Category: Uncategorized

Full Kit: Why You Must Have Everything Before You Start

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 18 min

Full Kit: Why You Must Have Everything Before You Start

Here’s the principle that changes everything: if I want to go do something and be successful, I really want to start with pre-kit or full kit before I start. Full kit means having everything you need materials, information, equipment, access, and resources before the crew mobilizes to the work. No chopping down trees. No making tools. No running back for supplies. Everything ready. Then execute.

Let me show you why this matters using a Minecraft example that illustrates the principle perfectly.

The Pain of Starting Without Full Kit

Let’s say that I’ve just spawned into this Minecraft world and I want to make a farm. Just a quick little farm, not a big deal. What would I have to do? Well, first of all, I’m thankful I’m in the daytime. Then I’m going to have to chop down some trees. Then I’m going to have to go ahead and make a crafting table. And then I’m going to have to make a pickaxe. Then go mining. And then get a bucket. And so on and so forth. And then I would go make what I needed to make, right?

I have to go through a number of steps. You see my point? You’re going to have to start preparing a lot of different things in order for you to be successful.

Here’s what happens when you start without full kit:

Step One: Chop Down Trees

You need wood. So you go find trees. You chop them down. You collect wood. That takes time. And you’re not working on the farm yet.

Step Two: Make a Crafting Table

You need a crafting table to make tools. So you convert wood into planks. You craft the table. That takes time. And you’re still not working on the farm yet.

Step Three: Make a Pickaxe

You need a pickaxe to mine stone. So you craft the pickaxe. That takes time. And you’re still not working on the farm yet.

Step Four: Go Mining

You need iron to make a bucket. So you go underground. You mine. You smelt ore. That takes time. And you’re still not working on the farm yet.

Step Five: Make a Bucket

You need a bucket to move water. So you craft the bucket. That takes time. And you’re still not working on the farm yet.

Finally: Build the Farm

Now you have everything. Now you can build the farm. But you’ve spent all this time preparing. And by the time you’re ready, it might be nighttime. And in Minecraft, nighttime brings monsters. Just like on a construction project, delays bring chaos.

This is starting without full kit. You spend all your time preparing. You context-switch constantly. You lose focus. And you’re vulnerable to delays and problems.

The Power of Starting With Full Kit

Okay, let’s look at a different example. Let’s say that you wanted to make that same farm, but you had an open space that was ready and you had a full kit, meaning you had all of the supplies that you needed to make it happen. How would that change the circumstances?

Well, first of all, when you go to do it, you have everything that you need, right? I got my bucket. I got my hoe. I’m ready to go. I got my seeds. I’m feeling good. I got dopamine. I’m ready. I see an example of what’s already been done. I know exactly how to do it.

So I go ahead and plop these things down for safety over here. And I’m ready to go. And I have my farm. It looks just like the first one because I had a map, an example. I had the space and I had full kit, everything that I needed to get this done.

Here’s what changes when you start with full kit:

You Have Everything You Need

Bucket. Hoe. Seeds. Water. Space. Map. Everything ready. No running back for supplies. No context switching. Just execute.

You Get Dopamine

When you have full kit, you feel good. You’re ready. You see the path forward. And that dopamine drives focus. You get that 20 to 40 minutes of deep work where you’re locked in and productive.

You Have an Example

You see what “done right” looks like. You have a map. You know exactly how to do it. No guessing. No figuring it out as you go. Clear execution.

You Avoid Nighttime (Delays)

When you have full kit, you execute fast. You finish before nighttime. In Minecraft, nighttime brings monsters. On construction projects, delays bring chaos, coordination failures, and rework. Full kit protects you from both.

Here are the benefits of full kit summarized:

  • You have everything you need no running back for supplies or tools
  • You get dopamine and focus that 20 to 40 minutes of deep work where you’re locked in
  • Preparation is fresh on your mind no context switching between preparing and executing
  • You avoid delays and chaos finish before “nighttime” hits and monsters show up
  • You find problems early if you can’t get full kit, you know before the crew mobilizes

Full kit means you start only when you’re ready to finish. That’s the principle.

What’s the Difference Between Starting With and Without Full Kit?

Now, you might say to yourself, well, what’s the difference between going ahead and chopping down a tree and making all those things versus having this full kit, this pre-kit before you start, you know, imagined by this chest?

Well, first of all, if you have problems getting any of these supplies, you’ll find out right away. Second of all, when you’re over here doing this, you’ll get that dopamine and that 20 to 40 minutes of focus, and you’ll be able to do it right.

The other thing is that when the preparation is fresh on your mind, you can actually go get those things before you now have context switching. The other thing is, and I think this is a neat little example, if I go too long here in the Minecraft world, it’s going to become nighttime and I’m going to have lots of bad things that hop in and hurt me in my world, just like on a real construction project.

Here’s the difference:

Without Full Kit:

  • You spend time preparing chopping trees, making tools, mining, crafting
  • You context-switch constantly from chopping to crafting to mining to building
  • You lose focus every switch breaks your dopamine-driven deep work
  • You’re vulnerable to delays by the time you’re ready, nighttime hits
  • You find problems late when you’re already committed and the crew is waiting

With Full Kit:

  • You execute immediately everything ready, just build
  • You maintain focus no context switching, just 20 to 40 minutes of deep work
  • Preparation is fresh you know where everything is and how it goes together
  • You finish before delays complete the work before nighttime (chaos) hits
  • You find problems early if you can’t get full kit, you know before mobilization

The difference is massive. Without full kit, you’re grinding. With full kit, you’re flowing. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Lesson for Construction

So the lesson here is if you’re going to go do something in construction or with a crew, always focus on full kit.

Here’s what full kit looks like on a construction project:

Materials: All materials for the work package in the zone delivered, inspected, and kitted

Information: Drawings, specs, RFI responses, submittals approved, and clear

Equipment: Tools, lifts, scaffolding, power, and access ready

Access: Pathways clear, previous work complete, inspections passed

Resources: Crew trained, oriented, and ready with the right crew composition

When all five are ready, you have full kit. The crew can start and finish without stopping. No context switching. No running back for supplies. No waiting. Just execute.

And here’s the critical part: if you can’t get full kit, you find out before the crew mobilizes. That’s when you fix it. Not when the crew is standing around waiting. Not when the schedule is slipping. Before mobilization.

Full kit is the difference between grinding and flowing. Between chaos and rhythm. Between delays and finishing on time.

A Challenge for Superintendents

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Before any crew mobilizes to any zone, verify full kit. Ask five questions:

  1. Do we have all materials delivered, inspected, and kitted?
  2. Do we have all information drawings, specs, RFI responses, submittals?
  3. Do we have all equipment tools, lifts, scaffolding, power, access?
  4. Do we have access pathways clear, previous work complete, inspections passed?
  5. Do we have the right crew trained, oriented, ready with right composition?

If the answer to any question is no, don’t start. Fix it first. Get full kit. Then execute.

As we say at Elevate, full kit means having everything you need before you start. No context switching, no delays, fresh preparation, and dopamine-driven focus. That’s how you flow.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is full kit?

Full kit means having everything you need before you start: materials, information, equipment, access, and resources. No running back for supplies. No context switching. Just execute.

Why does full kit create dopamine and focus?

Because when you have everything ready, you feel good. You see the path forward. That dopamine drives 20 to 40 minutes of deep work where you’re locked in and productive.

What happens if you start without full kit?

You context-switch constantly between preparing and executing. You lose focus. You’re vulnerable to delays. And by the time you’re ready, nighttime (chaos) hits. You find problems late when the crew is already committed.

How do you verify full kit before starting?

Ask five questions: materials ready? Information clear? Equipment available? Access open? Crew trained? If any answer is no, don’t start. Fix it first. Get full kit. Then execute.

What’s the difference between starting with and without full kit?

Without full kit, you’re grinding spending time preparing, context switching, losing focus, vulnerable to delays. With full kit, you’re flowing executing immediately, maintaining focus, finishing before chaos hits. The difference is massive.

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

How to Sequence Multifamily Projects for Flow (Fresh Eyes Meeting Strategy)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 23 min

How to Sequence Multifamily Projects for Flow (Fresh Eyes Meeting Strategy)

Here’s something that will transform how you approach multifamily sequencing: start with the clubhouse first, then the show suites, then move into production buildings. This allows finish crews to flow from the clubhouse into the show suites, establishing your quality standard and mockup before hitting production rhythm. And the way you validate this sequencing? Fresh eyes meetings where you bring in experienced builders to catch the golden unicorn tasks that don’t fall into standard schedules.

Let me walk you through how this works.

The Pain of Sequencing Without Flow

Starting out with the overall perspective, then we’ll dive into the details. In our production plan, we have the bidding and buyout. And it looks like that will all happen May 7th to like June 17th. This is deferred submittals. And then this is actually the trade partner preparation process. This is where we do pre-mobilization meeting, precon meetings, the like.

And then we have our site work, structure, exterior, and interiors. This just kind of gives you an overview. That way when I hop into the actual production plan, it will make sense. So I’m just going to slowly scroll down and say, you know, this is pretty normal. We have our permitting, trade partner preparation process, our submittals, deferred submittals, and then timelines.

And so I just want to come right on down here and just show you high level the overall strategy. We don’t have tothe sequences have been pretty well vetted. So strategy number one is start on the site. The idea would be to get to building one certified pad as fast as we can. Right now, we’re wanting to target with our trades to see if we can get there by July 17th and at least start on building pad one. And then basically what happens is building two, building three, building four would come online behind utilities.

Here’s the problem most teams face. They sequence based on what’s easiest for site logistics without thinking about flow. They put the show suites in the last building because it’s convenient. They don’t coordinate the clubhouse with production rhythm. And they don’t validate the sequence with fresh eyes before they commit. That creates coordination chaos, delays, and broken flow.

The Clubhouse-First Strategy for Flow

One thing that we’ve found is it tends to work out really well if you can get the community building in ahead of kind of everything else because it allows the finish crews to flow from the community building into the show suite and then they can complete the show suites while they’re completing the community building and then they go away for a while and then come back to do their regular production work.

So it doesn’t matter to me in any way, shape, or form whether it goes before or after really as long as the show suites are available early enough for leasing. The way that we’ve been able to solve that is just by doing the community building first. You could do it concurrently and probably get the same flow.

Yeah, I like what you’re saying. So you would basically be like they would come in clubhouse, they move right into the show suites wherever they end up being and then you hit everybody off on a nice rhythm and you run them through the buildings. And those show suites become your quality standard, your mockup essentially for everything moving forward. So it’s done, you know, arguably generally a month or two before they actually get to the main production piece.

Here’s why this works. When you do the clubhouse first:

Benefit One: Finish Crews Flow Naturally

Finish crews start in the clubhouse, move to show suites, establish rhythm and quality standards, then flow into production buildings. No stopping and starting. No breaking rhythm.

Benefit Two: Show Suites Become Your Mockup

The show suites establish your quality standard before production starts. Every trade sees what “done right” looks like. And you work out the kinks before hitting full production.

Benefit Three: Early Leasing Access

The leasing team operates out of the clubhouse. Show suites are ready for leasing while production continues. No delay in revenue generation.

Benefit Four: Site Work Coordination

While the clubhouse is going in, you’re doing all the underground deeps and shallows, sewers, water lines, power, all that. The clubhouse could be going in at that time. That gives you time to get all the utilities in, jamming with the fire hydrant thing. If you have any difficulty getting the fire hydrants in, there is a hydrant close to these two buildings. So it buys you more time for the wood framing.

The sequencing works. You access the clubhouse from one direction. That gives you time to get utilities in around the production buildings. And you maintain flow.

The Golden Unicorn Problem (Why Fresh Eyes Meetings Matter)

I just had a quick comment. I call them the rainbow unicorn tasks that are specific. So using our templated schedule, there’s a challenge of identifying those little bits of scope that don’t fall into the same routine in our schedule. But it sounds like you’ve addressed it because you touched base on the post-tensioning cables in the slabs. And that’s one of those activities that doesn’t typically fall into one of our buildings or one of our schedules.

So I just want to make sure that the precon team is identifying those golden unicorn or those rainbow unicorn items that don’t fall into a typical standard schedule and that they’re accounting for those. And it sounds like you guys have.

Yeah, but I’m writing it down. So we’ll do full drawing review and add details. Now, if you had made that comment a week before, you would have caught us that we need more detailing on the finished site work. And so we are going to look at those things. Just so you know, we’ve done a preliminary high-level get-us-out-of-trouble review. I’ll be doing a 30-minute drawing review every day for the next three months. And so we’ll do exactly what you’re saying.

