Why Lean Must Be Written Into Construction Contracts

Posted on September 30, 2026September 30, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

What Happens When You Do Not Put Lean in Your Contracts

Here’s the deal. I hear this claim constantly. You do not have to pay for Lean, and you do not have to put it in the contract. I genuinely disagree, based on real experience, and I want to explain exactly why treating Lean as a free, unwritten expectation causes real, avoidable damage to trade partner relationships.

What Lean in Contracts Actually Means

Putting Lean in a contract is more specific than it might sound. It means answering concrete questions before a trade ever signs. Are foremen going to be interviewed before they are approved for the project? Are foremen or lead persons assigned by geographical area within the zones they will actually be working? Has the afternoon foreman huddle and the morning worker huddle actually been purchased and accounted for? Has the trade been told directly what is expected around safety, cleanliness, and the use of Takt planning? Whatever behavioral expectation you genuinely want from a trade partner has to be bought out explicitly, in writing, rather than assumed.

A Real Story That Proves the Cost Is Real

I once worked as a director at a construction company where we started implementing Lean principles specifically to help a genuinely skilled superintendent get a struggling project back on track. Several trades responded by sending multi-hundred-thousand-dollar change orders, directly tied to new requirements like foreman huddles and worker huddles that had never been part of their original contract.

None of those change orders ever actually got paid. The trades themselves eventually realized they were genuinely more productive working inside the new Lean structure than they had been before. But here is the honest problem. All of that contention, all of that friction, all of that time spent negotiating and calming down understandably upset trade partners, never needed to happen in the first place. It happened specifically because those expectations were never priced or written into the contract from the start. That is genuinely unfair to the trades, and it is completely avoidable.

Notice what actually resolved the situation. It was not a legal argument or a hard negotiating stance. It was the trades themselves discovering, after the fact, that the new structure genuinely made their own work better. That outcome is a lucky one, not a reliable strategy. A trade partner should not have to be talked down from a legitimate grievance before discovering that a change was actually in their own interest. They should have known that going in.

Lean Genuinely Costs Money, and That Is Not a Bad Thing

I want to be direct about something people get wrong constantly. Lean does cost money. Human beings changing how they typically operate costs money, every time, regardless of how beneficial that change ultimately is. Even in cases where Lean genuinely makes a company more money overall through improved productivity and flow, that implementation cost still has to be spent somewhere.

Pretending that cost does not exist does not make it disappear. It simply moves the bill to a later, less predictable point in the project, usually disguised as a dispute rather than a line item anyone actually planned for.

The real choice is not whether that cost exists. It is whether it comes out of pre-construction dollars, planned, budgeted, and contracted for in advance, or out of contingency, unplanned, reactive, and almost always more adversarial. Paying for Lean expectations up front, as part of a genuine negotiation, is a completely different experience for a trade partner than being asked to absorb an unplanned behavioral change mid-project with no warning and no prior agreement.

The Specific Consequences of Skipping This Step

If Lean provisions are missing from your master subcontract agreement, and your work authorization, work order, or contract does not explicitly state, or at minimum reference an exhibit describing, exactly what you expect, several specific consequences follow, and they are predictable rather than occasional.

Watch for these consequences directly tied to skipping Lean provisions in your contracts:

Trades genuinely surprised by expectations they were never told about in advance.
The wrong trades potentially selected in the first place, since you were never vetting for the right behaviors during the bidding and selection process.
Trades arriving without the mindset, plan, or preparation needed, since they had no reason to expect any of it going in.
Real friction and argument the moment you attempt to introduce these expectations after contracts are already signed.
Change orders submitted in response, requiring negotiation, relationship repair, or an unplanned payout you never budgeted for.

Why This Is Fundamentally a Fairness Issue

None of this is really about protecting a company’s own interests, even though it genuinely does. It is about doing the right thing for trade partners. Being clear, upfront, and explicit about exactly how a project will be run respects the people you are asking to commit real resources and real crews to that project. Springing new behavioral expectations on someone after they have already signed, with no prior agreement or compensation, is not a small administrative oversight. It is a genuine breach of the trust a contract is supposed to represent.

Addressing the Objection I Hear Most Often

I once heard someone argue that being genuinely clear about how a project will be run will scare trade partners off and drive prices higher. Maybe, since we are dealing with real human beings reacting to real information. That possibility does not change what the right thing to do actually is.

The honest answer to that concern is not vagueness. It is skill. Genuine negotiation ability, solid control estimates, and real competence in planning and pricing a project are what let you communicate clear expectations while still arriving at a fair, competitive price. Hiding expectations to avoid an uncomfortable conversation is not a pricing strategy. It is a decision to pay for that clarity later, through change orders and damaged trust, instead of paying for it up front through honest negotiation.

Building This Into Your Own Contracts

None of this requires a dramatic overhaul of how your organization writes contracts. It requires specifically naming the Lean and Takt expectations you genuinely intend to hold trade partners to, in the master subcontract agreement and again in the specific work authorization for each trade, so nothing about your project’s actual operating rhythm comes as a surprise once work begins.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your organization build these provisions directly into your contract templates, so Lean and Takt expectations are genuinely priced and agreed to up front, rather than introduced later as an unplanned, contentious change.

So here is the challenge. Pull your own current master subcontract agreement and work authorization templates and check honestly whether they actually name your Lean expectations, huddles, Takt planning, foreman interviews, geographic zone assignments, or whether those expectations exist only informally, assumed but never written down. If it is the latter, that gap is exactly where your next unnecessary change order or trade partner conflict is quietly waiting to happen.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “The consequences of not having lean behaviors in contracts greatly outweigh having them in there.” Write it down, price it fairly, and the friction that used to be inevitable becomes genuinely avoidable.

On we go.

FAQ

Why do trade partners sometimes submit change orders in response to new Lean requirements?

Because implementing behaviors like huddles, Takt planning, or specific staffing requirements requires trades to change how they typically operate, which genuinely costs them time and resources they did not originally budget for. If those expectations were never included in the original contract, trades have a legitimate basis to request additional compensation for accommodating a change introduced after the agreement was already signed.

Why does the article insist that Lean costs money even when it ultimately improves productivity?

Because the cost of changing established habits and workflows is real and immediate, even if the long term financial benefit of improved flow and productivity eventually outweighs it. The two are not mutually exclusive. Lean can genuinely make a project more profitable overall while still requiring a real, upfront investment in changing how people work, and that investment needs to be planned for rather than assumed away.

What is the practical difference between paying for Lean out of pre-construction dollars versus contingency?

Pre-construction dollars represent planned, budgeted spending negotiated as part of the original contract, generally producing a smoother, more collaborative relationship with trade partners. Contingency spending is unplanned and reactive, typically triggered by disputes or change orders after the fact, and tends to create more friction and less trust between the parties involved, even when the same underlying work ultimately gets done.

How can a company communicate clear Lean expectations without unintentionally driving trade partners away or increasing bid prices significantly?

By pairing clarity with genuine skill in negotiation, cost estimating, and project pricing, rather than avoiding clear communication out of fear that it will scare trades off. A well prepared team can present Lean expectations as a normal, priced-in part of the project rather than an unusual demand, which tends to produce a fair price rather than an inflated one, since the trade partner knows exactly what they are agreeing to from the start.

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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.

What Happens When Your Production Plan Is Missing?

Posted on September 30, 2026September 30, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

What Happens When Your Project Is Missing a Real Production Plan

Here’s the deal. A real production plan is not one document. It is a full cascade, a macro level Takt plan that sets genuine contractual milestones, a collaborative pull plan with the trades that gains real buffers through proper zoning and sequencing, a six week make ready look ahead, a weekly work plan, and a day plan. Miss any single link in that chain, and the consequences are specific and predictable, not vague or theoretical.

