Last Planner in Construction | Lookahead Planning (Make-Ready Planning Explained)

Why Your Lookahead Plans Don’t Remove Roadblocks (And the IDS Method That Does)

Here’s what most Last Planner implementations get wrong about lookahead planning: they treat it as another coordination meeting instead of recognizing it’s a roadblock removal system. You gather trades weekly. You show them what’s coming in the next six weeks. You ask if anyone sees problems. Maybe someone mentions a material delay or a permit issue. You write it down. And then… nothing systematic happens to remove those roadblocks before they become schedule killers. The meeting consumed an hour. The roadblocks stayed roadblocks. And your weekly work plan gets crushed by constraints that should have been removed weeks ago.

Here’s how lookahead planning actually works when you implement it correctly. The lookahead plan is filtered from your norm-level production plan not created from scratch showing the next six weeks. In your trade partner weekly tactical meeting (I like Tuesday afternoons), you set a timer for five to ten minutes. Trade partners use the 17-point make-ready checklist to examine their activities in the lookahead. They mark problems on 3D isometric site maps with red magnets. Then the team spends meeting time identifying, discussing, and solving (IDS) those roadblocks. The purpose isn’t predicting when work will happen. The purpose is finding problems with the plan so you can eliminate them before they hit your weekly work plan. This is how lookahead planning protects flow instead of just documenting chaos six weeks in advance.

When Lookahead Meetings Waste Everyone’s Time

The real construction pain here is running weekly lookahead meetings that identify problems without systematically removing them. You see the material delivery might be late. You note the design hasn’t been finalized. You acknowledge the permit isn’t approved yet. Everyone nods. Someone says “we’ll follow up on that.” The meeting ends. Next week, those same roadblocks are still there, just four weeks closer instead of five weeks away. And when they hit your weekly work plan, you’re scrambling reactively to solve problems you knew about for a month but never systematically addressed.

The pain isn’t that lookahead planning failed. It’s that lookahead planning was implemented as status reporting instead of constraint removal. You’re using the lookahead window to see problems coming, but you’re not using the time between lookahead and weekly work plan to eliminate those problems. It’s like having a weather forecast that tells you a storm is coming in five days, acknowledging the information, and then doing nothing to prepare. The forecast was accurate. The response was useless.

The Pattern That Lets Roadblocks Kill Flow

The failure pattern is treating lookahead planning as predictive scheduling instead of recognizing it’s constraint management. We think lookaheads tell us when work will happen six weeks from now. We present them as if they’re deterministic schedules showing future reality. And we miss that lookaheads aren’t predictions they’re problem-finding tools. The plan shows what should happen if nothing goes wrong. The lookahead meeting exists to find what will go wrong and fix it before it matters.

What actually happens is we confuse lookahead planning with forecasting. We show trades what’s coming. They see potential problems. But because we framed the lookahead as a schedule instead of a constraint-removal tool, nobody feels responsible for actually removing the constraints. The superintendent might follow up on some issues. But there’s no systematic process ensuring every identified roadblock gets assigned, tracked, and resolved before it hits the weekly work plan. Problems drift from lookahead to lookahead until they become crises in the weekly work plan where it’s too late to solve them properly.

Understanding the Last Planner Hierarchy

Let me show you where lookahead planning fits in the complete Last Planner System. You start with your master schedule showing all phases. From there, you pull plan every phase three months before it starts. That pull plan enables you to create the norm-level production plan inside each phase, which means in time-by-location format you have buffers ahead of the milestone. This is a faster production target than your original contractual promise from the milestone set inside that phase.

From the production plan, you do not recreate the lookahead plan. You literally filter it out and invite trade partners to collaborate and modify four to six weeks out I like six weeks. Then you create your weekly work plan by filtering one week from the lookahead. Then you create your day plan. Then you track percent plan complete. This is Last Planner System structure. Add collaboration to this, add proper meeting structure to this, and you’re set up. And we’re going to talk specifically about the lookahead plan and how to make it actually remove roadblocks instead of just documenting them.

What Your Production Plan Actually Looks Like

When you have a norm-level production plan in time-by-location format, you see a parallelogram. You have zones let’s say Zone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and inside each zone you have activities or wagons. When you cascade work on a Takt time (the rhythm you’re moving from zone to zone), you see that same sequence repeated down through zones on consistent rhythm. This is all coordinated for beautiful diagonal flow. That’s what I mean by production plan. But you have to have buffers at the end. And these buffers better be large enough to cover the risks inside the phase.

This production plan is what you’re filtering from. The lookahead doesn’t recreate this coordination. It shows the next six weeks of this already-coordinated flow so you can make that work ready by removing constraints before they hit execution.

Setting Up the Trade Partner Weekly Tactical Meeting

Inside a meeting system between Monday and Friday, I typically like to have a trade partner weekly tactical on Tuesday afternoon. This is a weekly repeated meeting with your trade partners. It’s named after Patrick Lencioni’s book Death by Meeting and aligned with Last Planner System structure. In this meeting, you do your lookahead planning and your weekly work planning. Both. Same meeting. Sequential activities.