Here’s what golden unicorns are:

  • Post-tensioning cables in slabs doesn’t fall into standard slab-on-grade schedules
  • Fire line coordination with building framing requires fire hydrants before framing starts
  • Elevator long lead seven though this project doesn’t have elevators, most do
  • Electrical distribution and switch gear shop drawings, utility coordination, long lead times
  • Finished site work details drainage, parking, surface treatments that aren’t in standard templates
  • Parking requirements for early building openings need surface parking ready when first building opens

These are the tasks that templated schedules miss. And fresh eyes meetings catch them before they become problems.

Here’s why fresh eyes meetings work:

  • Experienced builders who’ve done similar projects spot the golden unicorns immediately
  • They ask questions like “What about fire line coordination?” before you mobilize
  • They validate sequencing decisions before you commit resources
  • They catch schedule durations that don’t match reality (like slab-on-grade taking too long)
  • They share reference class data from other projects to validate timelines

Fresh eyes meetings are preventative problem-solving. You bring in people who’ve been there before. They spot the problems. You fix them before they cost time and money.

The Reference Class Forecasting Method

Here’s what we can do. This is actually cool and we’re going to walk the walk. We can do a reference class on the foundation. Reference class forecast. This is exactly why we’re here. If it ends up being this duration, then we know we’re accurate.

Here’s how reference class forecasting works:

Step One: Identify the Task with Uncertain Duration

In this case, slab-on-grade with post-tensioning. The schedule shows about two months. That feels long. But we’re not sure because we haven’t done post-tensioned slabs before.

Step Two: Gather Data from Similar Projects

We have data from some other North American United States projects that have not exactly the same but similar. So we’ll do a compare. We can look at what the current timeline is for under-slab and slab-on-grade and add maybe some time for the sanitary because it’s now underground as well instead of hanging from the arcade ceiling.

Step Three: Adjust for Project-Specific Differences

This project has post-tensioning. Previous projects had suspended slabs with arcades. Post-tensioning might be faster. But underground sanitary might be slower. Reference class helps us calibrate.

Step Four: Validate with Trade Partners

We have a concrete contractor right now that with an LOI would start working on all the coordination and could verify this with us. If not and we don’t have an LOI, I could probably go through the sequence with them. So every trade that’s got a component to these slabs will review and tweak and have them buying into their time.

Reference class forecasting removes guesswork. You use actual data from similar projects. You adjust for differences. You validate with trades. And you get accurate durations.

The Two-Day Takt Time Decision

Just so you know, most of our trades are like we have them on a two-day Takt time doing four units every two days. Some of the trades, not all of them, are hitting five units every day on some of these developments. So they’re not freaking out and we’ve been able to take care of most of their requests through design.

Here’s why two-day Takt time works for multifamily:

Zone Size: Right now we have about 4,000-square-foot zone sizes on a two-day Takt time and the exteriors are about 2,500 square feet on the perimeter. That’s sized for crews to complete in two days with full kit.

Trade Buy-In: Every trade we’ve already worked through the trades, all of our bottleneck trades, and confirmed a two-day Takt time would work for them. They’ve done it before. They know they can hit it.

Design Accommodation: We’ve been able to take care of most of their requests through design. The system is designed for the crew to install in rhythm. That’s key.

Buffers Built In: Right now we’re thinking if we have everything done right that we could do this in 15.5 months. If something happens that we don’t see, 16.5. But we’re going to even try to do better than that. And that would still leave us a couple four weeks at the end buffer if we hit these two targets.

Two-day Takt time creates predictable rhythm. Crews flow zone to zone. Every two days, the train moves. And you finish on time without burning people out. 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. If you’re planning a multifamily project, sequence the clubhouse first. Let finish crews flow from clubhouse to show suites to production buildings. That establishes quality standards and maintains rhythm.

And run a fresh eyes meeting. Bring in experienced builders who’ve done similar projects. Ask them to spot the golden unicorns the tasks that don’t fall into standard schedules. Post-tensioning. Fire line coordination. Electrical distribution. Parking for early openings. Catch them before mobilization.

And use reference class forecasting for uncertain durations. Don’t guess. Gather data from similar projects. Adjust for differences. Validate with trades. Get accurate timelines.

As we say at Elevate, sequence multifamily projects for flow: clubhouse first, then show suites, then production buildings. Fresh eyes meetings catch golden unicorns. Reference class forecasting removes guesswork. That’s how you finish on time without burning people out.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why should the clubhouse go first in multifamily sequencing?

Because it allows finish crews to flow from clubhouse to show suites to production buildings, establishing quality standards and rhythm before hitting full production. Show suites become your mockup.

What are golden unicorn tasks?

Tasks that don’t fall into standard templated schedules like post-tensioning, fire line coordination, electrical distribution, or parking requirements for early openings. Fresh eyes meetings catch them before they become problems.

How does reference class forecasting work?

Gather data from similar projects, adjust for project-specific differences, validate with trades. It removes guesswork and gives you accurate durations based on actual data instead of estimates.

Why two-day Takt time for multifamily?

Because zones are sized for crews to complete in two days with full kit, trades have confirmed they can hit it, and design accommodates their workflow. It creates predictable rhythm without burning people out.

What’s a fresh eyes meeting?

Bring in experienced builders who’ve done similar projects. They spot golden unicorns, validate sequencing, catch schedule durations that don’t match reality, and share reference class data. Preventative problem-solving before mobilization.

 

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

Is The 9th Waste Sabotaging Your Lean Efforts?

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 22 min

Is The 9th Waste Sabotaging Your Lean Efforts?

Here’s a concept that was taught to me by Rick Boesch about the ninth waste in construction, and it’s a fantastic concept, and I absolutely love his thinking on it. The ninth waste is unhealthy conflict or a lack of alignment, where people are pulling in different directions with counterproductive behavior. And if you think about the eight wastes, they all tie together. But the ninth waste is huge. In fact, there are five external factors in systems thinking that create the ninth waste, and I’m going to walk you through them.

And then I’m going to give you Rick’s solutions for how to eliminate it.

The Pain of Unhealthy Conflict and Lack of Alignment

So what is the ninth waste in construction? Now, I’ve thought a lot about this, and I’m going to build off of what Rick says, and he’s right, by the way, and I consider him to be a mentor. Unhealthy conflict is the ninth waste, or a lack of alignment, where people are pulling in different directions, counterproductive behavior.

And this makes sense to me, because if you go through the eight wastes in the Paul Akers order, which I prefer, overproduction brings about excess inventory, which has to be moved, which is motion and transported, which is a waste. Those two things, and being so busy that you take your eye off quality, creates defects. Moving things and not doing it right the first time creates defects. Then when you have to fix that, that’s over-processing, which creates waiting workers waiting on work or work waiting for workers. And it’s all a waste because we could have used the genius of the team.

But the ninth waste is unhealthy conflict within the team or a lack of alignment. Those are two very different things not using the genius of the team versus just outright fighting. And you could loop them together, but to talk about this and not adulterate the original eight wastes, we want to talk about it in this light. So it’s unhealthy conflict.

Let me go through the concepts one by one, what they mean to me. I don’t want any disparity between what I say and what Rick says, so you can reference his blog post. But let me tell you this: in my opinion, the ninth waste is huge.

The Five External Factors in Systems Thinking That Create the Ninth Waste

In fact, there are five external factors in systems thinking that I’m always focused on that we’ve put in the book Elevating Pre-Construction Planning.

External Factor One: Ability to See the Paradigm

Does the owner of the building see the paradigm of finishing on time and respecting people? If not, you’ll have the ninth waste.

External Factor Two: Paradigms and Mindsets

Does the owner, owner’s rep, designer, or actually within your own company the general contractor company leaders, or trade partner company leaders do they see the paradigm and have the mindset of finishing on time well with operational excellence and caring for people? If not, you will have the ninth waste. You’ll have unhealthy conflict.

External Factor Three: The Goal of the System

Now, this might sound funny to you, but the goal of every project is not to finish on time and respect people. If you have a superintendent that keeps everything in his head, the goal is for that superintendent to feel important. If you have a project where the owner’s rep is grandstanding and beating up the general contractor, the goal is not to finish on time and respect people. The goal of that project is for that owner’s rep to make a name for himself. That’s the goal.

So if you don’t have the goal properly aligned by all and agreed to by all, you will have the ninth waste: unhealthy conflict in construction.

External Factor Four: The Structure of the System

If you are attempting to do one thing as the contractor on the side, but the structure of the team, the structure of the contract, the structure of anything that affects your work is not in line with Lean thinking, then you will have the ninth waste.

External Factor Five: The Rules of the System

A great example would be: you have to use CPM, you don’t get any float, you cannot get a time extension if it’s not on a critical path, you must put a worker in every zone, you must recover with additional resources or overtime. All those things are going to crash-land your project or put your project into a downward productivity spiral. They’re not going to help. So they’re going to create the ninth waste in construction.

And so I just want you to know that this is such an important topic. We have to have an integrated team, integrated location, co-location, integrated communication systems, integrated goals, integrated contracts. That’s why I love IPD so much.

Here are the five external factors that create the ninth waste:

  • Ability to see the paradigm does everyone see finishing on time and respecting people as the goal?
  • Paradigms and mindsets do leaders have the mindset of operational excellence and caring for people?
  • The goal of the system is the goal actually to finish on time and respect people, or is it for someone to feel important or make a name for themselves?
  • The structure of the system is the team, contract, and work structure aligned with Lean thinking?
  • The rules of the system do the rules (CPM, no float, no time extensions, mandatory overtime) create downward spirals?

If any of these are misaligned, you’ll have the ninth waste: unhealthy conflict and lack of alignment.

Misconception One: Lowest Price Equals Best Value

Rick talks about misconception number one, which is that lowest price equals best value. And it doesn’t. Lowest bid never means lowest overall total cost. You get a low bidder that’s going to change-order you to death. That cost is going to be more than what a reasonable cost would have been. We’ve got to get rid of this thinking that we have to select the low bidder or we have to select the most irresponsible player.

Here’s the way Rick explained this to me. When you select based on low bid, you are intentionally incentivizing the contractor to spend the least amount of time on your project as possible. Because as Rick says, we sell time, and so labor hours cost money. So when you reduce the cost, you reduce the time, you reduce the care, you reduce the end product, the quality of the end product. It’s insane. We must get away from this.

Here’s the truth: low bid incentivizes the contractor to spend the least amount of time on your project. They sell time. Labor hours cost money. So when you reduce cost, you reduce time, care, and quality. And you get change orders, rework, delays, and conflict. That’s the ninth waste.

Misconception Two: You Can Shed Risk for the Owner

The second misconception, which is number two, is the concept that you can shed risk for the owner. I hate this one, and I’ll liken it to surveying. I remember helping in Southern California a massive top 100 ENR company help with their field engineering. And I remember that they were about to get rid of field engineers, and their excuse was, “Well, we should just shed the risk to the surveyor.”

But they had buildings five feet in the wrong spot, elevation busts like eight inches here, two or three feet there, problems everywhere that the team was dealing with. And so because they’re intelligent, I won’t tell you who it is, they switched their focus from “forget this, none of our surveyors are actually paying for these big mistakes, we are.” We’re going to beef up our field engineering department with surveyors and get it right the first time, because there’s no such thing as shedding risk.

Because at the end of the day, is the surveyor going to come fix the building? Are they going to move it five feet in the other location? Are you going to sue them and put them out of business and get your money back? No, no, no. You’re going to eat it. It’s your butt. So you might as well get it right.

This concept of shedding risk is ridiculous. When you shed risk to somebody, they’re going to start acting in a manner that protects them: buffers, lack of transparency not buffers in Takt planning, but like they’re going to pad, they’re going to sandbag, I should have used the word sandbag they’re going to protect themselves. They’re going to be less transparent. They’re going to CYA. They’re going to pay for additional insurance above what’s needed. They’re going to hire lawyers and go into arbitration more than we need to. People are going to defense up. They’re going to armor up. And it’s going to hurt the project.

There is no such thing as entirely shedding risk. There’s responsible risk allocation, and I’ll tell you, more importantly, risk mitigation or risk reduction. And all of these result in conflict, and unhealthy conflict at that.

The Three Solutions to Eliminate the Ninth Waste

So Rick gives a couple of suggestions, which I want to give to you right now, and then you can dig further, because this is a great concept.

Solution One: Focus on the Team

One of the first things that you can do is focus on the team. Build the team. Build trust. Build connection. Build good contracts. Build a good environment to where it’s mostly built on trust. Yes, you have your legal documents. Yes, you have your contracts. But it’s mainly built on trust and you have a great relationship. Spend more time there.

