Elevating Construction Takt Planning – Part ‪2

The Plumbing Foreman Who Said Schedule Always Changes So I Cannot Commit While Superintendent Blamed People

There is a weekly work planning meeting at One Care Hospital. One hundred fifty million dollar project. Best team Evergreen Construction ever assembled. Brad the superintendent: driven, competent, 45 years old, knows it all. Paul the project manager: thirties, passionate for excellence. Energetic field engineers. Experienced project engineers. Hungry motivated leaders proven unstoppable on previous projects. And they gather for weekly work planning. Brad calls meeting to order. Asks for positive shout-outs. Twenty seconds of awkward silence. Finally Terrence the plumbing foreman speaks: well one good thing is our material showed up on time for once. Everyone laughs nervously. All aware of inconsistent deliveries. Brad moves to constraint board. Asks Terrence for his constraints. Terrence pulls off hard hat. Says: I hate to be so negative but my constraints were same as yesterday and nothing has changed. I still do not have coordination for building B, SOG area B, and I need RFI 43 and 44 back to continue in A. I entered my tags for today’s meeting but I cannot commit to any of them unless I get that information. Brad responds: well we really need you to commit during these meetings. If you are not the one that can commit, we need someone here who can. Terrence not backing down: like I said, give me the information I need and tell my office to give me materials and I can commit. It is not my responsibility to get you answers and procure your material. Is not your company in charge of both? Brad asks pointedly. Sure it is, Terrence says. But the schedule always changes. How do you expect them to get that to me when it is a moving target? And the mood deteriorates instantly. Trade leaders become visibly tense. Rest of meeting just going through motions waiting for it to end. People problems, Brad thinks afterward. The trades just do not get it. May be time to talk to their company bosses if it does not get better. When Olivia the director asks about tension, Brad says: there is not a lot of difference about this project than last one except this is phased design and twice as big. I implemented Last Planner just like we did on last one but it just is not working. The trades just do not get it. But consultant David later does water bottle demonstration. Two bottles. Brad pours his normally: 10 seconds. Juan swirls his creating vortex: 5 seconds. What happened? The air kept holding back water and slowed it down. Brad was trying to push it through all at once creating starts and stops. Juan created flow by spinning it. Water left room for air to come up by heading same direction. And David explains: when we get product heading in stable direction in flow and create pace or space for roadblocks to rise to surface, work can proceed unhindered. I do not think you have people problem here. I think this is problem with flow. The plans change. Those changes get pushed through. Then every roadblock slows down work and creates variation. You need to regulate pace of project, create stability, and then your problems will rise to surface faster and you can remove them before they impact work. What you need is Takt. You have masterfully implemented Last Planner and Scrum but those systems and more importantly your team cannot win this game when goal changes every day. That is why your trades cannot commit and meet dates or even enjoy the system. The supply chain is not stable and we are going too fast. Your scheduling system is broken and it needs immediate fix. And the team implements Takt Planning. Issues zero-dollar change orders contracting trades to plan. Within two weeks everyone following Takt plan. Procurement, crew flow, design, all scheduling set to follow Takt. Project finishes on time, under budget, with remarkable environment of health and stability. Not because people changed. But because flow fixed the system trades were trying to work within. Terrence was right. Schedule always changes. Moving target. And no amount of blaming people fixes broken system. Only flow fixes flow problems.

Here is what happens when directors stretch too thin across too many projects. Olivia youngest director at Evergreen Construction. Not because favored or lucky. Performance always spot-on. Rare ability to disarm volatile situations, connect with people deeper level, create calm. Fifth generation builder. Born to be builder. Destined for higher success. But currently overseeing eight projects concurrently. Presence stretched too thin to be effective. Becoming uncharacteristically stressed and uncertain. How can she maintain success on so many projects at once if not physically present? How can she train and mentor others to lead projects in way that replicates her stability? One project particularly concerning: One Care Hospital. Most important client Evergreen ever landed. Best team assembled. But only able to stay with team three months before new projects demanded attention. Authority transitioned from Olivia to Brad and Paul. Things began unravel. Undetectable at first. Drift toward instability became obvious as deadlines slipped. Team morale declined. Safety incidents began. Then insurance carrier safety inspection did not go well. Jeff the senior VP from One Care called. No more safety reports or no future opportunity for Evergreen to partner with One Care. Frustration. Team had all skills needed. Had training. Had past successes. Had implemented Last Planner and Scrum concepts. Contracts in place. Best trades selected. So what was problem? Olivia had all puzzle pieces laid out but could not fit them together. And she had to prepare for Encompass Medical proposal. One hundred eighty-five million dollar hospital twenty miles from One Care. Strategic win for company. Entire office working on it month. But felt incomplete. Olivia concerned issues plaguing One Care would show up with this hospital too. And morning of proposal, Juan the regional scheduling manager texts: so sorry, traffic is worst. Accident cleanup. Be there in less than 10. Setup supposed to happen in five minutes. Huddle time ticking away. Juan rushes in seven minutes before presentation. Team scrambles. No time to rally and refocus. Encompass Medical Selection Committee has to wait in hall. When they enter, tension palpable. Team not functioning as team. More like uncomfortable strangers thrown into room together. Could not overcome dismal first impression. Finished strong but parting thank-yous sounded like goodbyes and condolences. Team just knew they lost bid. And Juan says: I wish I had way to regulate speed of every car so traffic would not get congested and no one would get hurt. Olivia thinks: traffic, traffic jams, being late, speeding, distance, and space between. Familiar theme somehow. Cannot quite grasp it. Asks Juan to lunch. Need your insight. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Water Bottle Demonstration That Proved Flow Beats Push