What Happens Without a Real Macro Level Takt Plan

If you skip a genuine macro level Takt plan and rely on a CPM schedule instead, you will not have proper milestones, and you will not have an accurate overall project duration. In most cases, that leads directly into a crash landing. The rare exceptions where a CPM schedule seems to work usually succeeded by accident, overshooting the original milestone through pure luck, while the team leaned much more heavily on genuine look ahead planning to build real flow in the field than on the CPM schedule itself. In other words, when CPM appears to work, it is typically despite the method, not because of it.

Why a Missing Pull Plan Is Genuinely Catastrophic

If you do not have a genuinely good pull plan, the honest first reaction should be real alarm. You should be devastated, because missing this piece means you will not have a proper sequence, you will not have a correct line of balance, and you will not gain the buffers a project actually needs. Nearly every known system constraint will negatively impact you, simply because those constraints were never observed, analyzed, or optimized in the first place.

This matters more than most teams realize, because when you trace the actual root cause of most constraints and roadblocks back to their origin, the answer is almost always the same three things. Improper pull planning. Improper look ahead planning. Skipped or shallow pre-construction meetings. Those three gaps account for the overwhelming majority of problems teams end up fighting reactively in the field.

That concentration of causes is actually good news once you see it clearly. It means a team does not need to chase down dozens of unrelated fixes to reduce the number of field level problems it faces. Strengthening these three specific processes, done consistently and well, addresses the majority of preventable issues before they ever have a chance to surface.

Watch for these signs your pull plan has left real constraints unaddressed:

Zone sizes and sequence decided quickly in the room rather than genuinely calculated and verified.
No documented check confirming every known constraint was actually analyzed before the pull plan concluded.
Buffers that exist on paper but were never actually gained through real zoning and sequencing work.

Why Buffers and Trade Flow Have to Be Visible, Not Assumed

A production plan without real buffers, without genuinely well articulated trade flow, and without a time by location format built around actual risk analysis leaves you without a visual basis for targeting excellence and productivity in the field. That absence is not a minor inconvenience. Without that visible foundation, you also lose the ability to run genuine six week look ahead planning or a real weekly work plan, since both depend entirely on having something solid and visible to plan against.

What Six Week Look Ahead Planning Actually Protects You From

The make ready look ahead, ideally run a full six weeks out, though a minimum of three weeks still has real value, exists specifically to identify, discuss, and solve roadblocks before they ever reach and impact the weekly work plan. Skip this step, and roadblocks that could have been cleared calmly, weeks in advance, instead surface as urgent, disruptive problems once the weekly work plan is already underway.

Why the Weekly Work Plan and Day Plan Cannot Be Skipped Either

Without a genuine weekly work plan, you lose committed handoffs and real buy-in from the trades. And without communicating a real day plan every single day, built in the afternoon foreman huddle and then communicated through the morning worker huddle, everyone on the project ends up moving in a different direction. That disorganization is genuinely more detrimental than low crew productivity or even having too few people on site. A team moving in the wrong direction together loses more than a smaller team moving correctly in the right one.

That comparison is worth sitting with for a moment. It is tempting to assume the biggest threat to a project is simply not enough labor or not enough speed. In practice, a fully staffed team without daily alignment often loses more real productivity to miscommunication and duplicated or wasted effort than a smaller team that genuinely knows, every single day, exactly what it is doing and why.

Why the Whole Cascade Has to Function Together

You genuinely need a complete production plan if you want a construction project to succeed. Not a single piece of it in isolation, but the full sequence, working together, to hit a target where everything that actually has to converge at the right moment, tools, materials, equipment, space, permissions, and everything else, actually does converge correctly.

That is the entire reason the Takt production system is built as a complete cascade rather than a collection of independent tools. Each level exists specifically to protect the level beneath it. The macro plan protects the milestone. The pull plan protects the sequence and the buffers. The look ahead protects the weekly work plan from roadblocks. The weekly work plan protects genuine trade commitment. And the day plan protects the simple, foundational fact that everyone on the project is actually moving in the same direction on any given day.

Skip a level in that chain and the levels below it lose the protection they were depending on. A weekly work plan built without a genuine look ahead behind it is only as strong as whatever roadblocks happened not to surface that particular week, which is not a plan. It is luck wearing a plan’s clothing.

Building the Complete Cascade Into Your Own Project

None of this works if a team implements one or two pieces and assumes the rest will simply take care of themselves. A genuinely functioning production plan requires the entire chain, from the macro Takt plan all the way down to the day plan, built and maintained together.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build this complete production plan cascade, rather than implementing a single piece of it and discovering the gaps only once real problems have already surfaced in the field.

So here is the challenge. Walk through your own current project and check each link in this chain honestly. Do you have a genuine macro level Takt plan with a calculated milestone? A pull plan where every known constraint was actually analyzed and optimized? A real six week look ahead surfacing roadblocks in advance? A weekly work plan with genuine trade commitment? A day plan communicated fresh every single day? Wherever that chain breaks, that is exactly where your project’s next preventable problem is quietly forming.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “If you don’t have a good pull plan, you should be devastated.” Treat every link in this cascade with that same seriousness, and the problems that used to feel unavoidable start disappearing before they ever reach the field.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does a CPM schedule that seems to work well often succeed for reasons other than the method itself?

Because in cases where a CPM schedule appears successful, the team typically overshot the original milestone somewhat by chance, while relying much more heavily on genuine look ahead planning and real field level coordination to actually build flow. The CPM structure itself was rarely the reason for success. The team’s own disciplined planning around it usually was.

What are the three most common root causes behind constraints and roadblocks on a project?

Improper pull planning, improper look ahead planning, and skipped or shallow pre-construction meetings. Tracing most field level problems back to their origin consistently points to one of these three gaps, which is exactly why strengthening these specific processes tends to produce the largest reduction in downstream problems.

Why is a missing day plan considered more detrimental than low crew productivity?

Because a day plan communicated consistently every day is what keeps every person on the project moving in the same coordinated direction. Without it, individual crews may still work hard and productively, but their efforts are not aligned with each other, which creates a kind of organizational disorder that a smaller, well coordinated team can actually outperform.

Why does a six week look ahead matter more than reacting to roadblocks as they appear during the weekly work plan?

Because identifying, discussing, and solving a roadblock weeks before it would actually impact work gives a team time to resolve it calmly and cheaply, often with a simple conversation or a minor adjustment. The same roadblock discovered only once the weekly work plan is already underway becomes an urgent disruption, typically costing far more time and creating far more stress than it would have if it had been caught earlier.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Our Pull Planning Kit

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

What a Genuinely Well Designed Pull Planning Kit Actually Needs

Here’s the deal. Most of the industry still teaches pull planning based on a CPM milestone, which is genuinely difficult to get right, and typically teaches pulling one large batched area at once. Neither of those approaches actually works. A real pull plan needs to be built off a Takt milestone, broken into genuine zones, pulled one zone at a time, and cascaded down through the rest. When we set out to build a physical kit to support this process properly, that distinction shaped every single component inside it.

Why the Foundation Has to Be a Takt Milestone, Not a CPM One

A pull plan tied to a Takt milestone gives you something a CPM based pull plan structurally cannot, a genuine calculation behind the number rather than an aggressive guess. Every zone gets pulled individually and then cascades to the next, rather than the entire area getting planned as one undifferentiated batch. On top of that, the Takt calculator and Eliyahu Goldratt’s theory of constraints get applied directly during the process, so known bottlenecks get optimized before the plan is ever finalized, not discovered later once trades are already in the field.

Gathering the Right Information Before the Room Ever Fills Up

A guide called Pull Planning for Builders anchors the whole kit, walking a facilitator through the entire process step by step, in a highly visual format. It has been tested directly with our own team of seventy five people who work with clients constantly, and updated based on that real world feedback, so it reflects what actually works in practice rather than theory alone.