Solution Two: Focus on Risk Mitigation, Not Risk Transfer

The second one that I loved was focus more on risk mitigation than risk transfer. Lean in as a team and make sure that we’re getting rid of the risk instead of just pawning it off on somebody else. This will do so much, so much for your work, and to eliminate the ninth waste.

Solution Three: Remove the Focus on Price

The third one that I love: remove the focus on price. Literally go after best value, because low bid is almost never lowest overall total cost. So make sure that you’re hiring based on qualifications and best overall value, which also means that you’re paying for pre-construction planning, which is the statistical indicator of whether or not a project will go right or not. Pre-construction planning is absolutely key. And if you do this with transparency, you’re heading in an amazing direction. 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 Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Look at your project. Are you seeing the ninth waste? Unhealthy conflict? Lack of alignment? People pulling in different directions? If yes, check the five external factors. Is the paradigm aligned? Are the mindsets aligned? Is the goal aligned? Is the structure aligned? Are the rules aligned?

And then apply Rick’s three solutions. Focus on the team. Build trust. Focus on risk mitigation, not risk transfer. And remove the focus on price. Go after best value instead of low bid.

As we say at Elevate, the ninth waste is unhealthy conflict and lack of alignment. Stop low-bid thinking. Stop shed-risk mentality. Focus on team, risk mitigation, and best value.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ninth waste in construction?

Unhealthy conflict or lack of alignment where people pull in different directions with counterproductive behavior. It’s not using the genius of the team or outright fighting.

What are the five external factors that create the ninth waste?

Ability to see the paradigm, paradigms and mindsets, the goal of the system, the structure of the system, and the rules of the system. If any are misaligned, you get conflict.

Why does low bid create the ninth waste?

Because low bid incentivizes contractors to spend the least time on your project. When you reduce cost, you reduce time, care, and quality. That creates change orders, rework, and conflict.

Why can’t you shed risk to someone else?

Because at the end of the day, you’re going to eat it. The surveyor won’t fix the building. And when you shed risk, people armor up, sandbag, CYA, and become less transparent. That creates conflict.

How do you eliminate the ninth waste?

Focus on the team and build trust. Focus on risk mitigation instead of risk transfer. Remove the focus on price and hire based on qualifications and best value instead of low bid.

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

Achieving Flow in Construction

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 30 min

Achieving Flow in Construction

Here’s the message I want to share: how do we achieve flow in construction without hurting people, or basically do it with respect for people? Because if we focus only on value-receiving time (the zones getting work done fast), we violate the rules of flow and hurt people. And if we focus only on value-adding time (the trades working at full capacity), we create delays and waste. Flow in construction requires both. And we must start with respect for people first, then optimize the work.

Let me explain.

The Pain of Focusing on Value-Receiving Time Only

If you’re familiar with the amazing work of Nicholas Modig and Pär Åhlström, you’ll remember the framework in the book This Is Lean. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do. It’s fantastic. So I want to paint a picture here. If we focus on value-receiving time as the priority in construction, I want to talk about what that does.

In the book This Is Lean, there is an example where Sarah feels a lump in her breast, and there’s a one-stop breast clinic, and there are enough doctors and care workers to where Sarah can come in from first contact in two and a half hours and have a diagnosis. Now this is great. Everybody would want this. But there’s another side to the story, and I want to say that if we adapt the resources to the patient so that we always get care like this, I have some serious questions that I want to ask.

Number one: Is the clinic profitable doing it this way and having this many resources available? Is the staff working overtime? Is the staff stressed? Are they overburdened? Are they doing quality work within that two and a half hours with time for checks and gates—gates in a flow system where we can actually check the quality of the work? And are there buffers, not only to protect the staff, but to actually help movement through the clinic?

And so these are some serious questions that I want us to consider when we’re understanding this analogy.

Now, Nicholas was gracious enough to do a LinkedIn post where he had proposed the question: Is a GoPro on the actual flat in the construction site useful? And so I would like to answer the question: What happens if you view the film camera on the zone only and focus on value-receiving time for the zone or the unit?

And I’ve gone ahead and mapped this out. This is in the extreme, so don’t take this too far. But if we were focused on value-receiving time only throughout the zones on a construction project, we would have time on the top, location on the left, and every zone would be worked on continuously, which means you would either have to have multiple trade partners, or you’d have to, hypothetically, have 2,340 plumbers all at once.

And it’s not realistic, because the questions in construction are: Do we have unlimited resources? Can we supply the project that fast? Can it be managed? Can we maintain quality? And is it safe? These are legitimate questions, let alone considering the downward productivity spiral of focusing on value-receiving time only, where, instead of having that stack, if you at least have one resource with a lot of actual labor, you are going to extend your overall project duration, because the job site cannot take that many people, that many workers, and fit that many people into that space, and you’ll have a massive overrun.

So the answer to “Do we have unlimited resources?” is no. “Can we supply the project that fast?” That’s no. “Can it be managed?” No. “Can you maintain quality?” No. “Is it safe?” No. And if we did this hypothetically, it would be just as bad as CPM, because we have massive overruns from increasing work in progress above capacity, and now we’ve entered into a downward productivity spiral.

How We Violate the Rules of Flow

Okay, so when we add excess labor, throw money at the problem, increase WIP above capacity, bring materials too early and outside of just-in-time, or push, rush, and panic, we violate the rules of flow. These rules of flow are pretty well known. In my mind, it’s in the book Goldratt’s Rules of Flow, and it’s based on the work that Eliyahu Goldratt has done with his book The Goal and the theory of constraints, and then also Critical Chain.

Here are the rules of flow:

  • Triage and focus on first things first eliminate bad multitasking
  • Work only on full kit everything is prepared before starting
  • Adjust the dosage of attention and energy toward one-piece flow
  • Segregate large and small activities
  • Standardize work and synchronize on Takt time
  • Add buffers into the system to protect flow

If we were to increase work in progress above capacity, we would violate the rules of flow. So that extreme doesn’t work, at least in my mind.

The Pain of Focusing on Value-Adding Time Only

Now let’s look at value-adding time. If we focus only on value-adding time, let’s take a look at what that does. In the book This Is Lean by Nicholas Modig and Pär Åhlström, I’m sure I’m saying that last name improperly, I apologize, but in the book, the story goes like this. Allison thinks she has cancer, and from first contact to diagnosis, the system takes several months, because she goes in and is told to wait. She goes in to the next step and is told to wait. Basically, we have the resource here, and the doctors or the care providers really filling up their schedules, which extends the timeline of the diagnosis for Allison.

The concerns here with this multitasking and batching is that there are delays, bad care, more costs, waste and unevenness, and mistakes from context switching. This is bad. So let’s look at it in construction. What happens when you put the film camera only on the trade crew, meaning look at it myopically from one trade’s perspective?

Well, doing the value-adding time only, and again, I would say with multitasking and batching, means that every trade partner in this same framework is going at their own speed, irrespective of what’s needed for the job, and you still have an overrun. This is a focus on individual trade efficiency only, where they’re going their own speed, and they’re not fitting into the whole. We’re not optimizing the whole. And so that’s not great.

Flow Requires Both Value-Adding and Value-Receiving Time

So let’s look at value-adding and value-receiving time together. And the reason that we want to look at this, and this is, by the way, what the book suggests, so this is a shout-out to This Is Lean: construction is a balance between the demands of the customer and the supply of trade partner experts and resources. And Todd Zabelle makes this case in the book Built to Fail and does a really nice job of it. It has to be both.

Okay, so let’s take a look at it. So if we were going to actually add a construction section in the book This Is Lean, maybe one day this will happen where you have an analogy, I think it would be good to put in a vet clinic with lots of different types of animals, lots of different types of treatment, right? And you have many of them, so many species, all in need of healthcare for checkups, vaccines, maternal care, injuries, and various illnesses.

So here are some questions: How can we create the shortest treatment time and accommodate many flow units while not overburdening the staff with the highest quality at the lowest overall total cost? And you’ll see that I put a film camera on the patient, the animal, and the resources, the vet clinic. And only, in my opinion, by merging both can we really get a good flow.

And so as it turns out, we have been able to figure this out in construction quite well. And that’s where, if you see the phase of construction and the train of trades, meaning trade one, two, three, four, five, if you have the film camera on the actual phase, not the zone, and you have the camera on the train of trades, and you put the camera on the train of trades and on the phase to make a complete view of the phase, then you have a complete picture. And I think that’s brilliant.

We do that all the time, and it’s with Takt planning. And so if you plan that way, where you have really good flow within the zone in the phase, and you have good flow of the train of trades in the diagonal with buffers, even if you have delays, you can still finish on time and really accomplish a nice construction project without ever going into a downward productivity spiral. This is genius. So this is flow. We do it all the time.

What Is Flow in Construction?

So flow in construction is the density of value-receiving time from the perspective of the value-receiving unit in relation to the overall throughput time by creating ideal flow and proper leveling of value-adding resources and people. And I want to stress that last part.

And so when we have a good flow of resources with the trades, then what we do is we take all of these different trade partners going different speeds, and we line them up: first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and we flow them through the project. So now we have zones in the phase receiving value, but we have enabled a flow with the value-adding unit. You only get the construction project done as fast as the trades can flow.

So the train is going the same direction, moving in the right sequence, going the same speed through level zones, going the same distance apart, aligned with supply chains, with no multitasking and batching, working with as little overburden, unevenness, and waste as possible. So this is what the flow looks like.

So we have it to the point of Nicholas’s original post, which I want to support. You have value-receiving time within the zone inside the phase, but you also have resource and trade flow. You have value-adding time, and we maintain that flow. Okay, so this is a genius way to look at it. We get the best scenario when we have both. And he talks about that all the time.

The Best Path to Achieve Flow in Construction

So instead of resource efficiency on the left and flow efficiency on the horizontal axis, I think it should be resource efficiency and work efficiency. If you don’t have either, you have waste. If you have mostly resource efficiency, you have bad customer service. If you have only work efficiency at the expense of people, you have disrespect for people and resources. This is what I want to caution construction against. But if you have high resource efficiency and work efficiency, then you have flow. And that’s the way I would like to look at it.

Now here’s the warning for us in the USA specifically, and I don’t know about other countries. But if you prioritize work efficiency first, you’re like, “Hey, we’re going to focus on the work, and then we’ll take care of people later,” you will not be able to achieve any of it, because in the USA, we have a tendency of prioritizing profits over people. And if somebody comes over here and abuses people, they never move up to taking care of people.

And people are like, “Wait a minute. What does taking care of people have to do with resource efficiency?” You cannot be resource efficient unless you’re respecting the equipment, the trade partner, the foreman, the workers, and the people that are installing the work.

And so what I would rather have us do is see us protect our people and become a little bit more resource efficient first. Take care of the equipment. Take care of the trade. Take care of the foreman. Take care of the workers. Take care of their flow. Take care of people. Be a little bit selfish with holding that trade flow and remove their overburden first. And then it’s easy to see how we can work towards flow efficiency with Lean practices and optimization. So this is definitely the path we need to take in construction. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Reality of What’s Happening in the Construction Industry

Now to prove my point, let me answer the question: Is this just some posturing for the subs and likes on LinkedIn? Well, no. In 2021 in the United States, 6,000 men died from suicide. 1,000 died from work-related injuries. Suicide rates for men in construction are 75 percent higher than men in the general population. Owners abuse contractors. Disrespect for workers is rampant. And we lose production primarily from too much work in progress.

To be truly Lean, we need to understand human nature and create solutions that protect people. Now, real quick, while we’re on this slide, this has been studied. There is a direct correlation between workers being stacked and pushed and overburdened, to then them getting injuries in unsafe environments, to then using opioids, to then leading to opioid addictions, to then having marital problems, which leads to divorce, which leads to child custody battles, which leads to financial difficulties.

And when you add mobile workforce, typically working shifts and overtime in very harsh environments, and with people who have access to lethal means, you can see why the suicide rate in construction is around 53 per 100,000, over veterans, which is about 38 per 100,000, and it’s five times as much as the national average, which is 11 per 100,000.

And the overburden and the injuries in the first place come from when we push and rush and panic, increase work overtime, add people, and we’re doing really crazy things and focusing only on work efficiency. These are all tied together, and it’s a very, very serious thing. So if we only focus on work or put the camera on the zone, we will be as bad as classical management and CPM, and we cannot do that.

Here’s what happens when we focus on work efficiency at the expense of people:

  • Workers get stacked, pushed, overburdened
  • Injuries happen in unsafe environments
  • Opioid use starts to manage pain
  • Opioid addiction develops
  • Marital problems and divorce follow
  • Child custody battles and financial difficulties compound
  • Mobile workforce, shifts, overtime, harsh environments, access to lethal means
  • Suicide rates 53 per 100,000 in construction vs. 11 per 100,000 national average

This is not just theory. This is reality. And if we only focus on work efficiency without protecting people first, we create this spiral. We cannot do that.

