What Does a Project Engineer Do? (Roles, Responsibilities, and Real Impact)

Posted on May 5, 2026May 5, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 21 min

What Does a Project Engineer Do? The Foreman Enabler Role That Determines Project Flow

Walk any struggling construction project and you’ll find a pattern in the office trailer that mirrors the chaos in the field. A project engineer buried in submittals. An RFI log that’s grown into a second career. A procurement tracker nobody is quite sure is current. And somewhere in the field, a foreman standing in a half-finished zone waiting on information, materials, or a coordination decision that should have arrived days ago.

The project engineer is often right in the middle of that picture not because they aren’t working, but because nobody has been clear with them about what the work is actually for. When a PE believes their job is to process RFIs, they process RFIs. When they believe their job is to enable the trades, they use RFIs as a tool toward that end, which is completely different. The distinction determines whether a PE is contributing to flow or contributing to the friction that disrupts it.

The Enabling Hierarchy Nobody Draws Clearly Enough

The PM creates and runs the business of the project site from start to finish. Below that, three roles function as the primary trade enablers: the superintendent, the project engineer, and the field engineer. Each of them owns a different portion of what a trade partner needs to plan, build, and finish their scope cleanly. The superintendent handles the site environment, the sequence, the safety, and the coordination. The field engineer handles layout control, space management, and lift drawings. The project engineer handles information, materials, resources, and the coordination that flows through those channels.

The PM enables all three of those roles. The three of them together enable the foreman. The foreman enables the crew. The crew enables the value the hard cost, the installed work that the entire project exists to produce.

That chain only functions when each person in it understands who they are serving and what serving them actually requires. A PM who orders materials and dumps them on site without sequencing them to the production plan has checked a box and called it a job done. But the trades are now fighting a staging problem that didn’t need to exist, the seven wastes have all been triggered at once, and the foreman who needed those materials in the right zone at the right time got the opposite of what they needed. Checking boxes is not enabling. Enabling is a deliberate, continuous act of understanding what the person downstream needs and making sure they have it before they realize they need it.

What the Project Engineer Actually Owns

The project engineer is, at the core, the information manager and procurement leader of the project site. Those two functions making sure the right information flows to the trades and making sure the right materials arrive on the right rhythm are the engine of the PE role. Everything else is a mechanism that serves those functions.

Information management means RFIs get submitted, tracked, and closed fast enough that design gaps never become field stops. It means submittals move through the review cycle in time to release fabrication and procurement before lead times run out. It means coordination issues between trades get surfaced and resolved before they create the in-field conflicts that cost rework. It means the foreman has what they need to plan the work before the work starts, not while they’re trying to execute it.

Procurement leadership means the supply chain is visible, tracked, and managed against the production schedule not against a procurement log that sits in a spreadsheet nobody looks at until something arrives late. It means long-lead items are identified in the pull plan and ordered with enough lead time that expediting costs never appear. It means deliveries hit the site in rhythm with the Takt plan, so materials flow to the zone when the zone is ready, not before and not after. It means the PE is walking the field frequently enough to know whether what the foreman has in front of them matches what the plan shows they should have.

The Trade Partner Preparation Process Is the PE’s Operating Framework

The vehicle through which the project engineer serves the trades is the trade partner preparation process. This is not a list of administrative tasks. It is the full lifecycle of how a trade partner gets from contract to productive installation to clean closeout, and the PE is present and contributing at every stage.

The buyout and contracting phase is where the PE supports the PM in making sure the trade is set up correctly from the beginning scope is clear, terms are understood, submittals and RFI processes are established. The pre-mobilization meeting is where the PE works with the trade to confirm everything needed for a productive first day on site is in place before anybody mobilizes. The pre-construction meeting is where submittals, RFIs, safety requirements, quality documentation, and site-specific requirements get reviewed and owned. The first-in-place inspection is where the PE shows up alongside the trade to confirm the installation meets the standard before the scope scales. Follow-up inspections protect that standard as the work progresses. And final inspections, closeout, payment reconciliation, retainage release, and change order resolution are where the PE closes the loop cleanly.

Every one of those touchpoints is a plan, build, finish cycle for the trade partner. The PE helps them plan the scope. The PE resources and coordinates during the build. The PE closes out the finish. Repeat that for every trade on the project, in every phase, and what emerges is a project that moves because every foreman has the information, materials, and coordination they need at every stage, and nobody is standing in a zone waiting.

When PEs Lose Sight of the Mission

The drift pattern for project engineers is specific and recognizable. A new PE comes onto the project and gets handed a list of tasks: manage the RFI log, track submittals, process pay applications, coordinate with the permitting authority, update the procurement tracker. Those tasks are real and they matter. But they are tools. They are mechanisms that serve the mission of enabling the trades. When the PE starts to treat them as the mission itself, the mission disappears.

The PE who defines success as “my RFI log is current” is measuring the tool, not the outcome. The question that matters is whether the trades have the design answers they need to install the work without stopping. A current RFI log full of open items is not a success. A closed RFI log that got the answers to the field on time is. The difference is orientation toward the tool or toward the person the tool serves.

The same drift happens with submittals, procurement, and pay applications. When these become the focus, the PE disappears into paperwork and the field loses the proactive support that a good PE provides. The foreman’s problems stop being caught early and start surfacing as field crises. The supply chain stops being managed against the production schedule and starts being managed against a spreadsheet. And the information that trades need to stay in flow starts arriving late, incomplete, or in the wrong sequence.

Signs the PE Role Is Running Correctly

When a project engineer is properly oriented toward trade enablement, the evidence is visible in the field rather than just in the trailer. Look for these markers:

Foremen are not calling the trailer for information that should have already reached them, because the PE is getting ahead of those needs rather than responding to them reactively.
Materials are arriving on rhythm with the production schedule, at the right location, at the right time, because the procurement log is being managed against the Takt plan rather than against a milestone calendar.
First-in-place inspections are happening before the scope scales, not after, because the PE is present and engaged in quality at the point where it is cheapest to catch problems.
RFIs are being submitted and closed on a timeline that serves the construction sequence, not on a timeline that serves the reviewer’s convenience, because the PE is actively managing the cycle.
Pay applications are processing on time and change orders are being reconciled without drama, because the PE has been tracking the documentation throughout the work rather than assembling it at the end.

When those things are happening, the trades are flowing. When they are not, the PE has drifted from the mission.

Seventeen Things a Trade Needs, and Who Provides Them

There are seventeen things a trade partner needs to plan, build, and finish their scope successfully, and the superintendent, field engineer, and project engineer divide responsibility for providing all of them. The superintendent owns the site environment, the sequencing, and the production rhythm. The field engineer owns the spatial accuracy layout, control points, lift drawings, and spatial constraints. The project engineer owns the information flow and the material supply chain, with the full weight of coordination and communication that those require.

No single role provides everything. All three have to function well for the foreman to have everything they need. That interdependence is why the enabling chain matters and why a PE who retreats into paperwork creates a gap that the superintendent cannot fill alone and the field engineer cannot reach across.

We are building people who build things. A project engineer who understands that orientation goes to work every morning thinking about the foreman, not the submittal register. They ask what the trades need to win this week and then they go get it. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow including the project engineering discipline that keeps information and materials moving to the value creators in the field.

A Challenge for Builders

Walk through your current project’s trailer this week and ask every PE one question: what does your most stretched trade partner need from you this week that they do not yet have? If the answer is a list of pending RFIs or submittals, the PE is tracking tools. If the answer is a specific material arriving Tuesday that needs to hit Zone 4 instead of Zone 2, or a design answer due by Thursday that releases the concrete pour on Friday, the PE is tracking the trades. That distinction is the whole game.

As Jason says, “Plan it first, build it right, finish as you go.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the primary job of a project engineer in construction?

The PE exists to enable the trades to make sure the foreman has the information, materials, and coordination they need to plan, build, and finish their scope without stopping. RFIs, submittals, procurement logs, and pay applications are all tools in service of that mission, not the mission itself.

How is a project engineer different from a project manager?

The PM creates and runs the entire business of the project site and enables the superintendent, PE, and field engineer to do their jobs. The PE operates within that structure as the information manager and procurement leader, focused specifically on making sure the trades have what they need to execute their scope in flow.

What does it mean when a PE “loses sight of the trades”?

It means the PE has started treating their tools the RFI log, the submittal tracker, the procurement spreadsheet as the mission rather than as mechanisms that serve the trades. The signal is when the PE measures success by whether the log is current rather than by whether the foreman has what they need.

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.

What Is A Sprint In Project Management?

Posted on May 4, 2026May 4, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 22 min

What Is a Sprint in Construction? Why Full Kit Is the Only Way to Run One

Construction teams have been running sprints for decades without calling them that. Every weekly work plan is a sprint. Every lookahead that gets built is a sprint backlog being prepared. Every pull plan session is a sprint planning event. The language is different, but the underlying logic is identical and understanding that connection gives every superintendent, foreman, and PM a sharper mental model for why the weekly work plan either works or collapses, and what determines which outcome you get.

The concept of a sprint comes from agile project management, specifically the Scrum framework. But once you understand what it actually means, you realize it is not a tech industry idea that got borrowed into construction. It is a production principle that the construction industry was already using informally, and the Scrum framework just gave it a name, a structure, and a discipline that makes the difference between planning that protects crews and planning that sets them up to fail.

The Problem: Weekly Work Plans That Are Not Actually Ready

The failure pattern on most construction sites is consistent and recognizable. A weekly work plan gets built on Monday morning. It lists the activities the team intends to complete in the next five days. It looks complete on paper. By Wednesday, half the listed work is stalled because the materials did not arrive, because the RFI is still unanswered, because the preceding trade did not finish the handoff, because somebody assumed the prerequisite was done when it was not.

This is not a scheduling problem. It is a readiness problem. The work was put into the weekly plan before it was made ready, and the crew paid for that gap with idle time, frustration, and stops and restarts that nobody budgeted for because nobody wanted to say out loud that the work was not actually ready to be executed. The sprint concept fixes that problem by making readiness the entry requirement, not an afterthought.

What a Sprint Actually Is

A sprint is the amount of work a team plans to complete within a defined time period one week, two weeks, three weeks that is in the right order of priority, made ready, and full kit before the sprint begins. The hiking analogy makes this tangible. You are hiking to the top of a mountain. If all you can see is the peak, every step feels like no progress. But if you identify the next base camp, sprint to it, arrive, and then identify the next segment, you feel the win at every stage. Motivation holds. Effort is focused. Progress is visible.

In Scrum, a sprint board has three columns: backlog, sprint backlog, and complete. The sprint backlog is the specific subset of the full backlog that the team commits to completing in the current sprint not the whole project, not everything that could possibly be done, just this week’s work in this week’s window, at a volume the team can actually execute without overloading capacity. A buffer lives in the sprint so the team is not operating at 100% theoretical capacity with no room for variation.

The sprint backlog is made ready before the sprint begins. Every item is assigned. Every definition of done is clear. Every dependency is resolved. The story behind each task is understood. And the work is full kit meaning every resource the crew needs to execute it is confirmed available before the sprint starts.

How This Maps Directly to Construction

In construction, the weekly work plan is the sprint. The lookahead plan typically covering the six weeks ahead is the sprint preparation system. The pull plan, built three months before the phase begins, is where constraints get identified, discussed, and optimized so they do not become surprises inside the sprint window. These three layers are not separate tools. They are one integrated readiness system that ensures the weekly work plan is a real sprint rather than a wish list with a Monday date on it.

The pull plan handles the constraint layer Takt time, zone leveling, sequence logic, bottleneck identification. By the time work shows up in the six-week lookahead, those structural constraints should already be resolved. The lookahead handles the roadblock layer missing approvals, unanswered RFIs, unordered materials, uninspected work, unresolved coordination conflicts between trades. Between week six and week two, those roadblocks get owned, tracked, and closed. By the time work enters the weekly work plan, it should be roadblock-free and full kit.

That last phrase is the whole concept. Full kit means every input needed for the crew to execute the work without stopping is confirmed in place before the work starts. The materials are on site. The information is resolved. The preceding work is complete. The equipment is available. The inspection is scheduled. The drawings are coordinated. Full kit is not a nice-to-have. It is the entry requirement for the sprint. Nothing goes into the weekly work plan that is not full kit.

