tool bags, whatever they are. This is analogous to your career.

I want you to focus in your field engineering career on learning every one of these one by one in a disciplined manner and don’t try and skip. Put that tool in your tool bag, and it will drive the rest of your career.

Here’s what focus and drive looks like:

  • Master one skill before moving to the next: Don’t jump around. Learn layout. Then learn surveying. Then learn concrete verification. One by one. Put each tool in your tool bag.
  • Don’t skip the basics: Every tool you put in your bag now becomes a foundation skill for the rest of your career. If you skip layout, you’ll struggle with everything else.
  • Be disciplined: Focus means saying no to distractions and yes to mastering the fundamentals. Drive means doing it even when it’s hard or boring.

Focus and drive means mastering the fundamentals one by one. That’s how you build a career.

Habit Six: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

The last two that I want to talk about actually tie together. Communicate, communicate, communicate. And what I mean is when you’re in the office, communicate and speak up with the project delivery team. When you’re out in the field talking to the foreman, communicate clearly the plan. When you’re out there working as a field engineer with another field engineer or with a rodman or rod person, communicate. When there’s a problem, bring that back to the office. Communicate.

Here’s where communication matters:

In the office: Speak up with the project delivery team. Share problems. Ask questions. Don’t sit silent.

In the field with foremen: Communicate clearly the plan. What’s happening today? What’s the layout? What’s the schedule?

With other field engineers or rodmen: Communicate during the work. “Move left. Good. Mark it.” Clear, concise, constant communication.

When there’s a problem: Bring that back to the office. Don’t hide problems. Communicate them so the team can solve them. Communication prevents rework. It surfaces problems early. And it creates trust. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Habit Seven: Double-Check Your Work

And this brings me to my last point, and this is crucial. If you are doing anything, assume everything that you do the first time is wrong. And I’ll give you a fun analogy. None of us were really that good at kissing the first time. Did we give up? No, we kept trying.

And so what we got to do is make sure we keep going. And here’s the point. You check it with a different person, a different technology, a different approach. Do a visual check. Ask somebody else to come help you. Check, check, check, and recheck your work. You as a field engineer will not have the experience to get it right the first time. So double-check and communicate, and you will be solid.

Here’s how to double-check:

Different person: Have someone else check your work. Fresh eyes catch mistakes.

Different technology: If you laid out with a total station, check with a tape measure or GPS.

Different approach: If you calculated one way, calculate another way and compare.

Visual check: Does it look right? Does the building look square? Does the elevation look correct?

Ask for help: “Hey, can you verify this for me?” That’s not weakness. That’s professionalism.

Assume everything you do the first time is wrong. Check it. Recheck it. Communicate it. That prevents rework.

A Challenge for Field Engineers

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Pick one habit and focus on it. Ask 100 questions today. Wear your bags tomorrow. Double-check your layout. Communicate every problem. Master one skill this week.

And if you’re past the field engineer role, teach these habits to the next generation. Help them figure things out. Answer their questions. Show them respect for the craft. That’s how we take construction to 2.0. As we say at Elevate, field engineer habits prevent rework: figure it out, ask 100+ questions daily, respect the craft, wear your bags, focus and drive, communicate, and double-check work. Master these seven habits and you’ll build a career.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is field engineering the most important role for career success?

Because it’s boots in the mud, shoulder to shoulder with the craft. You learn to figure things out, respect the craft, and master the fundamentals. Those who go through field engineering support the most people in construction.

How many questions should a field engineer ask daily?

At least 100. If you’re asking 10, that’s weak sauce. Ask 100 to 250 questions daily. There’s no such thing as a dumb question, but there are lazy questions you can Google yourself.

What does “respect for the craft” mean?

Craft workers and foremen are the kings and queens of construction. They’re our heroes. Everything we do supports them. Your job is to enable them. Work shoulder to shoulder and develop that bond.

Why should field engineers wear their bags?

Because waiting on a field engineer to walk 100 feet to get a tool is nonsense. Get your bags, get your tools, be ready to go, and show you’re willing to do the work. That gains respect.

How do you double-check field engineering work?

Check with a different person, different technology, different approach, visual check, and ask for help. Assume everything you do the first time is wrong. Check, recheck, communicate. That prevents rework.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

On we go

Last Planner in Construction | Stop Making up Rules (Standardize for Reliability)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 22 min

Stop Making Up Last Planner Rules (Standardize for Reliability)

Last Planner in Construction: Stop Making Up Rules. I’m excited about this video, and I really want it to come off in a non-offensive way, and I hope you can hear my sincerity. We’re paying for these videos to share out in the industry. This is a free gift, and I’m attempting to help, and we have got to steer in the right direction.

I want to be an advocate for consistency. We have got to stop making up rules when it comes to the Last Planner System because it’s only hurting us, and we’re focused on the wrong things.

Let me walk you through the made-up rules that are destroying the Last Planner System.

The Pain of Made-Up Rules

When we make up rules most of the time, and it’s normal and it’s understandable, it’s because the influencer or Last Planner practitioner, teacher, or consultant is wanting significance or fame or money. And I don’t like that. I already gave the example that pull planning boards and stickies and pull planning manuals are all behind this big old paywall for multiple thousands of dollars. That just makes me so sad.

We should be democratizing as much of this information as we can, getting it out there to people, and making sure that we’re not perverting it and hurting people.

Here’s what happens when people make up rules. They want to be known for something. They want to sell something. They want to be the expert. And so they create arbitrary rules that sound good but hurt the system. And then everyone follows those rules because “that’s how it’s done.” And the Last Planner System gets weaker instead of stronger.

And this is what we shouldn’t have happen. I would say most of the time Lean folks and Lean influencers, and I’m probably included and I need to repent every time I notice it, we are classical management wolves in Lean sheep’s clothing. We’re doing the same old fixed-minded nonsense in the name of Lean. And it’s just got to stop.

If we’re really Lean, we’ll improve the Last Planner System. We will not be fixed-minded. We will not hold to old outdated practices. And we will be willing to learn.

Made-Up Rule One: Don’t Do Too Much Advanced Planning

Here are some rules that are really weird that never should have been a part of the Last Planner System. I’ll just start listing them off the top of my head. Number one, the concept that you shouldn’t do too much advanced planning. That is one of the most misguided guidelines or rules I’ve ever heard. And I know where it came from. It’s because the CPM is so horrible.

But you can’t have a Last Planner System without a first planner system where you’re planning at the high macro level, queuing up your supply chains, and preparing work early on in pre-construction. If you really want to disrespect and fail the Last Planner System, don’t pre-plan out ahead. That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever heard.

Here’s the truth: Last Planner requires first planner. You need macro-level planning. You need supply chain queuing. You need pre-construction preparation. Without advanced planning, you’re reacting. With advanced planning, you’re preparing. The rule against advanced planning is destroying projects.

Made-Up Rule Two: You Can Do Short-Interval Pulls

Another one is taking phase planning and pull planning and saying you can take that and just do a 3-week or a 6-week or a short-interval pull. You can’t do it. It’s not a thing. You will not be vertically aligned to milestones, and you will not have trade flow.

Creating a 3-week pull is nothing more than adding more people to your 3-week lookahead planning cycle like we used to do 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. It’s ineffective, and it’s not pull planning, and it does not follow the real science behind pull planning.

Here’s the truth: Pull planning must be phase-level or project-level. You must be vertically aligned to milestones. You must have trade flow. Short-interval pulls create local optimization without global optimization. They’re not pull planning. They’re just collaborative lookaheads. And that’s not the same thing.

Made-Up Rule Three: Pull Plans Must Be Physical Stickies

Here’s another one. Pull plans must be in person with physical stickies. That is an arbitrary rule that hurts us. Let me tell you why. Pull planning is best done day by day, not with batched stickies. It’s best done when you take one sequence and you compare it from zone to zone to zone, and you compare to your end milestone and see if you met the milestone and gain buffers.

And when you do it in person with stickies, it is very difficult to do. It is very difficult for the practitioners to actually get the zone comparisons, and it’s very difficult to see if you’re hitting your milestone. And so that rule people will say you can’t do it digitally. Well, where did that rule come from? Absolutely ridiculous.

Here’s the truth: Pull planning works better digitally. You can compare sequences zone by zone. You can check milestone alignment. You can see buffers. You can adjust in real time. Physical stickies fall off the wall. Handwriting is illegible. Zone comparisons are difficult. Digital is better. The physical-only rule is arbitrary and destructive.

Made-Up Rule Four: Trades Must Write Their Own Stickies

The other rule I’ve heard is a trade partner must write their own sticky. Why? Most people have horrible handwriting because they weren’t taught, which is a failure of our education system. You can’t read the stickies. It takes a bunch of time. And now you have a high-powered foreman doing administrative tasks.

The purpose isn’t to write your own sticky. The purpose is to declare your own sticky. That rule is hurting us. Again, it’s better done in a digital format.

Here’s the truth: The purpose of pull planning is for trades to declare their sequence and durations. Not to write stickies. Writing stickies is administrative overhead. Declaring the plan is value-adding. Let someone type while the foreman declares. That’s respect for the foreman’s time.

Made-Up Rule Five: Weekly Work Plans Must Be on the Wall with Stickies

Here’s another rule. Your weekly work plan has to be on the wall with stickies. There’s nothing more dangerous than that in the Last Planner System because you got stickies falling off the wall. You only have a certain amount of rows. You think small, and you’ve locked the information in the office.

That weekly work plan should be in a digital format to where everybody on the job site can access it with their phones real time.

Here’s the truth: Weekly work plans on physical walls with stickies are destructive. Stickies fall off. Limited rows constrain thinking. Information is locked in the office. Workers in the field can’t see it. Digital weekly work plans solve all of this. Workers access it on their phones. Real-time updates. No falling stickies. No locked-in-the-office information.