A Challenge for Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Put the camera on the train of trades and the phase together. Not just the zone. Not just the trades. Both. Create flow by balancing value-receiving time and value-adding time. And start with respect for people first. Protect the equipment. Protect the trade. Protect the foreman. Protect the workers. Remove their overburden. Then optimize the work.

As we say at Elevate, flow in construction requires both value-receiving time and value-adding time. Focus on people first, then optimize work. That’s how you achieve flow without hurting people.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is flow in construction?

Flow is balancing value-receiving time (zones getting work) and value-adding time (trades flowing) to create smooth throughput without overburdening people or creating waste.

Why can’t we just focus on value-receiving time (getting zones done fast)?

Because you’d need unlimited resources, create massive coordination chaos, and enter a downward productivity spiral. The job site can’t handle that many workers simultaneously.

Why can’t we just focus on value-adding time (keeping trades at full capacity)?

Because trades go at their own speed irrespective of the job’s needs, creating delays, waste, unevenness, and mistakes from context switching instead of optimizing the whole.

What’s the best path to achieve flow in construction?

Start with resource efficiency (protect people first), then move toward work efficiency (optimize the work). Don’t start with work efficiency at the expense of people.

Why does focusing on work efficiency first hurt people?

Because it creates overburden, injuries, opioid use, marital problems, and suicide. Construction suicide rates are 53 per 100,000 vs. 11 per 100,000 national average.

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 | Add Worker Huddles (Upgrade Your Production Planning)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 21 min

Add Worker Huddles: Upgrade Your Production Planning

Here’s something that will change everything for Last Planner implementation: I have never seen operational excellence at scale without the morning worker huddle. Multiple billion-dollar projects, multiple hundreds-of-millions-dollar projects, multiple hundreds-of-thousands-dollar renovations, multifamily, townhomes, data centers, hospitals, schools all of it. Without the morning worker huddle, the Last Planner System stops at the foremen and only 20 to 40 percent of the plan reaches the workers who are actually doing the work.

And that’s the missing piece.

The Pain of Information Stopping at the Foreman

Now when you look at the Last Planner System, it’s pretty great but it is in its one-point-zero and we need to take it to two-point-zero, three-point-zero. I am not the inventor of the Last Planner System, but I am a builder and have my own opinion and these opinions are solely mine about how to take it to the next level. And if it’s a Lean system, we will improve it. I’m very disappointed that it’s not farther along than it is. If it’s a Lean system, it should be upgraded by now.

The Last Planner System basically says that if you have planners, it should come to the last planners, which are the foremen, to execute work in the field. But that’s not complete. We need first planners and a first planner system in collaboration with last planners. And we need to get that all the way to workers. And that is what is meant by getting it all the way to the field.

What I’ve seen and you’ve seen as well is that you are in your conference room and you are talking to the trades. You’re around your horseshoe and these are your trade foremen. Whatever you’re coordinating and talking about in here, only about 20 to 40 percent of that actually reaches the people who are actually doing the work, the workers.

Here’s what happens. You have a great coordination meeting. You solve roadblocks. You align on the plan. The foremen leave the meeting. And then they go back to their crews. But they filter the information. They forget parts of it. They prioritize what they think is important. They communicate in their own style. And by the time the information reaches the workers, 60 to 80 percent of it is gone. The workers don’t see the plan. They don’t know the coordination. They don’t understand the roadblocks. And they’re swimming across a mile-wide channel and drowning five feet from shore.

The Workers Are the King

Now, there’s a story from Toyota by Toyota. It’s a really great story where a Lean practitioner in Toyota was asked by a sensei, “Who is the king?” Now, I know that terminology doesn’t really land with us here in the United States, but the point remains. And she was like, “Is it the general manager? Who is it?” And then she thought, “Oh, it’s the operator on the line.” And then she told her sensei, and he was like, “Yes, but let me tell you more. The operator is the king and everybody supports the king.”

Our workers and foremen are the value-added entities on a project site. And if they are not getting the information, if they can’t see as a group, know as a group, and act as a group, if they don’t have full kit, if they don’t know what’s going on, I always say it’s like swimming across a mile-wide channel and drowning five feet from shore. How would you like to swim that far just to drown? You’re almost there.

So, the Last Planner System in its original conception is misguided in this sense: that the information should only make it to the foreman and that human beings naturally and genetically will get the information to workers. That’s not reasonable to understand or to assume.

Why Human Genetics Work Against Communication

Richard Dawkins said, and I love his books about evolution, if humanity is to altruistically elevate and take its next step, you cannot count on genetics for help. Our genes are designed to reproduce and self-perpetuate. Selfishness, greed, isolation, hoarding resources. If we want to do the right thing and be enlightened, we have to override our genetic programming. And our brains are wired to auto-filter information and to uncommunicated and to conserve calories.

And so, to assume that foremen, even though they’re awesome humans and they’re good people, that genetically in their gene housing that they will naturally communicate what we want is not realistic. And so we have got to make sure that we have systems not only where the project is planned with the right systems in the first planner system, but we’ve got to get it all the way to the workers.

So, when we’re in the office, we also have got to get that information out to a field board every day, to the workers every day.

Here’s the truth. Foremen are good people. But they’re human. And humans filter information. They forget things. They prioritize what they think is important. They communicate in their own style. And they’re contractually incentivized to take care of their own interests. So instead of you as the superintendent controlling the environment and the rhythm, they control it. And they’re doing what they want. And they’re all going in separate directions.

That’s not because they’re bad. That’s because they’re human. And we need a system to bypass the filtering.

How Foremen Create Separate Cultures

Now let me tell you, I’m not a consultant. I’m not dissing on consultants. I am a career field super that’s now trying to help the industry. And I have noticed that if you do not do this worker huddle, you still have foreman filtering for you, which means they create the culture separately, not you. And they’re good people, but they are contractually incentivized to take care of their own interests.

So instead of you as the superintendent controlling the environment and the rhythm, they control it. And they’re doing what they want. And they’re all going in separate directions. This is not a lecture. I love you.

Here’s what happens without worker huddles:

  • Foremen filter information only 20 to 40 percent reaches workers
  • Foremen create the culture separately instead of the superintendent creating it
  • Each foreman goes in their own direction instead of rowing together
  • Workers don’t see the plan, don’t know coordination, don’t understand roadblocks
  • The superintendent loses control of the environment and the rhythm

Without worker huddles, you’re delegating culture creation to the foremen. And they’re going to create separate cultures. Not because they’re bad. But because that’s what happens when there’s no system to bypass the filtering.

How Worker Huddles Bypass Filtering and Create Total Participation

When you create that worker huddle, you bypass this 20 to 40 percent and you communicate to the crews. Let me just be real candid with you. If a behavior is happening, I have in morning worker huddles before said, “Hey everybody, you are all contracted to be able to spend 15 to 25 minutes in your crew preparation huddles going through and 5S’ing your areas, identifying eight wastes, filling out your pre-task plans, getting ready, shaking out materials, and starting clean, safe, and organized. And if your foreman’s not letting you do that, you’re not obeying the contract. And if you’re not obeying your foreman, you are not in total participation.”

There is no question about what they should be doing. There is no filtering from the foreman whether they want or don’t want to do something. I as the superintendent have control of the environment and I have control of the rhythm. And I do not control people. I am setting up the job site for success and we are working in total participation.

Here’s what happens when you implement worker huddles. If you love these workers and you should, they will see it. They will hear your shout-outs. They will hear you asking for feedback. They will learn Lean thinking two minutes every day. They will hear the plan and be better aware. You will have stable environments and you will have the second most important concept in Lean after respect for people, and that is total participation.

We think that Lean will work outside of that. It won’t. Paul Akers, Paul Akers, Paul Akers. Total participation. You go to Japan, 130 million people are working and acting the same way. They are a highly coordinated society. And here in the United States we act like we’re cowboys and cowgirls in the Wild West. You can’t do that. We have to row together in total participation.

The Results of Worker Huddles

When you implement this, your job site will get cleaner, safer, more organized, everybody working in the same direction. This is the missing piece of getting the Last Planner System all the way to the people changing the product and putting the work in place. This is why you must have a worker huddle. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Here’s what worker huddles create:

  • Information reaches 100 percent of workers, not just 20 to 40 percent
  • The superintendent controls the environment and the rhythm, not the foremen
  • Everyone rows together in total participation instead of going in separate directions
  • Workers see the plan, know coordination, understand roadblocks, and have full kit
  • The culture is unified instead of fragmented by foreman filtering

Worker huddles bypass the genetic filtering that humans naturally do. They create total participation. They get the Last Planner System all the way to the workers. And they transform the job site.

A Challenge for Superintendents

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Start a morning worker huddle. Get everyone together for 10 to 15 minutes before work starts. Review the plan. Give shout-outs. Ask for feedback. Teach two minutes of Lean thinking. Communicate expectations. And bypass the foreman filtering.

You’ll see it immediately. Workers will start seeing the plan. They’ll start understanding coordination. They’ll start rowing together. And the job site will get cleaner, safer, more organized, and more productive. Not because you pushed. But because you created total participation. As we say at Elevate, the Last Planner System stops at the foremen and only 20 to 40 percent reaches workers. Worker huddles bypass filtering, create total participation, and get plans all the way to the field. Start the huddle. Control the environment. Row together.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do only 20 to 40 percent of plans reach workers?

Because foremen filter information. They forget things. They prioritize what they think is important. They communicate in their own style. And they’re human. Humans are genetically wired to auto-filter information, uncommunicated, and conserve calories. Worker huddles bypass this filtering and get 100 percent of the plan to workers.

What happens without worker huddles?

Foremen create the culture separately instead of the superintendent creating it. Each foreman goes in their own direction. Workers don’t see the plan. And the superintendent loses control of the environment and the rhythm. Foreman filtering creates fragmented cultures instead of unified participation.

How do worker huddles create total participation?

By bypassing foreman filtering and communicating directly to the crews. The superintendent controls the environment and the rhythm. Workers hear the plan, see coordination, understand roadblocks, and have full kit. Everyone rows together in the same direction instead of going in separate directions.

What should you cover in a morning worker huddle?

Review the plan. Give shout-outs. Ask for feedback. Teach two minutes of Lean thinking. Communicate expectations. Remind crews to spend 15 to 25 minutes in crew preparation huddles 5S’ing areas, identifying eight wastes, filling out pre-task plans, and starting clean, safe, organized.

Why is total participation the second most important concept in Lean?

Because Lean won’t work without it. You can’t have some people rowing and others going in separate directions. Japan has 130 million people working and acting the same way. That’s total participation. Worker huddles create that same coordination on the job site.

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

The Schedule

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 23 min

Poor Scheduling: The Cause of Project Failure (And How Ego Drives It)

Here’s a quote that sums up the core problem with scheduling perfectly: “No schedule is worth the paper that it’s printed on unless it gets to the people in the field doing the work as a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team.” And I’m yet to see that happen or done well. The problem isn’t Gantt charts or Takt plans or CPM or pull plans. The problem is that the schedule doesn’t reach the field as a visual collaborative plan. And the reason it doesn’t is ego.

Let me explain.

The Pain of Schedules That Never Reach the Field

When I go onto a site, the supervisors haven’t even got a copy of the schedule. It’s certainly not anywhere visible. I don’t care even if it’s a Gantt. I hate a Gantt chart and we’ll talk about that later. I don’t believe it’s right, but even a Gantt, even if it’s wrong, at least if it’s on the wall and everyone’s looking at it and we’re going, “Well, these are the problems with it,” we’re doing the ORCA. At least we’re pulling it apart and we’re trying to head everyone in the same direction.

There’s a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is all progress begins with the truth. So if the schedule’s not right, at least if we’ve got it on the wall and it’s visual and everyone’s looking at it every day, we can be flagging those problems up and actually starting to do something about them instead of going, “That thing’s a piece of crap, just throw it in the corner, don’t worry about it and do whatever you’re going to do anyway,” which is what then happens.

Here’s what I see. Most of the time when I go onto a site, the schedule isn’t visual. It’s not on the wall. It’s not in the hands of the foremen. It’s not in the hands of the workers. And when I ask where it is, they say, “Oh, it’s in Procore.” Or “It’s on the server.” Or “It’s in the contract.”

But the foremen and the workers aren’t going to dig through Procore to find 35 different folders. They aren’t going to filter through 75 pages of text to pull out the right information. They’re the king. They’re the value-added entities that we work for. We work to support them. So why would we not give them something that’s very simple and visual?

A project engineer’s only job is to enable the trades to start, build, and finish. So I don’t care if it’s on Procore. I care if it’s visual for them to see.

The Real Problem: Ego Drives Complexity

Here’s my theory on what the real problem is. And it’s driven by one word: ego. We love complex. We love being the smartest person in the room. We’re programmed from an early age in school, or even by your parents. When you did something good, what’d they say? “Oh, that’s so clever. You’re so clever.” How did you work that out?

At school, it was like, “Who can get the right answer?” Not “Who can produce the best result? Who can give us the best outcome? Who can ask the best question?” All comes back to that, man. That one word there is the only reason why the Gantt chart survived as long as it has. Because Gantt’s complex. People love complex. “Oh, I can understand this predecessor, successor, all this nonsense.” And we go, “No, we just want it to flow. We just need blocks. When do they start? When do they finish? And what do they need to do in that block?”

I’ve heard Paul Akers talk to this before. He talked to one of the owners of, I think it was one of the Toyota execs. And he said to him, “When Chrysler and Nissan and all these other people come here, what do they think?” And he goes, “Paul, smart people can’t believe it can be so simple.” They take the term simplicity and would complicate it again.

And if you listen to Eli Goldratt, he goes, “It won’t work unless it’s simple.” Complexity is the enemy of execution. When you have to be the expert because of the ego, guess what happens next? Everything’s got to go through you. So we’ve just killed flow. We’ve just created it. We have become the bottleneck that’s driving so many of the problems.

That one word, ego, when we have to have all the answers, when we have to be right all the time, when we have to be the loudest person in the meeting all the time, that’s killing that flow.

The Gap Between Reality and What We Ought to Be Doing

Here’s how to think about this. Draw a line. That’s the reality line where we currently are. Draw another line above it. That’s the “ought to be” line. We ought to be doing a lot better than what we are currently doing. We look at the gap between here and there and we call them the problems. “It’s on Procore, no one looks at it.” “We’ve got a Gantt, no one follows it.” We call those the problems. They’re not the problem. They’re symptoms of the real problem.

To find the problem, we’ve got to dig deeper. The Japanese use five whys or whatever it is. The problem sits back here. And the problem is ego. When you hide information behind a paywall or a single person, you stop progress. And between those two lines is the ORCA. You’re solving it as a team.

Here’s what happens when you remove ego. You let the team collaborate. You put the schedule on the wall. You make it visual. You ask, “Is this right?” And the team flags the problems. They fix it together. And the schedule becomes a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team.

How to Remove Yourself as the Constraint

Here’s the challenge. Why is it so hard for us to let go of control? Why is it so hard to stop being the bottleneck? Because we worry about the failure that’s going to happen or the uncertainty of what’s going to go wrong. We tell ourselves all these stories about, “Oh, if I don’t do it, the schedule will fall behind. If I don’t run around chasing everyone every three minutes, it’s not going to get done.”

We have to let go of that and realize that some stuff’s going to fail. It’s not going to be perfect. But we’ve got to get to a point where, while you’re chasing around, while you’re making sure everything’s perfect, you’re the constraint in the system. There’s only so fast that the system can move because everything’s got to go through you.

So you can actually get a better result, even though you’ll get failures and you will, a better result by removing yourself as a constraint. Always be asking yourself, “Am I the constraint? And what’s my real fear here of what’s going to happen?”

Then you go back to Keith Cunningham. This book, The Road Less Stupid. Three killer questions in there for risk management: What’s the upside? What’s the downside? If the downside happens, can I live with it? That’s all you need to do, man. When you’re in that spot and you go, “Oh, what’s the worst that could possibly happen there?” which is never, ever as bad as what we think it is. So someone fails. If they do fail, what happens? “Oh, we’ll fix it anyway.”

And here’s the brilliant thing. If it’s a collaborative plan and it’s our plan, then when something goes wrong, which you already said isn’t as bad as we think it’s going to be, then we have the whole team to lean in and fix it together. And what can’t we solve together?

Here are the symptoms that you’re the constraint:

  • Everything has to go through you for approval or decision-making
  • You’re the only one who understands the schedule or the plan
  • The team waits for you to tell them what to do next instead of collaborating
  • You spend all day chasing people and putting out fires
  • When you’re not on site, nothing gets done or decisions stall

If you see these symptoms, you’re the bottleneck. Remove yourself. Let the team collaborate. Put the schedule on the wall. Make it visual. And fix it together.

One Caveat: Safety Stops Everything

One caveat around this. If someone’s doing something reckless and you need to stop it because they’re going to hurt themselves, that’s out the window. You stop it because you’ve seen it, done it, got enough experience. But that’s rarely the case. Most of what we’re dealing with is just, if something does go wrong, the impact and the consequences are minimal. And it’s actually going to improve things moving forward because that person is going to learn from it and they’re going to do a better job next time. And things are going to move even quicker because you don’t have to deal with that next time. They know how to do it.

It’s the same way you and I learned. How did you learn? We learned by getting out in the field and doing it. We got some stuff wrong. A lot of it. But we also got coaching and help along the way. And even if somebody was yelling, they were doing more coaching and helping us than we think. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Challenge: Selling Simplicity

So what’s one thing that would be a challenge for folks to implement this? Selling simplicity. The Takt plan is the tool that we need to get to. We need to get rid of the Gantt, which is not an easy sell because we’re so conditioned to it, so used to it. Everybody wants it. Selling simplicity is the hard bit.

And the more people that we do this, this is not something, this is something that happens step-by-step from the people at the workforce down. If you’re leading in the field, you’re on site, I don’t care. Draw it on a bit of paper. “This is where our crew’s heading this week.” Get yourself some texters and highlighters, some colored pens. Block it out. Do it yourself. Don’t wait for the likes of Jason or myself, the superintendent, the project manager, the construction manager, whatever.

If you want to improve yourself and what’s going on your site, do it yourself. Learn to see waste, where your non-value-added activity is. There’s tons of videos online. Jason’s got a mile of them on his YouTube channel. Learn what waste is and how to increase flow. Don’t wait for someone else’s permission to fix it. Fix stuff yourself. And start bringing problems to the surface so we can fix it together as a team.

A Challenge for Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Stop hiding the schedule in Procore or on the server or in the contract. Put it on the wall. Make it visual. Make it collaborative. Get the team to look at it. Ask, “Is this right?” Flag the problems. Fix it together.

Remove yourself as the constraint. Let the team collaborate. And stop letting ego drive complexity. Simplicity drives flow. Ego drives bottlenecks. Choose flow. As we say at Elevate, no schedule is worth the paper it’s printed on unless it gets to the people in the field doing the work as a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team. Make it visual. Make it collaborative. Fix it together.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is ego the real problem with scheduling?

Because we love complex. We love being the smartest person in the room. When we have to be the expert, everything goes through us. We become the bottleneck. And we kill flow. Simplicity drives flow. Ego drives complexity and bottlenecks.

Why doesn’t the schedule reach the field?

Because it’s hidden in Procore, on the server, or in the contract. It’s not visual. It’s not collaborative. And the foremen and workers aren’t going to dig through 35 folders to find it. We need to put it on the wall where everyone can see it and collaborate on it.

What’s wrong with Gantt charts?

They’re complex. People love complex because it makes them feel smart. But complexity is the enemy of execution. Gantt charts survived because of ego, not because they work. We just need blocks. When do they start? When do they finish? What do they need to do? That’s flow.

How do you remove yourself as the constraint?

Stop being the bottleneck. Let the team collaborate. Put the schedule on the wall. Ask, “Is this right?” Flag the problems. Fix it together. And always ask yourself, “Am I the constraint? What’s my real fear here?”

What if something fails when you let go of control?

Some stuff’s going to fail. It’s not going to be perfect. But the failures aren’t as bad as you think. And if it’s a collaborative plan, the whole team fixes it together. What can’t we solve together? Letting go creates flow. Controlling creates bottlenecks.

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

Project Changes – Time Stamps

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 27 min

Project Changes: Theory of Constraints and the Global Optimum

Here’s the third cause for project failure: project changes. And the biggest problem with changes is that we don’t understand theory of constraints and we don’t look at it from a global perspective. We look at it from our localized piece. So you’ve got everyone with their different agendas looking at it, and we tend to hide everything. Visual planning is a key to stopping project changes. When people can see the plan and they know where everyone’s heading, the changes start to come down.

But you can’t do it once. It’s not one and done. It’s constant. And it ties directly to theory of constraints and the global optimum.

The Pain of Changes That Don’t Serve the Global Optimum

Let me tell you a story. I was on a project during COVID, back in 2022, 2023. And the global optimum it was an iron ore project. So iron ore at this particular point in time is about 220, 230 tons a day. So every day that we’re late, it’s costing the client around about $20 million a day in lost production.

So we’re trying to get a conveyor belt up and running. And part of it was, I was looking after a contractor installing the fire water system for that particular conveyor belt. You can’t run the conveyor belt without fire protection in place. So I’ve just about got this thing signed off. It’s in the death throes to get signed off because we’re going to run the belt tomorrow. We just finished hydrotest and pressure testing it.

Beside me is a young lad that they sent up to site, a young piping engineer. And I can hear him on the phone to this lad down in Perth, which is about 1,800 kilometers away from the actual site, this design engineer. And he’s saying to him, “I want all these changes. So I want this valve moved up. I want this pipe moved across this way, this, this.” He’s marking up a P&ID as he’s going with all these changes. And I’m sitting beside him going, “There’s no way in hell any of these changes are happening. I’m telling you right now.”

Anyway, so the poor kid’s stuck in a mood. And he comes to me as soon as he hangs up the phone or gets off the Teams meeting. And I said, “Is there a safety issue or is there a detrimental issue out of everything that he just told you then?” And he said, “No.” I said, “Good. Nothing’s changing.”

The global optimum was we needed that belt running to get dirt into a train so the client’s making money. The guy in Perth sitting remotely who has his local optimum looking at it going, “Oh, if I move that pipe up 50 millimeters, that might make that a bit better,” isn’t taking into consideration there’s a train coming tomorrow. We need to put dirt onto it so that the client can get his $20 million.

And that’s how you manage changes.

Theory of Constraints and the Global Optimum

Here’s what theory of constraints teaches us: if we’re going to make an adjustment or change or interrupt or insert variation into this process or system, it had better be to optimize the whole and improve the global optimum. It has got to help us reach the goal and create flow. And if we’re creating changes and variation just for the sake of doing it, or for some other reason that doesn’t meet the goal, then we are off track.

If the design engineer had a change in there and said to me, “Unless we move this up 100 millimeters, you’ll run that belt for about two hours tomorrow and the system will shut down and everything will stop,” I’d go, “All right, we need to change that.” But that’s based on global optimum. That is, is that change affecting the system?

It wasn’t. It was nice to have. And too often the changes that we get caught up in are nice to have that don’t really need to happen. And it’s because people can’t see the big picture. They don’t understand that if they’re the orange square there on the Takt plan, they’re putting the red square out by making a change that isn’t really necessary.

And this is where we talk about being hard on the process and not hard on the people. The people are making these decisions because they don’t see the big picture. They probably have no idea that the client’s losing $20 million a day while they’re sitting around wanting to move a piece of pipe 50 millimeters.

Visual Planning: Getting Everyone on the Same Page

Visual planning is the key to stopping project changes. When people can see it and they can walk in and they can look at what the plan is, and they know where everyone’s heading, we can get everyone heading in the same direction. Then the changes will start to come down.

Here’s why visual planning works. I always bring everything back to sport. And sport is where the best teams are, generally speaking. I mean, we’ve got Navy SEALs and those sorts of things, but predominantly where you get a group of people working really, really well, it’s a sporting team. And they’ve got one ball that they’re playing with and they’ve got a clear focus. Where does that need to go? There’s a set of goalposts or whatever it is. There’s a line that you’ve got to get across, whatever it may be, a net. In tennis, you’ve got to get it across the net, but you’ve got to keep it within these boundaries. They know that.

We don’t have that in construction. We don’t do it well. The Takt plan, I believe visually and of all the tools we have, is the most powerful and the most important of the lot. We know what the problem is. We need to get everyone on the same page. How many times have you heard someone say, or how many times have you said, “We need to get everyone on the same page?” Then we give them an 80-page schedule. How the hell do we get them on the same page when we’ve got 80 pages? We need one page.

Everyone can look at it quickly and go, “We need to be there by that time.” That then calms all the changes. Because it’s about what decisions they’re making that’s creating all these changes. And if they go, “Oh no, we really need to get up into this top corner up here. If I changed what I’m doing at the moment, is that really going to help us get to that top corner? Or is that going to constrain us and stop us, slow us down, stop the train coming so we can’t get that dirt out the other end?” That’s the real goal. Until we get that one plan, everyone on the same page, we’re going to struggle with changes.