Why “We’ll Figure It Out in the Field” Is Not a Sprint

The most common violation of sprint discipline in construction is exactly this: work gets moved into the weekly plan before it is ready because the team wants to look productive, because the schedule says the work should start, or because nobody wanted to have the uncomfortable conversation about what is actually missing. The instinct is understandable. The result is predictable.

When work enters the sprint that is not full kit, one of two things happens. Either the crew starts the work anyway and hits the missing resource mid-task creating a stop, a restart, a quality compromise, and a demoralized team that has learned not to trust the weekly plan. Or the super finds out at the morning huddle that the work cannot proceed, improvises a substitute activity, and the team spends the week reacting instead of executing. Neither outcome serves the project. Both of them erode the trust in the planning system that makes everything else function.

The principle is the one that applies everywhere in production planning: we do not start until we are ready to finish. A sprint that is not full kit is not a sprint. It is a hope list. And hope lists do not protect crews.

Warning Signs That the Sprint Is Not Being Run Properly

Before the damage from incomplete readiness compounds into a schedule problem, watch for these signals on your own project:

Work from the previous week’s plan carried forward more than once because it was not actually ready when it was committed.
The lookahead review is identifying roadblocks inside the two-week window, which means the six-week readiness system is not catching them early enough.
Crews are starting activities without all the inputs confirmed, and stops and restarts are being treated as normal rather than as system failures.
The weekly work plan is being built in the field rather than from a prepared lookahead, which means the work is being committed without the readiness checks having been run.
Percent promises complete at end-of-week is consistently below 80%, and the root cause analysis is producing the same causes week after week with no systemic fix.

Every one of those signals points to the same root. Work is entering the sprint before it is full kit. The fix is not to lower the commitment count. The fix is to run the readiness system properly so that every commitment that enters the weekly plan has passed the full kit check before it gets there.

The Motivation Benefit Nobody Talks About

There is a production benefit to running real sprints that goes beyond the mechanics of readiness, and it is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the Last Planner System when it is working correctly. When the team commits to a sprint that is full kit and actually completes it, they win. They feel the win. Foremen walk into the weekend knowing their crew delivered what they said they would deliver. Workers end the shift knowing the zone is ready for the next trade. The superintendent can look at the percent promises complete number and see it reflect real production.

That win compounds. Teams that win regularly at the sprint level hold their commitment standard tighter because they have experienced what it feels like to hit it. They start protecting the full kit check because they know what happens to the week when something gets through without it. They start owning their roadblocks in the lookahead because they have felt the difference between a week where everything was ready and a week where it was not. The sprint discipline builds the culture of commitment that makes the Last Planner System function as a production control mechanism rather than a reporting exercise.

Build the Readiness System, Not Just the List

The sprint concept is only useful if the readiness system behind it is actually running. That means pull planning three months out to optimize constraints. It means lookahead management from six weeks to two weeks to identify and close roadblocks before they enter the sprint window. It means a weekly work plan that gets built from a prepared lookahead, not constructed from scratch on Monday morning by a team that is already late.

It also means a Scrum master or in construction language, a first planner who owns the readiness check. Somebody whose job it is to look at what is in the upcoming sprint and confirm, specifically, that every item is full kit. Not assume it. Not hope it. Confirm it, with the specific resources, information, and predecessor conditions verified before the sprint starts. That role is what closes the gap between planning that looks like a sprint and planning that actually functions as one.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow including the sprint readiness discipline that makes the weekly work plan a real production commitment instead of a list that hopes for the best. We are building people who build things. That includes building the planning systems that give those people a real chance to win every week.

A Challenge for Builders

Look at this week’s work plan before Monday morning and run a full kit check on every item. Not a general check a specific one. Are the materials confirmed on site? Is the RFI answered? Is the preceding trade finished? Is the inspection scheduled? Is the equipment available? Is the crew count matched to the scope? If any item fails that check, it does not go into the sprint. It stays in the lookahead with an owner and a close date. Run that check every week for a month and watch what happens to your percent promises complete, your crew morale, and your end-of-week confidence. The system works. The discipline to run it is what separates teams that feel it working from teams that wonder why it does not.

As Taiichi Ohno said, “Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a sprint in construction project management?

A sprint is the specific amount of work a team commits to completing in a defined time window typically one week that is prioritized, assigned, and full kit before the sprint begins. In construction, the weekly work plan is the sprint, and the lookahead and pull plan are the systems that make it ready.

What does “full kit” mean and why does it matter?

Full kit means every resource, information, and predecessor condition required to execute a task without stopping has been confirmed in place before the work enters the weekly work plan. It is the entry requirement for the sprint. Work that is not full kit belongs in the lookahead, not the weekly commitment.

How does the lookahead plan support the sprint?

The lookahead typically covering six weeks is where roadblocks get identified, owned, and removed before they enter the sprint window. By the time work appears in the weekly work plan, every roadblock in the lookahead should already be closed. That readiness chain is what makes the sprint actually executable rather than aspirational.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Trying To Get Better As A Leader

Posted on May 4, 2026May 4, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 19 min

Trying to Get Better as a Leader: Why Imperfect Leaders Build the Strongest Teams

Here’s something most leadership content won’t say directly. The people writing it are imperfect too. They have reactions they’re not proud of. They have sensitivities that get in the way. They have moments where their impact on the people around them lands differently than they intended, even when they didn’t technically do anything wrong. The honest version of leadership development is not about eliminating those things. It is about naming them, owning the impact, and showing the people around you that you are genuinely trying to close the gap between who you are and who the role requires you to be.

That’s what this conversation is actually about. Not a framework for perfect leadership. A real account of what growth looks like when you’re inside it messy, uncomfortable, and more valuable to the people around you than any polished performance ever could be.

The Honest Starting Point

Jason Schroeder describes himself as a highly sensitive person someone who loathes criticism, can go cold when pushed, and sometimes makes the people around him uncomfortable through the sheer visibility of his emotional state even when no words have been said and nothing technically wrong has been done. He names it as something close to narcissism, then clarifies the distinction: not the dark version that weaponizes sensitivity against others, but the kind that makes criticism feel threatening and exclusion feel unbearable.

Most leaders have a version of this. Some are micromanagers who genuinely believe they are helping. Some are emotionally flat in ways that read as dismissive or cold when they are simply processing differently. Some have ADHD that makes focus in meetings hard, or brains that visually frown when thinking deeply, or standards so high that they project intensity in settings that call for patience. None of those things are character failures. They are the particular shape of a human being trying to lead other human beings, and every single one of them can do damage if the leader does not know it is there and refuses to own the impact.

The first honest step in getting better is the same step every strong recovery program starts with. Naming the thing. Not as a confession of worthlessness. As an accurate inventory of what you are working with, so you can work with it instead of against it.

Why “I Didn’t Do Anything Wrong” Is Not Enough

There is a specific trap that technically skilled leaders fall into regularly. Something goes sideways in a conversation. The leader reviews the replay in their head and confirms: no names were called, no inappropriate words were used, no formal breach of conduct occurred. And from that confirmation, they conclude they have nothing to address. The impact on the people in that room is treated as their problem to manage, not the leader’s responsibility to own.

That conclusion is wrong, and it is costly. Intent and impact are not the same thing. A leader who walks away from a tense conversation thinking “I didn’t do anything wrong” while the team walks away shaken, guarded, and less willing to surface problems has still done damage. The fact that the damage was unintended does not make the team’s experience less real. It does not rebuild the trust that eroded. And it does not create the conditions for the next honest conversation.

The more productive frame is simple: my impact was negative, and I am responsible for it regardless of my intent. That is not self-flagellation. It is accurate accounting. And it is the starting point for the kind of accountability that actually heals teams instead of just closing incidents.

What Owning the Impact Actually Looks Like

Jason describes his own practice clearly. After a moment where something went sideways emotionally, the response is not to make excuses, not to normalize it, not to wait for it to pass as if it did not happen. The response is to go back to the team and say it directly: I know I got upset there for a minute. I apologize for my impact. I’m working on this.

That approach does several things simultaneously. It acknowledges the reality of what the people in the room experienced without requiring them to name it themselves. It separates the leader’s intent from the team’s experience, validating both. It demonstrates the self-awareness that makes people willing to follow a leader through difficulty. And it models the accountability standard that the leader wants the entire team to operate from. You cannot ask your foremen and crew leaders to own their mistakes while pretending your own were not mistakes.

What Jason has observed and what holds true across every high-functioning team is that people are extraordinarily forgiving and gracious toward a leader who is visibly trying their best. Not a leader performing effort. A leader actually in the work of improving, stumbling in visible ways, and getting back up with honesty rather than defensiveness. That visibility is not weakness. It is the relational infrastructure that makes trust possible.

The Trap of “Never Let Them Figure You Out”

There is old-school leadership advice that says a leader should remain mysterious never let the team figure you out, because predictability breeds contempt and power depends on mystique. That advice produces exactly the wrong outcome on any team that needs to function as a cohesive unit rather than as a collection of people managing around someone’s moods.

When a leader is unpredictable by design, the team spends energy managing the uncertainty instead of doing the work. People stop bringing problems because they cannot predict the response. Foremen start filtering information before it travels upward. The morning worker huddle happens but nobody says what they actually think. The culture becomes one of careful performance rather than honest collaboration, and the production system underneath it reflects the gap.

When a leader is transparent about their tendencies and honest about their impact, the opposite happens. The team knows what they are working with. They can plan around it, support around it, and eventually help close the gap because they trust the leader’s commitment to closing it. That transparency does not undermine authority. It deepens it because the team knows the leader’s authority is not fragile and does not need to be protected by mystique.

What Nobody’s Leadership Growth Actually Looks Like

Here’s what the real version of trying to get better as a leader actually includes not the version that gets shared on conference stages, but the one that happens before anyone is watching:

Catching the reaction before it lands and choosing differently than you did last time, even when it is hard and the instinct is strong.
Going back to someone after a difficult conversation and naming your impact without requiring them to initiate it.
Noticing the ways your particular brain, personality, or wiring affects the people around you, and taking responsibility for those effects without treating them as excuses.
Asking for honest feedback from people who will actually give it, and sitting with the discomfort of hearing it instead of going cold.
Being willing to say in front of the team that you got something wrong, that you are working on it, and that their patience with you is something you do not take for granted.

That list is not impressive from the outside. It does not look like bold leadership. It looks like a person doing the quiet, necessary work of becoming better than they were. And the people who watch it happen are the ones who will follow that leader anywhere.

Why This Is a Production Issue, Not Just a Personal One

Leadership character is not separate from project outcomes. It is one of the primary inputs that determine them. A leader whose emotional state is unpredictable creates a site where people manage upward instead of executing forward. A leader who cannot receive honest feedback creates an environment where problems stay hidden until they are crises. A leader who refuses to own their impact loses the moral authority to hold anyone else accountable for theirs.

On the flip side, a leader who is visibly trying who names their tendencies, owns their impact, and shows up the next day still committed to doing better creates the psychological safety that allows the production system to function. Teams with that kind of trust surface problems early. Foremen ask for help instead of covering up struggles. Workers participate in huddles as real stakeholders instead of as performance audiences. The culture of any organization is shaped by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate and the most important behavior a leader tolerates or refuses to tolerate is their own.

A Challenge for Builders

Think about the last time you had a negative impact on the people around you not the last time you technically did something wrong, but the last time someone in the room walked away carrying something you put there. Did you go back and name it? Did you own the impact without requiring them to raise it first? If not, it is not too late. That conversation is always available, and it almost always produces more trust than people expect. We are building people who build things. That starts with the willingness to be honest about the building that still needs to happen in ourselves.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does owning your impact matter even if you didn’t technically do anything wrong?

Because intent and impact are not the same thing. When a leader’s emotional state visible even without words leaves the team shaken or guarded, the damage is real regardless of intent. Owning that impact is what rebuilds trust and keeps the culture honest.

Does admitting flaws and mistakes undermine a leader’s authority?

The opposite is true. Visible effort and honest accountability deepen authority because they show the team the leader’s standards are not fragile and do not depend on performance. People follow leaders who are transparently trying far more reliably than leaders who project infallibility.

What is the most practical first step for a leader trying to get better?