Before the actual pull plan session happens, a homework process gathers real information from the trades in advance, ideally three to four months ahead of when a phase actually starts. A specific template, built around the idea of a repeatable unit of work moving zone to zone, helps trade partners document their fastest, median, and slowest realistic speeds, along with anything relevant to Takt time and transitions between zones. That information removes surprises before the actual pull plan session begins, and trades can go even further, detailing duration, crew size, and specific needs for each activity ahead of time, so they walk into the room already prepared to put up an accurate sticky rather than guessing in real time.

Watch for these signs a pull plan is being run without this kind of preparation behind it:

Trade partners arriving at the session with no prior homework on realistic durations or crew sizes
Zone sizing decided in the room for the first time rather than calculated ahead of time
No structured process for gathering trade input months in advance of a phase actually starting

Why the Stickies Themselves Matter More Than People Expect

Every custom sticky in the kit includes space for the activity name, duration, crew size, and a section labeled need, repeated several times. Those needs are what actually make a pull plan a pull plan, since working backward from a milestone means constantly asking what has to happen before this can happen, and a checkbox on each sticky confirms that question has genuinely been answered as the backward path gets built out.

Milestones themselves get a distinct visual treatment too, a black sticky tilted diagonally so it stands out clearly from the surrounding activities on the wall. Small details like paint markers for those milestone stickies, dry erase markers, a generous supply of sharpies, and enough pins to actually hold everything up matter more than they sound like they should, because a facilitator fumbling for supplies mid-session loses momentum that is hard to get back. Even something as small as the name tag style came from real feedback gathered during bootcamps, since clip style tags held up far better than sticker tags that fall off or lanyards that create their own safety concerns.

The Board That Actually Prevents Downstream Problems

Two boards matter more than the rest. The alignment board starts every pull plan with the team’s conditions of satisfaction and shared rules, then tracks hot items and next steps as the session progresses, all on a dry erase surface mounted directly on the wall.

The constraint board is where the real value sits. Every known constraint genuinely needs to be optimized by the time a pull plan is finished, meaning the wrong number of zones, misshapen zones, missing resources, insufficient phase preparation, or an incorrect Takt time all get addressed before anyone leaves the room. None of that should ever become a problem the foremen and workers in the field have to absorb later. The system itself should be designed correctly up front specifically so it does not negatively affect them. As a facilitator running the session, the honest questions are straightforward. Do I have the right number of zones? Are they properly shaped? Is the Takt time correct? Is the sequence right? Are all the necessary resources actually accounted for? A magnetized board lets a facilitator place magnets directly on top of a sheet to visually flag exactly where a problem is sitting, which keeps the entire constraint check genuinely visual rather than buried in notes nobody references again.

Physical Boards Built to Scale With the Project

Beyond the alignment and constraint boards, dedicated Takt planning boards let stickies build out an actual sequence, with room to add a second row if a phase genuinely needs it, then move into the next Takt time, and the next, expanding as far as the project actually requires. Optional grommets let boards hang directly and have their stickies rearranged easily as the plan evolves. None of this is meant to be a one time use item. It is built to populate an entire wall and stay there as a living reference throughout the phase it represents.

Why Software Still Matters Alongside the Physical Kit

For teams that want this same information captured digitally, tied into a full project schedule, and automatically exported into a compliant CPM format for contractual reporting, a dedicated InTakt booklet comes included in every kit as well, fully updated and current. The physical kit and the software are meant to work together, not compete, since some teams genuinely need both a tactile, in person planning session and a digital record that satisfies contractual requirements afterward.

Why This Level of Detail Genuinely Matters

Based on what we have tracked directly, roughly sixty five percent of all known problems on a project site trace back to a pull plan that was not actually done properly. That is not a minor inefficiency. It is the single largest, most preventable source of downstream project problems we have identified, which is exactly why a physical kit built specifically to get this one process right carries so much leverage.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams run genuinely complete pull plans, using either this physical kit, the accompanying software, or both together, so constraints get optimized before trades ever reach the field rather than discovered once real money and schedule are already on the line.

So here is the challenge. Before your next pull plan, check whether your process genuinely gathers trade information months in advance, breaks work into properly calculated zones, and includes a real constraint check before anyone leaves the room. If any of those three pieces is missing, that is exactly where your next round of preventable field problems is most likely already forming.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “Pull planning done right is one of the most important things you can do.” Build the process, and the physical tools that support it, with that level of seriousness in mind.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does the kit emphasize gathering trade information months before a phase actually starts?

Because collecting realistic duration, crew size, and Takt time information well in advance removes surprises before the actual pull plan session happens, letting the team walk in already informed rather than guessing in real time. That preparation window, ideally three to four months ahead, gives trades genuine time to think through their realistic pace rather than estimating under pressure during the session itself.

What makes the constraint board different from a general notes page during a pull plan?

The constraint board specifically checks a defined list of known issues, zone count, zone shape, Takt time, sequence, and resource availability, ensuring each one gets addressed and optimized before the pull plan is considered finished. Using magnets to visually flag problem areas directly on the sheet keeps this check genuinely visual and active, rather than becoming a list of notes nobody references again after the meeting ends.

Why does the kit include both a physical planning system and a digital software booklet?

Because different teams have different needs, and some genuinely benefit from a tactile, in person planning session using physical stickies and boards, while others need that same information captured digitally and exported into a contractually compliant schedule format. Including both lets a team use the physical kit for the collaborative planning process itself while still satisfying digital reporting requirements afterward.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Labor Productivity: How Superintendents Control Costs Through Flow?

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 16 min

How Superintendents Actually Control Labor Cost Through Flow

Here’s the deal. The typical approach to controlling labor productivity cost focuses on production units tracked daily, allocated time per linear foot or square foot, and digging deep into cost codes. All of that financial tracking has its place. None of it is actually the real lever that controls cost. The real lever is readiness.

The Sign I Am Putting on the Wall

I have shifted my own thinking enough on this that I am putting a sign directly on the conference room wall at our next project. It says, I will not tomorrow panic. I will not tomorrow absorb variation. I will not tomorrow respond to non-safety emergencies. Whatever you need from me, get it from me today. We are not starting tomorrow until we are ready to finish it today.

Planning the day before is the actual key to everything. Not motivation. Not pushing harder. Planning, done completely, the day before work begins.

The Only Question That Actually Matters

For every single crew, the real question is simple. Do they have full kit? Materials, tools, equipment, people, permissions, layout, space, and everything else they genuinely need to complete their work. That question, asked honestly and answered completely, controls cost more directly than any financial tracking system ever will.

If you genuinely want better cost control for labor productivity, here is what that actually requires in practice. The space has to be clear. The layout has to be ready. It has to be crystal clear exactly what the crew is installing, through an installation work package, a checklist, or a visual work board feature that leaves no ambiguity. Materials need to be pre-kitted the day before, staged specifically for that area so the crew can walk in and start immediately. Expectations need to be genuinely clear, communicated through a real morning worker huddle. Materials need to have already been inspected. And the path needs to be genuinely roadblock free.

Watch for these signs a crew’s readiness has not actually been verified, regardless of what the schedule says:

Materials staged generally on site but not specifically pre-kitted for the exact area a crew will work in tomorrow
Installation expectations communicated verbally in passing rather than through a clear visual work package
A crew arriving at their zone and discovering the space is not actually clear or ready

Think of it the way you would think about assembling a piece of furniture that ships with everything included and clear instructions. That is genuinely what every crew’s readiness should be built around.

Nobody opens that kind of box and finds half the hardware missing or a single confusing diagram standing in for real instructions. Everything is accounted for before the box ever leaves the warehouse. A crew arriving at their zone should have that exact same experience, everything they need already accounted for, nothing left for them to discover was missing only after they have already started.

Why the Daily Question Has to Change

Most jobsites default to a version of, hey, are you doing good, hurry up, hurry up. That is a reactive question, and it treats speed as the thing worth checking on. The actual question that controls cost is different. Do you have full kit for the next day? That single shift, from checking on speed to verifying readiness, is where genuine cost control on labor productivity actually happens.