The Three Keys to Managing Changes

Here are the three keys to managing project changes and reducing variation:

Key One: Verify Full Kit Before Starting

Do not start a job unless you can finish it. A lot of the changes we see in the field come from supervisors who tend to sit on that sort of ADD spectrum. So focus and going in the same direction for any given length of time is not their greatest strength. They’re really good at what they do, but we’ve got to keep them focused and heading in the straight direction.

There’s a couple of little things that do that. Number one is verify full kit. Make sure you have to be relentless with them and following them up and making sure that they’re starting and finishing.

Key Two: Manage the Dip in the Middle

The best two times when we’re chasing a goal or we’ve got a little milestone to hit or whatever, we’re highly motivated at the start of it and we’re highly motivated near the finish of it. But we dip in the middle and that’s the point where we fail.

That’s why these small Takt times, these small Takt wagons, those two to three days, busting it into those small two to three-day chunks, we’re actually setting these guys and girls up to win by giving them small chunks where they can start. The motivation dip is minimized and then they’ve got that motivation to finish it off again. The more that we get them in the pattern start, finish, start, finish, start, finish the more we mitigate that risk out in the field of the changes.

Key Three: Stop Keeping People Busy

Keeping people busy is not what we’re trying to achieve and we’ve become obsessed with keeping everyone busy. The system works the best when it’s at 80%. And this is a really bitter pill for a lot of people to swallow. You don’t want to be going as fast as possible. You want everyone to be moving at the same speed.

We have an obsession with speed. If we had the same obsession with flow that we do with speed, we’d deliver all of our projects no dramas at all.

Here are the signs you’re creating unnecessary changes:

  • Changes come from people who can’t see the big picture or the global optimum
  • Changes are “nice to have” instead of “must have to hit the milestone”
  • Changes come from local optimization instead of global optimization
  • Changes don’t serve the goal they serve someone’s ego or preference
  • Changes create variation and chaos instead of flow and predictability

If you see these signs, stop. Ask: “Does this change serve the global optimum? Does it help us hit the milestone? Or is it just nice to have?” If it’s nice to have, don’t make the change.

The 80% Principle

The 80% principle shows up everywhere. Dr. Alan Barnard, who trained under Dr. Eli Goldratt, speaks to it from a theory of constraints perspective. 80% is the benchmark. You look at it how many times do we go out and have a meal out at a restaurant or something like that and we eat everything that’s on our plate because that’s what we’re told to do as kids? Eat what’s on your plate. And we don’t need all of it. Stop when you’re full.

When you eat more, when you eat your whole plate, you overburden your stomach and your system. And it’s back to that old speed and push thing. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Relentless on the Environment, Not on the People

Here’s what being relentless means. 10% of what we do is value-added activity. 90% of it’s non-value-added activity. We want to be relentless on removing this as much as we can, which is part of managing that dip. We’re losing time, effort, energy, people’s skills in that dip. So managing that dip is one part of pushing the non-value-added activity down and the value-added activity going up.

If you turn 10% into 20%, you double your throughput, whether you call it velocity or speed or productivity. There’s a guy, a fellow called Ari Meisel. He splits it up three ways. He said productivity means you do more, efficiency means you do more with less, and effectiveness means you do more of what works.

You can be highly productive and highly efficient at creating waste and wasting people’s time, attention, abilities. You can’t be when we’re effective, it means we’re doing more of what works. When we do more of what works, that pulls that non-value-added line down. We go from 10% to 20% to 30%.

So we need to be relentless in keeping everyone on track. Jim Collins’ flywheel effect we teach people to see waste. We get them to stop and fix it. We get some lessons learned and we share them around and we keep that spinning. We need to be relentless about keeping that flywheel spinning. That drives value-added activity up and non-value-added activity down.

And it may not sound like it, but it slows the changes because the changes sit in this bucket of non-value-added activity. Like the ones I was talking about with that piping job that would have just been non-value-added activity. The effect that that would have had on the overall system? Negligible. Not worth it. Two or three days of production would have blown away any improvements to that system.

So we must be relentless in giving people the big picture so they can see where we need to head. So instead of them looking in all different directions, we got them all going in one way. And when we do that, everyone’s quicker. Relentless is not about push. It’s relentless on making the environment better for our people.

A Challenge for Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Look at your project changes. Are they serving the global optimum? Are they helping you reach the goal and create flow? Or are they nice-to-haves that don’t really need to happen?

Get everyone on the same page with visual planning. Use the Takt plan so everyone can see where you’re heading. Verify full kit before starting. Manage the dip in the middle with small Takt times. And stop obsessing with keeping people busy. Obsess with flow instead. As Beanie says , visual planning is the key to stopping project changes. Give people the big picture. Get everyone rowing in the same direction. And be relentless on making the environment better for your people.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does theory of constraints relate to project changes?

Theory of constraints teaches that changes must serve the global optimum and help reach the goal. If a change optimizes one local area but doesn’t improve the whole system, it’s waste. Changes should only happen if they improve flow and help hit the milestone, not just make one area “nicer.”

Why is visual planning the key to stopping project changes?

Because when people can see the big picture and know where everyone’s heading, they stop making changes that don’t serve the goal. Visual planning gives everyone one page to look at instead of an 80-page schedule. That gets everyone rowing in the same direction and reduces variation.

What does “verify full kit” mean?

Do not start a job unless you can finish it. Before starting work, verify that you have all the materials, information, equipment, access, and resources needed to complete the work. Don’t start 10 minutes on one job, then jump to another. Start, finish, start, finish. That’s the rhythm.

What is the “dip in the middle” and how do you manage it?

People are highly motivated at the start of a task and near the finish. But they dip in the middle and that’s where they fail. Manage the dip by using small Takt times two to three days so the motivation dip is minimized. Start, finish, start, finish. Keep the rhythm going.

Why does the system work best at 80%?

Because you don’t want to be going as fast as possible. You want everyone moving at the same speed. When you push to 100%, you overburden the system. At 80%, you have slack for variation, buffer for problems, and flow instead of chaos. Dr. Eli Goldratt’s theory of constraints says 80% is the benchmark.

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 | Pull Planning Mistakes to Avoid (Stop Doing It Wrong)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 23 min

Pull Planning Mistakes to Avoid: Stop Doing It Wrong

Here’s a hard thing to say and I don’t mean to be offensive. You’re an A+ builder, but from a system perspective and an educational perspective, people are teaching pull planning wrong. I just want you to know there is a right way. And the way most of the industry does it creates large batch waste, loses vertical alignment to milestones, and disrespects the trades by exporting schedules they don’t see, use, or understand.

Let me show you what’s wrong and how to fix it.

The Pain of Pull Planning the Wrong Way

Here’s what the industry typically does wrong with pull planning. They will say that you should go from a CPM schedule and inside the CPM schedule, you should pick intermediate milestones. That’s the first thing that’s wrong. You take that milestone and then you pull plan to it. And Lean professionals will actually say go backwards, which is the hardest way to do it. You can go forward or backwards as long as you go in the opposite direction to check.

They’ll do the pull plan, but they’ll do it just for one area, which means that it will be a large batch and you’ll waste weeks and months this way. And then they will say, take this pull plan and loop it back into the CPM. In that way, it gets lost and your CPM becomes a level four verging on a level five and now it’s unmanageable.

Then what will happen is because it’s lost in here, the scheduling team will typically say your lookahead and your weekly work plan, go ahead and create those from scratch and then use those. You’re going to love this. And have those educate the CPM so that the CPM can then export your new weekly work plan that’s given to the trades.

Here’s what’s wrong with this entire process. First, the milestones are wrong because CPM doesn’t have diagonal trade flow, buffers, or a path of critical flow. Second, you wasted weeks or months by pull planning one large area instead of zoning properly. Third, you’ve created an unmanageable level four or level five CPM that nobody can maintain. And fourth, you’re exporting schedules that the trades don’t see, use, or understand. That’s disrespectful. And it doesn’t work.

Why CPM Milestones Don’t Work for Pull Planning

Okay, let me talk about this. I think you’re going to love the argument here. First of all, because a CPM schedule doesn’t have diagonal trade flow and it’s not planned with buffers and it doesn’t have a path of critical flow, your milestones will not be correct.

Here’s why this matters. CPM milestones are set based on tasks and dependencies. But they don’t account for trade flow. They don’t account for buffers. They don’t account for the reality that the project moves at the pace of the slowest trade through the hardest zone. So, when you pull plan to a CPM milestone, you’re pulling to the wrong target. The milestone might say “structural complete by June 1st.” But if you actually flow the trades zone by zone with proper buffers, you’ll finish earlier. Or if you don’t have proper flow, you’ll finish later. Either way, the CPM milestone is wrong.

Takt milestones, on the other hand, are set based on diagonal trade flow, buffers, and the path of critical flow. They account for zone size, trade rhythm, and the reality of how work actually flows through the building. So, when you pull plan to a Takt milestone, you’re pulling to the right target. And you gain vertical alignment.

Why Pull Planning Large Batch Areas Wastes Time

Second, if you pull plan just one large area, you’ve wasted weeks or months and that’s called large batch. That’s a mathematical scientific certainty.

Here’s the math. If you pull plan the entire floor as one area, you’re treating it as a large batch. Little’s Law says smaller batches shorten duration even though trade time stays the same. So, when you pull plan one large floor, you’re locking in a longer duration. But if you zone the floor by work density and pull plan zone by zone, you pull in the overall duration and gain buffers. Same trade time. Shorter project duration. That’s the power of right-sizing the batch.

Pull planning one large area also creates trade stacking, eliminates buffers, and breaks flow. You can’t maintain rhythm across an entire floor. You can’t coordinate handoffs cleanly. You can’t finish as you go. Large batch pull planning looks productive in the meeting, but it wastes weeks or months on the actual project.

Why Recreating Look-Aheads and Weekly Work Plans Is a Waste

Doing the lookahead and weekly work plan from scratch and looping them into an unmanageable level four, level five CPM is not even the way CPM was designed to be. This is going to get you in trouble and you’re going to hobble the workforce. Then exporting a schedule that people do not see, use, or understand or implement is a waste of time and we’re disrespecting the trades.

Here’s what happens. The team does the pull plan. It gets lost in the CPM. So, the scheduling team says, “Create the lookahead and weekly work plan from scratch.” The trades do that. Then the scheduling team loops it back into the CPM. The CPM updates. And then the CPM exports a new weekly work plan to the trades. But the trades didn’t create that export. They don’t understand it. They don’t use it. And it doesn’t match the pull plan they actually created.

That’s a waste of time. That’s disrespectful. And it hobbles the workforce because they’re working from a schedule they didn’t create and don’t understand.

The Right Way to Do Pull Planning

This is not the way to pull plan. I am going to be very, very specific about how to do this the right way. First of all, when you do pull planning the right way, and I’m not trying to be arrogant, I learned this from other people, so I’m not special, the concept is special.

When you do your pull planning the right way, your macro-level Takt plan will have diagonal trade flow. That means it will be planned where you have trade flow and buffers and we have a calculator for it actually. So, you know your milestones are correct.

Then when you pull this milestone down, you have vertical alignment. And when you take this sequence and pull plan it, you use the right zone size. And then what happens is you will be able to create an optimized phase that has buffers at the end. And this will incline without hurting the trades’ durations.

And I want to show you something. Now you have a vertically aligned milestone, buffers, and you still have that diagonal trade flow.

Here’s the process step by step:

Step One: Set the Takt Milestone

Start with a macro-level Takt plan that has diagonal trade flow and buffers. Use the Takt Calculator to determine the right zone size, Takt time, and milestone. This milestone is correct because it’s based on flow, not just tasks.

Step Two: Zone the Area by Work Density

What you do here is when you do your pull plan, you first talk to the trades and you say, “Hey, in this area, how do we want to break up the zones?” And there’s a calculator which we’ll link you to in the description below that helps you to know how many you should have. Then you program the size of them by work density.

Step Three: Pull Plan One Zone

And then what you do is you pull plan a single zone. So let me go ahead and just do this in a simple format. Let’s say this is your pull plan. I’ll just do four stickies. And then what you do is you say, “Hey, since I have one, two, three, four, five zones,” then I’m just going to do this with a single line. You start comparing that single pull plan sequence together to make sure you have diagonal trade flow and then you also compare it to your milestone and your buffers.

Step Four: Replicate the Sequence Zone to Zone

So let me just make sure I’m covering that well. You should never see an individual pull plan. You should see it unless you’re just doing one small area. You should see that pull plan going from zone to zone to zone so you have trade flow. You should be able to gain buffers at the end because you’re optimizing and you should be vertically aligned to your milestone. And so that is the key.

The Benefits of Pull Planning the Right Way

And here’s the thing in the Takt Production System. You have a correct milestone when you do your pull planning. You will gain time. You will not large batch. So that means you are doing it by zone. You will maintain trade flow. And you will make sure that you have buffers. This is the right way to do a pull plan.

Here are the benefits:

  • Correct milestones based on diagonal trade flow and buffers, not just CPM tasks
  • Gain time by zoning properly instead of large batch planning
  • Maintain trade flow zone to zone to zone
  • Create buffers at the end of the phase without hurting trade durations
  • Vertical alignment from milestone to pull plan to lookahead to weekly work plan

This is the right way. And 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 Do’s and Don’ts of Pull Planning

So let me just highlight this. If you’re like, “Jason, you talked about a lot of stuff.” Here are the do’s and don’ts:

Don’t:

  • Don’t use CPM milestones—they’re wrong because they don’t account for trade flow or buffers
  • Don’t pull plan large batch areas—you’ll waste weeks or months
  • Don’t recreate the lookahead and weekly work plan from scratch—it’s a waste and disrespects the trades

Do:

  • Do use Takt milestones—they’re correct because they’re based on diagonal trade flow and buffers
  • Do pull plan zone by zone using the right zone size
  • Do compare your pull plan sequences zone to zone to zone to maintain trade flow
  • Do gain buffers at the end of the phase

This is very clearly articulated in the book Takt Planning and The 10 Improvements to the Last Planner System, and it will be shown in the book Pull Planning for Builders.

A Challenge for Builders

There is a wrong way and there is a right way. If you’re like, “I don’t get it quite yet,” watch the video that I’m going to link in the description below. You’ll get it right away. But you need a system that matches your A+ score because if you take an A+ person with a C-minus system, you’re going to get a C-minus grade. We need A+ plus A+ and that will give you the results.

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Stop pull planning from CPM milestones. Stop pull planning large batch areas. Stop recreating lookaheads from scratch. Instead, start with a Takt milestone. Zone the area by work density. Pull plan one zone. Replicate the sequence zone to zone. Compare it to your milestone and buffers. And gain time without hurting the trades. As we say at Elevate, there’s a wrong way and a right way to pull plan. Use Takt milestones. Zone by zone. Gain buffers. That’s how you do it right.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are CPM milestones wrong for pull planning?

Because CPM doesn’t have diagonal trade flow, buffers, or a path of critical flow. CPM milestones are based on tasks and dependencies, not on how work actually flows through zones. So, when you pull plan to a CPM milestone, you’re pulling to the wrong target.

Why does pull planning large batch areas waste time?

Because Little’s Law says smaller batches shorten duration even though trade time stays the same. Pull planning one large floor locks in a longer duration. Zoning by work density and pull planning zone by zone pulls in the overall duration and gains buffers.

What’s wrong with recreating lookaheads and weekly work plans from scratch?

It’s a waste of time and disrespects the trades. The pull plan should flow directly into the lookahead and weekly work plan. Recreating them from scratch and looping them through CPM creates an unmanageable schedule that the trades don’t understand or use.

How do you pull plan the right way?

Start with a Takt milestone based on diagonal trade flow and buffers. Zone the area by work density. Pull plan one zone. Replicate the sequence zone to zone. Compare it to your milestone and buffers. Gain time without hurting the trades.

What should a correct pull plan look like?

You should see the pull plan sequence going zone to zone to zone with diagonal trade flow. You should see buffers at the end of the phase. You should see vertical alignment from the Takt milestone down to the pull plan. You should never see just one isolated pull plan for a large area.

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 Using the Wrong Visuals (Visual Management Fix)

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 23 min

Stop Using the Wrong Visuals: Visual Management Fix for Last Planner

Here’s something that’s going to challenge most Last Planner implementations: the visuals you’re using are wrong. And I’m going to say this with all the respect I have for my contemporaries and consultants in the industry. What we’re doing as a one-point-zero was great. But it’s time for Last Planner to move into two-point-zero, three-point-zero, four-point-zero. And the biggest problem is the visuals in the conference room. Because you can’t manage what you can’t measure. And you can’t measure what you can’t see. And people will talk about what they see.

So, if you want to have better conversations, you’ve got to have better visuals.

The Pain of the Typical Conference Room Setup

Typically, in a conference room, what we will see is that on the walls, somebody will have their CPM schedule up here on the left. They might have a list of submittals or a procurement log. I’ll just call that supply, which isn’t bad. Then they’ll have a parking lot, which I actually don’t mind, so I’ll just put PL for parking lot. Then they have a list up here, which is just constraints. And what will typically happen next is they’ll have a big old area which will be the weekly work plan with stickies on the front of the wall. Maybe you have two screens. And then you’ll see over here to the right you’ll have your big pull planning board.

This is what will happen. Now let me talk about this and let me introduce this a couple different ways.

Here’s what’s wrong with this setup. First, you can’t use CPM as a visual production plan. Second, lumping everything into “constraints” creates confusion and overwhelms the trades. Third, the weekly work plan on the wall with stickies is detrimental for most projects. And fourth, the pull plan on the wall locks information in one location where people can’t see it. Let me explain why each of these is a problem.

Why CPM on the Wall Doesn’t Work

Number one, we should not be using CPM. I don’t want to see that on the wall. That is not a visual production plan. You need to be using Takt if you want to be effective. You don’t have to. You can do whatever you want.

Here’s why CPM doesn’t work as a visual. CPM shows tasks and dependencies. But it doesn’t show flow. It doesn’t show zones. It doesn’t show the train of trades moving through the building. And people talk about what they see. So if you put CPM on the wall, the team talks about tasks and dependencies instead of flow and handoffs. That’s the wrong conversation.

Takt planning shows the train of trades flowing zone to zone. It shows handoffs. It shows rhythm. It shows where the crew is today and where they’ll be tomorrow. And when people see that, they talk about flow. That’s the right conversation.

Why Lumping Constraints and Roadblocks Together Overwhelms the Team

Constraints is myopic. It will loop too many items into one list and you will not know how to deal with it. Let me explain this for constraints and roadblocks. Everybody thinks a constraint is a roadblock. So, everybody tries to remove it and they don’t understand that it’s a system design component. And so, we don’t have the language unless you check out our work. We don’t have the language to know how to deal with it. It overwhelms the trades and you don’t get your problem solved.

We’ve got to split this up to where it’s constraints and roadblocks.

Here’s what happens when you lump them together. The team creates a list of fifty items. Half are systemic issues that first planners need to optimize. Half are temporary blockers that last planners need to remove. But they’re all called “constraints.” So nobody knows who owns what. Nobody knows what needs optimization versus removal. And the list overwhelms everyone. The meeting becomes a status update instead of problem-solving.

When you separate constraints from roadblocks, clarity emerges. Constraints go to first planners for system design. Roadblocks go to last planners for removal. And the team knows exactly what to focus on.

Why the Weekly Work Plan on the Wall Is Detrimental

The weekly work plan on the wall is nice for advertising, marketing, and showing off. I’m not making fun, but this is one of the most detrimental things when it comes to Last Planner visuals. And let me tell you why. These boards are designed for small projects, very, very small projects where you’re very, very near the work. Like if you’re doing a little six-thousand-square-foot or less renovation, you could probably get away with the weekly work plans on the wall.

Here’s the thing: the stickies are falling off. It only has thirty rows, and so you don’t have enough space. And then it’s locked in the office. And most projects nowadays are mega projects. We have multiple functional areas. These are very large. You cannot fit the weekly work plan on there. You cannot rely on stickies. It takes too much time to do stickies and now you’ve locked it in the office and you’ve hobbled the field.

You should not have the weekly work plan on the wall. The weekly work plan should be digital.

Here’s why this matters. Mega projects have hundreds of activities per week across multiple functional areas. You can’t fit that on a board with thirty rows. And even if you could, the stickies fall off. The handwriting is illegible. And the board is locked in the trailer. The foremen in the field can’t see it. So, they don’t use it. And the weekly work plan becomes decoration instead of a working tool.

Digital weekly work plans solve this. They scale. They’re accessible from the field. They update in real time. And they integrate with lookahead planning and pull planning. That’s how the weekly work plan should work.

Why the Pull Plan on the Wall Locks Information

The other thing is the pull plan on the wall. It doesn’t bother me if you do a physical pull plan and you take it and you transcribe it and make it digital. But if you leave the pull plan right here on the wall and say that’s where it’s going to stay or put the pull plans in the field, you’re going to have the same problem. Illegible stickies that are falling down in an incorrect sequence batched that’s locked in one location where the people can’t see it and it doesn’t end up where it’s supposed to be.

A pull plan is supposed to become a located weekly work plan. You will focus on what you see here. So if you have these on the wall, your team is focused on sequence. They’re focused on the weekly work plan. And they’re focused only on unknowable constraints which are not separated out. So, you have confusion and you’re not handling what you need to handle.

Here’s the solution. Do the physical pull planning session. Transcribe it to digital. And distribute it as a located weekly work plan. That way, the sequence is locked in. The plan is accessible. And it ends up where it’s supposed to be: in the hands of the foremen who need to execute it.

What the Conference Room Should Actually Look Like

Now let me bring this home. What do I want people in the office to mainly focus on? I want them to focus on identify, discuss, and solve roadblocks. Your constraints should already be a part of the system design if you’ve done it right. And if you want to IDS roadblocks, then you’re going to have to redesign your conference room to where it looks like this.

This has been proven out. And I’ll tell you what, it’s so frustrating because as much as we say we’re Lean practitioners, Lean people will just stay fixed and stubborn and stagnant and they’re married to this old setup and they won’t adjust.

Here’s what you’ve got to have:

  • Team board on the left: This is where you organize the project delivery team for balance. This is step number one in your meeting system create balance with the project delivery team.
  • Visual maps in the middle: 3D axonometric expanded views that show the building. Trades mark red magnets on these maps to show roadblocks. That’s the agenda for your meetings. You’re not talking about “I’m on level three zone four and I’ve got five people.” You’re talking about handoffs, interfaces, problems, change points. This is step number two identify, discuss, and solve roadblocks.
  • Two screens in the front: Your lookahead plan, your production plan, your weekly work plan, and your day plan are digital and displayed here. Your pull plans are digital and displayed here.
  • Whiteboard on the right: Open space where you can do brainstorming.
  • Advanced: Scrum board on the right: If the foreman can’t solve a roadblock, it gets transferred to the scrum board for the project delivery team to solve.

This is the way to do it. And if you want to be really effective, that’s the setup.

The Key Things to Stop Doing

We have got to stop doing these key things to be very specific:

  • Get rid of the CPM filter use Takt instead
  • Separate constraints and roadblocks don’t lump them together
  • Your weekly work plan does not belong on physical stickies on the wall make it digital
  • I do not believe in any way, shape, or form that a physical sticky pull plan is the best way to do it because you have bad handwriting, the stickies are falling apart or falling off, it’s not easy to track zone by zone it’s better to do it on a digital board
  • Get rid of old maps that talk about Lean in the wrong way get updated posters, guides, and agendas

What I need you to have is your team balance boards, your visual maps where you mark red magnets with roadblocks, your digital boards where you keep your lookaheads, weekly work plans, and your pull plan, and then your open space where you can do brainstorming. 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 Last Planner Teams

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Walk into your conference room. Look at the walls. Are you using CPM as a visual? Get rid of it and use Takt. Are you lumping constraints and roadblocks together? Separate them. Is your weekly work plan on physical stickies on the wall? Make it digital. Is your pull plan locked on the wall? Transcribe it to digital and distribute it.

And then redesign the room. Team board on the left. Visual maps in the middle. Digital screens in the front. Whiteboard on the right. That’s Last Planner two-point-zero. That’s how you focus on what matters: identify, discuss, and solve roadblocks. As we say at Elevate, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. And you can’t measure what you can’t see. Use the right visuals. Focus on roadblocks. Flow the project.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can’t I use CPM as a visual production plan?

Because CPM shows tasks and dependencies, not flow. People talk about what they see. If you put CPM on the wall, the team talks about tasks instead of flow. Use Takt planning to show the train of trades flowing zone to zone. That creates the right conversation.

Why should I separate constraints and roadblocks instead of lumping them together?

Because constraints are system design components that first planners optimize. Roadblocks are temporary blockers that last planners remove. When you lump them together, nobody knows who owns what or what needs optimization versus removal. Separate them for clarity.