Name the specific tendency sensitivity to criticism, emotional visibility, micromanagement, whatever the actual pattern is and start going back after difficult moments to own the impact directly. That one practice, repeated consistently, builds more trust than almost anything else a leader can do.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

The 10 “C”s continued

Posted on May 4, 2026May 4, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 24 min

The 10 C’s for Superintendents: The Final Five That Define the Standard

The first five of the 10 C’s create the plan, communicate the plan, clear the path, control the environment, and collaborate with the team are the daily practice. They are the standard work that a great superintendent runs every single day, the rhythm that holds the project together when everything else is trying to pull it apart. The last five are different in character. They are not daily tasks. They are the overarching goals, the mindset, and the code of the role itself. They are the answers to the question every superintendent should ask at the end of every project: did I actually do the job?

This conversation between Jason Schroeder and Joe Daugherty a seasoned superintendent with decades of field experience covers C6 through C10. What comes out of it is a framework that every superintendent can carry as a professional code, something to reflect on, return to, and measure the work against.

C6: Complete on Time

Everything else a superintendent does the planning, the coordination, the safety, the culture ultimately gets measured against one question. Did you finish? Not approximately. Not close. Did the project complete on time, and did it do so without burdening the trades to get there?

Joe puts it directly: the superintendent has to act with purpose. Not haste, not panic, but purposeful forward movement driven by a clear understanding of where the project stands today against where it needs to be next week and next month. A superintendent who only knows what is happening right now is already behind. The role demands looking two steps ahead at minimum anticipating the next constraint, the next procurement gap, the next handoff risk and removing it before the crew hits the wall.

The principle from the Patton framework is instructive here. There is a direct relationship between the time troops are exposed to enemy fire and the casualties they take. The rapidity of advance responsible, planned, purposeful advance is what reduces the window of exposure. In construction, the longer the project window stays open, the more opportunities surface for things to go wrong. A superintendent who drives responsibly forward, narrowing that window without creating chaos, is protecting the project and every person on it. That is not haste. That is leadership. And it is not achieved by starting more work. It is achieved by finishing what is in front of the crew before opening the next front.

C7: Contain Costs

Cost containment is not the same as penny-pinching. That distinction matters more than most people running budgets understand. Joe draws the line clearly: the things that look like costs proper sanitation, the right tools, materials in the right quantity to avoid a second run to the supplier are not the things that kill a budget. The things that kill a budget are waste. And waste, in the production sense, is everything the crew does that does not add value to the finished work.

Sending a worker to the store for hardware and buying exactly the right quantity is not savings. It is a productivity loss in waiting. Buying a few extra bolts and keeping them in the trailer is a cheap insurance policy against a costly stop and restart. The superintendent who understands this is making real cost decisions, not just managing line items. Real cost containment means eliminating the rework, the idle time, the trips back, the restarts, the inspection failures, and the coordination breakdowns that inflate the labor hours nobody ever budgets for because nobody wants to admit they’re going to happen.

This is also a shared responsibility. The superintendent and the PM own cost together, not separately. The superintendent’s instinct to solve problems quickly to go get the sink, drive to the supplier, resolve the blockage directly has to be balanced with the patience to let the PM do the due diligence that protects the project legally and financially. That tension, navigated well, is where good budget management actually lives.

C8: Continuously Improve

The most quietly dangerous sentence in construction is “I’ve got 30 years of experience.” Because 30 years of experience is only valuable if it means 30 years of constantly evolving, learning, reading, training, and improving. The alternative one year of experience repeated 30 times is not experience. It is habit that has never been examined. And the industry has plenty of both.

The great superintendents are always asking how the next project can be better than the last one. Not by working harder. By working smarter by capturing lessons, by investing in new tools and new systems, by being willing to look at a process they have run for decades and ask whether there is a better way. Joe’s example of building QR codes in Smartsheet for inspection calls is not a technology story. It is a continuous improvement story. It is a superintendent who looked at a friction point in the daily workflow and eliminated it by learning something new. That mindset, applied consistently, is what separates a superintendent with 30 years of compounding improvement from one with one year repeated 30 times.

The comparison to professional athletes is worth sitting with. Elite athletes train, compete, rest, and train again. Training is not the exception to the schedule it is the structure of the career. Construction managers have largely inverted that model: they work, then maybe fit in a small slice of training, then work again. Reversing that ratio is what the industry needs, and it starts with individual superintendents who take their own development as seriously as they take their daily production plan.

C9: Check Your Ego

Ego in the superintendent seat runs in two directions, and both are equally capable of destroying a project. The first direction is obvious: the super who believes the site exists to validate their authority, who leads by dominance, who mistakes control for leadership. That pattern is easy to identify and easy to critique. The second direction is subtler and probably more common: the superintendent who wants to be liked more than they want to hold the standard. Who softens the consequence because confrontation is uncomfortable. Who lets a safety violation slide because they don’t want to be the person who made the crew feel bad.

Both versions are ego at work. The need for significance and the need for approval are two sides of the same coin, and both of them, when they run the show, cost the project and the people in it. The ego that craves power loosens the grip on quality and safety to protect the relationship with authority. The ego that craves approval loosens the grip on standards to protect the relationship with the crew. Neither version is serving the job.

What Joe and Jason are pointing toward is not the elimination of ego that is not possible and probably not desirable. Ego is partly what drives a superintendent to care whether the project finishes on time, to feel the satisfaction of a clean site, to want to be the person the team can count on. The goal is not to erase it. The goal is to check it to notice when it is driving decisions, to examine what it is tied to, and to make sure it is not in control of choices that belong to the role rather than the person.

The superintendent who checks their ego accepts responsibility when things go wrong and shares credit when things go right. That combination is rarer than it should be, and it is the foundation of the trust that makes a great project team possible.

Warning Signs That the 10 C’s Are Breaking Down

Before the gap between intention and execution compounds into a project problem, look for these signals on your own site:

The schedule is being driven reactively responding to delays instead of anticipating and preventing them which means C6 is failing upstream.
Cost conversations are defaulting to penny-pinching on visible items while waste accumulates invisibly in rework, idle time, and second trips which means C7 is being misapplied.
The team is running the same playbook they ran on the last three projects without ever examining whether it produced the best outcome which means C8 is absent.
Standards are being held inconsistently, with consequences varying based on who the person is or how much the superintendent wants to avoid conflict which means C9 is controlling decisions it should not own.
The site, the trailer, the superintendent’s appearance, and the quality of the work product all reflect a diminished standard that nobody formally lowered which means C10 has eroded quietly.

Any one of those signals is correctable. Naming which C is failing is the first step in the correction.

C10: Command the Standard

The superintendent sets the tone for everything on the project. Not by announcement. By presence. The way the trailer looks. The cleanliness of the truck. The collared shirt. The organized desk. The way a safety stop gets handled directly, humanly, without compromise. Every one of those signals communicates the standard to every person on the site, and every person on the site adjusts their behavior to match what they believe the superintendent will actually enforce.

Joe’s story of the painter on the metal roof without fall protection is a masterclass in how to command the standard without destroying the relationship. He called the painter down by name. He didn’t yell. He acknowledged what the painter thought he had under control and then named the unpredictable risk the bird, the slip, the thing nobody plans for. He said clearly and directly that it was not acceptable. He didn’t have the answer to how the work would get done safely in that moment. But he held the line: we are not starting back up until we know this is right. That is commanding the standard. Not from authority. From care.

The dichotomy Joe names is real and it is hard: intense about the standard, deeply empathetic about the person. Those two things can coexist, but they require the superintendent to be clear about which is which. The standard applies to behavior on site. The empathy applies to the human being inside that behavior. You can hold both without confusing them, and the project and the people on it are better for it when you do.

How the 10 C’s Become a Living Code

The 10 C’s are most useful not as a list but as a language. When a superintendent walks a look-ahead with the team and says “we need to clear the path on this” or looks at a cost trend and says “that’s a C7 problem,” the C’s have moved from a framework they know to a lens they see through. That is when they start producing real results not when they are memorized, but when they are so internalized that they surface naturally in the daily decisions that build or break a project.

Joe’s team reviews them when things go sideways, identifies which C is being violated, and works the problem from there. That is how a framework becomes a standard. Use it when things are going well to reinforce why. Use it when things go wrong to diagnose where the breakdown actually started. Make it the language of the trade partner meeting, the foreman huddle, the end-of-phase reflection. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow and build the daily practice that turns the 10 C’s from a poster on the wall into the code the team lives by.

We are building people who build things. The 10 C’s are how we build the superintendents who build everything else.

A Challenge for Builders

Look at your current project and score it against C6 through C10 honestly. Is the schedule being driven forward purposefully without burdening the trades? Is cost being managed by eliminating waste rather than cutting what actually protects people? Is the team continuously improving, or running last year’s playbook? Is the superintendent’s ego checked neither dominating nor softening the standard to be liked? And is the standard on the site, in the trailer, in the work product being commanded with both intensity and care? Name the weakest C. Go work it. That is the job.

As Taiichi Ohno said, “Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between the first five and last five of the 10 C’s?

The first five create the plan, communicate, clear the path, control the environment, collaborate are daily standard work, the practice a superintendent runs every day. The last five complete on time, contain costs, continuously improve, check the ego, command the standard are the overarching goals and mindset of the role itself.

What does “check your ego” actually mean for a superintendent?

It means noticing when ego either the need for power or the need to be liked is driving decisions that belong to the role. It does not mean eliminating ego, which is neither possible nor desirable. It means making sure ego is tied to the right things, like finishing on time and taking care of people, rather than to dominance or approval.

How does a superintendent “command the standard” without damaging relationships?

By being intense about the behavior and empathetic about the person simultaneously. The standard applies to what happens on site safety, cleanliness, quality, organization. The empathy applies to the human being inside that situation. Joe’s painter story is the model: call it by name, be direct and clear, hold the line without compromise, and do it all with care rather than contempt.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Let Your Light Shine!

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 23 min

Are You Putting Yourself Down or Letting Your Light Shine?

You’re at training. Facilitator has you sit knee to knee with another human being. Literally touching knees. In front of another person. Facing each other sitting down. Facilitator asks: look at their eyes. Look at their face. Look at their wrinkles. Look at their expressions. Look at their kindnesses. Look at their smile. You find out you’re really uncomfortable being that close to another human being and staring at somebody in their eyes. This exercise was to see how you show up when in intimate situation. Intimate situation being actually connecting on visual level with another human being. Good activity showing you how to get more comfortable with human interaction. Then they threw surprise. Asked: what did you notice about yourself? Didn’t know they were going to ask this question. What did you notice about yourself? You noticed you moved your shoulders down. Put your head down. Lowered your position so other person would feel comfortable. Somebody might say: that’s not big deal. Fair point. But you had naturally put yourself down so somebody else would feel comfortable. Didn’t know you were doing that with people. So many people in life saying: you’re too much or too energetic or too enthusiastic or too whatever. So you’ve become accustomed to putting yourself down so you can make other people comfortable. That was revelatory moment. You diminished yourself. Diminished yourself to make others feel comfortable. Vowed after that training to be who you are. To authentically be who you naturally show up as. To let things fall as they may. One of best decisions ever made.

Here’s what most people miss. They think being humble means diminishing themselves. Making themselves small. Lowering position. Moving shoulders down. Putting head down. Making others comfortable by being less. So they hide light under bushel. Play small. Act in way that’s not giving other people license to do same. Hold back talents. Don’t share gifts with world. Because think if they shine too bright, others will feel uncomfortable. Different from letting light shine. Being fully who you are. Authentically showing up as you naturally are. Letting things fall as they may. When you diminish yourself, you’re actually taking choice from others of whether they want to like you or accept you or really appreciate who you are. When you let light shine, you give others gift that is you. You unconsciously give other people permission to do same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. That’s not arrogance. That’s authenticity. That’s letting light shine so others can too.

The challenge is most people never learned that diminishing yourself takes choice from others. Never learned that when you move shoulders down, put head down, lower position to make others comfortable, you’re actually preventing them from choosing whether they want to appreciate who you really are. Never learned that playing small doesn’t serve world. That there’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so others won’t feel insecure around you. Never learned that as you are liberated from your own fear, your presence automatically liberates others. So they keep diminishing themselves. Keep hiding light under bushel. Keep playing small. Keep holding back. Wonder why not fulfilled when answer is they’re not being fully themselves. Not letting light shine. Not giving others permission through example to let their lights shine too.

The Knee-to-Knee Exercise

Was at training, Rapport Leadership International. They take you through process where you sit knee to knee with another human being. You look at other person’s face. Facilitator has you sit like literally touching knees. In front of another human being. Could be male, could be female. Was in front of another male. Facing each other sitting down.