Here’s the ideal conference room setup for this meeting:

Front of Room (Where Everyone Focuses)

• Two screens displaying digital lookahead and weekly work plans
• Screens large enough for entire room to see clearly
• One screen can show lookahead, other shows weekly work plan
• Digital format ensures plans reach field workers, not just meeting attendees

Left Side Wall (Problem Visualization)

• 3D isometric expanded views of the project showing actual building geometry
• Maps where trade partners mark problems with red magnets
• Visual problem identification creates agenda and tracks resolution
• Not for lookahead/weekly work plan display those stay digital on screens

Right Side Wall (Optional Supporting Boards)

• Whiteboards for problem-solving discussions
• Supporting visual tools as needed
• But never put lookahead/weekly work plan physically on walls

I do not believe in having lookahead and weekly work plans physically on the wall only. They’ve got to be digital or else they won’t get to the workers. The conference room visualization is for collaboration during meetings. The digital plans are what superintendents, foremen, and crews use in the field. If your plans only exist on conference room walls, only the people in meetings see them. That’s not coordination. That’s coordination theater.

How Lookahead Planning Actually Works

You’re in the conference room with trade partners on weekly basis. One of the first things you’re going to do is use the lookahead plan. The lookahead plan is filtered easiest way I can put it showing the next six weeks out. You still see your flow in time-by-location format, but this view is specifically for the purpose of making work ready and identifying, discussing, and solving (IDS) roadblocks. This is huge.

These are not predictive deterministic schedules saying “this is exactly when something will happen.” The lookahead shows the plan so you can find problems with it. We have to engage with trade partners on finding these problems and solving them before they hit. What I love about lookahead planning is you’re looking out ahead. That’s why I like six weeks. This is when you’re keeping your eye on the ball out in front and finding problems here so you can get rid of them before you hit the weekly work plan.

The weekly work plan should have constraints already adjusted and be as roadblock-free as you possibly can make it. The period between your lookahead window and your weekly work plan is your time to remove roadblocks. There might be some roadblocks that show up immediately during weekly work planning, but with good stable management we should be able to reduce those significantly.

Using the 17-Point Make-Ready Checklist

Here’s the practice that makes this systematic instead of random. There’s a 17-point list which I call the make-ready checklist. This checklist shows the things that have to be ready for each activity for it to be roadblock-free. Set a timer for five to ten minutes in the meeting. Say to trade partners: “Hey, I need you to spend this focused time. Here’s the lookahead that you all already coordinated in the pull plan. Please, trade partners, look at your activities. Use this checklist which is up on the wall and make sure your activities are ready. If you see materials not tracking, or space might not be ready, or we may not have permits, mark it. Mark it on the maps. Then we will use meeting time to get rid of those roadblocks before we hit the weekly work plan.”

The 17-point checklist typically covers constraints like:

Material & Equipment Readiness

• Materials ordered with confirmed delivery dates aligned to need dates
• Materials staged in accessible locations near work areas
• Equipment reserved and delivery scheduled
• Tools and consumables available for crews

Space & Access Readiness

• Predecessor work complete and inspected where required
• Work area clean and accessible for incoming trade
• Adequate space for crew to work safely and productively
• No conflicts with other trades working in adjacent areas

Information & Approvals Readiness

• Drawings current and issued for construction
• Submittals approved and returned to trades
• RFIs answered providing needed clarifications
• Permits obtained and posted where required
• Inspections scheduled aligned with work sequence

Crew & Coordination Readiness

• Labor committed and crew size matches work package
• Trade partner confirms availability for scheduled dates
• Handoff conditions clear between predecessor and successor trades
• Safety requirements identified and planned for

Every single week: identify, discuss, solve. The purpose of scheduling is to have a plan so you can identify, discuss, and solve problems before they impact you. When you do this systematically, you’re ready for weekly work planning. You can actually make commitments because if you’ve done your job right through lookahead constraint removal, you’ll be mostly roadblock-free by the time weekly work planning happens.

Why Filtering Beats Creating From Scratch

This is the purpose and utility of lookahead planning. You can do this in Excel. You can do this in InTakt. Some other software options are also pretty decent at it. But the lookahead is not recreated from scratch. It is filtered from your production plan, adjusted based on current reality, and used for identifying, discussing, and solving problems.

Remember what we covered in the production planning video: when you tell trades to create lookaheads from whole cloth, they will not be vertically aligned to milestones and they will not preserve diagonal trade flow. That’s why filtering is mandatory. The production plan already has coordinated sequence, validated trade flow, and proper buffers. The lookahead is a six-week window into that validated plan, adjusted for current conditions and used specifically for constraint removal.

What Happens in the Lookahead Meeting

Let me walk through the actual meeting flow. Trade partners arrive. They see the site visualization maps on the left wall. Before formal meeting starts, they mark current problems with red magnets on those maps. This visual problem identification becomes the meeting agenda. You’re not asking “does anyone have problems?” You’re looking at the maps covered in red magnets and prioritizing which problems to solve first.