David the consultant does demonstration at Friday afternoon meeting. Needs two volunteers and someone keep time. Juan and Brad volunteer. Paul keeps time. Brad gets one water bottle. Juan gets another. Point of exercise: pour water into bucket fastest without squeezing bottle. Brad goes first turning bottle over with exaggerated flourish. Paul calls out: 10 seconds. Juan goes next. David tells him: gently swirl bottle around and create vortex inside like tornado. Is not that cheating, Juan asks. Well it is not really race. It is just demonstration of two techniques. Are you ready? Go. Paul calls out: 5 seconds. Laughter at Brad’s disappointed shrug. I never had chance. I am sitting down, Brad jokes. David asks: what happened? The air, it kept holding back water and slowed it down, Olivia says. Exactly. Think of it like this. The air is like roadblocks and water is product. Roadblocks kept starting and stopping work because you were trying to push it through all at once. So why did Juan go fast? When he spun it, it created vortex. Water left room for air to come up by heading in same direction. When we get product heading in stable direction in flow and create pace or space for roadblocks to rise to surface, work can proceed unhindered.

How that applies to this project, Juan asks. I know it has been tossed around but I do not think you have people problem here. I think this is problem with flow. To be candid with you, team is not headed in same direction. Plans change. Those changes get pushed through. Then every roadblock slows down work and creates variation. I think your problem is exactly what we talked about at our offsite. You need to regulate pace of project, create stability, and then your problems will rise to surface faster and you can remove them before they impact work. What you need is Takt. You have masterfully implemented Last Planner and Scrum with your medical teams but those systems and more importantly your team cannot win this game when goal changes every day. Design, procurement, schedule, and start of work all need to be leveled and stabilized and Takt is only way to do that. That is why your trades cannot commit and meet dates or even enjoy system. Supply chain is not stable and we are going too fast. Your scheduling system is broken and it needs immediate fix.

The Campfire Conversation About River of Waste

Team goes whitewater rafting for project kickoff celebration. Afterward gathered around campfire. David studying team dynamics. Clearly united group. Cohesion evident while rafting and throughout night activities. Team members adept at understanding each other’s roles, holding each other accountable, not taking offense when hard things said. Remarkable to watch. Olivia dismisses team. She Brad and David tighten circle around fire. Mood shifts. Brad says: biggest challenge we have is with our trades. They just are not buying into system we put into place. I am not used to insubordination. Olivia, do you remember that lean training we did? Remember that analogy of river of waste they showed us? They said lowering water level would help team see and remove roadblocks. But I have been thinking about it and I am not sure that is it. At One Care we are running with minimal resources and it does not help identify roadblocks. We are still riddled with problems and obstacles. And once we hit one, water level does not stay low. Our resources have to actually increase based on need to get past roadblocks. Then we do not have time to get rid of roadblock anyway because we did not see it in enough time. It is just like rafting today. You do not know you are heading towards rock until you are right on top of it because you cannot see it. And if you had any less water, river would be like stream and we could not raft in first place.