Made-Up Rule Six: Huddles Must Be in the Morning

There are a number of really, really weird rules that people are just making up with the Last Planner. Let me give you just one or two more. Huddles have to be in the morning. Why? That is so destructive. You’re either going to have milquetoast meetings that aren’t talking about anything, or you’re going to interrupt the plan of the crews and change things once you get out of the huddle.

It should be the day before. That is an arbitrary rule. And it would be fine if somebody said the morning of or the day before and left it open, but people are like, “No, I heard it once. It was the day of.”

Here’s the truth: Afternoon foreman huddles prepare for the next day. Morning huddles either interrupt the plan or become useless check-ins. The day-before huddle lets you solve roadblocks and prepare. The morning-only rule is arbitrary and destructive.

Made-Up Rule Seven: ELMO and Rude Behavior

And then like concepts like ELMO “Enough, Let’s Move On” I’m not trying to be too offensive, but that is so rude. And so, we are normalizing rude behavior and ineffective non-production-minded behavior for the sake of culture or fame or selling books or whatever or significance. And it’s just not right.

Here’s the truth: ELMO is rude. It shuts down conversation. It dismisses people. It creates fear of speaking up. That’s not Lean. That’s not respect for people. That’s classical management disguised as culture. We’ve got to stop normalizing rude behavior. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

What We Do at Elevate Construction (Learning from Everyone)

This sounds like a lecture. I’m just getting passionate. I am a Lean Last Planner practitioner. “Oh, I don’t want anything. I don’t want to know anything about Takt.” What? We should be open and willing to adopt. And actually, I included myself in that wolf classical management, but actually I’m not.

At Elevate Construction, we learn from everybody and loop their work in. An example: Dr. Valegas introduced what I call the Valegas method where instead of leveling the entire Takt plan, he lets a lot of them create their own individual line of balance in a multi-train Takt plan. Instead of being like, “Oh, that’s not the way you do it,” I was like, “Oh, we’ll loop that in as another method.”

Elevate Construction, we learn from everybody. And if somebody was like, “There’s an actual legitimate reason to do something different,” we will adapt, and I will rewrite the books. But most people will lock their books in forever. They’ll keep the Last Planner System at 1.0 forever. They will keep their weird ideas forever, and they won’t adapt and improve.

Some of our books are on version four. Even Takt practitioners, they’re like, “Single-train Takt planning is the only way.” What? Single-train Takt planning is not the only way. Multi-train Takt planning is absolutely a thing.

Here’s what real Lean looks like:

  • Learn from everyone loop in their methods if they work
  • Adapt when someone shows a legitimate reason to do something different
  • Rewrite the books when you learn something better
  • Don’t lock ideas forever improve them, test them, evolve them
  • Be willing to admit you were wrong and change

That’s Lean. Fixed-minded rule-making is classical management disguised as Lean.

A Challenge for Last Planner Practitioners

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Question the rules. When someone says, “You have to do it this way,” ask, “Why? What’s the thoughtful reason? Can you prove it?” If they can’t, it’s probably a made-up rule.

And if you’re teaching Last Planner, stop making up rules. Teach the principles. Teach the science. And let people adapt to their context. That’s respect for people. That’s Lean. As we say at Elevate, stop making up Last Planner rules. Don’t limit advanced planning. Short-interval pulls don’t work. Physical stickies aren’t required. Huddles don’t have to be in the morning. Question the rules. Learn from everyone. Improve the system.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is “don’t do too much advanced planning” a bad rule?

Because Last Planner requires first planner. You need macro-level planning, supply chain queuing, and pre-construction preparation. Without advanced planning, you’re reacting instead of preparing. The rule destroys projects.

Why don’t short-interval pulls work?

Because you won’t be vertically aligned to milestones and you won’t have trade flow. Short-interval pulls are just collaborative lookaheads. They’re not real pull planning. Pull planning must be phase-level or project-level.

Why are physical stickies not required for pull planning?

Because pull planning works better digitally. You can compare sequences zone by zone, check milestone alignment, see buffers, and adjust in real time. Physical stickies fall off, handwriting is illegible, and zone comparisons are difficult.

Why should huddles be the afternoon before instead of the morning of?

Because afternoon huddles prepare for the next day. You solve roadblocks and prepare. Morning huddles either interrupt the plan or become useless check-ins. The morning-only rule is arbitrary and destructive.

How do you know if a Last Planner rule is made-up?

Ask for the thoughtful reason and proof. If they can’t explain why beyond “I learned it in a training” or “That’s how it’s done,” it’s probably made-up. Real rules have scientific backing.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

On we go

Takt Steering & Control

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Takt Steering and Control: Constraints vs. Roadblocks

Here’s the difference most people get wrong: constraints are part of the system design. Roadblocks are temporary blockers. You steer around constraints. You remove roadblocks. And knowing the difference transforms how you manage the train of trades. Because when you confuse constraints and roadblocks, you waste time trying to remove something that’s permanent. Or you build systems around something temporary. And that creates chaos.

Let me show you the difference and how to manage both.

The Pain of Confusing Constraints and Roadblocks

Here’s what happens when you confuse constraints and roadblocks. You try to remove a constraint. You can’t. It’s permanent or semi-permanent. You waste time. You frustrate the team. And the problem doesn’t go away. Or you try to optimize a roadblock. You build a system around it. You create workarounds. And then the roadblock disappears. And now you’ve overbuilt the system. The key is knowing which is which. Because if you treat a constraint like a roadblock, you’ll waste time trying to remove something that’s permanent. And if you treat a roadblock like a constraint, you’ll optimize around something temporary instead of just removing it.

What Are Constraints?

Constraints are part of the system design. From the time you start planning all the way to the end of the pull plan is where you’ll mainly find and optimize constraints. You can’t remove them entirely because they’re permanent or semi-permanent.

Here are constraint examples:

  • Misjudged Takt Time or Packaging: The Takt time is too short or too long. The work packages aren’t sized right. You optimize it in the pull plan.
  • Uneven Train Speeds: Too many varying speeds among the trades. It’s becoming a bottleneck. You optimize by adjusting the sequence or the Takt time.
  • Resource Shortages or Missing Buffers: You don’t have enough crews. You don’t have buffers. You optimize by adding crews or creating buffers in the plan.
  • Poor Zone Configuration: The zones are too big or too small or oddly shaped. You optimize by re-zoning.
  • Things That Affect the Train of Trades: Anything structural to the system that you must work around.

The key insight most constraints should be figured out in pre-construction or at least by the end of the pull plan. Look at how many of these the root cause of why that constraint is not optimized in the first place is because of the pull plan. By the time the pull plan is done, we must have identified these and optimized them as much as we possibly can.

You can mark constraints with orange magnets on your visual boards. And this is important because every pace-setting train of trades in a phase will likely have a pace-setting trade bottleneck and a pace-setting zone bottleneck. Everything should subordinate to those bottlenecks to help them because those are your pace setters.

What Are Roadblocks?

Roadblocks are temporary. These are things in the way of the train of trades. These are things that can be removed. Weather maybe not, but you can remove the water or the rain or the snow from the weather. Changes to the plan, you can make sure that there’s stability through planning. Work area not ready, you can make it ready. Missing information, you can go get it. Defects, you can get rid of them.

So all of these are temporary. These are things that are in the way of the train of trades. And I want to make the point that last planners primarily focus on these. Everything after the pull plan is mainly roadblocks.

Here are roadblock examples:

  • Weather delays or plan changes: Temporary. You can mitigate weather impacts and stabilize the plan through better planning.
  • Incomplete site prep, permissions, or layout: Temporary. You can make the work area ready, get the permits, finish the layout.
  • Defects, inspection failures, or material shortages: Temporary. You can fix defects, pass inspections, expedite materials.
  • Labor or equipment issues: Temporary. You can bring in crews, rent equipment, solve the problem.
  • Things in the way of the train of trades: Temporary blockers. Remove them.

You can see how many of these depend on the foreman huddle and the trade partner weekly tactical and lookahead planning. This all comes down to preparation. We steer the train of trades around constraints, but we remove roadblocks out ahead.

How to Make Work Ready (How We Find Roadblocks)

How we find roadblocks is by making work ready. In order for a crew to go do their work properly, they need to have all of these things, especially the materials, the equipment, the tools, the toolkit, and the information, permissions, and layout. Especially that in the space. It’s typically when a trade partner is making work ready that we find constraints and roadblocks. The zone boundary that this current crew is in is literally the focus for production for that crew. So this crew is working in this zone for their work package. But what’s interesting is they have work that’s being completed behind them and work that needs to be completed out ahead.

So now we have this pattern of “let’s go ahead and finish as we go within that zone and let’s prepare out ahead.” And the zone managers can literally come out and help manage the handoff, make sure that that crew is going to finish that zone on time, not by pushing people, but by literally making sure that everything is clear out ahead and everything is being punched as we go. And literally focus on: Is the handoff on track? Are we going the right speed? Do you have enough prep? Are you finishing as you go? Are there any roadblocks in the way? And if there are, what are the root causes?

Delay Management Strategies (How to Solve Constraints and Roadblocks)

Here’s what you should do when delays happen. You need to know what to do about these in a production-minded way so that you don’t hurt production. Here’s what you shouldn’t do: Never just add labor. Never just start working overtime. Never just throw money at the problem. Never rush, push, and panic. Never bring out all the materials too soon.

Here’s what you should do delay management strategies:

  • Utilize buffers: If there’s a delay, you can eat into or utilize buffers and literally make sure that you maintain trade flow.
  • Sequence delay: If you’re green, blue, orange, purple, and if the materials are ready and it works, and they’re not dependent in some unique way, you can switch the blue and the orange to where it’s green, orange, blue, purple. This is available a lot more than you think.
  • Isolated delays: Where literally it’s just one boxcar, one area. So maybe you isolate the boxcar of the task or you isolate the area. At the bioscience research laboratory we had lab researchers that were changing the building at the end but we still had to finish. About 30% of the building was sustaining changes and this is the solution we used the most.
  • Employ workable backlog: You have trained and onboarded workers that can come in and help with a second crew. This does not work when it’s a random crew that’s not trained and onboarded, but if they’re on the project as workable backlog, trained and onboarded, it does increase your capacity.
  • Re-zone past the delay: Because we all know that going to smaller batch sizes will speed things up.

The bottom line is when you implement any of these, you need to consider the rules of flow triage: Are you prioritizing the work? Are we eliminating bad multitasking by focusing? Are you making sure that whatever you’re doing, you have full kit? Are you segregating work? Are you standardizing processes? Are you synchronizing to Takt time? And do you have buffers? If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

A Challenge for Project Teams

Here’s what I want you to do this week. When you see a problem on the job site, ask: Is this a constraint or a roadblock? If it’s permanent or semi-permanent, it’s a constraint. Optimize it. Work around it. If it’s temporary, it’s a roadblock. Remove it. Mark constraints with orange magnets. Mark roadblocks with red magnets. Use the problem-solving frameworks. Follow the delay management strategies. Follow the rules of flow. And steer around constraints while removing roadblocks. As we say at Elevate, constraints are system design issues you optimize. Roadblocks are temporary blockers you remove. Steer around constraints. Remove roadblocks. That’s how you maintain flow.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between constraints and roadblocks?

Constraints are permanent or semi-permanent system design issues you must optimize and work around. Roadblocks are temporary blockers you can remove. Constraints are found in pre-construction and pull planning. Roadblocks are found after the pull plan.

How do you find constraints?

By making work ready and by doing the pull plan. Most constraints are identified by the end of the pull plan. They’re your most limiting factors misjudged Takt time, uneven train speeds, resource shortages, poor zone configuration.

How do you find roadblocks?

By making work ready and asking daily trigger questions. Use red magnets on visual boards to mark roadblocks. The trades identify them when they’re preparing the work and discover something’s missing or in the way.

What are delay management strategies?

Utilize buffers, sequence delay (swap trade order), isolated delays (isolate one area), employ workable backlog (trained second crew), re-zone past the delay (smaller batches speed things up). Never just add labor, work overtime, or rush.

Why do you mark constraints orange and roadblocks red?

Because orange marks your pace-setting trade bottleneck and zone bottleneck. Everything should subordinate to help them. Red marks temporary roadblocks that must be removed. The color coding helps meetings focus on the right problems.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

On we go

Thankful for You!

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 24 min

The Chess Board Analogy: Two Paths to Living With Purpose

Every once in a while, a conversation comes along that changes the way you see your entire life. For me, the chess board analogy did exactly that. When I first heard it from a trusted mentor, I realized something profound. Most of us are either planning five moves ahead or reacting to the chaos in front of us. But neither approach is complete. We need both vision and presence. We need long-term clarity and daily trust. We need to know where we are going and we need to trust that we are being led to the right place at the right time.

That realization is freeing for many people. We spend so much energy trying to control everything. We plan. We strategize. We stress about the future. And when things do not go according to plan, we panic. But what if the plan is not about controlling every outcome? What if the plan is about showing up fully in the moment you are in and trusting that the moment you are in is exactly where you are supposed to be?

The Pain Point We All Experience

You wake up and you feel pulled in a thousand directions. Work is demanding. Family needs you. Your health is slipping. Your purpose feels unclear. You wonder if you are on the right path. You wonder if you are wasting your time. You wonder if you are missing something important. And the stress of not knowing creates paralysis. You are so busy worrying about whether you are doing the right thing that you are not fully present in anything you are doing.

It is a painful pattern. And if you have lived long enough, you have probably experienced it more times than you wanted. I have too. I have watched people who were brilliant and capable completely burn out because they could not find peace in the moment. They were always chasing the next thing. They were always second-guessing their decisions. They were always wondering if they were on the right path. And that constant questioning drained them. Not because they were weak. But because they never learned to trust that where they are is exactly where they are supposed to be.

The Two Approaches to Purpose

Here is the question that started the conversation with my friend. What is your core purpose? Why were you put on this earth? Where do you want to head? And his answer surprised me. He said he plays it one day at a time. He tries to be really present. He follows inspiration. He goes where he is supposed to be. And he handles things in the moment.

That got me thinking. There are really two ways to approach purpose. The first way is to have long-term clarity. You figure out your why. You identify your mission. You set your goals. You create a guidepost. And then every decision you make, every action you take, every opportunity you evaluate, you run it through that filter. Does this lead me toward my purpose? Does this use my talents? Does this help me fulfill my mission? If yes, you move forward. If no, you say no. That clarity creates focus. It creates alignment. It creates confidence.

The second way is to play it one day at a time. You wake up. You listen. You follow inspiration. You trust your intuition. You show up fully in the moment. And you trust that you are being led to the right place. You do not have a five-year plan. You do not have a detailed roadmap. You have presence. You have openness. You have trust. And that trust creates peace. It creates flexibility. It creates freedom.

Both approaches are valid. Both approaches work. And the truth is, most of us need both. We need vision. And we need presence. We need clarity. And we need trust. We need to know where we are going. And we need to be fully where we are.

The Chess Board Analogy

My mentor gave me an analogy that changed the way I see everything. He said life is like a number of chess boards stacked on top of each other. Almost like 3D chess. And you have the most important boards at the bottom. Your spirituality. Your relationship with God or the universe or whatever you believe in. Your family. Your marriage. Your kids. Then as it works up, you have your health. Your mission. Your work. Your callings. Your volunteer time. Basically, you have all these chess boards stacked on top of each other.

And here is the key. Trust fate to guide you to the chess board you should be playing in the moment. But when you are playing, play that chess board. Be there. Be present. Give it everything you have. If you are on your family chess board, play that game to win with your family. If you are on your work chess board, play that game to win at work. If you are on your health chess board, play that game to win with your health. Do not be on your family chess board thinking about work. Do not be on your work chess board thinking about family. Be where you are. Play the game. Win the moment.

And trust fate to bring you to the right chess board at the right time. Fate is not predestination. Fate is the unknown timing of any event. You do not control when opportunities show up. You do not control when challenges arrive. You do not control when the right person walks into your life. But you can trust that when they do, it is for a reason. And when you are on that board, you play it with everything you have.

What This Looks Like in Real Life

Here is what this looks like practically. You are at work. You are focused. You are solving problems. You are leading your team. You are playing the work chess board. And you play it well. You do not check your phone every five minutes. You do not stress about home. You are present. You are focused. You are winning.

Then you go home. You walk through that door. And you shift. You are on the family chess board now. You are present with your spouse. You are engaged with your kids. You are not thinking about tomorrow’s meeting. You are not replaying today’s problems. You are there. You are playing that board. And you are winning.

The same applies to health. When you are at the gym, be at the gym. When you are running, be running. When you are resting, be resting. Do not be half-present in everything. Be fully present in the moment you are in. Trust that the moment you are in is exactly where you are supposed to be. And play that chess board to win.

The Spiritual Foundation

The bottom chess board is spirituality. Your relationship with God. Your relationship with the universe. Your relationship with whatever you believe gives life meaning. That board is the foundation. When that board is strong, every other board stacks on top of it with stability. When that board is weak, every other board wobbles.

I have watched people who were brilliant professionally completely collapse personally because they had no spiritual foundation. They had no anchor. They had no peace. They had no trust. And when life threw them a curveball, they had nothing to hold onto. The spiritual board is not optional. It is foundational. It is what allows you to trust fate. It is what allows you to be present. It is what allows you to believe that where you are is exactly where you are supposed to be.

Why Nothing Happens By Accident

Here is my message. Nothing ever happens to us by accident. Everything happens for a reason. The book you were given. The information you received. The text from a friend. The person you met. The opportunity that showed up. The challenge that arrived. All of it happened for a reason. We do not always see the reason in the moment. But looking back, we always see it. That person you met five years ago led to the job you have now. That book you read three years ago gave you the idea that changed your career. That challenge you faced last year taught you the lesson you needed to grow.

We have to play the game in a way that we can progress. We have to help others along in their journey. We have to win at life. And winning at life is not about titles or money or achievements. Winning at life is doing your best. Heading in the direction you are supposed to be going. Being open to hear and listen and feel what that is supposed to be. And fitting uniquely within your role and position in this world so you can do remarkable things.

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

Two Truths That Cannot Be Ignored

There are two truths I want to leave you with. First, everyone is unique. Everyone is needed. There is no truth to the idea that people would be better off without us or that the situation is hopeless. You are uniquely needed for your talents, your abilities, your personality, and your presence. No one else can play your chess board the way you can. No one else can fill your role the way you can. You are not replaceable. You are irreplaceable. And the world needs you to show up fully where you are.

Second, it always gets better. Always. That is not toxic positivity. That is reality. Things always progress. Things always move forward. Things always improve. Even when it feels darkest, even when it feels hopeless, even when you cannot see the path forward, it always gets better. Trust that. Believe that. Hold onto that.

The Boards You Play Every Day

Here are the chess boards most of us are playing:

  • Spirituality: Your foundation, your peace, your connection to something greater than yourself • Family: Your spouse, your kids, your parents, the people who depend on you and love you unconditionally • Health: Your physical well-being, your mental health, your energy, your capacity to show up • Work: Your mission, your contribution, your leadership, your production • Community: Your service, your volunteerism, your impact beyond your immediate circle

You cannot play all of them at once. But you can trust that fate will guide you to the right board at the right time. And when you are on that board, be there. Play it. Win it.

A Challenge for You

This week, ask yourself which chess board you are on in every moment. When you are at work, are you fully at work? When you are with your family, are you fully with your family? When you are taking care of your health, are you fully present? Or are you half-present in everything, never fully winning anywhere?

Stop trying to play every board at once. Trust fate to guide you to the right board. And when you are there, be there. Play the game. Give it everything you have. That is how you win at life. That is how you fulfill your purpose. That is how you live with peace and presence and power.

As Lao Tzu said, “If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future. If you are at peace, you are living in the present.” Trust fate. Be present. Play the board you are on. And win.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the chess board analogy for life? The chess board analogy describes life as multiple chess boards stacked on top of each other, with spirituality and family at the bottom, followed by health, work, and community. The key is to trust fate to guide you to the right board in the moment, then play that board fully instead of being half-present everywhere.

How do I know which chess board I should be playing? Trust your intuition, inspiration, and the circumstances you find yourself in. If you are at work, play the work board. If you are home with family, play the family board. The board you are on is the board you should be playing. Be fully present where you are instead of worrying about the other boards.

What does it mean that nothing happens by accident? It means every book you read, person you meet, opportunity that shows up, and challenge you face happens for a reason. You may not see the reason in the moment, but looking back, you always see how it prepared you, connected you, or taught you something essential for where you are now.

How do I balance long-term purpose with daily presence? You need both. Long-term clarity gives you direction and helps you make decisions that align with your mission. Daily presence allows you to show up fully in the moment and trust you are being led to the right place. Use your purpose as a filter for decisions, then be fully present in executing those decisions.

Why is spirituality the bottom chess board? Spirituality is the foundation because it provides peace, trust, and meaning. When your spiritual board is strong, every other board stacks on top with stability. When it is weak, every other board wobbles. Spirituality is what allows you to trust fate and be present in each moment.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

Calumet “K” – Chapter 2 – BONUS

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 25 min

When Superintendents Run to Their Comfort Zone Instead of Leading

Every once in a while, a story cuts so close to the bone that it forces you to look in the mirror. Chapter 2 of Calumet K did exactly that for me. When I first read how Charlie Peterson told the story of his rope drive job with pride and then watched him struggle with basic superintendent responsibilities, I recognized something uncomfortable. Peterson was running away. He was staying busy. He was doing laborer’s work. And he thought that made him valuable. But Bannon saw through it immediately. Peterson was not leading. He was hiding in his comfort zone.

That realization is painful for many superintendents. We have all been there. We have all had moments where we gravitated toward what we knew instead of stepping into what we should be doing. We grabbed a tool instead of planning the work. We ran to Home Depot instead of solving the supply chain problem. We made excuses about the railroad or the weather or the office instead of taking ownership. And in those moments, we were not superintendents. We were just busy.

The Pain Point Every Project Team Knows

You walk onto a jobsite and the superintendent is everywhere. Running between trades. Fixing problems in real time. On the phone constantly. Operating the forklift. Moving materials. Looking exhausted. And everyone on the team thinks, “Man, that super is working so hard.” But the project is behind. The schedule is a mess. The trades are frustrated. Materials show up late. Coordination does not happen. And nobody knows what is coming next because the superintendent is too busy firefighting to plan anything.

It is a painful pattern. And if you have been in the field long enough, you have probably seen it dozens of times. I have too. I have watched superintendents who were brilliant craftsmen completely fail as leaders because they could not let go of the work they knew and step into the work they were hired to do. They ran to their comfort zone instead of running toward the hard things that nobody else wanted to tackle.

The Failure Pattern: Hiding in Busyness

Here is the pattern that destroys project teams everywhere. A superintendent gets promoted from the trades. They were the best carpenter, the best electrician, the best finisher. They knew their craft inside and out. And then they get handed a clipboard and told to run the project. And suddenly, everything feels uncomfortable. Scheduling feels foreign. Coordination feels overwhelming. Supply chain management feels impossible. And so they retreat. They go back to what they know. They do laborer’s work. They fix things. They move materials. They stay busy. And they call that leadership.

But it is not leadership. It is avoidance. And the project suffers because nobody is doing the real work of a superintendent. Nobody is planning. Nobody is preparing. Nobody is solving the supply chain issues. Nobody is coordinating the trades. Nobody is steering the project toward the deadline. The system failed them. They did not fail the system. They were never trained to be a superintendent. They were trained to be a craftsman. And when the project started falling apart, they did the only thing they knew how to do. They worked harder. They stayed busy. They ran faster. And the project kept falling behind.

A Field Story From Calumet K

The story of Charlie Peterson in Chapter 2 is a masterclass in what not to do. Peterson tells Bannon about the rope drive job with pride. He worked through brutal conditions. He wheeled two 500-foot coils of rope over a mile of cross ties in the mud. He completed the job alone in the middle of the night. He caught the freight train at the last second. And when Brown woke him up the next morning to send him back to Stillwater, Peterson had already finished the job. He was a hero. He was tough. He was relentless.

And yet, when Bannon arrives at the Calumet K site, Peterson is two weeks behind on cribbing and has no plan to catch up. He is out on the jobsite doing laborer’s work. He is laying corbels. He is checking lumber. He is staying busy. And when Bannon asks him about the cribbing, Peterson says he has been waiting on the railroad. He makes excuses. He plays victim. He does not take ownership. And Bannon sees it immediately. Peterson is not a superintendent. He is a carpenter pretending to be a superintendent.

That moment in the book left a mark on me. It reminded me that being tough and being effective are not the same thing. Peterson was tough. But he was not effective. He could complete a rope drive job in the middle of the night, but he could not manage a supply chain. He could work harder than anyone, but he could not lead a project. And the painful truth is that many superintendents fall into the same trap. They confuse busyness with leadership. They confuse effort with effectiveness. And the project suffers.

Why This Matters for Superintendents and Project Teams

This matters because projects depend on superintendents to lead, not to stay busy. When a superintendent is doing laborer’s work, nobody is planning the next phase. Nobody is tracking materials. Nobody is coordinating the trades. Nobody is solving problems upstream. Nobody is steering the project. And when nobody is doing those things, the project falls behind. Deadlines get missed. Penalties stack up. Stress increases. And everyone suffers.

Behind every failed project is a crew depending on leadership that never showed up. When superintendents run to their comfort zone, they abandon their real job. And their real job is not to work harder than everyone else. Their real job is to prepare the work so everyone else can work effectively. Their real job is to remove roadblocks. Their real job is to track the supply chain. Their real job is to coordinate the trades. Their real job is to plan aggressively and steer the project toward the deadline.

This is not just about efficiency. This is about respect for people. When a superintendent fails to lead, the trades suffer. They show up to unprepared work. They wait for materials. They deal with coordination failures. They work in chaos. And they go home frustrated. That chaos follows them. It affects their families. It affects their health. It affects their ability to show up the next day with energy and focus. When superintendents lead well, projects stabilize. When projects stabilize, people win. And when people win, families are protected.

What Real Superintendent Leadership Looks Like

Real superintendent leadership is not complicated. It is uncomfortable. It requires stepping out of the comfort zone and doing the hard things that nobody else wants to do. Here is what it looks like in practice:

  • Stop doing laborer’s work and start planning the work
  • Track the supply chain aggressively instead of waiting and hoping
  • Coordinate trades daily instead of letting them figure it out themselves
  • Hold hard conversations instead of avoiding conflict
  • Solve roadblocks upstream instead of reacting downstream
  • Visit suppliers and track materials personally instead of trusting someone else to do it
  • Prepare the work so crews can execute smoothly instead of throwing them into chaos

Real leadership means getting uncomfortable. It means making phone calls you do not want to make. It means having conversations that feel awkward. It means visiting suppliers in other cities to track down materials. It means holding people accountable when they fall short. It means planning aggressively even when you would rather just work. These are the hard things. And leaders get to do the hard things. Not because they are fun. But because they are what the project needs.

Bannon’s Response: Attack, Attack, Attack

When Bannon realizes Peterson is two weeks behind on cribbing, he does not accept excuses. He does not blame the railroad. He does not play victim. He immediately starts problem-solving. He tells Peterson to wire the site for arc lamps so they can run night shifts the minute the cribbing arrives. He tells Peterson to stop doing laborer’s work and start managing the project. And then Bannon does what Peterson should have done weeks ago. He goes to Ledyard to track down the cribbing personally.

That is leadership. That is ownership. That is what separates proficient superintendents from inexperienced ones. Bannon does not wait. He does not hope. He does not wishfully think it will all work out at the end. He attacks the problem immediately. He goes upstream. He takes control. And he does it with urgency because he knows that every day matters. The project has penalties. The deadline is fixed. There is no such thing as “I can’t do it.” There is only problem-solving.

As General Patton said, “A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week.” Bannon understands that. Peterson does not. Peterson is still waiting. Still hoping. Still doing laborer’s work. And the project is falling behind because nobody is leading.

The Victim Mentality Trap

One of the most painful moments in Chapter 2 is when Peterson pushes back on Bannon. He says, “Perhaps you think it’s easy.” That sentence reveals everything. Peterson is playing victim. He is defending his excuses. He is resisting accountability. And Bannon shuts it down immediately. Bannon does not think it is easy. But he expects Peterson to figure it out anyway. That is the job. That is what the office is paying him to do.

The victim mentality is a trap that destroys superintendents. When things go wrong, victim mentality says, “It is not my fault. The railroad didn’t deliver. The weather was bad. The office didn’t help me. The trades didn’t show up.” And all of those things might be true. But none of them matter. The project still has a deadline. The owner still expects completion. The penalties still apply. And the superintendent’s job is to figure it out anyway.

Leaders do not play victim. Leaders take ownership. Leaders solve problems. Leaders attack roadblocks. Leaders go upstream. Leaders hold the line. And when leaders do those things, projects win. When leaders play victim, projects fail. It is that simple.

Productively Paranoid Leadership

Bannon is productively paranoid. He does not trust that things will work out. He does not assume the cribbing will arrive on time. He does not hope for the best. He tracks it down personally. He visits the supplier. He goes to Ledyard to see where the materials are and solve the problem at the source. That is what great superintendents do. They are productively paranoid. They assume nothing. They verify everything. They go upstream. They solve problems before they become crises.

Peterson is the opposite. He is wishfully optimistic. He assumes the cribbing will arrive eventually. He waits. He hopes. He stays busy doing other things. And when the cribbing does not arrive, he is shocked. He makes excuses. He blames the railroad. And the project falls behind because nobody was tracking it.

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

A Challenge for Superintendents

Walk your project this week and ask yourself whether you are leading or hiding. Ask yourself whether you are doing laborer’s work because it feels comfortable or doing superintendent work because it is what the project needs. Ask yourself whether you are tracking the supply chain or hoping it works out. Ask yourself whether you are solving problems upstream or reacting downstream. If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that is good. That discomfort is the first step toward better leadership.

Conclusion

Stop running to your comfort zone. Stop doing other people’s work. Stop playing victim. Start leading. Start planning. Start tracking. Start solving. Start attacking problems with urgency. That is what great superintendents do. And that is what your project needs.

As Bannon shows in Calumet K, leadership is not about being the toughest person on site. It is about being the most effective. It is about stepping out of your comfort zone and doing the hard things that nobody else wants to do. That is how projects win. That is how teams stabilize. And that is how leaders grow.

As General George S. Patton said, “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” Stop waiting. Stop making excuses. Start attacking the problems in front of you with urgency and ownership.

 

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean when a superintendent is doing laborer’s work? 

When a superintendent is doing laborer’s work, it means they are performing tasks that should be delegated to the crew instead of focusing on their real job of planning, coordinating, tracking materials, and solving problems upstream. This is often a sign they are avoiding the uncomfortable work of leadership by retreating to tasks they already know how to do.

How can superintendents avoid the victim mentality trap? 

Superintendents avoid victim mentality by taking ownership of outcomes regardless of circumstances. Instead of blaming the railroad, the weather, or the office, they attack problems with urgency, go upstream to solve supply chain issues, and refuse to accept excuses. Ownership means figuring it out even when conditions are difficult.

What is productively paranoid leadership in construction? 

Productively paranoid leadership means assuming nothing will work out automatically and verifying everything personally. Instead of hoping materials arrive on time, productively paranoid leaders track the supply chain aggressively, visit suppliers, and solve problems before they become crises. This approach prevents delays and protects the project schedule.

Why do experienced craftsmen struggle when promoted to superintendent? 

Experienced craftsmen struggle as superintendents because the skills that made them great in the trades do not automatically transfer to leadership. Scheduling, coordination, supply chain management, and planning require different skills. Without proper training, they retreat to what they know—doing the physical work—instead of stepping into the uncomfortable work of leading.

What should a superintendent focus on instead of doing laborer’s work? 

Superintendents should focus on planning the next phase, tracking materials through the supply chain, coordinating trades daily, removing roadblocks upstream, holding accountability conversations, and steering the project toward deadlines. Their job is to prepare the work so the crew can execute smoothly, not to execute the work themselves.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

SCRUM!

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 29 min

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.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

Positive Intent

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 24 min

Skill, Not Will: How Assuming Positive Intent Transforms Leadership

Every once in a while, a concept comes along that changes the way you lead people. For me, the idea of “skill, not will” did exactly that. When I first encountered it in the book Changeable, I hated it. I argued with it. I yelled at my radio listening to it. I thought it was victim talk. I thought it was an excuse for poor behavior. I thought it was soft leadership. But over time, as I tested it in the field, as I watched it work in real situations, I realized something uncomfortable. I was wrong. The concept works. And it works because it is true. Most people are not failing because they do not care. They are failing because they lack the skill to do what they are trying to do.

That realization is freeing for many leaders. We spend so much energy assuming the worst about people. We assume they are lazy. We assume they are careless. We assume they do not care. And when we make those assumptions, we react emotionally. We get frustrated. We get angry. We make poor decisions. And we lose control. But when we shift our mindset to assume positive intent, when we ask ourselves what they are trying to accomplish and why they lack the skill to do it well, we stay in control. We stay calm. We find solutions. And we build stronger teams.

The Pain Point Every Leader Experiences

You walk onto a jobsite and someone is causing chaos. Maybe it is a trade partner who keeps falling behind. Maybe it is a foreman who cannot communicate clearly. Maybe it is an inspector who seems to enjoy making your life miserable. And your first reaction is frustration. You think they are difficult. You think they are incompetent. You think they are doing it on purpose. And you react accordingly. You get defensive. You push back. You avoid them. You complain about them. And nothing improves.

It is a painful pattern. And if you have been in leadership long enough, you have probably lived it more times than you wanted. I have too. I have watched leaders who were brilliant technically completely burn out because they could not stop assuming the worst about people. They took every difficult interaction personally. They fought every battle emotionally. They drained their energy reacting to behavior instead of diagnosing the root cause. And eventually, they broke. Not because they were weak. But because they never learned to separate behavior from intent.

The Failure Pattern: We Assume Negative Intent

Here is the pattern that destroys leaders everywhere. Someone does something that frustrates you. Maybe they miss a deadline. Maybe they communicate poorly. Maybe they push back on your plan. And instead of asking why, you assume the worst. You assume they do not care. You assume they are lazy. You assume they are difficult. And that assumption drives your response. You react emotionally. You get defensive. You escalate the conflict. And the situation gets worse.

The system failed them. They did not fail the system. They were never trained properly. They were never coached effectively. They were never given the clarity they needed. And when they failed, we blamed their character instead of their skill. That is the pattern. And that pattern creates toxic relationships, broken teams, and burned-out leaders.

But the truth is different. Research from Brené Brown shows that most people are doing their best. That does not mean their best is good enough. It does not mean their behavior is acceptable. But it means their intent is positive. They are trying. They just lack the skill to do it well. And when we understand that, everything changes.

A Field Story That Changed My Perspective

I remember a project where I had a team member who was causing chaos in every meeting. He was argumentative. He was defensive. He pushed back on everything. And I was ready to kick him out. I was ready to remove him from the team. I assumed he was difficult. I assumed he was trying to sabotage the project. I assumed his intent was negative.

But then I stopped. I asked myself the question: What is his positive intent? What is he trying to accomplish? And when I thought about it, I realized something. He was not trying to sabotage the project. He was trying to feel significant. He was trying to protect his trade. He was trying to make sure his concerns were heard. And he lacked the skill to do it professionally. He lacked the skill to communicate without being defensive. He lacked the skill to collaborate without arguing.

Once I understood that, everything changed. Instead of reacting emotionally, I stayed calm. Instead of fighting with him, I acknowledged his concerns. Instead of dismissing him, I gave him significance. I asked for his input. I validated his expertise. I coached him on how to communicate more effectively. And the behavior changed. He stopped being argumentative. He started collaborating. He became one of the most valuable members of the team. Not because I fixed him. But because I understood his positive intent and helped him develop the skill to accomplish it the right way.

The Framework: Skill, Not Will

The concept is simple. When someone does something that frustrates you, assume it is a skill problem, not a will problem. Assume they want to do the right thing. Assume their intent is positive. But assume they lack the skill to do it well. That assumption changes everything. It keeps you calm. It keeps you in control. It allows you to diagnose the real problem instead of reacting emotionally.

Here is how it works practically. Someone misses a deadline. Instead of assuming they do not care, ask yourself: Do they understand the deadline? Do they know how to prioritize? Do they have the resources they need? Do they know how to communicate when they are falling behind? Most of the time, the answer is no. They care. But they lack the skill. And once you understand that, you can coach them. You can train them. You can give them the clarity they need. And the behavior changes.

The same applies to difficult owners, cantankerous inspectors, argumentative trade partners, and defensive team members. They are not trying to make your life miserable. They are trying to accomplish something. And they lack the skill to do it well. Your job is not to fight them. Your job is to identify their positive intent, understand what they are trying to accomplish, and help them develop the skill to do it the right way.

Tony Robbins’ Six Human Needs

Tony Robbins teaches that every human being is driven by six core needs: certainty, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. When someone is behaving poorly, they are trying to meet one of those needs. And they are doing it in a way that lacks skill. The inspector who seems difficult is trying to feel significant. The owner who creates chaos is trying to feel certain. The team member who argues in meetings is trying to feel connection or significance. The trade partner who falls behind is trying to meet their need for certainty or growth.

Once you understand what need they are trying to meet, you can help them meet it in a way that works for both of you. You can give the inspector significance by valuing their expertise. You can give the owner certainty by communicating proactively. You can give the team member connection by including them in decisions. You can give the trade partner growth by coaching them through challenges. This is not manipulation. This is leadership. This is understanding human behavior and helping people win.

The Technique: Identify the Positive Intent

Here is the practical technique. When someone frustrates you, pause. Do not react. Instead, ask yourself three questions:

  • What are they trying to accomplish? • What need are they trying to meet? • What skill do they lack to do it well?

Once you answer those questions, you have clarity. You understand their positive intent. You understand what they are trying to do. And you can help them develop the skill to do it the right way. That keeps you in control. That keeps you calm. That allows you to lead instead of react.

Example one: A trade partner keeps falling behind. What are they trying to accomplish? They are trying to complete the work. What need are they trying to meet? Certainty. They want to know they can finish on time. What skill do they lack? Planning. They do not know how to sequence the work. They do not know how to communicate when they are falling behind. Coach them. Train them. Give them the skill. The behavior changes.

Example two: An inspector seems difficult. What are they trying to accomplish? They are trying to feel significant. What need are they trying to meet? Significance. They want to feel important. What skill do they lack? Professional communication. They do not know how to assert authority without being difficult. Give them significance. Value their expertise. Respect their role. The behavior changes.

This technique works every time. It keeps you in control. It keeps you out of the mud. It allows you to lead from a place of calm confidence instead of reactive frustration.

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

Why This Matters for Leaders and Teams

This matters because leaders who assume positive intent stay in control. They do not get dragged into emotional battles. They do not take behavior personally. They do not burn out fighting every difficult person they encounter. They stay calm. They diagnose. They coach. And they build stronger teams.

Behind every difficult person is someone trying to meet a need and lacking the skill to do it well. When leaders understand that, they stop reacting and start leading. They stop fighting and start coaching. They stop assuming the worst and start finding win-win solutions. And that changes everything. It changes the culture. It changes the relationships. It changes the outcomes.

This also protects families. When leaders burn out reacting emotionally to every difficult situation, they go home drained. They have nothing left for their spouse. They have nothing left for their kids. But when leaders stay in control, when they lead from a place of calm confidence, they go home with energy. They go home knowing they handled every situation well. And that stability protects families.

A Challenge for Leaders

Walk your project this week and identify one person who frustrates you. Do not react. Do not avoid them. Instead, ask yourself: What is their positive intent? What are they trying to accomplish? What need are they trying to meet? What skill do they lack? Once you answer those questions, approach them with clarity. Coach them. Help them. Give them the skill they need. And watch the behavior change.

Stop assuming the worst. Stop reacting emotionally. Start assuming positive intent. Start identifying the skill gap. Start coaching instead of fighting. That is what great leaders do. And that is what your team needs.

As Brené Brown said, “People are doing the best they can.” That does not excuse poor behavior. But it changes how you respond. It keeps you in control. It keeps you leading. And it creates teams that win.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does “skill, not will” mean? 

Skill, not will, means most people want to do the right thing but lack the skill to do it well. When someone’s behavior is frustrating, it is usually not because they do not care but because they do not know how to accomplish their goal professionally. Identifying the skill gap allows you to coach instead of react.

How do I assume positive intent when someone seems obviously difficult? 

Assume they are trying to meet a basic human need like significance, certainty, or connection. Ask yourself what they are trying to accomplish and what skill they lack to do it well. This keeps you calm and allows you to lead instead of react emotionally.

What if someone really does have bad intent? 

Very few people truly have malicious intent. Most behavior that seems difficult is driven by fear, insecurity, or lack of skill. Focus on the vast majority of situations where positive intent exists, and handle the rare exceptions with clear boundaries and accountability.

How does this approach keep me in control? 

When you assume positive intent and identify the skill gap, you stay calm. You do not take behavior personally. You do not react emotionally. You diagnose the problem and coach the solution. This keeps you leading from a place of control instead of reacting from a place of frustration.

Can this approach work with difficult owners, inspectors, and trade partners? 

Yes. Owners who create chaos usually lack planning skills. Inspectors who seem difficult usually need significance. Trade partners who fall behind usually lack coordination or communication skills. Identify their positive intent, understand what they are trying to accomplish, and help them develop the skill to do it well.


If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

How to Deal with Complaints

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 26 min

Stop Playing Savior: How to Handle Complaints and Build Real Teams

Every once in a while, a topic comes along that changes the way you lead people. For me, understanding how to handle complaints did exactly that. When I first encountered the pattern of leaders playing savior, I realized something uncomfortable. Most of what we call leadership in construction is actually dependency management. We create systems where people run to us instead of running to each other. We drain our own emotional currency solving problems that should be solved between team members. And we call that being helpful. But it is not helpful. It is exhausting. And it prevents teams from building the trust, conflict, and accountability they need to win.

That realization is painful for many leaders. We want to be needed. We want to solve problems. We want to be the hero. But the moment we step into that role, we stop building a team and start building a dependency on ourselves. And that dependency becomes a bottleneck. It drains us. It weakens the team. And it prevents the very thing we are trying to create, which is a high-performing group of people who can solve problems together.

The Pain Point Every Leader Knows

You walk onto a jobsite and your phone is ringing constantly. Trade partner A is calling to complain about trade partner B. A foreman is texting you about another foreman. A project manager is venting about a superintendent. Everyone is coming to you. Everyone wants you to fix their problem. Everyone wants you to be the middleman. And you feel important. You feel needed. You feel like a leader. But the project is not improving. The relationships are not getting stronger. The team is not coming together. And you are exhausted because your entire day is spent managing complaints instead of leading the work.

It is a painful pattern. And if you have been in leadership long enough, you have probably lived it more times than you wanted. I have too. I have watched leaders who were brilliant technically completely burn out because they could not stop playing savior. They took every complaint personally. They solved every problem themselves. They became the emotional center of the entire project. And eventually, they broke. Not because they were weak. But because they were carrying weight that the team should have been carrying together.

The Failure Pattern: Leaders Play Savior

Here is the pattern that destroys teams everywhere. Someone comes to you with a complaint about another team member. Maybe it is a personality conflict. Maybe it is a miscommunication. Maybe it is frustration about how work is being done. And you listen. And you want to help. So you step in. You talk to the other person. You solve the problem. You smooth it over. And everyone feels better. For about a day. And then it happens again. And again. And again. Because you never connected those two people together. You never coached them to have the conversation themselves. You never built the trust and conflict skills they need to work it out.

The system failed them. They did not fail the system. They were never taught how to engage in healthy conflict. They were never shown what it looks like to have a hard conversation professionally. They were never given permission to disagree and work through it together. And so they default to what feels safe. They run to you. They backdoor the situation. They avoid conflict. And you enable it by solving it for them.

But the cost is real. Your emotional currency drains. The relationships between those two people never improve. The team never learns to function without you. And you become the bottleneck. Every problem flows through you. Every conflict waits for you. And when you are not available, nothing gets resolved. The team is not a team. It is a group of individuals who depend on you to function.

A Field Story About Building Trust

I remember working with a project team where the superintendent and the lead trade partner could not stand each other. Every day, one of them was calling me to complain. The superintendent said the trade was behind and not communicating. The trade said the superintendent was changing the plan constantly and not giving them clarity. And both of them wanted me to fix it. They wanted me to be the referee. They wanted me to step in and solve their problem.

And I almost did. I almost played savior. But then I stopped and asked myself a question. Is this bringing the team closer together? And the answer was no. If I stepped in and solved it, they would never learn to work together. They would never build trust. They would never engage in the healthy conflict they needed to align. So instead, I said, “Have you spoken to each other about this?” And they both said no. So I said, “Let’s do it right now. Let’s get in a room and work this out.”

And it was uncomfortable. They were frustrated. They were defensive. But we worked through it. We clarified expectations. We identified where the miscommunication was happening. We agreed on a coordination system. And by the end of the conversation, they had solved the problem themselves. I did not solve it. I facilitated it. And from that day forward, they stopped running to me. They started running to each other. That is what real team building looks like.

Why This Matters for Teams and Families

This matters because teams depend on trust to function. When leaders play savior, they prevent trust from forming. When leaders connect people together and coach healthy conflict, they build teams that can solve their own problems. And when teams can solve their own problems, they win. They move faster. They communicate better. They support each other. And they do not drain the leader’s emotional currency.

Behind every dysfunctional team is a leader who never taught them how to engage in healthy conflict. And behind every high-performing team is a leader who refused to play savior. This is not just about efficiency. This is about respect for people. When we solve every problem for people, we treat them like children. When we coach them to solve problems together, we treat them like professionals. And professionals deserve that respect.

This also protects families. When leaders burn out playing savior, they go home exhausted. They have nothing left for their spouse. They have nothing left for their kids. They are drained. And that drain follows them everywhere. But when leaders build teams that function without them, they go home with energy. They go home knowing the team is strong. They go home knowing the project is stable. And that stability protects families.

The Signs You Are Playing Savior

Here are the warning signs that indicate you have become the emotional middleman instead of a team builder:

  • Your phone is constantly ringing with complaints about other team members
  • People wait for you to solve conflicts instead of talking to each other directly 
  • The same personality conflicts keep resurfacing week after week 
  • You feel drained at the end of every day from managing interpersonal issues
  • Team members avoid each other and communicate only through you

These are not signs of a team that trusts you. These are signs of a team that depends on you. And dependency is not leadership. It is exhaustion.

The Four-Step Response System for Handling Complaints

Here is the practical sequence for handling complaints without playing savior. When someone comes to you with a complaint about another team member, follow these four steps:

Step one: Ask if this involves harassment or discrimination. If yes, handle it immediately yourself. Do not delegate harassment or discrimination complaints. Ever. Those must be dealt with directly, confidentially, and seriously. You handle it. You involve HR. You involve legal if necessary. You protect the innocent. You deal with the offender. And you do it right. This is non-negotiable.

Step two: If it does not involve harassment or discrimination, ask: “Have you spoken to that person?” If the answer is no, stop. Do not solve the problem for them. Instead, coach them to have the conversation themselves. Say, “I think the best path forward is for you to talk to them directly. Would you be comfortable doing that?” Most of the time, they will say yes once you give them permission.

Step three: If they are not comfortable talking directly, offer to facilitate. Say, “Can we all sit down together and work this out?” Bring both people into a room. Let them air the issue. Coach them to listen to each other. Help them find alignment. But do not solve it yourself. Your role is to facilitate, not to fix.

Step four: If they still refuse to engage, question whether they are a cultural fit. If someone consistently refuses to engage in healthy conflict, refuses to talk to people directly, and insists on running every issue through you, they are not building trust. They are building dependency. And that is not sustainable. High-performing teams engage in conflict. They do not avoid it.

How Healthy Teams Function

Healthy teams function like Navy SEAL teams, Olympic teams, and professional sports teams. Coaching happens in the open. Feedback happens in real time. Conflict is expected and encouraged. And accountability is shared. Imagine a Navy SEAL telling their instructor, “Hey, don’t coach me in front of my team. I would rather you pull me aside.” That would never happen. It is absurd. Professional teams accept coaching in the open because they trust each other.