Facilitator asks: look at their eyes. Look at their face. Look at their wrinkles. Look at their expressions. Look at their kindnesses. Look at their smile.

You find out you’re really uncomfortable being that close to another human being and staring at somebody in their eyes. Really what this exercise was for was to see how you show up when you are in not sexual but intimate situation. Intimate situation is being actually connecting on visual level with another human being.

Thought: this is really good activity. Really like this because it’s showing me how I can get more comfortable with human interaction.

But then they threw surprise. Said: what did you notice about yourself? Didn’t know they were going to ask this question. Didn’t even guess.

After that, they said: what did you notice about yourself? Noticed that moved shoulders down. Put head down. Lowered position so other person would feel comfortable.

Somebody might be like: that’s not that big of deal. Fair point. But had naturally put myself down so somebody else would feel comfortable. Didn’t know was doing that with people.

There are so many people in life that are like: oh, you’re too much or too energetic or too enthusiastic or too whatever. So have up until now become accustomed to putting myself down so can make other people comfortable.

That was revelatory moment. Diminished myself. Diminished myself to make others feel comfortable.

Vowed after that training to be who I am. To authentically be who I naturally show up as. To just let things fall as they may. Can tell you, it’s one of best decisions ever made in life.

Are You Brilliant, Gorgeous, Talented, and Fabulous?

Let me ask you question. Are you letting your light be hid under bushel? Are you diminishing yourself to make other people feel comfortable? Do you realize how brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous you are?

Are you playing small right now? Are you acting in way and showing up in way that is not giving other people license to do same? Are you providing or sharing or showing up with your talents to world and giving other people gift that is you? Or are you holding back?

Are you letting your own light shine so that you can, again, unconsciously give other people permission to do same?

Personal opinion is we have opportunity to be fully who we are and to let others actually have their choice of accepting us way that we are or not. Ultimately, when we diminish ourselves, we’re actually taking choice from others of whether or not they want to like us or accept us or really appreciate who we are.

As We Are Liberated From Our Own Fear

When you diminish yourself, you take choice from others. They don’t get to choose whether they want to appreciate real you. They only see diminished version. Smaller version. Version with shoulders down, head down, position lowered.

When you let light shine, you give others gift. Real you. Authentic you. Fully who you are. They get to choose whether they want to like you, accept you, appreciate you. That’s their choice. But at least they’re choosing based on real you, not diminished version.

And when you let light shine, you unconsciously give other people permission to do same. Your presence automatically liberates others. They see you being fully yourself. Being authentic. Letting light shine. And they think: maybe I can too. Maybe I don’t have to play small. Maybe I don’t have to hide under bushel. Maybe I can be fully me.

That’s how liberation works. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When people diminish themselves and hide light under bushel, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching that being humble means making yourself small. Nobody showed that moving shoulders down, putting head down, lowering position to make others comfortable is actually taking choice from them. Nobody explained that when you diminish yourself, you prevent others from choosing whether they want to appreciate who you really are. The system taught be less so others feel comfortable when actually be fully yourself.

The system also failed by not teaching that playing small doesn’t serve world. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so others won’t feel insecure around you. Are you brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Are you playing small right now? Are you acting in way not giving other people license to do same? Are you holding back talents instead of sharing gifts with world? The system taught hide your light when actually let it shine.

The system fails by not teaching that as you are liberated from your own fear, your presence automatically liberates others. When you let light shine, you unconsciously give other people permission to do same. They see you being fully yourself, being authentic, and they think: maybe I can too. That’s how liberation works. But system never taught this, so people keep diminishing themselves thinking it’s humility when actually it’s taking choice from others and preventing liberation.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop diminishing yourself. Start letting your light shine.

Analyze what things you need to be more authentic about. How could you be more of you? How could you let your light shine? Pick one thing. Starting tomorrow, make resolution that you will be more fully yourself.

Recognize when you’re diminishing yourself. Moving shoulders down. Putting head down. Lowering position to make others comfortable. Playing small. Acting in way not giving others license to do same. Holding back talents. Not sharing gifts with world. That’s diminishing yourself to make others feel comfortable. But didn’t know you were doing that with people.

Vow to be who you are. To authentically be who you naturally show up as. To let things fall as they may. Be fully who you are. Let others have their choice of accepting you way you are or not. When you diminish yourself, you take choice from others of whether they want to like you, accept you, appreciate who you really are. Give them real you. Let them choose.

Let your light shine. Are you brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Stop hiding under bushel. Stop playing small. Stop holding back. Share your talents with world. Give other people gift that is you. Let your own light shine so you unconsciously give other people permission to do same.

Remember as you are liberated from your own fear, your presence automatically liberates others. When you let light shine, others see example. Think: maybe I can too. Maybe I don’t have to play small. Maybe I can be fully me. That’s how liberation works. Your light shining gives others permission to let theirs shine too.

We have opportunity to be fully who we are. Current condition is we’re not showing up and showing how brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous we are. Current condition is we are diminishing ourselves. Change that. Be more authentic. Be more of you. Let light shine.

On we go.

FAQ

What is the knee-to-knee exercise?

Sit knee to knee with another human being literally touching knees. Look at their eyes, face, wrinkles, expressions, kindnesses, smile. Really uncomfortable being that close staring at somebody in eyes. Exercise shows how you show up in intimate situation, actually connecting on visual level with another human being. Then they ask: what did you notice about yourself?

What did you notice about yourself?

Moved shoulders down. Put head down. Lowered position so other person would feel comfortable. Naturally put myself down so somebody else would feel comfortable. Didn’t know was doing that with people. So many people saying you’re too much, too energetic, too enthusiastic. Become accustomed to putting myself down to make other people comfortable. That was revelatory moment. Diminished myself to make others feel comfortable.

Why is diminishing yourself a problem?

When you diminish yourself, you’re actually taking choice from others of whether they want to like you, accept you, really appreciate who you are. They don’t get to choose based on real you, only diminished version. When you let light shine, you give them gift that is you. They get to choose whether they want to appreciate who you really are.

What does it mean to let your light shine?

Be who you are. Authentically be who you naturally show up as. Let things fall as they may. Don’t play small. Don’t hide talents. Don’t hold back. Share gifts with world. Give other people gift that is you. Let your own light shine so you unconsciously give other people permission to do same.

How does your light shining help others?

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. When you let light shine, you unconsciously give other people permission to do same. They see you being fully yourself, being authentic, and they think: maybe I can too. Maybe I don’t have to play small. Maybe I can be fully me. That’s how liberation works.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

Elevating Construction Superintendents – Conclusion

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 20 min

Are You Following the Commandments or Winging It?

You start your day. No task list. Haven’t studied drawings in weeks. Don’t review schedule daily. Never take reflection walks. Keep schedule in office, not on your person. Don’t visualize plan in your mind. Don’t communicate critical components to everyone. Never remove roadblocks as top priority. Work 70 hours every week. Wonder why project is chaos. That’s winging it. Different from superintendent who follows commandments. Starts day prioritizing task list. Studies drawings 30 minutes every day. Reviews schedule daily, sends out assignments to prepare work. Takes reflection walk daily, sends out assignments. Keeps schedule on person when in field. Updates scheduled notes while walking project. Visualizes plan daily in mind. Draws sketches. Communicates critical components of plan daily to everyone. Always keeps tape measure. Asks questions as form of habit. Transparent about everything. Copies on emails, communicates, tells truth. Reaches out for help from other builders. Learns monthly reading from books, training, going to events, visiting other projects. Removes roadblocks as top priority, keeps work moving forward. Ensures manpower, materials, needed permissions ready for work. Starts every day making sure project is safe. Always keeps workers at steady pace and project 100% clean. Returns all emails, texts, phone calls showing respect for their time. Places attention on safety, housekeeping, project flow, energy during all site walks. Gives and receives daily positive communication with project manager, works with them as equal accountability partner. Doesn’t work more than 55 hours. That’s following commandments. Different results. Different projects. Different life.

Here’s what most superintendents miss. They think commandments are suggestions. Guidelines. Nice to have. So they wing it. Start day without task list. Never study drawings. Never take reflection walks. Keep schedule in office instead of on person. Don’t visualize plan. Don’t communicate to everyone. React to roadblocks instead of removing them proactively. Work 70 hours proving dedication. But that’s backwards. Commandments aren’t suggestions. They’re requirements for success. Study drawings 30 minutes every day creates understanding preventing mistakes. Reflection walks create awareness identifying problems before they explode. Keeping schedule on person enables updating notes in real time instead of forgetting details by time you get back to office. Visualizing plan in mind creates mental model enabling seeing problems before they happen. Communicating critical components daily to everyone creates alignment instead of confusion. Removing roadblocks as top priority keeps work moving instead of stopping. Working less than 55 hours preserves family and prevents burnout. These aren’t nice to have. They’re required for well-run projects and sustainable careers.

The challenge is most superintendents never learned commandments are what separates successful from struggling. They think working 70 hours shows commitment when actually working more than 55 hours indicates poor planning and unsustainable pace. They think keeping plan in head shows intelligence when actually communicating plan to create success shows leadership. They think reacting to problems shows responsiveness when actually foreseeing and removing roadblocks shows competence. They never developed habits, wonder why projects chaotic when answer is they’re winging it instead of following commandments creating predictable success.

The 20 Superintendent Commandments

Following these commandments will ensure you will be successful as superintendent:

Start your day by prioritizing your task list. If you don’t have task list, create one.
Study the drawings for 30 minutes every day.
Review the schedule daily and send out assignments to prepare work.
Take a reflection walk daily and send out assignments.
Keep the schedule on your person when in field. Update scheduled notes as you walk project.
Visualize the plan daily in your mind. Draw sketches.
Communicate critical components of plan daily to everyone.
Always keep your tape measure on you.
Ask questions as form of habit, and you will know everything you need to know.
Be transparent about everything. Copy on emails, communicate, tell truth.
Reach out for help from other builders and networks to be more effective.
Learn monthly reading from books, training, going to events, visiting other projects.
Remove roadblocks as your top priority and keep work moving forward.
Ensure manpower, materials, and needed permissions are ready for work.
Start every day making sure project is safe.
Always keep workers at steady pace and project 100% clean.
Return all emails, texts, phone calls. Show people you respect their time.
Place attention on safety, housekeeping, project flow, and energy during all site walks.
Give and receive daily positive communication with project manager and work with them as equal accountability partner.
Don’t work more than 55 hours.

Superintendent Daily Tasks

Every superintendent must do certain things daily to be successful. Below is list you can measure daily to ensure you are winning:

Speak up effectively in morning huddle about critical items for day.
Really think minimum 10 minutes about safety and make effort to know there is plan to keep everyone safe that day.
Study drawings for 30 minutes and send out snippets to people of things to watch for, order, or prepare.
Update, modify, plan, add, or review schedule for 15 to 30 minutes and send out snippets or reminders to prepare all needed items.
Take focused reflection walk, observe flow, energy, cleanliness, safety, and text, email, or call in assignments.
Ensure work is taking place with correct crew counts by area according to day plan.
Review quality focus for all new activities that day.
Go home in proper mental state to care for your family.
Do something to sharpen axe and learn: book, podcast, or training.
Work less than 55 hours that week.

Superintendent Secret Sauce

Good superintendent sees the future. Doesn’t work more than 55 hours. Drives with urgency. Creates good habits. Leads with passion. Communicates vision. Does right thing even when no one is looking. Are accountable. Creates flow.

Doesn’t delegate safety, quality, and schedule. Takes ownership of project. Are equal to project manager. Welcomes feedback. Airs on side of action. Are team builders. Brings and maintains high energy on project. Fanatically follows up. Returns phone calls, texts, and emails. Stays calm when decisions are hard.

Are advocates for workers. Always protects finished work. Helps to make remarkable experience for whole project. Is willing to ask for advice and reach out and network with other supers. Respects workers, individuals, trade partners, and customers.

Focuses on foreseeing and removing roadblocks. Understands that motion does not equal value. Knows that overproduction and inventory is mother of all waste. Knows that deliveries and procurement management has to be preceded by solid plan.

Doesn’t keep plan in his or her head, they communicate to create success. Knows that learning and improvement is crucial. Shows respect for others by being transparent. Applies Genchi Genbutsu: understand situation, go and see.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When superintendents wing it without commandments, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching commandments are suggestions when actually they’re requirements for success. Nobody showed that studying drawings 30 minutes every day creates understanding preventing mistakes. Nobody explained that reflection walks create awareness identifying problems before they explode. The system taught wing it when actually follow commandments.