Asking about speed puts pressure on the crew to move faster inside whatever conditions they were handed, ready or not. Asking about readiness puts the responsibility on leadership to make sure those conditions were actually set up correctly in advance. Only one of those questions can genuinely be answered by the people responsible for planning, and it is not the one about speed.

A Concrete Example Worth Remembering

Here is where I have pushed this thinking further than most people take it. Picture a typical approach to safety logistics. A team realizes they need fire extinguishers, so they scramble to bring in a safety kit. That is reactive, and reactive is expensive.

The better question is why the fire extinguisher stands are not already waiting there before the building even needs them. Why is the safety kit not already staged and waiting? Why is the cool down station not already positioned next to the building before anyone asks for it? Why is all of the necessary signage not already packaged and ready to go? Full kit applies to logistics just as much as it applies to installation materials. If you genuinely want self-performing trades to make money, every single crew needs to be logistically ready, completely, the day before they actually start.

Why This Actually Controls Cost Better Than Financial Tracking Alone

None of this means production units, cost codes, and daily tracking are worthless. They tell you what already happened. Readiness is what determines what happens next. A crew with genuine full kit works efficiently because nothing is standing in their way. A crew without it burns labor hours hunting for materials, waiting on layout, or improvising around a roadblock nobody removed in advance, and no amount of after the fact cost code analysis recovers that lost time.

Think about what a cost report actually shows you in that second scenario. It shows a productivity number that came in low, sometimes long after the day is already over. It does not show you the missing pre-kit that caused it, or the layout conflict that ate an hour before anyone even noticed. Readiness checks catch that gap while it can still be fixed. A cost report only ever documents it after the money is already gone.

Controlling labor cost through flow means the cost control actually happens the day before, in the planning and staging, rather than the day of, through pressure and monitoring. By the time a crew is standing in their zone, the real cost control opportunity has already passed, for better or worse, based on how completely that readiness question was answered the previous day.

This applies just as directly whether you are self-performing the work or enabling a trade partner to do it. The specific labor may sit outside your own payroll in one case and inside it in the other, but the underlying lever is identical either way. Readiness the day before determines productivity the day of, regardless of whose crew is actually standing in the zone.

Building This Discipline Into Your Own Project

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build the genuine full kit verification process described here, checking every crew’s readiness completely the day before, rather than relying on financial tracking alone to catch cost problems after they have already happened.

So here is the challenge. Tomorrow, before your crews start, walk through the full kit question for every single one. Space clear. Layout ready. Materials pre-kitted. Expectations communicated. Roadblocks removed. If any answer comes back uncertain, that gap is exactly where tomorrow’s labor cost overrun is quietly forming right now, while there is still time to fix it.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “It’s not are you doing good, hurry up. It’s do you have full kit for the next day?” Ask that question completely, every single day, and watch what happens to your actual labor cost.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does the article argue that readiness controls labor cost more effectively than financial tracking?

Because production units, cost codes, and daily tracking report on what already happened, while readiness determines what actually happens the next day before it occurs. A crew with genuine full kit works efficiently by default, while a crew missing materials, layout, or clear instructions loses labor hours that no amount of after the fact cost analysis can recover.

What does “full kit” specifically include beyond just having the right materials on site?

Full kit covers materials, tools, equipment, people, permissions, layout, and space, all verified and ready specifically for the exact area a crew will work in. It also includes clear installation expectations communicated through a real work package or visual board, materials that have already been inspected, and a path genuinely free of roadblocks before the crew ever arrives.

Why does the article use fire extinguishers and safety kits as an example of proactive versus reactive logistics?

Because it illustrates how easily an organization defaults to reacting to a need in the moment rather than staging it in advance. Waiting until a fire extinguisher is needed to bring one in reflects the same reactive pattern that shows up with installation materials, while staging it, along with safety kits, cool down stations, and signage, before it is needed reflects genuine full kit thinking applied to logistics rather than just materials.

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The 47 Things Before Work Starts

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

The 47 Things: Why Before-Phase Planning Matters More Than the Phase Itself

Here’s the deal. Working through how to keep everyone genuinely on track on our own Aviator project, I landed on something that changed how I think about project delivery entirely. The preparation that happens before any activity starts is more important than actually standing there supervising the work once it begins.

Poorly run project delivery teams hand a trade a contract, tell them to go ahead and start, and then spend their time walking around watching. Genuinely great project delivery team leaders understand something different. There are roughly forty seven distinct things that have to happen, done well and done on time, before any single work package can actually begin.

Visualizing Where the Real Work Actually Sits

Here is the exercise that made this concept click for me. Take a construction schedule and isolate every first activity, every independent wagon, everything with a work package that has to be prepared in advance. Line those starting activities up on a diagonal, running from the top left down to the bottom right of your production plan. Now look at what sits in front of each one of those starting points, further to the left on the timeline. That is where you find roughly forty seven preparation activities that genuinely have to happen before that work package can begin.

Do this across an entire project and you end up staring at an enormous page covered in stickies. Each one represents a real piece of preparation work, and each one requires a genuine level of effort to complete. Here is where it gets difficult. Every human on your project delivery team only has a certain amount of capacity to actually do that preparation work, and that capacity has to account for PTO, doctor’s appointments, ordinary distractions, and everything else that eats into a normal week.

Why Projects Actually Fall Behind

Once you see it laid out this way, the real problem in construction becomes obvious. We are not starting these preparation activities soon enough. They need to move further to the left on the timeline, meaning they need to begin earlier, and most project teams simply are not doing that.

Watch for these signs your project is not moving preparation activities far enough ahead of when they are actually needed:

Work packages arriving at their start date with prep activities still incomplete or barely underway.
No visible tracking of preparation work separate from the visible construction schedule itself.
Project delivery team members consistently overloaded right before a phase begins, rather than steadily working ahead of it.

Why the Back Third of Almost Every Project Suffers

Here is where this connects directly to something worth understanding about the human brain. At roughly the two thirds point of a typical project, CPM schedules already start hurting teams structurally, since that is usually where borrowed schedule slack finally runs out. On top of that structural problem sits a genuinely human one. The human brain is de-incentivized to do pre-planning and incentivized instead to fight fires. Firefighting feels urgent and rewarding in the moment. Quiet, unglamorous preparation work does not carry that same emotional pull, even though it matters just as much, if not more.

So exactly when a project needs more disciplined pre-planning, people naturally do less of it, because their attention gets pulled toward whatever fire is burning loudest right now. The final third of a project ends up suffering directly because of that missing before-phase planning, compounding on top of whatever schedule pressure was already building.

What We Actually Built to Fix This

On the Aviator project, I broke this preparation work into distinct categories. Supply chain. Contracting. Training. Pull plan preparation. Work packaging. Then I built a series of gates a project delivery team has to pass through, in sequence, before moving forward.

The first gate is the pre-mobilization meeting, and I want to personally be present in that meeting. The next gate sits before the pull plan itself, where I check that the team has genuinely completed all the necessary preparation activities leading up to it. Another gate sits before the pre-construction meeting for each trade. Moving from left to right across the project, each gate has its own checklist, and the exact count is not fixed at forty seven for every single situation. Sometimes it is thirty five. Sometimes closer to fifty. What matters is capturing every genuine preparation activity and looping it into the relevant gate, rather than letting any of it slip through unnoticed.

When I walk into a pre-mobilization meeting, I can check directly with the project delivery team. Are these specific things actually done? If yes, we move forward, and the next set of items becomes their active to-do list. When we reach the pre-construction meeting gate, I check the same way. Are these things ready? The gates move the team forward deliberately, one verified step at a time, rather than assuming preparation happened simply because the calendar says it should have.

Making This Genuinely Trackable, Not Just Theoretical

None of this works as an idea alone. It needs a real system behind it. We built templated checklists for every gate inside a project management tool, in our case ClickUp, so a team member entering a new phase has an actual template to work from rather than a vague understanding of what needs to happen.

Between gates, team members plan their own work using Fibonacci numbers through a Scrum style approach, which helps genuinely manage their available capacity rather than simply hoping everything fits. Our Takt software carries the same gates and timelines built directly into the production plan, so the entire system, software and checklist templates together, keeps everyone moving forward deliberately instead of discovering a gap only once it becomes urgent.

Why This Deserves Real Attention From Project Management Software Broadly

The honest takeaway here goes beyond one project. Most project management software tracks the visible scheduled activities well. Very little of it genuinely tracks the forty seven things sitting in front of each one, the real preparation work that determines whether that visible activity can actually start on time. We need project delivery systems built specifically to track and manage that preparation work, while genuinely accounting for the real human capacity available to complete it.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build exactly this kind of gate based preparation system, tracking the real work sitting ahead of every activity rather than only watching the schedule once work has already started.

So here is the challenge. Pick one upcoming phase on your current project and count the actual preparation activities sitting in front of it. Do not stop until you have genuinely captured all of them, however many that turns out to be. Then check honestly whether each one has already been started, or whether it is still sitting further to the right on the timeline than it should be.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “Before-phase planning is more important than actually the phase.” Build your systems around that truth, and the back third of your project stops absorbing the consequences of what never got prepared early enough.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does the exact number of preparation activities vary between thirty five and fifty rather than always being forty seven?

Because the real number of preparation activities depends on the specific work package, trade, and phase involved, and no single count applies universally across every situation. The number forty seven functions as a useful shorthand for the concept, a genuinely large volume of prerequisite work sitting ahead of any visible schedule activity, rather than a precise figure meant to apply identically everywhere.

Why does the human brain resist proactive pre-planning even when it clearly matters?

Because firefighting an active, visible problem feels urgent and rewarding in the moment, while quiet preparation work for something that has not gone wrong yet does not carry that same emotional pull. That mismatch means people naturally drift toward reactive work under pressure, even during the exact stretch of a project where disciplined pre-planning matters most.

How do gates actually prevent a project from falling behind on preparation work?

Gates create a specific checkpoint before a team can move forward into the next phase, forcing an honest verification that the required preparation activities are genuinely complete rather than assumed to be done. That verification catches gaps while there is still time to close them, instead of discovering a missing piece of preparation only once the phase it supports has already begun.

Why does human capacity need to be factored into a preparation tracking system rather than just listing the tasks themselves?

Because a list of preparation tasks alone does not account for the real, limited time each team member actually has available once PTO, appointments, and normal distractions are factored in. A system that ignores capacity can produce a checklist that looks complete on paper while quietly overloading the people responsible for actually completing it, which defeats the purpose of tracking preparation in the first place.

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Lazy and Entitled Behavior Does Not Get to Use Lean Principles

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

Lazy and Entitled Behavior Does Not Get to Hide Behind Good Principles

Here’s the deal. I teach principles like we do not start until we are ready to finish, real buffers, taking care of people, and team balance because they genuinely respect the people doing the work. I have also watched these exact principles get twisted into excuses for laziness and entitlement, and I want to name that pattern directly, because it damages the very people these principles were built to protect.

When “Ready to Finish” Gets Weaponized

Here is a real example. I once worked with someone for six to eight months on preparation for a delivery, and they simply did not do the necessary preparation on time. I do not think that was pure laziness or entitlement, honestly. It may have just been a genuine disconnect in how their brain tracked the timeline. But when the actual delivery date arrived and I pushed to get things moving, the response was, Jason, you said we do not start until we are ready to finish.

No. That principle was never meant to protect someone who had six to eight months and simply did not use that time well. Being genuinely particular and disciplined about readiness is exactly the right instinct before a deadline, while there is still time to prepare properly. It becomes something entirely different when it gets pulled out after the fact, as a shield for having not done the work in the first place. That is not disciplined readiness. That is an excuse dressed up in the language of discipline.

I want to be fair here too. Not everyone who invokes a principle this way is being deliberately manipulative. Sometimes it genuinely is a disconnect, someone who did not track the timeline well and reaches for the nearest available justification once confronted. The intent matters less than the pattern, though, because either way, the actual deadline still needs to be met, and the team still needs an honest accounting of what happened rather than a principle used to avoid that conversation.

When “Taking Care of People” Gets Twisted Into Entitlement

Here is another version of the same problem. Taking care of people and respecting people gets stretched, by some, into an excuse for excessive unearned time off, chronic lateness, or calling in sick when someone is not actually sick. None of that is what taking care of people ever meant.

Taking care of people and respect for people was never a license to avoid hard work. It means we work hard specifically because we respect the foremen and workers who are genuinely putting in real effort in the field every single day. Twisting that principle into cover for entitled behavior does the opposite of respecting the people around you. It puts more weight on everyone else who is actually showing up and doing their part.

Watch for these signs a genuinely good principle is being misused as cover for poor performance:

A discipline focused principle invoked only after a deadline has already been missed, rather than during the preparation that was supposed to precede it.
A people-focused principle used to justify chronic absence or reduced effort rather than genuine care during real hard work.
Team balance treated as permission to reduce hours meaningfully below what the actual workload requires.

When Team Balance Becomes an Excuse Instead of a Genuine Standard

I have also watched team balance, a concept genuinely built to protect people from being overburdened, get reinterpreted into something like a right to banker’s hours, treating a normal, genuinely demanding workweek as somehow excessive. That misreads the entire point. Team balance exists to protect people from being asked to give more than the system can reasonably sustain. It was never meant to shrink genuine effort down to a fraction of what the actual work requires.

Principles for Hardworking People, Not an Escape Hatch

I once worked alongside a genuinely great colleague who used to joke that if he ever started his own construction company, he would call it Get Stuff Done Construction. I loved that name immediately, because it captures exactly what these principles are actually built for.

Stop, call, resolve. Taking care of people. Team balance. Respect for people. Stability and standardization. Stopping to get something right. Building in a real buffer at the end. We do not start until we are ready to finish. None of these are my personal invention. They are genuine Lean principles, and every single one of them exists specifically for hardworking people. They are not an excuse for someone to behave poorly or coast on someone else’s effort.

I genuinely resent watching this happen in practice. A buffer built in specifically so a crew can teach each other, improve each other’s skills, organize a zone properly, and finish an area with real quality gets misused instead as an excuse to disappear from the site entirely. Respect for people gets twisted into justification for irresponsible personal behavior that has nothing to do with genuine wellbeing. Team balance gets used as cover to abandon real responsibilities rather than protect against genuine overburden. None of that is what these principles were ever meant to support.

Each of those misuses shares the same underlying move. Take a principle built to protect people doing real work, and quietly redirect it to protect someone avoiding that work instead. The words stay the same. The actual meaning gets hollowed out entirely, and everyone else on the team ends up carrying the difference.

Lean Works for Get Stuff Done Construction

These principles exist so that hardworking people can do genuinely good work while being respected and taken care of along the way. They were never built to accommodate people unwilling to put in real effort. I will not support or advocate for behavior that treats hard work as optional while still expecting the benefits that hard work actually earns.

I hold a real, unapologetic standard here. Living without a genuine sense of purpose or mission, coasting through work while expecting the same respect owed to someone genuinely giving their effort, is not something I am willing to quietly accept. We are not building a culture around self-indulgence for its own sake. We are building a culture around genuinely giving value and adding real effort, and every principle I teach exists specifically to support people doing exactly that.

Building This Distinction Into Your Own Team

None of this requires abandoning care for people or genuine flexibility. It requires being precise about what these principles actually protect, and refusing to let them be reinterpreted into cover for behavior they were never meant to excuse.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams hold this exact distinction clearly, genuinely taking care of hardworking people while refusing to let entitled behavior hide behind principles built for something else entirely.

So here is the challenge. The next time someone invokes one of these principles to explain why they did not deliver, or why genuine effort was skipped, ask directly whether the principle is actually being honored or simply being used as cover after the fact. That question tends to reveal the difference immediately.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “Lazy and entitled behaving people do not get to latch onto my principles.” These principles exist for people genuinely putting in the work, and that distinction is worth holding firmly.

On we go.

FAQ

How can you tell the difference between genuinely holding a standard and using it as an excuse after the fact?

Look at the timing. Holding a genuine standard, like insisting on real readiness before starting, happens during the preparation window, while there is still time to actually do the work well. Using the same language as an excuse typically shows up only after a deadline has already been missed, invoked specifically to avoid accountability for time that was not used properly.

Why does the article insist that taking care of people never meant working less hard?

Because the actual purpose of taking care of people is protecting them from being overburdened or disrespected while doing genuinely demanding work, not eliminating the demanding work itself. Twisting that principle into justification for reduced effort or chronic absence shifts more burden onto teammates who are still showing up and working hard, which is the opposite of the respect the principle was meant to encourage.

What is the actual purpose of team balance, and how does it get misused?

Team balance exists to ensure a team is not asked to take on more than it can reasonably sustain, protecting against burnout and overwork. It gets misused when it is reinterpreted as justification for significantly reducing hours or effort below what the actual workload genuinely requires, treating a normal demanding workweek as excessive rather than addressing genuine overburden when it exists.

Why does the article distinguish between hardworking people and entitled behavior so sharply?

Because the principles being described, buffers, team balance, respect for people, and disciplined readiness, only function as intended when the people applying them are genuinely putting in real effort. Applied to someone unwilling to do the underlying work, these same principles get hollowed out into excuses, which damages trust and unfairly shifts additional burden onto teammates who are genuinely contributing.

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Meeting Time Limits Are Stupid

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

Lazy and Entitled Behavior Does Not Get to Hide Behind Good Principles

When “Ready to Finish” Gets Weaponized

When “Taking Care of People” Gets Twisted Into Entitlement

Watch for these signs a genuinely good principle is being misused as cover for poor performance:

A discipline focused principle invoked only after a deadline has already been missed, rather than during the preparation that was supposed to precede it.
A people-focused principle used to justify chronic absence or reduced effort rather than genuine care during real hard work.
Team balance treated as permission to reduce hours meaningfully below what the actual workload requires.

When Team Balance Becomes an Excuse Instead of a Genuine Standard

Principles for Hardworking People, Not an Escape Hatch

Lean Works for Get Stuff Done Construction

Building This Distinction Into Your Own Team

On we go.

FAQ

How can you tell the difference between genuinely holding a standard and using it as an excuse after the fact?

Why does the article insist that taking care of people never meant working less hard?

What is the actual purpose of team balance, and how does it get misused?

Why does the article distinguish between hardworking people and entitled behavior so sharply?

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If Lean Makes You Feel Justified, You Likely Didn’t Understand

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

If Lean Makes You Feel Justified, You Probably Did Not Understand It

Here’s the deal. I want to say this with real humility, because I genuinely do not know everything, and I respect anyone who disagrees with what follows. But here is something I have noticed repeatedly, and it is worth saying plainly. When someone studies Lean, visits Japan, or reads deeply into Takt planning and comes back feeling like it confirms everything they already believed, that is usually a sign they missed the actual point.

What a Real Study Trip Should Actually Teach You

Traveling to Japan with Paul Akers was genuinely one of the most important experiences of my life. What I saw there was remarkable enough that I came home and wrote an entire six book series trying to catalog it clearly for the construction industry, covering respect for people, nature, and resources, stability and standardization, one piece process flow, flowing together on Takt time and pull, total participation and visual systems, and quality with continuous improvement. Those books have genuinely resonated, to the point where an order for five hundred copies of just the stability and standardization book came in recently.

The trip taught me something true. It also revealed a pattern in how other people process the exact same kind of experience, and that pattern is worth examining honestly.

The Trap of Confirming What You Already Believed

I want to be careful here, because this observation can sound judgmental, and I genuinely do not mean it that way. People come back from a genuine Lean study experience and sometimes latch onto the strangest possible interpretations. Someone might miss the emphasis on cleanliness entirely and instead fixate obsessively on optimizing one narrow detail before ever actually implementing anything, insisting that is how the Japanese really do it.

Here is one I have heard often. Someone hears that Japanese companies make decisions slowly, and comes back convinced that leadership should deliberately slow down its own decision making, treating chronic indecision as somehow culturally validated. That is not what the principle actually means. It means building genuine consensus before bringing a decision into the room, not sitting in the room agonizing endlessly once it is there. Ohno’s own teaching on this is direct. First say yes, then figure it out, and stick with something until it is genuinely completed. Japanese car companies are not bottlenecked by decision fatigue or endless consensus building. They move with real speed once a direction is set.

Watch for these signs a Lean concept has been quietly bent to justify a pre-existing habit rather than genuinely understood:

A single narrow piece of Lean, like pull or cleanliness, obsessed over while the surrounding framework gets ignored entirely.
A principle interpreted in whatever direction happens to validate a behavior someone was already inclined toward.
Confidence that a concept has been fully grasped without ever checking it against the whole system it came from.

Why This Happens So Easily

Here is the honest mechanism behind this pattern. The human brain is genuinely skilled at retroactively justifying beliefs it already holds. If someone already struggles with indecision, a vague reference to slow Japanese decision making becomes exactly the confirmation their brain was looking for. If someone already wants to perfect something endlessly before shipping it, a misread concept about care and precision becomes permission to keep delaying. Ohno’s actual teaching runs the opposite direction. First establish it, and then perfect it later.

Without genuine field experience, real practice, and real money already invested in actually doing the work, a study trip or a deep dive into the material can accidentally magnify exactly what someone already wanted to believe, rather than correcting it. That is how genuinely well intentioned people end up wildly misinterpreting something they encountered directly.

This is not a criticism reserved for other people either. I try to hold myself to the same standard, since the same mental shortcut applies to anyone processing a new experience through an existing lens, myself included. The honest fix is not confidence that you avoided the trap. It is a habit of checking your own conclusions against the full framework every time, rather than assuming a comfortable interpretation is automatically the correct one.

The Specialist Trap

Here is a version of this trap that shows up constantly. Someone whose personal specialty is pull planning goes to Japan, comes back talking exclusively about pull, pull, pull, and barely mentions Takt, even though Takt is genuinely one of the very first things actually taught there. That person is not lying. They are seeing the whole system through the lens of the one piece they already loved before they arrived, and mistaking their own specialty for the complete picture.

The correct sequence matters here too. You first remove overburden, then address unevenness, then eliminate waste, in that order. Someone fixated on a single tool, whichever one happens to be their personal passion, is not actually seeing the whole picture, no matter how genuinely skilled they are at that one specific piece.

The Real Test Worth Applying

If you study Lean and immediately feel justified in whatever you were already doing, that feeling itself is the warning sign, not the confirmation. The real question worth asking is whether what you are doing actually respects people, and whether it genuinely fits within the full framework, rather than one convenient slice of it pulled out to support a conclusion you had already reached.

Here is a way to think about Lean that clarifies this. If Lean had a genuine mission statement, it would be to elevate humanity. If it had a stated purpose, every Lean system would be described as a seeing system, one that lets us see the inherent value of the people involved and the systems affecting them clearly. Its core values run through respect, stability, flow, Takt and pull, total participation and visual systems, and quality with continuous improvement. None of those values exist to make anyone feel comfortable with a habit they already had. They exist specifically to challenge and improve it.

Why This Matters Beyond a Single Study Trip

If Lean never feels hard, if it never feels contrary to something you already assumed, if it stops feeling fundamentally about people and starts feeling like justification for a shortcut you wanted to take anyway, that is exactly the moment to stop and dig deeper rather than move forward confidently.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams genuinely test their understanding of Lean and Takt against the full framework, rather than letting a single comfortable interpretation quietly stand in for the whole system.

So here is the challenge. Think honestly about a Lean or Takt concept you have applied recently, and ask whether it genuinely challenged something you were already doing, or whether it simply gave you permission to keep doing it. If the answer is the second one, that is exactly where real understanding still has room to grow.

Taiichi Ohno said it plainly: “First establish it, then perfect it later.” Get the whole system in place honestly first, before deciding you have already mastered it.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does the article suggest that feeling justified after learning Lean is actually a warning sign?

Because genuine Lean principles are usually more demanding than comfortable, challenging existing habits rather than confirming them. If a person walks away from studying Lean feeling entirely validated in whatever they were already doing, that often means they absorbed only the piece of the framework that happened to align with their existing beliefs, rather than genuinely engaging with the whole system.

Why does the article single out the misinterpretation of “slow decision making” as an example?

Because it illustrates how easily a real principle can get twisted into permission for an existing weakness. The actual idea is building consensus before bringing a decision into a room, which enables fast, decisive action once a direction is set. Misreading it as literal slow deliberation in the room itself turns a principle about speed and alignment into an excuse for chronic indecision.

Why does specializing narrowly in one Lean tool, like pull planning, create a distorted understanding of the whole system?

Because a person’s existing passion or specialty naturally shapes what they notice and remember from a broader learning experience, even when that specialty is only one part of a much larger framework. Focusing exclusively on pull while overlooking Takt, which is typically taught earlier and just as fundamentally, produces a genuinely skewed picture of the system, even though the person’s expertise in their specific area may be completely genuine.

What is the actual test the article proposes for checking whether someone has genuinely understood a Lean concept?

Ask whether the interpretation actually respects people and fits within the complete framework, rather than checking whether it simply feels comfortable or validating. A genuine understanding of Lean tends to challenge existing habits and require real change, while a distorted interpretation tends to conveniently justify whatever someone was already inclined to do.

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You Gotta Have Time for Quality

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

You Have to Have Time for Quality

Here’s the deal. Quality is not primarily a skill problem in most organizations. It is a time problem. You can have genuinely capable people who know exactly what quality work looks like, and still fail to deliver it consistently, because nobody actually carved out the time required to do it right.

Why Quality Matters at a National Level

Edwards Deming taught quality principles directly to Japanese manufacturers, and that emphasis is widely credited as a major driver behind the rise of Japanese, and later Korean and Chinese, manufacturing output and economic growth. Quality genuinely built GDP. In the United States, that same focus has quietly declined across much of manufacturing, even as newer growth areas like data centers get most of the attention. We cannot let that broader manufacturing quality focus keep slipping simply because a newer growth story is capturing everyone’s interest.

The Real Reason Quality Suffers

Here is the honest root cause behind most quality failures. We live inside a culture of push, push, push, rush, rush, rush, panic. Nobody set out to produce a lower quality product on purpose. The actual work simply never got the time it genuinely needed, because everything downstream of planning was compressed by that same rushing culture.

There is a distinction worth being precise about here. Driving hard and being genuinely aggressive during planning and pre-construction is a good thing. Overcommitting to preparation, front loading the difficult thinking before work begins, protecting time specifically so the field never has to rush later, all of that is exactly the right instinct. Pushing during actual execution in the field is the opposite. Starting too soon, over-committing to an unrealistic pace once real work is underway, and falling into what amounts to a commitment fallacy, believing haste will somehow make up for insufficient preparation, are all genuinely damaging. I try to be as aggressive as possible during planning specifically so that I never have to push once we are actually building.

What Genuinely Having Time for Quality Requires

Having time for quality is not a vague aspiration. It requires specific, deliberate structure. Real buffers built into individual activities. Real buffers built into Takt wagons. Real buffers at the end of phases. Real buffers at the overall project level. And a genuine willingness to stop, pull the andon, and pause long enough to inspect and verify that work is actually done the way it needs to be done, rather than pushing forward on the assumption that it probably is.

Watch for these signs your organization has stopped genuinely protecting time for quality:

Buffers treated as padding to be quietly absorbed rather than genuine protection for quality checks.
Inspections rushed or skipped under schedule pressure rather than treated as non-negotiable.
Planning compressed to free up more time for execution, rather than protected as the phase where real rigor belongs.

The Spiral That Starts with a Lack of Quality

Here is something I have noticed directly from real experience, and it explains why quality failures compound rather than staying contained. Excessive work in progress, meaning overproduction beyond what the system can actually absorb, usually starts with financial panic. That panic itself frequently traces back to a lack of quality in the first place, since customers simply buy less from a company whose product or work has started to disappoint them.

Once that financial pressure hits, the instinctive response is to overproduce to compensate, which increases work in progress, generates more waste, and accelerates the exact spiral described in earlier discussions about cutting expenses and focusing purely on efficiency. A lack of quality upsets customers directly, and it also pulls leadership attention away from genuine improvement and toward damage control, distracted trying to patch symptoms instead of addressing the actual root cause. That distraction alone damages a brand, on top of whatever the original quality failure already cost.

Notice how many separate points of damage trace back to that same single root cause. Fewer sales. Fewer people employed as revenue contracts. A production system straining under excess work in progress. Leadership distracted fighting symptoms instead of building. None of those are independent problems requiring independent fixes. They are downstream consequences of one upstream failure, which is exactly why protecting quality at the source is so much more effective than trying to manage each symptom separately as it appears.

Why Brand Damage from Quality Failures Rarely Fully Recovers

Here is the part that deserves real attention, because it explains why this issue matters so much more than a single missed deadline or a single unhappy customer. Damage to a brand’s reputation for quality tends to be extraordinarily difficult to reverse, even long after the underlying problem has genuinely been fixed.

Think about Kia as an example. The brand has genuinely improved its reliability and build quality significantly over the years. Ask most people what comes to mind first when they hear the name, and a lingering association with lower quality often still surfaces, well after that reputation stopped being an accurate reflection of the current product. That lag is exactly the risk every organization takes when it lets quality slip, even temporarily. The improvement can happen. The reputational damage frequently outlasts it by years.

Construction carries this same risk, even though the mechanism looks slightly different. A general contractor whose name becomes associated with rushed, low quality work does not simply lose the next bid on price alone. Owners and trade partners remember that reputation long after any single project team has genuinely improved its practices, which means protecting quality from the start is far cheaper than trying to out-market a damaged reputation later.

Why This Comes Back to Time, Every Single Time

All of this, the spiral, the brand damage, the customer frustration, traces back to the same root cause. Not enough time was carved out to actually do the work right the first time. Getting out of a rush, push, and panic culture requires a genuine willingness to stop, to protect real buffers, and to accept that pausing to get something right costs less in the long run than rushing forward and discovering the cost later, once a customer, or an entire market, has already noticed.

Building Real Time for Quality into Your Own Project

None of this happens automatically. It requires deliberately protecting planning time up front, building genuine buffers into every level of a schedule, and creating a culture where stopping to verify quality is treated as strength rather than as a delay to apologize for.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build the buffer structure and planning discipline that genuinely protects time for quality, rather than treating quality as something squeezed in only when the schedule happens to allow it.

So here is the challenge. Look at your own current project and identify one place where a buffer meant to protect quality has quietly become a source used to make up lost time instead. Restoring that protection, even in just one place, is exactly where genuine quality starts to hold again.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “You’ve got to have time for quality.” Protect that time deliberately, because the alternative costs far more than the time itself ever would have.

On we go.

FAQ

Why is aggressive planning considered good while aggressive pushing during execution is considered harmful?

Aggressive planning front loads the difficult thinking, research, and preparation before real work begins, specifically so that execution can proceed smoothly without needing to rush later. Aggressive pushing during execution instead tries to compensate for insufficient preparation with speed and pressure in the moment, which tends to sacrifice quality and increase the very problems that preparation was supposed to prevent.

How does excessive work in progress actually trace back to a lack of quality?