The same applies to construction teams. When a superintendent gives feedback to a foreman in a coordination meeting, that is not disrespectful. That is coaching. When a project manager corrects a plan in front of the team, that is not embarrassing. That is accountability. And when team members challenge each other in planning meetings, that is not conflict for the sake of conflict. That is healthy disagreement that leads to better decisions.

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

The Guiding Principle: Is This Bringing the Team Closer Together?

Here is the guiding principle that works in every situation. Before you decide how to handle a complaint, ask yourself: Is this bringing the team closer together? If the answer is yes, proceed. If the answer is no, stop and reconsider.

Example one: Someone reports harassment. You handle it directly, confidentially, and appropriately. You protect the innocent. You deal with the offender. Did you bring the team closer together? Yes. You removed a problem that was destroying trust.

Example two: Someone complains about a personality conflict. You ask if they have spoken to the person. They say no. You coach them to talk directly or offer to facilitate a conversation. Did you bring the team closer together? Yes. You connected them and coached healthy conflict.

Example three: Someone complains and you immediately solve it without connecting them to the other person. Did you bring the team closer together? No. You reinforced dependency and prevented trust from forming.

This principle works every single time. Use it. Trust it. Let it guide your decisions.

What Healthy Conflict Actually Looks Like

Many leaders avoid connecting people together because they fear conflict will explode. But healthy conflict is not yelling or personal attacks. Here is what it actually looks like:

  • Both people express their perspective without blaming • The leader facilitates by asking clarifying questions and keeping the conversation productive • Agreement is reached on clear next steps and expectations • Both people leave with better understanding and alignment

Healthy conflict builds trust. Avoiding conflict destroys it. And playing savior prevents your team from ever learning the difference.

A Challenge for Leaders

Walk your project this week and ask yourself whether you are building a team or managing dependencies. Ask yourself whether you are coaching people to engage in healthy conflict or solving every problem yourself. Ask yourself whether your team is coming closer together or staying fragmented because they run to you instead of each other. If the answer makes you uncomfortable, that is good. That discomfort is the first step toward building a real team.

Stop playing savior. Stop draining your emotional currency. Start connecting people together. Start coaching healthy conflict. Start building teams that trust each other and solve their own problems. That is what great leaders do. And that is what your team needs.

As Patrick Lencioni said, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” Building trust and coaching healthy conflict is how you get everyone rowing in the same direction.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do if someone comes to me with a complaint about another team member? First, ask if it involves harassment or discrimination. If yes, handle it directly. If no, ask if they have spoken to the other person. If they have not, coach them to have the conversation themselves or offer to facilitate a meeting where both people can work it out together. Do not solve it for them.

When should I handle complaints directly versus connecting people together? Handle complaints directly only when they involve harassment, discrimination, or safety violations. For all other complaints, including personality conflicts, miscommunication, or work disagreements, connect the people together and coach them to resolve it themselves. This builds trust and prevents dependency.

How do I coach someone to have a difficult conversation they are avoiding? Start by asking what they are afraid will happen. Address their concerns. Remind them that healthy teams engage in conflict professionally. Offer to facilitate the conversation if they need support. Give them specific language they can use to start the conversation respectfully. Then follow up to ensure it happens.

What if someone refuses to talk directly to the person they are complaining about? If someone consistently refuses to engage in healthy conflict after coaching, question whether they are a cultural fit for your team. High-performing teams require people who can have hard conversations professionally. Dependence on you to solve every conflict is not sustainable and prevents the team from functioning.

How does handling complaints this way protect my emotional currency? When you solve every problem yourself, you drain your emotional energy and become the bottleneck for every conflict. When you connect people together and coach them to resolve issues themselves, you preserve your energy for strategic leadership and build a team that functions without constant intervention.

 

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here) 
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here) 
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, 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.

On We Go 

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    faq

    General Training Overview

    What construction leadership training programs does LeanTakt offer?
    LeanTakt offers Superintendent/PM Boot Camps, Virtual Takt Production System® Training, Onsite Takt Simulations, and Foreman & Field Engineer Training. Each program is tailored to different leadership levels in construction.
    Who should attend LeanTakt’s training programs?
    Superintendents, Project Managers, Foremen, Field Engineers, and trade partners who want to improve planning, communication, and execution on projects.
    How do these training programs improve project performance?
    They provide proven Lean and Takt systems that reduce chaos, improve reliability, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate project delivery.
    What makes LeanTakt’s training different from other construction courses?
    Our programs are hands-on, field-tested, and focused on practical application—not just classroom theory.
    Do I need prior Lean or takt planning experience to attend?
    No. Our programs cover foundational principles before moving into advanced applications.
    How quickly can I apply what I learn on real projects?
    Most participants begin applying new skills immediately, often the same week they complete the program.
    Are these trainings designed for both office and field leaders?
    Yes. We equip both project managers and superintendents with tools that connect field and office operations.
    What industries benefit most from LeanTakt training?
    Commercial, multifamily, residential, industrial, and infrastructure projects all benefit from flow-based planning.
    Do participants receive certificates after completing training?
    Yes. Every participant receives a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion.
    Is LeanTakt training recognized in the construction industry?
    Yes. Our programs are widely respected among leading GCs, subcontractors, and construction professionals.

    Superintendent / PM Boot Camp

    What is the Superintendent & Project Manager Boot Camp?
    It’s a 5-day immersive training for superintendents and PMs to master Lean leadership, takt planning, and project flow.
    How long does the Superintendent/PM Boot Camp last?
    Five full days of hands-on training.
    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp curriculum?
    Lean leadership, Takt Planning, logistics, daily planning, field-office communication, and team health.
    How does the Boot Camp improve leadership and scheduling skills?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    Who is the Boot Camp best suited for?
    Construction leaders responsible for delivering projects, including Superintendents, PMs, and Field Leaders.
    What real-world challenges are simulated during the Boot Camp?
    Schedule breakdowns, trade conflicts, logistics issues, and communication gaps.
    Will I learn Takt Planning at the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Takt Planning is a core focus of the Boot Camp.
    How does this Boot Camp compare to traditional PM certification?
    It’s practical and execution-based rather than exam-based. You learn by doing, not just studying theory.
    Can my entire project team attend the Boot Camp together?
    Yes. Teams attending together often see the greatest results.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    Improved project flow, fewer delays, better team communication, and stronger leadership confidence.

    Takt Production System® Virtual Training

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training?
    It’s an expert-led online program that teaches Lean construction teams how to implement takt planning.
    How does virtual takt training work?
    Delivered online via live sessions, interactive discussions, and digital tools.
    What are the benefits of online takt planning training?
    Convenience, global accessibility, real-time learning, and immediate application.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    What skills will I gain from the Virtual TPS® Training?
    Macro and micro Takt planning, weekly updates, flow management, and CPM integration.
    How long does the virtual training program take?
    The program is typically completed in multiple live sessions across several days.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. Recordings are available to all participants.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses for the virtual training?
    Yes. Teams and companies can enroll together at discounted rates.
    How does the Virtual TPS® Training integrate with CPM tools?
    We show how to align Takt with CPM schedules like Primavera P6 or MS Project.

    Onsite Takt Simulation

    What is a Takt Simulation in construction training?
    It’s a live, interactive workshop that demonstrates takt planning on-site.
    How does the Takt Simulation workshop work?
    Teams participate in hands-on exercises to learn the flow and rhythm of a Takt-based project.
    Can I choose between a 1-day or 2-day Takt Simulation?
    Yes. We offer flexible formats to fit your team’s schedule and needs.
    Who should participate in the Takt Simulation workshop?
    Superintendents, PMs, site supervisors, contractors, and engineers.
    How does a Takt Simulation improve project planning?
    It shows teams how to structure zones, manage flow, and coordinate trades in real time.
    What will my team learn from the onsite simulation?
    How to build and maintain takt plans, manage buffers, and align trade partners.
    Is the simulation tailored to my specific project type?
    Yes. Scenarios can be customized to match your project.
    How do Takt Simulations improve trade partner coordination?
    They strengthen collaboration by making handoffs visible and predictable.
    What results can I expect from an onsite Takt Simulation?
    Improved schedule reliability, better trade collaboration, and reduced rework.
    How many people can join a Takt Simulation session?
    Group sizes are flexible, but typically 15–30 participants per session.

    Foreman & Field Engineer Training

    What is Foreman & Field Engineer Training?
    It’s an on-demand, practical program that equips foremen and engineers with leadership and planning skills.
    How does this training prepare emerging leaders?
    By teaching communication, crew management, and execution strategies.
    Is the training on-demand or scheduled?
    On-demand, tailored to your team’s timing and needs.
    What skills do foremen and engineers gain from this training?
    Planning, safety leadership, coordination, and communication.
    How does the training improve communication between field and office?
    It builds shared systems that align superintendents, engineers, and managers.
    Can the training be customized for my team’s needs?
    Yes. Programs are tailored for your project or company.
    What makes this program different from generic leadership courses?
    It’s construction-specific, field-tested, and focused on real project application.
    How do foremen and field engineers apply this training immediately?
    They can use new systems for planning, coordination, and daily crew management right away.
    Is the training suitable for small construction companies?
    Yes. Small and large teams alike benefit from building flow-based leadership skills.

    Testimonials

    Testimonials

    "The bootcamp I was apart of was amazing. Its was great while it was happening but also had a very profound long-term motivation that is still pushing me to do more, be more. It sounds a little strange to say that a construction bootcamp changed my life, but it has. It has opened my eyes to many possibilities on how a project can be successfully run. It’s also provided some very positive ideas on how people can and should be treated in construction.

    I am a hungry person by nature, so it doesn’t take a lot to get to participate. I loved the way it was not just about participating, it was also about doing it with conviction, passion, humility and if it wasn’t portrayed that way you had to do it again."