The system also failed by not teaching working more than 55 hours indicates poor planning. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Working 70 hours doesn’t show commitment, shows unsustainable pace destroying family and health. Going home in proper mental state to care for family is requirement, not luxury. Working less than 55 hours that week is commandment appearing three times. The system taught work until done when actually work smart and protect family.

The system fails by not teaching to remove roadblocks as top priority keeping work moving forward. Don’t delegate safety, quality, and schedule. Take ownership of project. Foresee and remove roadblocks. Don’t keep plan in head, communicate to create success. Motion does not equal value. Overproduction and inventory is mother of all waste. The system taught react to problems when actually foresee and remove roadblocks preventing problems.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop winging it. Start following commandments.

Study drawings 30 minutes every day. Prevents mistakes. Creates understanding. Send out snippets to people of things to watch for, order, prepare. Make it daily habit, not occasional activity.

Take reflection walk daily. Observe flow, energy, cleanliness, safety. Text, email, or call in assignments. Don’t sit in office all day. Get out walking project with eyes open seeing what’s actually happening.

Keep schedule on person when in field. Update scheduled notes as you walk project. Don’t wait until back in office to update. Capture details in moment while fresh.

Visualize plan daily in mind. Draw sketches. Mental model of how project should flow. Enables seeing problems before they happen.

Communicate critical components of plan daily to everyone. Don’t keep plan in head. Communicate to create success. Copy on emails. Tell truth. Be transparent about everything.

Remove roadblocks as top priority. Keep work moving forward. Don’t react to problems. Foresee and remove roadblocks preventing problems. Ensure manpower, materials, needed permissions ready for work.

Return all emails, texts, phone calls. Show people you respect their time. Fanatically follow up. No one wondering if you got their message.

Work less than 55 hours. Go home in proper mental state to care for family. Don’t work more than 55 hours that week. Protect family. Sustainable pace. Not proving dedication by destroying health and relationships.

Give and receive daily positive communication with project manager. Work with them as equal accountability partner. Not subordinate. Equal partner driving project success together.

Do something to sharpen axe and learn daily. Book. Podcast. Training. Culture we have is result of consequences of our actions, which are based on our beliefs. We will experience no improvement if we do not improve our beliefs.

On we go.

FAQ

What are the most important superintendent commandments?

Study drawings 30 minutes every day. Take reflection walk daily sending out assignments. Keep schedule on person updating notes while walking project. Visualize plan daily in mind. Communicate critical components to everyone. Remove roadblocks as top priority. Return all emails, texts, phone calls. Work less than 55 hours protecting family and preventing burnout.

Why study drawings 30 minutes every day?

Creates understanding preventing mistakes. Send out snippets to people of things to watch for, order, prepare. Make it daily habit. Prevents problems before they happen by understanding what’s coming and what’s needed.

What are superintendent daily tasks?

Speak up in morning huddle. Think 10 minutes about safety. Study drawings 30 minutes. Update schedule 15 to 30 minutes. Take focused reflection walk. Ensure correct crew counts by area. Review quality focus. Go home in proper mental state to care for family. Do something to learn. Work less than 55 hours.

What is superintendent secret sauce?

Sees future. Drives with urgency. Creates flow. Takes ownership. Welcomes feedback. Brings high energy. Fanatically follows up. Stays calm when decisions hard. Advocates for workers. Focuses on foreseeing and removing roadblocks. Understands motion does not equal value. Doesn’t keep plan in head, communicates to create success. Applies Genchi Genbutsu: go and see.

Why work less than 55 hours?

Go home in proper mental state to care for family. Sustainable pace. Working more than 55 hours indicates poor planning, not dedication. Protect family and health. Commandment appearing three times emphasizing importance. Work smart, not just hard.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Elevating Construction Superintendents – Period 2

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 19 min

Are You Getting In The Box or Staying Out?

You’re backed against wall. Mechanical contractor behind. Need air handlers commissioned. Their leadership team not doing job. You take group through project. Grow frustrated. Cuss out and berate individuals. Tell them if they don’t get air handlers up, you’re going to kill somebody. Their leader calls your supervisor. You get into trouble. Realized you lost cool by getting in box. Did not presume positive intentions. Prevented positive outcome. Didn’t even get what you wanted. That’s being in box. Term from Leadership and Self-Deception by Arbinger Institute. Mental perspective deceiving us in leadership. You exaggerate others’ faults. Exaggerate your own rightness. Blame others for feelings. Behaviors become habitual. Way out is do right thing. Assume they have good intentions, doing best they can. Calm down. Control behavior. Think of solutions. Different from superintendent who developed 14 resolutions. No cussing. Never get angry. Bring high energy to every interaction. Referenced list every morning. Everything designed to generate harmony and happiness. That’s staying out of box.

Here’s what most superintendents miss. They think when backed against wall, response is yell, scream, say offensive things. Milestone-driven so let temper get away. Say things not proud of. Behave unpredictably. Reputation suffers. That’s being in box. Self-deception. Exaggerating others’ faults while exaggerating own rightness. Different from superintendent who referenced resolutions every morning generating greatest harmony. Presuming positive intentions. Controlling behavior. Thinking of solutions instead of escalating.

The challenge is most superintendents never learned how to work with others. Never taught in schools or colleges. Don’t learn through trades. Never read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Never developed resolutions about communication. Never learned plan is only successful as communicated. Never learned to harness team energy. Energy originates with superintendent. Must be sense of urgency, pace, optimism keeping people working efficiently. But superintendents never learned this, wonder why projects lack energy when answer is they’re in box blaming others instead of presuming positive intentions.

Read How to Win Friends and Influence People

One of first steps in leading as superintendent is ability to influence people. Skills typically not taught in schools or colleges. Definitely don’t learn through trades. Recommended habit: read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Field director reading book reported it brought more success than any other. Improved relationships at work. Fixed family issue brewing for years. Book outlines common sense approach implemented by any builder. Learn and implement principles, immediately become more effective, happier at work, more influence with everyone.

Develop 14 Resolutions About Communication

Knowing what to do is one thing. Knowing how to carry out assignments is another. Superintendents best served creating list of resolutions determining course of action and behaviors daily.

Was so milestone-driven would let temper get away. Would say things not proud of. Behave unpredictably. Use unacceptable language. Reputation suffered. Following trusted mentor, listed 14 resolutions for behavior. Wrote how would communicate, solve problems, maintain good character. Referenced every morning. Immediately saw success. Everything designed to generate harmony and happiness.

The 14 resolutions:

No cussing.
No accusing others.
Never get angry again.
Stay moral.
Stay outside box with everyone.
Message company positively.
Take time with people.
Give service first.
Fail forward.
Bring high energy to every interaction.
Keep confidence.
Help others feel safe.
Smile.
Don’t stress about hard things.

So focused on what we need to do, forget how we’re going to do it. Writing resolutions on how to actualize rules is key to interacting with team. Best way to self-correct and encourage new habits.

Ever had feedback in performance review that keeps coming up? Ever had something holding you back but haven’t corrected it? Keeping list of daily resolutions you reference verbally every day helps guide behavior and make changes preventing repeat conversations.

Create list supporting future success. Make habit of re-emphasizing daily. Consider discussing with colleagues so they hold you accountable. You will become person you want to be through proper behaviors.

Communicate Everything: The Takt Plan Story

Plan is only successful as communicated. Strategies only implemented when everyone heading same direction. Superintendent’s main focus: define and provide clarity, align entire team towards effective communication. Get everything out of your head.

Project utilized Takt plan. After initial pushback, all trades bought in. Every foreman had 11×17 laminated copy. Adhered to gang boxes, taped inside hoist, present on every floor. Project always knew end date and where each contractor should be. If you asked what end date was, answer was December 6, 2017. Team saw as group, knew as group, acted as group.

Increase communication throughout site through visuals, meetings, emails, huddles. Ask important questions: Do all contractors understand master schedule? Do all workers know plan for day? Do all trade partners know plan for next week and committed 100%? Do all workers know what’s happening that day and how to be safe? If no to any, we have work to do.

Every part of plan should be communicated to appropriate people when needed. Use all methods: audibly, in writing, physically through mockups, most importantly visually. Superintendent’s responsibility to communicate clarity around plan. Not just communicate but communicate for understanding. Double amount of communication currently disseminated.

If 6 to 12 people on team know plan, imagine if everyone on site knew plan, could follow it, help achieve goal to see, know, act as one unit. Accomplish goals, standards, milestones with more people working towards them.

Stay Out of Box: Presume Positive Intentions

Being in box means mental perspective deceiving us in leadership. Many times superintendent backed against wall, knee-jerk response is yell, scream, say offensive things. Must have better options. Always expect others are doing their best. Presume positive intentions.

Mechanical contractor behind in commissioning air handlers. Leadership team not completing committed tasks. Took group through project, grew frustrated, cussed out and berated individuals. Some focused only on manner of speaking rather than discussing issues. Told them if they didn’t get air handlers up, was going to kill somebody. Their leader called supervisor. Got into trouble.

Realized lost cool by getting in box, did not presume positive intentions, prevented positive outcome. Helped escalate bad situation. Didn’t get what wanted.

When negativity occurs, tendency to deceive ourselves about their intentions. Problem: you exaggerate others’ faults, exaggerate your own virtue, overstate importance of factors justifying self-betrayal, blame others for feelings. Over time becomes habitual.

Way out is do right thing. Choices must be made before reaction escalates. Stop letting others control behavior. Assume they have good intentions, doing best they can. Calm down. Control behavior. Think of realistic solutions. Staying out of box allows successfully navigating conversations.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When superintendents get in box and lose cool, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by not teaching skills for working with people. Never taught in schools or colleges. Don’t learn through trades. Nobody showed milestone-driven leading to temper is being in box. Nobody explained exaggerating others’ faults is self-deception. The system taught push through when actually presume positive intentions.

The system also failed by not teaching to develop resolutions about communication. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Writing resolutions on how to actualize rules is key. No cussing, never get angry, bring high energy. Referenced every morning generates harmony. The system taught wing it when actually develop resolutions.

The system fails by not teaching plan is only successful as communicated. Takt plan where every foreman had laminated copy. Everyone knew end date: December 6, 2017. Team saw as group, knew as group, acted as group. Communicate for understanding. Get everyone knowing plan. The system taught tell people when actually communicate everything until everyone sees, knows, acts as one unit.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop getting in box. Start presuming positive intentions.

Read How to Win Friends and Influence People. Field director reported more success than any other book. Improved relationships. Fixed family issue. Learn principles. Become more effective, happier, more influence.

Develop 14 resolutions. Write how you’ll communicate, solve problems, maintain character. Reference every morning. No cussing, no accusing, never get angry, stay moral, stay outside box, message positively, take time with people, give service first, fail forward, bring high energy, keep confidence, help others feel safe, smile, don’t stress. Create resolutions supporting success. Re-emphasize daily.

Communicate everything for understanding. Get plan out of head. Visuals, meetings, emails, huddles. Every foreman with laminated copy. Everyone knowing end date. Team seeing as group, knowing as group, acting as group. Double amount of communication.

Stay out of box. When backed against wall, choose before reaction escalates. Stop letting others control behavior. Assume good intentions, doing best they can. Calm down. Control behavior. Think of solutions. Don’t exaggerate faults. Don’t blame others. Presume positive intentions.

Harness team energy. Energy originates with superintendent. Sense of urgency, pace, optimism keeping people working efficiently. Control energy you bring, urgency you communicate, environment you create.

On we go.

FAQ

What does “in the box” mean?

Mental perspective deceiving us in leadership. You exaggerate others’ faults, exaggerate your own virtue, blame others for feelings. Over time becomes habitual. Way out is do right thing, presume positive intentions, assume they’re doing best they can.

What are the 14 resolutions?

No cussing, no accusing, never get angry, stay moral, stay outside box, message positively, take time with people, give service first, fail forward, bring high energy, keep confidence, help others feel safe, smile, don’t stress.

Why read How to Win Friends and Influence People?

Field director reading it reported more success than any other book. Improved relationships. Fixed family issue. You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than in two years trying to get them interested in you.

How do you communicate for understanding?

Takt plan where every foreman had laminated copy. Everyone knew end date: December 6, 2017. Team saw as group, knew as group, acted as group. Use visuals, meetings, emails, huddles. Double communication. Get everyone knowing plan.