David says excitedly: that is great. Brad had hit on something important. Sorry to interrupt but I think I got it. I have always had hard time with that lean analogy too. It is not level of water that needs to be adjusted. It is stability and flow. Here is what I mean. Of course you do not want too much water meaning too much excess and wasted resources. But you do not improve team by reducing water level. You improve by adjusting flow and calming water. Brad, why could not you see rocks? Because we were going so fast that even when rock was protruding, it was covered by speed and force of water. Everything was too chaotic to see them and we could not prepare for rocks or avoid them. Exactly, says David. Even if water level was lower, you still would have been going too fast to navigate around rocks. But slowing speed of water and calming chaos would have allowed you to see them. You would have seen rocks if water was clear and calm right? For sure. I like that concept, says Brad. Olivia nods. I have always hated idea of lowering water level because that leads to slash-and-burn management which I think gives lean bad name. What we need is stability and to adjust flow. For me that solidifies why Takt systems work so well, David says.

The Train Analogy That Made Takt Click

David presents Takt plan Monday afternoon. Word Takt means rhythm. Indicates beat or rate of flow for something. Takt planning is essentially planning system that incorporates flow, stability, and certain amount of predictability. If you use this system for preparing work and setting milestones for Last Planner and Scrum teams, they will have targets they can hit and game they can win. This slide shows Takt plan for interiors of building. Each 10,000 square foot area broken out into sequences by Takt zone. Each of these designed to stagger which means area A starts first week of August. Area B starts third week of August and we hold dates. Hold dates. What does that mean, Brad interrupts. Well that means we do not move dates around unless team decides together that it can be done and needs to be done. We will never get anything finished like that, Brad replies sitting back in chair visibly disconnected. David presses on. When you move dates in schedule like this, trades begin bringing out too many materials and then we have excess of inventory. When we have got too much inventory, we spend so much time managing it that we do not get enough time to actually install work. Same concept applies to managing chaotic schedule. If we are always managing variation that comes from changing schedule, we are distracted from seeing and removing any roadblocks that occur. We have to have right pace and stability that comes from Takt in order to pre-plan and make work ready. To be blunt, CPM does not really work and it just pushes us into frenzied chaotic rush.

Olivia interrupts: this weekend I was playing trains with my daughter. I started tipping over trees and putting things on track in her way and she kept going through them. Do you know what she told me? She said the cow catcher. The cow catcher is triangular attachment at front of engine. It is used to clear path or clear track. David, your sequence looks lot like this train. Another thing is that trains start and stop on time and they arrive at station in certain rhythm. Do you think we could use train analogy instead of river? I love that, David says. Let’s turn it into train analogy. Each of these processes by 10,000 square feet are trains now. In fact let’s call them Takt trains. Each of scopes of work, let’s call those Takt freight cars or wagons. If Takt train is process, then front engine is preparation team making that area ready. Cow catcher at front is roadblock removal system. For this system to work, we have to clear tracks. Tracks are operations meaning foundation. Rails meaning thing that really makes Takt go fast are prefabrication. Leveling track in first place is key to keeping good pace. Roadblocks need to be removed ahead of train. Hills and valleys need to be leveled. If there are any mountains, these are constraints. These are things we just have to work around.

Speed of train is Takt time and rate at which trains arrive at next station is called throughput. Key is to get each car going at right speed in stable environment which means level track headed toward next station at consistent rate. If we do that it is not chaotic. If we keep system moving just like train yard then all of your short interval systems will work predictably. What I am proposing is that we create master project Takt plan that shows when every Takt zone will be completed in rhythm. This will unify everyone and get people working to same rhythm. Manpower, materials, information, and ultimately completion of design. If we can get everything working to same beat then all resources will be available for your Last Planner and Scrum systems. All day-to-day planning will be easy because those systems have predictable supply chains and things that they need. Like right now you plan well together but absence of resources always slows you down and interrupts your plans. No matter how well you do with Last Planner and Scrum you will not succeed until you have predictable supply chain. All those systems need is Takt to succeed.

Signs Your Project Has Flow Problem Not People Problem

Watch for these patterns that signal system is broken not people:

• Trade foremen cannot commit to weekly work plans because schedule always changes creating moving target making procurement and coordination impossible despite foreman competence
• Team implemented Last Planner and Scrum correctly but systems fail because master schedule keeps shifting destroying predictability those systems require to function
• Weekly work planning meetings deteriorate into tension and going-through-motions because trades cannot get information materials and coordination they need when targets keep moving
• Director stretched thin across eight projects because teams cannot self-sustain when scheduling chaos requires constant intervention and firefighting instead of stability enabling autonomy
• Safety incidents rise and team morale declines not because people lack skills training or past successes but because instability creates chaos where accidents happen and spirits break
• Superintendent blames trade partners for not buying in when real problem is CPM schedule pushing everything through creating starts and stops like water bottle without vortex

These are not people problems. These are flow problems. And blaming people for system failures destroys trust, wastes time, and guarantees continued failure regardless of talent or effort.