A lack of quality tends to reduce sales, which creates financial pressure. That pressure often triggers overproduction as an attempt to compensate, which increases work in progress beyond what the system can actually absorb efficiently, generating more waste and accelerating the same financial pressure that caused it in the first place, creating a self reinforcing spiral.

Why does brand damage from a quality failure tend to last longer than the actual quality problem itself?

Because customer perception often lags well behind actual improvement, meaning a brand can genuinely fix an underlying quality issue while public perception continues to reflect the old reputation for years afterward. That lag means the reputational cost of a quality failure frequently outlasts the practical cost of the failure itself, which is why protecting quality proactively matters more than most organizations initially assume.

What are the specific places a project should build in buffers to protect time for quality?

Buffers belong at multiple levels simultaneously: within individual activities, within Takt wagons, at the end of project phases, and at the overall project level. Treating these buffers as protected time for verification and inspection, rather than as flexible padding to be absorbed whenever schedule pressure increases, is what actually keeps genuine time for quality available when it is needed most.

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Climb With Your Feet: People, Quality, Process

Posted on September 29, 2026September 29, 2026 by va.jason.almas@gmail.com

Read 17 min

Why the Real Priority Order Is People, Quality, Process, Not People, Process, Quality

Here’s the deal. I have been teaching people, process, and quality as the core Lean priority order for a long time, borrowed directly from what I learned studying Japanese manufacturing culture. I recently caught myself getting the order wrong, and correcting it matters enough that I want to walk through exactly why.

Catching My Own Mistake

The framing I originally used was people first, process second, quality third. Sitting with that order honestly, I realized it does not actually reflect what matters most in practice. Process exists specifically to support quality. It is not equally important alongside it. If a team has to work a little less efficiently in the short term to protect a genuinely quality product, protecting that quality is worth the temporary inefficiency. Refining the process itself, once quality is genuinely secured, is exactly the kind of improvement work that comes later, once a team has clearly identified and is working on its actual bottleneck.

The correct order, in my view now, is people, quality, process. Take care of your people first. Deliver a genuinely quality product second. Refine the process behind it third, once the first two are solid.

Climbing With Your Feet

There is an image that captures this well, and it comes directly from rock climbing. Watch a genuinely skilled climber, the kind documented in the film Free Solo about an ascent of El Capitan, and you will notice something specific about their technique. Handwork matters, and footwork comes first. A climbing coach will tell you directly, climb with your feet, and make sure you have a genuine foothold before you commit any further weight to it.

Applied to how an organization actually builds itself, climbing with your feet means stabilizing your people practices first. That is exactly why books built around the idea of getting the right people in place before deciding what to do next, first who, then what, put the priorities in the correct order. Build a sustainable, scalable system starting with your people, and everything built on top of that foundation actually holds.

Two Footholds Before You Climb Any Further

Here is how that translates into a genuine operating sequence. The first foothold is people, taking real care of the humans doing the work. The second foothold is quality, meaning a genuinely frictionless product that people actually want to buy or work with. Only once both of those footholds are secure should a team start climbing with process and its ability to scale.

Watch for these signs an organization has skipped a foothold and is climbing on an unstable base:

Cost cutting or efficiency initiatives introduced before quality has genuinely been secured.
Process refinement discussed constantly while genuine care for the people doing the work gets treated as secondary.
A company’s public messaging about quality that does not match what customers or employees actually experience.

Why This Matters More Than a Slogan

There is a story I recall hearing about Steve Jobs observing that Japanese companies do not mention quality in their commercials, because quality is simply assumed, a given, built into the culture through the influence W. Edwards Deming had on Japanese manufacturing. Quality is not a marketing message there. It is the baseline expectation.

That distinction matters more than it might seem at first. A company that has to advertise its own quality is often signaling, whether it means to or not, that quality is not simply assumed by its own customers. The strongest possible position is one where quality never needs to be the pitch, because it has already been proven consistently enough that customers take it for granted.

That contrast becomes obvious the moment you look at how differently two real companies have handled this same principle.

What Happens When a Company Claims Quality Without Living It

I recently came across reporting suggesting that a well known fast food chain has faced real quality erosion after prioritizing cost cutting and efficiency over its own stated food standards, reportedly including a shift from fresh, whole leaf lettuce to a cheaper shredded version, smaller or lighter portions on certain menu items, thinner patties, and rising prices alongside declining value. The reporting also mentioned slower drive through times, inconsistent food preparation, and customer frustration tied to newer automated ordering technology.

I want to be honest that I have not independently verified every specific detail of that reporting myself, and I would encourage anyone interested to check the current facts directly rather than relying solely on my secondhand summary here. What I can say confidently is the underlying pattern, whether or not every detail above is precisely accurate in this particular case, is exactly what happens when a company’s actual practice drifts away from a quality message it still puts on its own signage. You cannot claim to produce a quality product and genuinely care about people while quietly cutting corners on both. Eventually the gap between the message and the reality becomes visible to everyone.

What Happens When a Company Actually Lives It

Compare that against a company whose slogan is built directly on a real operating practice rather than aspiration alone. One well known burger chain’s tagline about quality you can taste comes from a strict rule to use only fresh, never frozen ingredients. They keep only about two days of stock on hand for their products, and if it is not used within that window, it genuinely gets discarded rather than pushed out to customers past its freshness. I have seen this practice firsthand, and it reflects a company actually climbing with its feet, protecting quality even when it costs more to do so.

Why You Cannot Skip Straight to Process

None of this works if a team tries to jump straight to process optimization before genuinely securing the first two footholds. Focusing on cost cutting or efficiency prematurely, before people and quality are genuinely stable, is exactly how an organization loses its way, even while its marketing continues to say all the right things.

The theory of constraints reinforces this same order. Identify the actual bottleneck, and focus your energy there first, rather than optimizing a process broadly before you know where the real constraint sits. Refining process before quality is secured is optimizing in the wrong place, no matter how efficient it looks on paper in the short term.

Applying This to Your Own Organization

None of this requires a dramatic overhaul to start applying. It requires reordering the questions your team asks before making a decision. Is this genuinely good for our people. Will this deliver a frictionless, genuinely quality product. Only after both of those are answered honestly does the question of process efficiency belong in the conversation.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your teams build genuine stability around people and quality first, so process improvement actually strengthens a solid foundation instead of quietly papering over cracks in it.

So here is the challenge. Look at your own organization’s recent decisions and ask honestly which foothold, people or quality, got skipped in favor of a process or cost efficiency improvement made too early. That gap is exactly where your own climb has become unstable, whether or not it has become visible to your customers yet.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “We climb with our feet.” Secure your people and your quality first, and the process you build on top of that foundation will actually hold.

On we go.

FAQ

Why does process rank third rather than second in this corrected priority order?

Because process exists specifically to support and protect quality, rather than standing as an equally weighted priority alongside it. A team can tolerate some short term inefficiency in service of protecting genuine quality, but sacrificing quality in service of a more efficient process undermines the actual purpose process is supposed to serve in the first place.

How does the theory of constraints connect to prioritizing quality before process refinement?

The theory of constraints argues that improving anything other than the actual bottleneck rarely improves overall system performance. Refining process broadly before quality is genuinely secured risks optimizing parts of the system that were never the real constraint, while the genuine priority, protecting a quality product for the people who depend on it, goes unaddressed.

Why does the article compare two specific fast food companies to illustrate this principle?

Because the contrast between a company whose quality messaging has reportedly drifted from its actual practice and one whose slogan is built directly on a verifiable operating rule makes the underlying principle concrete rather than abstract. The specific claims about any individual company should be verified independently, but the broader pattern, that customers eventually notice when practice does not match messaging, holds regardless of the exact details in any single case.

What does “climbing with your feet” actually mean when applied to a real organization?

It means stabilizing genuine care for people and a real commitment to quality as the foundation before pursuing process efficiency or scaling. The metaphor comes directly from rock climbing, where a climber secures a solid foothold with their feet before committing further weight, rather than reaching upward with their hands before the foundation beneath them is actually stable.

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