What’s the mechanical contractor story?

Behind in commissioning air handlers. Superintendent grew frustrated, cussed out and berated individuals. Told them if they didn’t get air handlers up, would kill somebody. Leader called supervisor. Got into trouble. Lost cool by getting in box, didn’t presume positive intentions, didn’t get what wanted.

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Elevating Construction Superintendents – Introduction

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 28 min

Are You a Carpenter or Just a Hammer?

You hired a carpenter in the morning. By 10 o’clock you realized the only tool he could use with any success was a claw hammer. What would you do? Without hesitation, you would fire him. Why? Because if you can’t use the tools of the trade like a pry bar, a screwdriver, and all the other tools a carpenter is supposed to use, then he’s not a carpenter at all. So what makes you any different than that carpenter? Seriously. When it comes to management, the only tool you know how to use is a hammer. You’re missing all the leadership tools that should be hanging on your superintendent tool belt. If you don’t have those tools, then you’re nothing but a pusher, and pushers are a dime a dozen in this industry. Dave was one of those hard-nosed superintendents who liked to throw his hard hat around and berate people. Rainy day brought him into Mike’s office to chat. Dave said: I just don’t understand my guys. I think I have everything lined out and everyone understands the plan. Then I go out there and they’re not doing what I want them to do. So I go back out, pull everyone together and repeat to them what I want them to do. I yell and scream a little, throw a hard hat for show and think I have everything squared away. But a few days later, I see they’re still not doing it right and that just drives me crazy. Mike could see Dave was frustrated. Decided to take bold approach. Asked the carpenter question. Dave said he would fire carpenter who can only use hammer. Mike responded: you’re that carpenter. Only tool you know is hammer. You’re missing all leadership tools. Three days went by. Dave walked back into office and said: tell me that hammer story again. Long discussion. He agreed people don’t always like to be pushed. Sometimes they want to be pulled, supported, trusted, or motivated by some other approach. Realized there are many other tools valuable in tool belt when dealing with people.

Here’s what most superintendents miss. They think leadership is pushing. Yelling. Screaming. Throwing hard hats. Telling people what to do. Going back out and repeating louder. Getting frustrated when people still don’t do it right. That’s one tool. Hammer. And if carpenter can only use hammer, he’s not carpenter. He’s amateur with one tool. Same with superintendent. If you can only push, yell, scream, throw hard hats, you’re not leader. You’re pusher. Pushers are dime a dozen in this industry. Real superintendents have full tool belt. Pull. Support. Trust. Motivate. Train. Listen. Coach. Guide. Enable. Protect. Different tools for different situations. Different people respond to different approaches. Can’t use hammer on every problem. Can’t push everyone same way. Some people want to be pulled. Some want support. Some want trust. Some want motivation. Need multiple tools handling multiple situations with multiple people.

The challenge is most superintendents never learned they need full tool belt. They learned construction through pushing. Watched superintendents yell and scream. Saw hard hats get thrown. Observed chaos and firefighting. Concluded: that’s how you do it. That’s leadership. Push harder. Yell louder. Throw harder. But that’s not leadership. That’s amateur with one tool wondering why it doesn’t work. Dave yelled and screamed. Threw hard hat. Thought everything squared away. Few days later people still not doing it right. Drove him crazy. Because hammer doesn’t work on every problem. Can’t build entire building with just hammer. Need saws, drills, levels, squares, tape measures. Can’t lead entire team with just pushing. Need pulling, supporting, trusting, motivating. Full tool belt. Not just hammer.

The Hammer Story: Dave’s Realization

Dave was project superintendent on Marble Hills Nuclear Generating Station in southern Indiana. One of those hard-nosed superintendents who liked to throw his hard hat around and berate people.

Rainy day brought Dave into Mike’s office to chat. Mike was quality control manager. At some point during conversation, Dave said to Mike: I just don’t understand my guys. I think I have everything lined out and everyone understands the plan. Then I go out there and they’re not doing what I want them to do.

So I go back out, pull everyone together and repeat to them what I want them to do. I yell and scream a little, throw a hard hat for show and think I have everything squared away. But a few days later, I see they’re still not doing it right and that just drives me crazy.

Mike could see that Dave was frustrated, but decided to take a bold approach. Asked: if you hired a carpenter in the morning and by 10 o’clock you realized that the only tool he could use with any success was a claw hammer, what would you do?

Without hesitation, Dave said firmly: I would fire him.

Mike asked him why.

Dave responded: well, if you can’t use the tools of the trade like a pry bar, a screwdriver, and all the other tools a carpenter is supposed to use, then he’s not a carpenter at all.

Without missing a beat, Mike responded: so what makes you any different than that carpenter?

Dave gave him a blank stare, so Mike continued. Seriously, Dave, when it comes to management, the only tool you know how to use is a hammer. You’re missing all the leadership tools that should be hanging on your superintendent tool belt. If you don’t have those tools, then you’re nothing but a pusher, and pushers are a dime a dozen in this industry.

Dave sat there looking out the window for a while, then got up and walked right out of the office without saying another word.

Three days went by before he walked back into Mike’s office and said: tell me that hammer story again?

They had a long discussion and he agreed that people don’t always like to be pushed. Sometimes they want to be pulled, supported, trusted, or motivated by some other approach. Dave realized there are many other tools that are valuable in our tool belt when dealing with people.

Command with Purpose, Control the Outcome

Most of us have learned more from projects that have gone wrong than we have from projects that have gone right. In this industry, there are jobs that finish behind schedule, over budget, and with poor quality. There are projects that are filthy, out of control, and seem to have no specific leader.

Interestingly, and unfortunately, these projects seem to be the rule and not the exception. This is unnecessary and it is caused by contractors not having command of their projects and failing to control the outcomes.

Think about it like this. If an owner provides the correct funding for the project and the owner or design build partner provides an adequate design according to the normal standards of care, then the remaining considerations are the responsibility of the builder.

One might say external conditions such as weather, equipment, or economic conditions are out of their control, but with the right preparation, the builder will have planned for such externalities. The destiny of a project is in the hands of the builder, and as such, that destiny is faded by their attention to command and control.

The Electrician Example: When GC Fails to Control

There are many trade partners and vendors in our industry who can work at peak performance but are not allowed to. Take, for example, an outstanding electrician doing in-wall rough-in for the interiors of a building.

She plans her work, coordinates the rough-in locations, prefabricates what she can, and has her manpower ready and geared to go for the benefit of her company and the project.

What if the design then changes? What if other trades fail to coordinate with her rough-in locations? What if they fall behind and do not provide the work needed ahead of her? What if other trades leave open holes in the areas that are released to her?

Even with all her preparation, the proficient electrician will lose production time, fall behind, perform rework, and lose faith in the overall processes of the project.

In this case, the general contractor failed to provide suitable command and control. The general contractor owed the electrician a controlled project that would allow her to leverage her abilities.

The coordination effort should have included all trades, and its plan should have been enforced. The design changes should have been isolated so the main workforce was not derailed. The general contractor should have educated the other trade partners and enforced the concept of pulling work and finishing on time.

The general contractor should have created a system to see potential problems that may have arisen in the work and prevented them through standard processes.

You can be sure when you see chaos on a project, schedules pushing behind, bad quality and safety issues, that no one is in command and no one is in control. We must be in control of our projects to create remarkable experiences and shared success.

Cultural Creation Determines Fate

In their book, Will and Ariel Durant suggest the rise and fall of an empire hangs in the balance of something called cultural creation. Roughly defined, a culture is comprised of the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group.

The Durants argue that the customs of a culture, and specifically the behaviors that motivate those customs, determine a society’s fate more than the external conditions.

If internal culture plays a major role in a society’s destiny, then it follows that the beliefs, decisions, and actions of a business will also decide its fate.

This work was written to shape the culture for all field builders. If you allow these lessons to influence your way of thinking, you will see immediate results in your effectiveness as a builder.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When superintendents only know how to use hammer, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching that leadership is pushing, yelling, screaming, throwing hard hats. Nobody showed that if carpenter can only use hammer, he’s not carpenter. Nobody explained that if superintendent can only push, he’s not leader, he’s pusher. Pushers are dime a dozen. The system taught push harder when actually need full tool belt.

The system also failed by not teaching that people don’t always like to be pushed. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Sometimes people want to be pulled, supported, trusted, motivated by other approach. There are many tools valuable in tool belt when dealing with people. Different people respond to different approaches. Can’t use hammer on every problem. The system taught one approach when actually need multiple tools.

The system fails by not teaching command with purpose and control the outcome. When you see chaos on project, schedules pushing behind, bad quality and safety issues, no one is in command and no one is in control. Electrician example: she plans work, coordinates locations, prefabricates, has manpower ready. But design changes. Other trades fail to coordinate. Fall behind. Leave open holes. She loses production time, performs rework, loses faith. GC failed to provide suitable command and control. GC owed her controlled project allowing her to leverage abilities. The system taught react to chaos when actually create controlled project preventing chaos.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop being carpenter with one tool. Start building full superintendent tool belt.

Recognize if you only know how to push, you’re pusher, not leader. Pushers are dime a dozen in this industry. If you’re yelling and screaming, throwing hard hat, pulling everyone together and repeating louder, wondering why they’re still not doing it right, you only have one tool. That’s hammer. You’re missing all leadership tools that should be hanging on your superintendent tool belt.

Learn that people don’t always like to be pushed. Sometimes they want to be pulled, supported, trusted, motivated by other approach. There are many other tools valuable in tool belt when dealing with people. Different situations require different tools. Different people respond to different approaches. Can’t build entire building with just hammer. Can’t lead entire team with just pushing.

Command with purpose, control the outcome. If owner provides correct funding and adequate design, remaining considerations are responsibility of builder. One might say external conditions are out of control, but with right preparation, builder will have planned for externalities. Destiny of project is in hands of builder. That destiny is faded by attention to command and control.

Create controlled project allowing trades to leverage abilities. Electrician plans work, coordinates locations, prefabricates, has manpower ready. GC owes her controlled project. Coordination effort should include all trades with plan enforced. Design changes should be isolated so main workforce not derailed. Educate trade partners and enforce concept of pulling work and finishing on time. Create system to see potential problems and prevent them through standard processes.

When you see chaos on project, schedules pushing behind, bad quality and safety issues, no one is in command and no one is in control. That’s unnecessary. It’s caused by contractors not having command of projects and failing to control outcomes. We must be in control of our projects to create remarkable experiences and shared success.

Build your leadership tool belt. Pull. Support. Trust. Motivate. Train. Listen. Coach. Guide. Enable. Protect. Not just hammer. Full tool belt.

Three days later, Dave came back asking to hear the hammer story again. That’s when he learned. That’s when he changed. That’s when he became leader instead of pusher.

On we go.

FAQ

What is the hammer story?

Dave was superintendent who yelled, screamed, threw hard hat. Frustrated people still not doing it right. Mike asked: if you hired carpenter who could only use claw hammer, would you fire him? Dave said yes. Mike said: you’re that carpenter. Only tool you know is hammer. You’re missing all leadership tools. Dave came back three days later asking to hear story again. Realized people don’t always want to be pushed, sometimes want to be pulled, supported, trusted, motivated by other approach.

What does “command with purpose, control the outcome” mean?

If owner provides correct funding and adequate design, remaining considerations are responsibility of builder. External conditions like weather or equipment can be planned for. Destiny of project is in hands of builder. When you see chaos on project, schedules pushing behind, bad quality and safety issues, no one is in command and no one is in control. Must be in control of projects to create remarkable experiences and shared success.

What’s the electrician example about?

Outstanding electrician plans work, coordinates locations, prefabricates, has manpower ready. But design changes. Other trades fail to coordinate. Fall behind. Leave open holes. She loses production time, performs rework, loses faith. GC failed to provide suitable command and control. GC owed her controlled project allowing her to leverage abilities. Should have coordinated all trades, isolated design changes, educated partners, created system preventing problems.

What are the leadership tools beyond pushing?

Pull. Support. Trust. Motivate. Train. Listen. Coach. Guide. Enable. Protect. Different tools for different situations. Different people respond to different approaches. Can’t use hammer on every problem. Can’t push everyone same way. Some want to be pulled. Some want support. Some want trust. Need multiple tools handling multiple situations with multiple people.

What makes you a pusher instead of a leader?