Then you display the lookahead on the front screens. Set the timer for five to ten minutes. Trade partners individually review their activities against the 17-point make-ready checklist. They identify constraints materials tracking late, permits not filed, space not ready, design not finalized. They add red magnets to the visualization maps showing where new problems exist.

Timer goes off. Now you systematically work through the identified constraints. Each roadblock gets assigned to someone with a specific deadline for resolution. Material delay? Who’s calling the supplier and when? Permit not filed? Who’s submitting the application and what’s the expected approval timeline? Design not finalized? Who’s escalating to the architect and when do we need the answer? The IDS process identify, discuss, solve means every constraint leaves the meeting with an owner and a resolution plan.

Setting Up Roadblock-Free Weekly Work Planning

What happens then is you’re ready for weekly work planning in the same meeting. You can actually go in and make commitments because hopefully, if you’ve done lookahead constraint removal right, you’ll be mostly roadblock-free by the time you’re filtering the weekly work plan. The weekly work plan becomes commitment-making instead of problem-discovering because you already discovered and removed problems during lookahead planning.

This is the sequential flow: lookahead planning identifies roadblocks six weeks out. Meeting time removes those roadblocks over the next five weeks. Weekly work planning one week out finds work ready because constraints were already removed. Execution happens with flow because the work was actually ready when crews showed up. PPC tracking stays high because you’re measuring plan reliability after systematic constraint removal made plans reliable.

Resources for Implementation

The meeting structure is exactly mapped out in the book Takt Steering & Control. We also have Pull Planning for Builders, which talks about how to go from pull plan to production plan to lookahead. And there’s The 10 Improvements to the Last Planner System, which explains why these changes are crucial for Last Planner to work effectively in construction. These aren’t theory books. They’re implementation guides showing exactly how to run these meetings, use these checklists, and create systematic constraint removal instead of hopeful coordination.

If your project needs help setting up effective lookahead planning, if your weekly meetings identify problems without solving them, if your weekly work plans keep getting crushed by roadblocks you saw coming weeks ago, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow through systematic constraint management.

Building Constraint Removal Systems

This connects to everything we teach at Elevate Construction about respecting people by protecting them from preventable chaos. Lookahead planning isn’t about predicting the future perfectly. It’s about finding problems early enough to solve them before they become crises. When you filter lookaheads from production plans, use make-ready checklists systematically, and implement the IDS process weekly, you’re building constraint removal systems that protect trade flow and prevent superintendent firefighting.

The roadblocks will happen. Materials will track late. Designs will need clarification. Permits will take longer than expected. The question isn’t whether problems exist. The question is: do you have systematic processes for finding and removing those problems six weeks before they hit execution? Or are you hoping nothing goes wrong and scrambling when it inevitably does?

A Challenge for Last Planner Practitioners

Here’s the challenge. Stop treating lookahead planning as status reporting about what’s coming. Start treating it as systematic roadblock removal protecting your weekly work plans. Set up your trade partner weekly tactical meeting with proper conference room layout screens for digital plans, visualization maps for problem identification. Implement the five-to-ten-minute timer with the 17-point make-ready checklist. Have trade partners mark constraints. Then use meeting time for IDS identifying, discussing, and solving every roadblock before it hits the weekly work plan.

Filter your lookaheads from production plans to maintain alignment. Use the six-week window to find problems early. Remove constraints systematically over the five weeks between identification and weekly work planning. Show up to weekly work planning with roadblock-free work packages ready for trade commitment. This is how lookahead planning creates flow instead of just documenting future chaos. As Taiichi Ohno said: “The slower but consistent tortoise causes less waste and is much more desirable than the speedy hare that races ahead and then stops occasionally to doze.” Lookahead planning is the tortoise consistent, systematic constraint removal that prevents the frantic scrambling that looks like speed but creates waste.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far out should my lookahead plan extend?

Six weeks is ideal. This gives enough time to remove most constraints before they hit weekly work planning while staying focused enough to identify real problems versus theoretical distant possibilities.

Should lookahead plans be on the wall or digital?

Digital. Wall-mounted plans only reach people in meetings. Digital plans reach field workers through exports, tablets, or printouts. Use conference room visualization maps for problems, not for lookahead schedules.

What’s the 17-point make-ready checklist?

A systematic list covering material readiness, space/access readiness, information/approvals readiness, and crew/coordination readiness. It ensures trade partners check all constraint types, not just the obvious ones.

How do I keep lookaheads from becoming wish lists?

Filter them from production plans instead of creating from scratch. This maintains vertical alignment to milestones and diagonal trade flow. Adjust for current reality, but don’t recreate coordination already completed during pull planning.

What if roadblocks can’t be removed in six weeks?

Escalate immediately. Six weeks should handle most constraints. If you identify problems requiring longer resolution, that’s critical information for milestone protection and recovery strategy activation.