    "It's great to be a part of a company that has similar values to my own, especially regarding how we treat our trade partners. The idea of "you gotta make them feel worse to make them do better" has been preached at me for years. I struggled with this as you will not find a single psychology textbook stating these beliefs. In fact it is quite the opposite, and causing conflict is a recipe for disaster. I'm still honestly in shock I have found a company that has based its values on scientific facts based on human nature. That along with the Takt scheduling system makes everything even better. I am happy to be a part of a change that has been long overdue in our industry!"

    "Wicked team building, so valuable for the forehumans of the sub trades to know the how and why. Great tools and resources. Even though I am involved and use the tools every day, I feel like everything is fresh and at the forefront to use"

    "Jason and his team did an incredible job passing on the overall theory of what they do. After 3 days of running through the course I cannot see any holes in their concept. It works. it's proven to work and I am on board!"

    "Loved the pull planning, Takt planning, and logistic model planning. Well thought out and professional"

    "The Super/PM Boot Camp was an excellent experience that furthered my understanding of Lean Practices. The collaboration, group involvement, passion about real project site experiences, and POSITIVE ENERGY. There are no dull moments when you head into this training. Jason and Mr. Montero were always on point and available to help in the break outs sessions. Easily approachable to talk too during breaks and YES, it was fun. I recommend this training for any PM or Superintendent that wants to further their career."

    agenda

    Day 1

    Foundations & Macro Planning

    • Introduction to Takt Production System® principles
    • CPM vs TAKT comparison
    • Macro planning, zoning, and density analysis
    • Quantities and production rates
    • Hands-on application to participants’ projects with LeanTakt PM experts

    day2

    Norm Planning & Flow Optimization

    • Review and refinement of Day 1 work
    • Pull planning and sequence optimization
    • Work packaging for balanced flow
    • Project integration session with LeanTakt PM coaching

    day3

    Advanced Tools & Comparisons

    • Macro work packaging and example walkthrough
    • Calculator Norm for production optimization
    • Stacking comparison to avoid trade conflicts
    • Hands-on application to participants’ own schedules

    day4

    Buffers, Controls & Finalization

    • Review of Day 3 implementation
    • Buffer management strategies and placement
    • Takt control principles and steering methods
    • Project plan finalization with expert guidance

    day5

    Control Systems & Presentations

    • Takt steering, control systems, and real project examples
    • Participant project presentations with LeanTakt PM feedback
    • Wrap-up, feedback, and action planning for post-training implementation

    faq

    UNDERSTANDING THE TRAINING

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training by LeanTakt?
    It’s an expert-led online program designed to teach construction professionals how to implement Takt Planning to create flow, eliminate chaos, and align teams across the project lifecycle.
    Who should take the LeanTakt virtual training?
    This training is ideal for Superintendents, Project Managers, Engineers, Schedulers, Trade Partners, and Lean Champions looking to improve planning and execution.
    What topics are covered in the online Takt Production System® course?
    The course covers macro and micro Takt planning, zone creation, buffers, weekly updates, flow management, trade coordination, and integration with CPM tools.
    What makes LeanTakt’s virtual training different from other Lean construction courses?
    Unlike theory-based courses, this training is hands-on, practical, field-tested, and includes live coaching tailored to your actual projects.
    Do I get a certificate after completing the online training?
    Yes. Upon successful completion, participants receive a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion, which validates your knowledge and readiness to implement Takt.

    VALUE AND RESULTS

    What are the benefits of Takt Production System® training for my team?
    It helps teams eliminate bottlenecks, improve planning reliability, align trades, and reduce the chaos typically seen in traditional construction schedules.
    How much time and money can I save with Takt Planning?
    Many projects using Takt see 15–30% reductions in time and cost due to better coordination, fewer delays, and increased team accountability.
    What’s the ROI of virtual Takt training for construction teams?
    The ROI comes from faster project delivery, reduced rework, improved communication, and better resource utilization — often 10x the investment.
    Will this training reduce project delays or rework?
    Yes. By visualizing flow and aligning trades, Takt Planning reduces miscommunication and late handoffs — major causes of delay and rework.
    How soon can I expect to see results on my projects?
    Most teams report seeing improvement in coordination and productivity within the first 2–4 weeks of implementation.

    PLANNING AND SCHEDULING TOPICS

    What is Takt Planning and how is it used in construction?
    Takt Planning is a Lean scheduling method that creates flow by aligning work with time and space, using rhythm-based planning to coordinate teams and reduce waste.
    What’s the difference between macro and micro Takt plans?
    Macro Takt plans focus on the overall project flow and phase durations, while micro Takt plans break down detailed weekly tasks by zone and crew.
    Will I learn how to build a complete Takt plan from scratch?
    Yes. The training teaches you how to build both macro and micro Takt plans tailored to your project, including workflows, buffers, and sequencing.
    How do I update and maintain a Takt schedule each week?
    You’ll learn how to conduct weekly updates using lookaheads, trade feedback, zone progress, and digital tools to maintain schedule reliability.
    Can I integrate Takt Planning with CPM or Primavera P6?
    Yes. The training includes guidance on aligning Takt plans with CPM logic, showing how both systems can work together effectively.
    Will I have access to the instructors during the training?
    Yes. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, share challenges, and get real-time feedback from LeanTakt coaches.
    Can I ask questions specific to my current project?
    Absolutely. In fact, we encourage it — the training is designed to help you apply Takt to your active jobs.
    Is support available after the training ends?
    Yes. You can access follow-up support, coaching, and community forums to help reinforce implementation.
    Can your tools be customized to my project or team?
    Yes. We offer customizable templates and implementation options to fit different project types, teams, and tech stacks.
    When is the best time in a project lifecycle to take this training?
    Ideally before or during preconstruction, but teams have seen success implementing it mid-project as well.

    APPLICATION & TEAM ADOPTION

    What changes does my team need to adopt Takt Planning?
    Teams must shift from reactive scheduling to proactive, flow-based planning with clear commitments, reliable handoffs, and a visual management mindset.
    Do I need any prior Lean or scheduling experience?
    No prior Lean experience is required. The course is structured to take you from foundational principles to advanced application.
    How long does it take for teams to adapt to Takt Planning?
    Most teams adapt within 2–6 weeks, depending on project size and how fully the system is adopted across roles.
    Can this training work for smaller companies or projects?
    Absolutely. Takt is scalable and especially powerful for small teams seeking better structure and predictability.
    What role do trade partners play in using Takt successfully?
    Trade partners are key collaborators. They help shape realistic flow, manage buffers, and provide feedback during weekly updates.

    VIRTUAL FORMAT & ACCESSIBILITY

    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. The training is fully accessible online, making it ideal for distributed teams across regions or countries.
    Is this training available internationally?
    Yes. LeanTakt trains teams around the world and supports global implementations.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. All sessions are recorded and made available for later viewing through your training portal.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses?
    Yes. Teams can enroll together at discounted rates, and we offer licenses for enterprise rollouts.
    What technology or setup do I need to join the virtual training?
    A reliable internet connection, webcam, Miro, Spreadsheets, and access to Zoom.

    faq

    GENERAL FAQS

    What is the Superintendent / PM Boot Camp?
    It’s a hands-on leadership training for Superintendents and Project Managers in the construction industry focused on Lean systems, planning, and communication.
    Who is this Boot Camp for?
    Construction professionals including Superintendents, Project Managers, Field Engineers, and Foremen looking to improve planning, leadership, and project flow.
    What makes this construction boot camp different?
    Real-world project simulations, expert coaching, Lean principles, team-based learning, and post-camp support — all built for field leaders.
    Is this just a seminar or classroom training?
    No. It’s a hands-on, immersive experience. You’ll plan, simulate, collaborate, and get feedback — not sit through lectures.
    What is the focus of the training?
    Leadership, project planning, communication, Lean systems, and integrating office-field coordination.

    CURRICULUM & OUTCOMES

    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction, team health, communication systems, and more.
    What is Takt Planning and why is it taught?
    Takt is a Lean planning method that creates flow and removes chaos. It helps teams deliver projects on time with less stress.
    Will I learn how to lead field teams more effectively?
    Yes. This boot camp focuses on real leadership challenges and gives you systems and strategies to lead high-performing teams.
    Do you cover daily huddles and meeting systems?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    You’ll work through real project schedules, logistical constraints, leadership decisions, and field-office communication breakdowns.

    LOGISTICS & FORMAT

    Is the training in-person or virtual?
    It’s 100% in-person to maximize learning, feedback, and team-based interaction.
    How long is the Boot Camp?
    It runs for 5 full days.
    Where is the Boot Camp held?
    Locations vary — typically hosted in a professional training center or project setting. Contact us for the next available city/date.
    Do you offer follow-up coaching after the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Post-camp support is included so you can apply what you’ve learned on your projects.
    Can I ask questions about my actual project?
    Absolutely. That’s encouraged — bring your current challenges.

    PRICING & VALUE

    How much does the Boot Camp cost?
    $5,000 per person.
    Are there any group discounts?
    Yes — get 10% off when 4 or more people from the same company attend.
    What’s the ROI for sending my team?
    Better planning = fewer delays, smoother coordination, and higher team morale — all of which boost productivity and reduce costs.
    Will I see results immediately?
    Most participants apply what they’ve learned as soon as they return to the jobsite — especially with follow-up support.
    Can this replace other leadership training?
    In many cases, yes. This Boot Camp is tailored to construction professionals, unlike generic leadership seminars.

    SEO-BASED / HIGH-INTENT SEARCH QUESTIONS

    What is the best leadership training for construction Superintendents?
    Our Boot Camp offers real-world, field-focused leadership training tailored for construction leaders.
    What’s included in a Superintendent Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction systems, huddles, simulations, and more.
    Where can I find Lean construction training near me?
    Check our upcoming in-person sessions or request a private boot camp in your city.
    How can I improve field and office communication on a project?
    This Boot Camp teaches you tools and systems to connect field and office workflows seamlessly.
    Is there a training to help reduce chaos on construction sites?
    Yes — this program is built specifically to turn project chaos into flow through structured leadership.