If you only know how to yell, scream, throw hard hat, pull everyone together and repeat louder, you only have one tool. That’s hammer. If carpenter can only use hammer, he’s not carpenter. If superintendent can only push, he’s not leader, he’s pusher. Pushers are dime a dozen in this industry. Need full tool belt to be real leader.

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Adapting Excellence on Smaller Projects

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 27 min

Are You Scaling to Small Jobs or Making Excuses?

You say: I can’t implement these techniques on smaller projects. I’m only one person. I don’t have coverage. I don’t have budget. I don’t have team. Can’t do reflection walks. Can’t do Takt planning. Can’t do quality systems. Can’t do roadblock removal. Too small. Not enough resources. Doesn’t apply. That’s making excuses. That’s victim mentality. Stop it. You’re being victim. Stop giving me these excuses that they don’t apply to small jobs. I know for fact that they do. Put me on small job. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be stuck there for 60, 70, 80 hours, locking up gate every day, burning life out, never at home with family, working from 4 AM to 8 PM. There’s no way in hell I’m doing that. If PM was like, well, you don’t have it in budget. I’m like, well, then you can work 18 hours day because I ain’t doing it. Problem really isn’t that they’re small jobs. It’s that you’re not getting creative enough. Everything can be scaled to smaller project. Seen it over and over and over again. If one person can do it, you can, or those people are smarter than you. And if I said, is that person smarter than you? You’d be like, hell no. So what’s the difference? You’re just not being creative enough. If one person can do it, you can. Get logistics foreman. Get help from PM. Schedule with safety director. Think of every person in hall. Get home office administrator. Get front office desk phone call answer guy. Can you come watch my project for Friday afternoon? Get creative. You deserve coverage. So stop excuses. Let’s get this done.

Here’s what most superintendents miss. They think small jobs mean can’t implement good systems. Can’t do Takt planning. Can’t do quality systems. Can’t do roadblock removal. Can’t do coverage. Budget too small. Team too small. Resources too limited. So they accept chaos. Accept 70-hour weeks. Accept burning out. Accept family suffering. Accept project suffering. Because convinced small job means can’t do it right. That’s excuse. That’s victim mentality. Different from superintendent who gets creative. Says: I deserve coverage for things I need. Gets logistics foreman. Gets PM help. Schedules with safety director. Thinks of every person who could help. Gets creative solving coverage problem. Implements Takt planning scaled to small team. Implements quality systems with PM help. Implements roadblock removal with group texts. Works reasonable hours. Protects family. Runs good project. Because decided: this is how you build good jobs. Either you’re going to build good job or you’re not going to build good job. You’re not going to not do these things and build good job. Make decision. Tell company: I love you, I’m loyal, but we’re going to make change. I’m in on pre-con. I’m planning job. Because if you don’t plan job in pre-construction with builders, it’s going to suck. One plus one equals two. One plus one does not equal three. No pre-con effort with builders does not equal finishing on time. That’s stupid.

The challenge is most superintendents never learned that ideal team size is four. Gets harder once team sizes get above nine or 12 unless you break project into separate project teams. So small teams actually easier, not harder. But superintendents think: I’m only one person, how do I do coverage system? Well, freaking duh. I don’t expect you to do that, but I do expect you to have coverage for things you need because you deserve it. Get creative. Stop being victim. Stop giving excuses. Everything scales to smaller projects: Takt planning (scaled back, totally possible), last planner (100% scales), reflection walks (yeah, you can do that on small job), project planning (I would for sure do that on smaller job), pre-construction meetings (the smaller the better, honestly), make ready scheduling (yep), quality process (you can have wonderful quality program, just need little help from PM), zero tolerance (yeah, you can do that on small job), grading contractors (yep), foreman standard work, continuous improvement, whole nine. Went through whole list. There’s nothing you can’t do. Only thing that changes is coverage systems little bit harder and you need to be in pre-construction stages so you have time.

Technology: Active vs Passive Information

Technology should not do things humans should do, and technology should do the things that humans should not be doing. If it’s communication, collaboration, visualizing, technology should allow humans to do that. Technology shouldn’t substitute things like that. Zoom, data dashboards, visualizations, BIM models all help humans collaborate, but should never take functions of actual communication or collaboration that humans should do themselves.

But things like calculations, artificial intelligence, creating historical patterns and projections, complex math, doing repetitive tasks that humans shouldn’t be doing, that’s purpose of technology.

When we see digital platforms just transferring sticky notes from walls where it’s active information and putting it onto database, that’s something humans should be doing. Maybe online platform works better, but don’t just do something for sake of making it digital and online. Has to be filtered through: what should humans do? What should automation do?

Active information means it’s visual to human beings and we can use it in active way. Visual management is about it being active in front of people so they can see status of whether team is winning one look away and correct. Don’t take things from wall and put into computer just for sake of putting into computer. Your active information must be visual and accessible at all times.

If that means you print something out or use whiteboard on wall, so be it. Nobody should poo-poo those things. If it makes more sense because you’re working remotely or using large screen TVs or iPads and more people can access visual information, then by all means use technology. But don’t do it for sake of just doing it with technology.

Software Should Be Addictive, Useful, Fast

Anything we do should be addictive as Facebook, useful as YouTube, and quick as Wikipedia. When somebody gives me project management software takes me 37 steps to fill out safety report, answer isn’t no. It’s hell no. There’s no way I’m doing that. That’s absolute waste of time and it’s stupid.

If you are developer, you need to cater in every way to workers, foremen, superintendents, PMs, PEs, field engineers out there in field doing work. Here’s test: Are people addicted to this versus doing it by hand? Is it more useful to do it digitally than old way? Is it quicker to do it this way or was it quicker to do old way?

Don’t justify 37 steps to enter safety form so you can get corporate data that nobody’s going to do anything with. Want it addictive. Want it useful. Want it fast.

Software developers need to actually go to place where people are doing work and find out how people doing work want to do it. We are smart enough to figure this out.

All-in-One Often Becomes All-in-None

Most of time when everyone consolidates into all-in-one, it becomes all-in-none because now you don’t have functionality whereas human being could have learned couple different types of applications which were really killer.

Remember one time somebody saying: we switched from BIM 360 Field to quality app on our project management software. Oh, it’s great. It’s all-in-one. Then we asked question: well, what are numbers? Oh, yeah, we tracked it. When we were in BIM 360 Field, we were at like 850 observations week in company. Where are you at now? 25 and we’re plateauing and it used to be growing exponentially.

How does this make sense? You were 850 observations week. Now you’re down to 25 and you think this all-in-one solution has made this better? This is ridiculous.

Do not go get software for your company unless it’s thoroughly tested and proven and endorsed by people actually doing work.

Everything Scales to Smaller Projects

Takt planning: scaled back, totally possible on smaller job. Last planner system: 100% scales. Reflection walks: yeah, you can do that on small job. Project planning: I would for sure do that on smaller job. Pre-construction meetings: the smaller the better, honestly. Make ready scheduling: yep. Weekly work planning: yep. Day planning huddles: yep. Meeting system: it’ll be scaled back, totally possible on smaller job. Procurement deliveries: totally possible. Accountability: you can have wonderful quality program, just need little help from PM.

Daily issue correction system: I would 100% send out group texts to foreman every day. 100%. That’s how I make sure I’m not taking that whole burden on myself. Roadblock removal system: going to go fast now. Zero tolerance: yeah, you can do that on small job. Grading contractors: yep. Foreman standard work, foreman’s continuous improvement, whole nine.

Just went through whole list. There’s nothing you can’t do. Only thing that changes is coverage systems little bit harder and you need to make sure you’re in pre-construction stages so you have time to do some of these things we highly recommend.

This is way to build projects. If you’re like: I would do good pre-construction meetings or quality process or project planning if I get enough time. If, if, if, if, if. Stop the ifs. This is how you build good jobs. Either you’re going to build good job or you’re not going to build good job. You’re not going to not do these things and build good job.

Make decision and tell your company: hey, I love you. I went in on these jobs early and I want to be part of it. 100%. I’m not doing this anymore. I love you. I’m loyal, but we’re going to make change.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When superintendents say can’t implement on smaller projects, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching that small jobs mean limited resources mean can’t do it right. Nobody showed that ideal team size is four, so small teams actually easier. Nobody explained that everything scales: Takt planning, last planner, reflection walks, quality systems, roadblock removal, whole nine. The system taught accept chaos on small jobs when actually get creative and implement good systems.

The system also failed by not teaching to get creative with coverage. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. You deserve coverage for things you need. Get logistics foreman. Get PM help. Schedule with safety director. Think of every person in hall. Get home office administrator. Front office desk phone call answer guy. Can you come watch my project for Friday afternoon? The system taught you’re stuck alone when actually get creative solving coverage.

The system fails by not teaching that if you don’t plan job in pre-construction with builders, it’s going to suck. One plus one equals two. No pre-con effort does not equal finishing on time. Make decision. Tell company: I love you, I’m loyal, but I’m in on pre-con. I’m planning job. Because that’s how jobs finish on time. The system taught accept whatever when actually demand to be part of planning.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop making excuses about small jobs. Start getting creative.

Recognize everything scales to smaller projects. Takt planning, last planner, reflection walks, project planning, pre-construction meetings, make ready scheduling, quality systems, zero tolerance, grading contractors, foreman standard work. Went through whole list. Nothing you can’t do. Only thing that changes is coverage systems little bit harder.

Get creative with coverage. You deserve coverage for things you need. Don’t accept: I’m only one person so I’m stuck here 70 hours week. Get logistics foreman. Get PM help. Schedule with safety director. Think of every person who could help. Home office administrator. Front office desk phone call answer guy. Freaking get creative. Stop being victim.

Demand to be part of pre-construction. Tell company: I love you, I’m loyal, but if I’m going to be on job, I’m in on pre-con. I’m planning job. Because if you don’t plan job in pre-construction with builders, it’s going to suck. One plus one does not equal three. No pre-con effort does not equal finishing on time.

Remember ideal team size is four. Gets harder once team sizes get above nine or 12. So small teams actually easier, not harder. Stop thinking small job means can’t do it right. Start thinking small team means more nimble, easier to implement.

Use active information. Must be visual and accessible at all times. If that means print something out or use whiteboard on wall, so be it. Don’t do digital for sake of digital. Do what makes information most visual and accessible.

Demand software that’s addictive as Facebook, useful as YouTube, quick as Wikipedia. If it takes 37 steps to fill out safety report, answer is hell no. Not doing it. Don’t accept software that makes work harder.

Problem isn’t that they’re small jobs. Problem is you’re not getting creative enough. If one person can do it, you can. If I said is that person smarter than you, you’d be like hell no. So what’s difference? You’re just not being creative enough. If one person can do it, you can.

On we go.

FAQ

Can you implement Takt planning on small jobs?

Scaled back, totally possible on smaller job. Last planner system 100% scales. Everything scales to smaller projects. Only thing that changes is coverage systems little bit harder and you need to be in pre-construction stages so you have time. Either you’re going to build good job or you’re not. You’re not going to not do these things and build good job.

How do you solve coverage on small jobs?

Get creative. You deserve coverage for things you need. Get logistics foreman. Get PM help. Schedule with safety director. Think of every person in hall. Home office administrator. Front office desk phone call answer guy. Can you come watch my project for Friday afternoon? Freaking get creative. Stop being victim. Stop giving excuses.

What’s the difference between active and passive information?

Active information means it’s visual to human beings and we can use it in active way. Visual management is about it being active in front of people so they can see status of whether team is winning one look away. Don’t take things from wall and put into computer just for sake of putting into computer. Active information must be visual and accessible at all times.

What makes good software?

Addictive as Facebook, useful as YouTube, and quick as Wikipedia. Are people addicted to this versus doing it by hand? Is it more useful to do it digitally than old way? Is it quicker to do it this way or was it quicker to do old way? Don’t justify 37 steps to enter safety form for corporate data nobody uses.

Why do small jobs actually have advantage?

Ideal team size is four. Gets harder once team sizes get above nine or 12 unless you break project into separate project teams. So small teams actually easier, not harder. More nimble, easier to implement. Problem isn’t that they’re small jobs. Problem is you’re not getting creative enough. If one person can do it, you can

If you want to learn more we have:

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Using FOCCCUS to Identify Bottlenecks

Posted on May 2, 2026May 2, 2026 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 23 min

Are You Seeing Bottlenecks Everywhere or Missing Them?