How Takt Planning Creates Predictable Supply Chains

Takt planning incorporates flow, stability, and predictability. Each 10,000 square foot area broken out into sequences by Takt zone designed to stagger. Area A starts first week. Area B starts two weeks later. Hold dates meaning do not move dates around unless team decides together it can be done and needs to be done. When you move dates in schedule like this, trades bring out too many materials creating excess inventory. When you have too much inventory you spend time managing it instead of installing work. Same concept applies to chaotic schedule. If always managing variation from changing schedule you are distracted from seeing and removing roadblocks. Must have right pace and stability from Takt in order to pre-plan and make work ready. Create master project Takt plan showing when every Takt zone will be completed in rhythm. This unifies everyone working to same rhythm. Manpower, materials, information, and completion of design. If everything works to same beat then all resources available for Last Planner and Scrum systems. Day-to-day planning becomes easy because those systems have predictable supply chains and things they need. Right now teams plan well together but absence of resources always slows down and interrupts plans. No matter how well you do with Last Planner and Scrum you will not succeed until you have predictable supply chain. All those systems need is Takt to succeed.

Implementation process: team immediately sets out to implement system. Brad and David work on overall Takt plan. Juan and Paul rally trades together preparing for zero-dollar change order contracting them to plan. Olivia convinces CEO Brian and reassures One Care that new system will resolve safety problems and concerns. Within two weeks everyone on project following Takt plan. Procurement, crew flow, design, all scheduling set to follow Takt plan. Brad follows through with commitments. Juan supports as needed. Paul keeps team on track and accountable. Despite Olivia stretched thin by other projects she able to stay connected because project self-sustaining and requires little of her time. Project finishes on time, under budget, with remarkable environment of health and stability. Projects like these always do when Takt implemented this way with high-performing team.

The Challenge

Stop blaming trade partners for not buying into systems when real problem is chaotic master schedule destroying predictability those systems require. Stop thinking you have people problem when you have flow problem. Start recognizing that Last Planner and Scrum cannot win game when goal changes every day. Start implementing Takt Planning to create stable predictable supply chains enabling short interval systems to function. Start holding dates unless team decides together changes can be made and need to be made. Start removing roadblocks ahead of Takt trains instead of pushing everything through at once creating starts and stops. Start understanding that schedule always changes is valid complaint not insubordination when you have not created stable foundation for commitment. Start creating master project Takt plan showing when every zone will be completed in rhythm unifying everyone working to same beat. And start trusting that when you fix flow problems, people problems disappear because they were never people problems in first place. They were system problems blamed on people.

As David taught through water bottle demonstration: the air is like roadblocks and water is product. Roadblocks kept starting and stopping work because you were trying to push it through all at once. But when you create vortex, water leaves room for air to come up by heading in same direction. When we get product heading in stable direction in flow and create pace or space for roadblocks to rise to surface, work can proceed unhindered. This is not people problem. This is flow problem. And flow problems require flow solutions. Takt Planning is that solution. Stop pushing. Start flowing. On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the water bottle demonstration teaching about flow versus push?

Two bottles poured into bucket: Brad pours normally (10 seconds) because air keeps holding back water creating starts and stops. Juan swirls creating vortex (5 seconds) because water leaves room for air to come up by heading same direction, demonstrating flow beats push every time.

Why could the plumbing foreman not commit during weekly work planning?

Terrence said “schedule always changes” creating moving target making it impossible for his office to provide materials and coordination on time, this was not insubordination or people problem but legitimate complaint about unstable system destroying predictability required for commitment.

How does Takt Planning create predictable supply chains?

Master project Takt plan shows when every zone will be completed in rhythm, unifying everyone working to same beat for manpower materials information and design completion, when everything works to same beat, resources become available making day-to-day planning easy for Last Planner and Scrum systems.

What does hold the dates mean in Takt Planning?

Do not move dates around unless team decides together it can be done and needs to be done, prevents trades from bringing out too many materials creating excess inventory and prevents managing variation from changing schedule distracting from roadblock removal.

How did the train analogy help explain Takt Planning?

Takt trains are processes by 10,000 square feet, freight cars are scopes of work, front engine is preparation team, cow catcher is roadblock removal system, tracks are operations, rails are prefabrication, speed is Takt time, arrival rate is throughput, trains arrive at stations in rhythm creating predictable system.