Why is the weekly work plan on the wall detrimental?

Because stickies fall off, you run out of space, handwriting is illegible, and the board is locked in the trailer. Mega projects can’t fit on a board with thirty rows. Make the weekly work plan digital so it scales, updates in real time, and is accessible from the field.

What should the conference room focus on?

Identify, discuss, and solve roadblocks. Constraints should already be part of the system design. Use visual maps with red magnets to mark roadblocks. That’s the agenda. Focus on handoffs, interfaces, problems, and change points. That’s where the team creates value.

Where can I get the templates for team boards and visual maps?

In the description of the video or blog post. We give them away for free. You don’t have to buy them from us. If you want to know why, read The 10 Improvements to the Last Planner System. And if you want daily coaching, reach out for the WhatsApp chat.

 

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

The 14 Things – Site Utilization

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 22 min

Site Utilization: Logistics Planning Done Right

Here’s one of the fourteen key things you should check to make sure a project site is going well: site utilization. How are you going to utilize the site? And let me just go ahead and start out with a hard truth. If the project site is clean, they have control. If it’s not clean, they don’t have control. Cleanliness is the first thing. Nothing else can happen unless we get the site perfectly, beautifully, and operationally stable when it comes to cleanliness.

And after that, the site must be designed, not discovered.

The Pain of Discovering Instead of Designing

Let me just go ahead and start out with a little bit of a story. You’ve already heard me talk about the general superintendent out here in Phoenix on the City North project that ran logistics so beautifully. I mean, everything was set up. He had a company-owned water truck. He had pump trucks at the ready, a beautiful laydown yard, really nice trailer complex, a purchasing agent. I mean, everything was just detailed to the nth degree. It was so great. That was my first indication that logistics were hugely important.

Fast forward a number of years, I was at a stadium renovation in Illinois and a really great general superintendent, who I think is now vice president of field operations, walked us through how they were running the site there. And everything was just absolutely beautiful. It was clean, it was safe, it was organized. But it was designed.

It was literally like when I was going through the walk for how he was talking about logistics and how workers would access the restrooms and that there were key pick points and times throughout the day where they could access it and how he created a little queuing area for the staging because there was some variation in how often they could bring it in and how he designed the production rates for getting things in and out, meaning how I would say transportation rates probably is a better term, how they could get things in and out and how he was going to sequence things underneath where the rakers were, where they were doing a structural upgrade so that it was completely safe.

I was like, “Oh my gosh, I wonder if this is what it would be like to talk to Frank Crowe when building the Hoover Dam. This is design.” I almost halfway expected him to have an old plan table with a compass and protractor and sketching things out like an old-timey architect on the table and hand calculating things. He just sounded so professional. It was designed. It wasn’t just planned.

That’s where I came up with the nineteen logistical rules. I just wrote down everything that he said and it’s been an anchor ever since.

Here’s what designed looks like versus discovered. Designed means you plan where the trailers go before you place them. You plan where the laydown areas go before you stage materials. You plan the crane zones before you lift. You plan the queuing areas before deliveries arrive. Discovered means you’re reacting. You place the trailer, then realize it won’t work. You stage materials, then realize the crane can’t reach. You schedule deliveries, then realize there’s nowhere to queue them. That’s chaos. And chaos wastes time, money, and team capacity.

The Six Critical Elements of Site Utilization

My point with this is that when we’re checking a project site, in addition to safety, we have to make sure that we’re really tracking how the site is utilized from a logistical standpoint. Here are some things that a general super, senior super, project superintendent, or project management professionals would check when going to the project site.

Element One: Cleanliness (This Is Number One)

Number one, and this is number one, and if you don’t believe me that it’s number one, check out Paul Akers or check out some of my previous topics when it comes to cleanliness. Cleanliness is the first thing. Nothing else can happen unless we get the site perfectly, beautifully, and operationally stable when it comes to cleanliness.

Let me just say this. This is a hard truth, but I don’t mean it to be a hard truth or to land hard. This is a litmus test. If the project site is clean, they have control. If it’s not clean, they don’t have control.

The good thing about cleanliness is that it is the hardest thing to maintain. If the project site is clean, you know the project site has influence and has operational control of the project site. If they don’t, you know they have no control, that basically the project is just happening to them.

When you’re out there on the site, check that:

  • Pathways are clear, lit, and protected
  • Scrap and packaging is getting removed daily (hopefully we’re not bringing it in in the first place)
  • There are visual standards, visible standards
  • Materials are stacked and stored on dunnage, beautiful on a grid, on a level laydown (not a bunch of leaning towers on the mud)
  • Floors are being protected and maintained in finished areas
  • People are cleaning as they go
  • There’s a system to get trash out of the building (dumpsters, trash cans, standards)

You’re going to check for that first. If that’s not there, that’s the first thing you fix, because nothing else is going to work.

Element Two: Site Designed, Not Discovered

The second one is beautiful to me. Is the site designed, not discovered? What I mean by that is, it’s like, “Oh, let’s park the trailer over here. Oh, crap, that won’t work. We have a retention basin. Let’s move the trailer. Oh, let’s go ahead and put the trade partner Connexes over here. Oh, no, that won’t work. We actually needed that for the crane.” They’re discovering things as they’re going. That is not the way to do it because you’re going to waste so much time and money, and it’s going to be a nightmare, not to mention the team’s capacity. That is going to end in disaster.

So, when you’re out on the project site, you’re wanting to know:

  • There’s a logistical queuing area
  • There’s a place for material inspections from the project delivery team
  • There’s a working logistical system, visual system for scheduling deliveries, and knowing where they go with the crane, the hoist operator, and the forklift operators
  • Each of your operators are keeping their areas clean, safe, and organized
  • The logistics plan is being utilized and posted on the wall, and digital for that matter, and it’s always current
  • Everybody knows where to stage, where to store, where not to
  • Laydown areas are remarkable and protected so that things aren’t getting damaged
  • Access points, gates, and routes match the current phase and are set up to get people, equipment, and resources to the place of work

Is it designed, not just discovered?

Element Three: Material Flow Value Stream

The other thing is the material flow, where we receive, stage when necessary, and then move to the point of install, install and remove waste. This value stream is designed. So:

  • Are deliveries arriving without chaos?
  • Are carts, pallets, pre-kitted assemblies, bins, and carts ready to go, knowing how they’re going to get through the hoist, the elevators, and the doors, and marked to know what zone they’re going to?
  • Are crews in a flow and scheduled so they’re not waiting on materials?
  • Are we double-handling things? Are we touching it three to four times?

We need to make sure that all of these systems are working.

Element Four: Vertical and Horizontal Transportation

The other thing is vertical transportation. From a site utilization standpoint, especially on vertical projects, or horizontal, you’ve got to do an analysis with the crane and with the hoist to make sure that there’s enough capacity to feed the structure and the exterior and the floors, and that you know how to do that on a schedule.

Like for instance, it’s not first come, first serve on the crane schedule when you’re doing structure. You’ve probably got to prioritize concrete or steel, and then it’s first come, first serve after that.

On horizontal projects as well, if I drive from Arizona to California, I see hundreds of miles of work open, needlessly wasted, just complete garbage. They’re wasting time going back and forth. They’re wasting time with diesel. They’re wasting time with transportation. They’re wasting time coming back and having to fix final grade. They’re coming back and having to waste time with their erosion protection, with their fencing, with their K-rail.

I bet the amount of K-rail or Jersey barrier that we have between Arizona and California, just from the things that I’ve seen, just what it costs to put that up needlessly, could probably fund a couple hundred-million-dollar projects itself.

We’ve got to get in the habit, for whatever is reasonable down to your most limiting constraint, of working in smaller segments on those horizontal projects to where we’re not opening up hundreds of miles of work and wasting millions of dollars in needless costs. We have to make sure that vertical and horizontal transportation and batching capacity are all analyzed.

Element Five: Pathways Are Sacred

We have to also understand that when we’re talking about site utilization, pathways are sacred, not only for the access of materials, but for access of human beings. If we can get people to the work and materials to the place of work, we can build it.

Element Six: Laydown and Staging Governed Like Real Estate

Number six: laydown and staging are governed like real estate. I’m talking leveled with base, with power, with water, tents where you need it, where it comes in and it’s queued, and field engineers have laid out a grid and everything is beautifully organized. And so, it’s one hundred percent the way the standard must be.

And so, these are some of the things that you’ll check when it comes to site utilization. But if it’s not going well, you’ve got to look at it and start there, especially with cleanliness, because nothing else can be successful if that’s not there. 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

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Walk your project site and check these six elements. Is the site clean? If not, fix it first. Is the site designed or are you discovering problems as you go? Is the material flow value stream working? Is vertical and horizontal transportation analyzed and scheduled? Are pathways clear and protected? Are laydown and staging areas governed like real estate?

If any of these are missing, you don’t have control. The project is happening to you. Design the site. Don’t discover it. Start with cleanliness. Build from there. As we say at Elevate, if the site is clean, they have control. If not, they don’t. Site utilization starts with cleanliness and ends with design. Check it. Fix it. Flow it.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is cleanliness the first thing to check for site utilization?

Because it’s a litmus test. If the site is clean, they have control. If not, the project is happening to them. Cleanliness is the hardest thing to maintain. If they can keep it clean, they have operational control and influence over the project. If not, nothing else will work.

What does “designed, not discovered” mean?

It means you plan where trailers, laydown areas, crane zones, and queuing areas go before you place them. Discovered means you’re reacting placing the trailer, then realizing it won’t work. Designed means you analyze, plan, and execute. Discovered means you waste time, money, and capacity.

Why is vertical and horizontal transportation critical?

Because you need enough capacity to feed the structure, exterior, and floors on schedule. On vertical projects, you analyze crane and hoist capacity. On horizontal projects, you don’t open hundreds of miles of work needlessly. You work in smaller segments to avoid wasting time, diesel, transportation, and rework.

What does “pathways are sacred” mean?

It means pathways for people and materials must be clear, lit, and protected at all times. If you can get people to the work and materials to the place of work, you can build it. If pathways are blocked, flow stops.

How should laydown and staging areas be governed?

Like real estate. Leveled with base, with power, with water, tents where needed, queued, and laid out on a grid by field engineers. Everything beautifully organized. One hundred percent the standard. Not piles of materials on the mud.

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

    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.

    agenda

    Day 1

    Agenda

    • Intro to Camp
    • Set Expectations
    • Morning Routine
    • Plan Day
    • Explain "Why"
    • Teams Intros + Yells + Expectation
    • Focus, Physiology, Words + Yells
    • Blocks to Leadership
    • 50 Million
    • Biggest Thing
    • Choose Your Word
    • Marketing Exercise
    • Interview for the Project
    • PO Homework and Close the Day

    Outcomes

    • Understand how to get into a proper state to lead
    • Understand how to dig deep to find the confidence to lead
    • Team work and collaboration
    • Understand marketing
    • Understand how to interview for and win a project

    Day 2

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Macro Takt planning
    • Setup jobs + Signs + Logistics
    • Explain the IPCS™
    • Detailed logistics training
    • Team balance & health training

    Outcomes

    • Learn the IPCS™ understand how to integrate the entire project from start to finish with First Planners™ and Last Planners® through the Takt Production System®
    • Learn how to review a project
    • Learn advanced logistics
    • Learn team balance and health

    Day 3

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Review How Big Things Get Done
    • Review IPCSTM
    • Fix (Schedule, zone, logistics, trailer, org & procurement)
    • Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Pre-Con Overview
    • TAKT SIMULATION
    • Recap and Review

    Outcomes

    • Understand why and how to plan
    • Understand the benefits of using a Takt production plan
    • Learn the steps to proper pre-con that sets the project up for success
    • Learn how to review a project in a Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Learn flow from Takt planning

    Day 4

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Opposing Squares
    • Pull Plan
    • Takt Remaining
    • Norm Update
    • Re Zoning
    • Risks & Pre-Con Align
    • Meeting System
    • Problems
    • Recap

    Outcomes

    • Understand the Norm level Takt plan for weekly/daily planning
    • Benefits and outcomes of rezoning strategies
    • Using meetings to feed information through the system and to the Foremen

    Day 5

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Huddle I.D.S
    • Day Plan
    • Worker Huddle
    • Norm Update
    • Team Huddle
    • Lean Systems Recap
    • Feedback Exercise
    • Final & Close

    Outcomes

    • Know what information is needed and how to get it to the Workers
    • Better understand how to give feedback and why it’s crucial for everyone
    • How to problem solve as a team
    • Understand how all systems tie together
    • Know how the information gets all the way to the worker
    • Have perfect clarity on the individual’s personal organization planner