Roadblock Removal

Why Roadblock Removal Should Be Your Only Priority (And PPC Should Come Down Off Your Wall)

Here’s what happens on most construction sites. You track percent plan complete. You measure variance. You print charts showing how badly you missed commitments last week. You review production rates after the work is done. And then you wonder why nothing changes.

I’m going to tell you something that might make you defensive. If your project has a percent plan complete board on the wall and you don’t have a fanatical roadblock removal system, I know exactly where your team is. You have a long way to go. That’s not an insult. That’s a diagnosis. And the fix is simpler than you think.

The Problem Hiding in Plain Sight

Walk into any project trailer and look at what’s on the walls. You’ll see variance tracking. Pie charts showing percentages. Lagging indicator after lagging indicator showing you how badly you performed after the fact. What you won’t see is a roadblock removal scoreboard. A visual system showing every obstacle that could stop work in the next six weeks. A team tracking how many roadblocks they’re surfacing and how fast they’re clearing them.

We’re obsessed with measuring failure. We spend hours tracking what went wrong. We hold meetings to discuss why commitments weren’t met. We analyze data that tells us we already lost. But we don’t spend that energy preventing the problems in the first place. We’re playing defense when we should be playing offense.

The System That Trains Us to Track the Wrong Things

This isn’t about lazy project managers or incompetent superintendents. This is about an industry that’s been taught to worship lagging indicators as if they create value. Percent plan complete is a lagging indicator. It tells you after the work was supposed to happen whether it happened or not. Variance tracking is a lagging indicator. It tells you after commitments were missed why they were missed. Production tracking is a lagging indicator. It tells you after installation is done whether crews hit their numbers.

None of that prevents anything. None of that clears the path ahead of work. None of that creates flow. A very wise leader once told me this: Percent plan complete is a lagging indicator system. Roadblock removal is a leading indicator system. Leading indicators mean if you do this and the indicator shows success, you can actually lead out in the success of the effort. Lagging is just answering: did we win or did we lose? The system failed us. It didn’t fail the workers.

Why Your Whiny Trade Partner Is Actually Your Greatest Asset

I’ve seen this pattern on every project. There’s always that one trade partner who complains constantly. The electrician who won’t shut up about what’s in his way. The mechanical contractor who keeps raising problems. The steel erector who’s always pointing out what’s not ready. Most superintendents treat them like a problem. They roll their eyes. They say the trade is just being negative. They wish they’d stop complaining and just do the work. Here’s what you need to understand. That whiny electrician is your angel. That complaining mechanical foreman just gave you the key to the universe. They’re telling you exactly what’s standing between you and flow.

Go home right now. Get on your knees. Thank God for those trade partners who are complaining about what’s in their way. Because now you can remove those obstacles and create flow. They are your biggest allies. They are your biggest assets. They’re giving you the key to success. But here’s the catch. They’ll only tell you what’s in their way if you create an environment where problems come to the surface. And problems only come to the surface when you commit people.

The Field Reality: How Commitment Reveals Roadblocks

Let me explain this with an analogy. In CPM scheduling, nobody can really see where they’re supposed to be. So nobody really worries about it because everybody’s just going to do whatever they want anyway. But when you create a Takt plan with your team and you’re holding those dates, when you say if you’re not finished you’re working Saturday or we’re going into a recovery meeting, that’s when they raise their hand. As soon as they can see what you expect of them, what they’ve already committed to through an integrated planning cycle, they’re like “Whoa, I’ve got a problem. This is wrong. I don’t have the materials. My shop said this. I’m missing manpower.”

As soon as you commit somebody, that’s when they’re going to surface trouble. It’s like dating. You’re not going to get a lot of pushback from your girlfriend or boyfriend. But once you try and put a ring on it, then they really have to think: can I do this? And if there are problems, that’s when they surface. Once you commit somebody, that’s when all the problems come out.

So if you want roadblocks to rise to the surface, you have to commit people. And you commit people by creating stable environments with flow, with visual schedules, with clear expectations that everyone can see. Think about General Patton. There’s a scene in the movie where there’s this column of tanks and war vehicles all stalled behind a bridge. Patton drives up and finds donkeys blocking the bridge. He pulls out his pistols, shoots both donkeys, and says “Now dump these things over the side and clear this bridge.”

The owner of the donkeys is screaming. But Patton knew what was more important. The donkeys or the column of vehicles getting strafed by enemy aircraft? He knew they cannot allow roadblocks to stay in their way. Patton also talked about what affects defeat in war: enemy gunfire and the exposure of time to that gunfire. He said the rapidity or flow of our advance can reduce our exposure. If there’s something in our way and we’re waiting, we have all these other wastes and we’re prolonging the project. We’re under enemy fire.

What Makes Roadblocks Surface

Here’s what most people miss about the river of waste analogy. The traditional version says there’s a boat which is the work, water which is resources, and rocks under the water which are roadblocks. The idea is that lowering the water level lets you see the rocks. But that’s wrong. It’s not the lowering of the water level that allows you to see roadblocks. It’s the stabilizing of the water level. Even if you have low water levels, if that river is going too fast or if it’s still wavy or stormy, you can’t see rocks in time to remove them. And even if you could see them, if it’s going too fast, you don’t have time to remove them.

Clear, calm streams going at a steady pace let you see roadblocks with enough time to go around them or remove them. And you can create that in construction. It isn’t until you create a clean site that you can see roadblocks. It’s not until you create a safe site. An organized site. Because once you get rid of the chaos and now you have stability, now you can start to see things that will hold you up. Once you have a site with flow, once you have a site with commitments where you hold the dates, once you have a site where you treasure your risk and opportunity register more than just your financial projections, that’s when you’re able to see roadblocks and remove them.

Watch for These Signals That Your System Is Backwards

Your project is focused on the wrong things if:

• You have percent plan complete charts on the wall but no roadblock removal scoreboard
• Team meetings review variance and what went wrong instead of what obstacles are coming in the next six weeks
• You track production during installation but don’t code interruptions, waiting time, or sequence changes separately
• Trade partners surface problems and get treated like they’re being negative instead of being praised for bringing roadblocks to light
• Your project manager spends hours updating CPM but no time in daily roadblock removal huddles

The Framework: Leading Indicators over Lagging Indicators

Once you understand that roadblocks are where you win or lose, the entire game changes. Your priority becomes fanatical roadblock removal. Not after problems happen. Before they happen. Here’s what that means practically. Every day, your focus as a superintendent, project manager, or project executive should be on the removal of roadblocks as your number one priority. If you have multiple projects, call in and discuss with all your jobs any possible roadblocks that might prevent work.

Make roadblock removal the most fanatical, crazy, important thing you’re obsessed with. You think about it when you’re sleeping. You’re focused on it constantly. This is not an exaggeration. This is the key to flow. Think of it like duck hunt. Remember that old Nintendo game where you point the gun at the screen and shoot ducks? Roadblock removal is like duck hunt. You want to create an environment where people know they are loved, praised, and valued when they bring roadblocks to the surface. And you can systematically remove them in a short amount of time. Make it a game. Make it fun. Create a culture where surfacing problems is celebrated, not punished. Where the whiny trade partner is the hero, not the problem.

The Three Metrics That Actually Matter

If you want to track something on a project site, track these three things. First, track the number of roadblocks the team is coming up with. This should either remain steady or increase as people get better at seeing problems ahead of time. Second, track the average duration of time it takes to resolve them. This should decrease as your systems improve and your team gets faster at clearing the path. