We can give you all kinds of ideas on how to be a killer crew leader, but what about the actual process? The actual meetings? The steps you must take? This is where we get down to brass tacks: a month, week, and day in the life of a crew leader, or when the key events, preparation activities, and meetings happen.
This is Part 10 of my walk-through of my book Elevating Construction Foremen. If you are just joining, start with Part 1. This part is about foreman pull planning: zones, the five schedules, quality precon meetings, and studying the drawings.
Short answer: A crew leader’s month, week, and day are organized by zone and then by time. Crew leaders work through five schedules, from the master schedule and pull plan down to the six-week make-ready lookahead, weekly work plan, and day plan. They help build the pull plan, show up prepared to a quality preconstruction meeting one to three weeks ahead, and study the drawings and specs daily.
How Does a Crew Leader Fit Into the Life of a Project?
Approaches vary by contractor and project, so tailor this Lean method to your circumstances and apply the principles behind each step. As Rory Vaden said, “Success is never owned. It is rented, and the rent is due every day.”
Why Organize Everything by Zone?
Everything on a construction project should be organized by zone and then by time, measured by activity or by Takt time. That is how we manage production on site: zones within time. If you don’t, your crew ends up all over the project working in chaos. Be careful of work breakdown structures that organize by deliverables or scopes, and of any schedule that does not show zones on the left and time across the top. They cause trade stacking, out-of-sequence work, and overburden.
The project is broken up into zones, and a train of trades moves through those zones one by one. That is the heart of zone control. Yogi Berra said, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
What Are the Five Schedules a Crew Leader Works With?
| Schedule | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 1. Master schedule | Identify the overall project duration and establish milestones. |
| 2. Pull plan | Establish the sequence and preliminary durations collaboratively between the super and the crew leaders. |
| 3. Six-week make-ready lookahead | Make work ready six weeks out, align resources, and remove roadblocks ahead of time. |
| 4. Weekly work plan | A 100% committed, collaborative plan the team has bought into. |
| 5. Day plan | The commitments for the next day, presented to the workers the next morning. |
I break these down for crew leaders in Participating in the Look-Ahead, Making a Weekly Work Plan, and Making a Day Plan.
How Does the Pull Plan Process Work?
The pull plan may be your first interaction with these Lean schedules, or the Last Planner® System. Here is how the process works:
- The project superintendent sends all crew leaders an invitation to the pull plan. You may receive homework, with the conditions of satisfaction and a clear description of the milestone you are pulling to.
- Come prepared with your tags, tasks, or stickies, and be thoughtful and accurate about the data. The pull plan should be for one representative zone, never for the phase as a whole in a large batch.
- When you arrive, the facilitator should review the conditions of satisfaction, the milestone and zone, the format for the stickies, your color, and the rules.
- Then speak up, participate, ask for what you need, and use your builder experience and wisdom to make the plan reasonable.
Look at these meetings with appreciation. They are designed to place you in the right sequence with the right amount of time.
The pull plan must have your wisdom in the final sequence, and you must speak up if you see problems. Don’t ignore the upstream or downstream trades. As you make others successful, you will be successful too. See Participating in a Pull Plan.
What Do Pull Plan, Last Planner, Zone, and Phase Mean?
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Pull plan | A sequence created with the last planners for a single zone, then duplicated for the other zones on a stagger. Pull means only doing something when it is needed, or pulled, by the predecessor. |
| Last planners | The last people in the planning cycle. They are the crew leaders. |
| Zone | An area of work within a phase, leveled to the same level of effort, not necessarily the same area. |
| Phase | A train or trains of trades moving through the same area, usually tied to a milestone. |
What Happens in a Quality Preconstruction Meeting?
Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” The quality preconstruction meeting, also called a pre-installation or pre-activity meeting, should happen about one to three weeks ahead of the work. Experts from the owner, designers, general contractor, and other specialists review the important things for your scope with you, and a checklist or quality visual is created for the crew to follow during installation.
Quality is simple. Does the crew know what to build, and are they building it the correct way? The meeting answers the first question, and the checklist answers the second. Remember:
- If you start work without this meeting, you are at risk of redoing it.
- Come prepared. Read and highlight the plans and specs ahead of time, and bring your questions.
- Don’t leave without a checklist or visual quality board. At the end, I would say, “So, this is what you expect. If I do this, will I win on this project?”
- Use the checklist to prepare the crew, install the work, check it, and improve.
I cover this meeting from the crew leader’s side in Preparing and Participating in the Pre-Con Meeting, and the checklist side in Field Quality Checklists.
Why Should Crew Leaders Study the Drawings and Specs?
One of the main differences between builders and brokers is the habit of reading the drawings and specs. Builders read the plans and specs, then tailor their work to the customer. Brokers don’t. They simply install what they always install, as if it were a stock item. Crew leaders, just like superintendents, should study the project documents daily. They should also pre-read and highlight the drawings and specs for their scope before the preconstruction meeting, which I explain in Highlighting Drawings.
There is also a hierarchy of documents, usually shown in the prime agreement or Division 1. It typically runs from supplementary conditions, general conditions, Division 1, and technical specifications to material and finish schedules, the drawings, and overlapping scope drawings.
When studying the drawings and specs:
- Start by reading the general notes.
- Study the typical details on the drawings.
- Learn the abbreviations and symbols.
- Study the plan views and trace them to details on other plan pages.
- Then study the page notes and the details, and visualize what is on the page in 3D in your mind.
I go further in How to Approach Studying Your Drawings.
So here is the challenge. Find your scope on the zone map and the six-week lookahead for your project, and confirm you know which zone you are in next week. Before your next quality preconstruction meeting, read and highlight your drawings and specs, and don’t leave the meeting without a checklist.
Bottom line: Crew leaders plan by zone and time, help build the pull plan, prepare for every quality precon, and study the drawings daily.
If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.
Want your team trained on this? See our Last Planner® System and Takt training.
On we go.
Elevating Construction Foremen series:
Previous: Part 9: Difficult People, the Energy Bus, Gratitude, and the Go-Giver
Next: Part 11: Quality Feature of Work Boards, Making Work Ready, and Roadblock Removal
FAQ
Why should crew leaders organize work by zone?
Everything on a project should be organized by zone and then by time. Without zones, crews end up all over the project working in chaos, with trade stacking, out-of-sequence work, and overburden.
What is a quality preconstruction meeting?
A pre-activity meeting held about one to three weeks before the work, where the owner, designers, GC, and specialists review your scope with you. You should leave it with a checklist or visual quality board for the crew.
How should a crew leader study drawings and specs?
Read the general notes, study the typical details, learn the abbreviations and symbols, study the plan views and trace to details, then study the page notes and details and visualize it all in 3D.
People Also Read:
Foreman Series: Participating In A Pull Plan
Foreman Series: Preparing And Participating In The Pre-Con Meeting
How To Implement Pull Planning On Your Job Site
How To Read Construction Drawings
If you want to learn more we have:
-Takt Virtual Training: (Takt Virtual Training)
-Check out our YouTube channel for more info: (Elevate Construction on YouTube)
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Elevate Construction Podcast)
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Training Programs and Certifications)
-The Takt Book: (The Takt Book on Amazon)
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Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction. As the company’s Founder and COO, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.