You have problem. Trench digging too slow. So you throw manpower at it. More workers. More materials. More money. Push harder. Rush. Let’s go. But production doesn’t increase. Actually slows down. Because you’re pushing against bottleneck, which no matter how hard you push, will not increase flow of project or throughput of system or production. Sometimes actually slows it down because once you push, you have backlog of pressure and build up taking more effort slowing down entire system. Different from analyzing where actual bottleneck is. We were looking at how could we get 400 linear feet of 12-foot deep trench done in day. By time we were done tacting it out, still didn’t work. Started looking for bottlenecks. Looked at process times for each individual activity. Found out trench box was bottleneck. If that trench box wasn’t bottleneck, they would have more flow. Started asking dumb questions. Can you have two trench boxes? Can you have two backhoes? No, can’t do that. But actual crews figured out: if I dig trench, install pipe, shade it to where there’s foot of cover super level, then we can pull trench box forward, get it out of way, let heel man and mini excavator backfill trench, use remote control compactor inside trench. Even though wasn’t super easy to increase capacity, there were sequencing things allowing capacity of that bottleneck to be increased and they increased production. That’s not pushing through bottleneck. That’s increasing capacity of bottleneck. That’s how you increase flow.

Here’s what most superintendents miss. They see slow production. Think: need more manpower. More materials. More money. Push harder. Rush. So they throw resources at problem. Push against bottleneck. Increase pressure. But speed doesn’t increase. Actually slows down because backlog of pressure builds up. Different from superintendent who sees bottlenecks everywhere. Like Sixth Sense movie. Kid sees dead people everywhere. Once you start to see bottlenecks, you start to see them everywhere. Superintendent analyzes process times for each activity. Finds actual bottleneck. Asks questions: how do we increase capacity of this bottleneck? Not how do we push harder through it. Trench box example: sequencing changes allowing capacity increase. Paint shop example in Germany: build canopy outside with heating lamps increasing drying capacity. Pre-cast shop example: rush orders interrupting supply chain, so cast roof sections in different line. That’s FOCCCUS formula: Find, Optimize, Coordinate, Collaborate, Curate, Upgrade, Start again. That’s increasing capacity of bottlenecks instead of pushing through them.

The challenge is most superintendents never learned to see bottlenecks everywhere. Never learned FOCCCUS formula. Never learned that every system will have scope that’s bottleneck and as you optimize those bottlenecks, more bottlenecks will show up. Never learned that better way to increase flow is not to push things through bottleneck but to increase capacity of bottleneck. So they default to pushing. Throwing manpower, materials, money at problem. Wondering why production doesn’t increase when answer is they’re pushing against bottleneck instead of increasing its capacity. Need to get to point where have eyes to see bottlenecks everywhere. Then start optimizing them. Go through FOCCCUS formula. Really increase flow of organization.

The Trench Box Bottleneck

We were analyzing Takt plan for some civil work. Looking at how could we get 400 linear feet of this 12-foot deep trench done in day.

By time we were done tacting it out, still didn’t work. Started to look for bottlenecks. Looked at process times for each individual activity. Found out trench box was bottleneck. If that trench box wasn’t bottleneck, they could go faster, would have more flow.

Started asking lot of really dumb questions. Can you have two trench boxes and pull them in and out? Can you have two backhoes? No, can’t do that. No, can’t do that.

But actual crews figured out: if I dig trench and install pipe and at least shade it to where there’s foot of cover and leave it super level, then we can pull trench box forward, get it out of way, let heel man and mini excavator backfill trench, use remote control compactor, little roller inside trench, actually backfill pipe without having to leave trench box there.

Even though wasn’t super easy to increase capacity, there were some sequencing things allowing capacity of that bottleneck to be increased and they increased production.

The Pre-Cast Shop Assembly Area

Looking in pre-cast facility in Germany at where bottlenecks were. End of line, weren’t really any bottlenecks. Beginning of line, seemed to be some trouble. Team pointed at one assembly area where they assemble pre-cast rooms together. Said: that’s our bottleneck, that’s where we’re having trouble.

Started to analyze that and see if actually true. Came up that no, assembly doesn’t take long time. It’s feeding the assembly.

Then found out it wasn’t feeding assembly. It’s when all feeding activities of actual pre-cast panels were interrupted with non-room assembly panels. Meaning when somebody just wanted roof section or rush order or something out of sequence, it would interrupt supply chain.

Found out bottleneck was actually when additional rush orders came as part of line. Assembly area wasn’t bottleneck. By looking at root causes of things and rate of throughput per area, were able to find real bottleneck and fix problem.

The Paint Shop Bottleneck

Were in Germany looking at pre-cast manufacturing facility where they painted these sections ready to ship out and install. Asked question: where’s bottleneck in this facility? Because we know you’re going to have to go faster.

Felipe was with me. He pointed. Said: you can see it right now. You can see all these concrete pre-cast cylinders right here in front of paint shop. This is your bottleneck.

Started right down: what are throughput times? How many units can you get through in day through paint shop? Twenty. How many units can you feed into paint shop? Thirty. Felipe was right. We have bottleneck problem.

Started to ask: when do you not have bottleneck problem? Well, when it’s sunny and we can move them outside to dry instead of keeping them on line.

Walked outside. There’s like 200 feet of conveyor belt, basically huge platforms that roll on wheels moving these things around. Question was asked: if you don’t have bottleneck when you’re able to dry these things outside, on rainy days could you let them come outside but build canopy out here and have heating lamps on all sides that would heat paint and allow you to increase capacity of bottleneck?

They were like: wow, that would work. Well, what about crane? What about this? What about that? We’re like: you would only shade three quarters so crane could still access it. What about weather? We would tie it into building. What about heat? We would put lamps in there. What about, what about. Kept going through it.

Seems like in that instance, we can actually increase capacity of that bottleneck and increase rate of throughput through overall manufacturing facility.

FOCCCUS Formula: Find, Optimize, Coordinate, Collaborate, Curate, Upgrade, Start Again

Theory of constraints goes like this:

Find: Identify constraint or bottleneck. Break down each step in process. Figure out how much time each step takes. Usually can find bottleneck just like that.

Optimize: Focus on work of bottleneck. Find ways to squeeze more out of it or increase capacity. Shown with trench box example, paint shop example. Readjust sequence. Readjust logistics.

Coordinate: Coordinate non-bottlenecks so they can help make use of bottleneck. In trench box example, utilized heel man, rear workers, with mini excavator and additional piece of equipment. Coordinated other scopes, workers, pieces of equipment resources to help actual bottleneck which was trench box.

Collaborate: Work together to find out how non-bottlenecks can help bottlenecks without cutting corners. Once we coordinate, we collaborate.

Curate: Reduce demand on bottleneck. Focus on increasing capacity. In pre-cast shop example where having trouble feeding assembly area, found out too much demand on that actual process. Cast roof sections and rush orders in different shop or different line so can keep consistent throughput in feeding assembly area.

Upgrade: Upgrade resource or replace it with bigger, faster model. Could redo entire paint shop manufacturing facility. Could upgrade lines in pre-cast manufacturing facility. Could find way to get trench box that can be loaded in and out.

Start Again: Once you’ve found, optimized, coordinated, collaborated, curated, upgraded, then you have expanded or increased capacity of bottleneck. Need to focus somewhere else because new bottlenecks will show up in system.

The System Failed You

Let’s be clear. When superintendents push through bottlenecks instead of increasing capacity, it’s not entirely their fault. The system failed by teaching throw manpower, materials, money at problems. Nobody showed that when we throw resources at problem, we’re just pushing stuff against bottleneck which increases pressure but won’t increase speed. Nobody explained that pushing creates backlog of pressure and build up taking more effort actually slowing down entire system. The system taught push harder when actually increase capacity of bottleneck.

The system also failed by not teaching to see bottlenecks everywhere. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Every system will have scope that’s bottleneck. As you optimize those bottlenecks, more bottlenecks will show up. Once you start to see bottlenecks, start to see them everywhere. Like Sixth Sense: I see bottlenecks everywhere. The system taught accept slow production when actually find and fix bottlenecks.

The system fails by not teaching FOCCCUS formula. Find bottleneck by breaking down each step, figuring out time each step takes. Optimize by readjusting sequence and logistics. Coordinate non-bottlenecks to help bottleneck. Collaborate to find how non-bottlenecks help without cutting corners. Curate by reducing demand on bottleneck. Upgrade resource or replace with bigger, faster model. Start again because new bottlenecks show up. The system taught wing it when actually use systematic approach finding and fixing bottlenecks.

The Challenge

Here’s your assignment. Stop pushing through bottlenecks. Start increasing their capacity.

Find five bottlenecks. When you come to office or go to work, take process. Can be accounting. Can be maintenance of equipment. Can be digging of trench. Could be anything. Go find bottleneck in whatever process. Find five of them. Get used to it. Then you’ll start seeing bottlenecks everywhere.

Use FOCCCUS formula. Find by breaking down each step, figuring out time each step takes. Optimize by readjusting sequence and logistics. Coordinate non-bottlenecks to help bottleneck. Collaborate to find how non-bottlenecks help. Curate by reducing demand. Upgrade resource or replace. Start again because new bottlenecks show up.

Stop pushing. Throwing manpower, materials, money at problems just pushes stuff against bottleneck increasing pressure but not speed. Creates backlog of pressure and build up taking more effort slowing down entire system. Don’t push through bottleneck. Increase capacity of bottleneck.

Learn from examples. Trench box: sequencing changes allowing capacity increase. Pre-cast shop: rush orders interrupting supply chain, so cast roof sections in different line. Paint shop: build canopy outside with heating lamps increasing drying capacity. That’s increasing capacity, not pushing through.

Remember every system will have scope that’s bottleneck. As you optimize those bottlenecks, more bottlenecks will show up. Better way to increase flow is not to push things through bottleneck but to increase capacity of bottleneck. That’s how you really increase flow of organization.

Get to point where you have eyes to see bottlenecks everywhere. Like Sixth Sense kid seeing dead people. Once you start to see bottlenecks, start to see them everywhere. Then start optimizing them. Go through FOCCCUS formula. Really increase flow.

On we go.

FAQ

What is FOCCCUS formula?

Find, Optimize, Coordinate, Collaborate, Curate, Upgrade, Start again. Find bottleneck by breaking down each step. Optimize by readjusting sequence and logistics. Coordinate non-bottlenecks to help. Collaborate to find how non-bottlenecks help. Curate by reducing demand. Upgrade resource or replace. Start again because new bottlenecks show up.

What’s wrong with pushing through bottlenecks?

When we throw manpower, materials, money at problem, we’re just pushing stuff against bottleneck which increases pressure but won’t increase speed. Sometimes actually slows down because once you push, you have backlog of pressure and build up taking more effort slowing down entire system. Don’t push through bottleneck. Increase capacity of bottleneck.

What’s the trench box example?

400 linear feet of 12-foot deep trench. Tacting it out still didn’t work. Found trench box was bottleneck. Asked: can you have two trench boxes? No. But crews figured out: dig trench, install pipe, shade it with foot of cover super level, pull trench box forward, let heel man and mini excavator backfill with remote control compactor. Sequencing changes allowing capacity increase.

What’s the paint shop example?

Pre-cast manufacturing facility painting sections. Felipe pointed: you can see bottleneck, all these cylinders in front of paint shop. Paint shop throughput: 20 units per day. Feed capacity: 30 units. Bottleneck problem. When sunny, move outside to dry. Solution: build canopy outside with heating lamps increasing drying capacity on rainy days.

How do you start seeing bottlenecks everywhere?

Find five bottlenecks. Take process: accounting, maintenance, digging trench, anything. Find bottleneck. Do this five times. Get used to it. Then start seeing bottlenecks everywhere. Like Sixth Sense: I see bottlenecks everywhere. As you see bottlenecks everywhere, start optimizing them using FOCCCUS formula.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

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The Knee-to-Knee Exercise

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Technology: Active vs Passive Information

Software Should Be Addictive, Useful, Fast

All-in-One Often Becomes All-in-None

Everything Scales to Smaller Projects

The System Failed You

The Challenge

FAQ

Are You Seeing Bottlenecks Everywhere or Missing Them?

The Trench Box Bottleneck

The Pre-Cast Shop Assembly Area

The Paint Shop Bottleneck

FOCCCUS Formula: Find, Optimize, Coordinate, Collaborate, Curate, Upgrade, Start Again

The System Failed You

The Challenge

FAQ

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day3

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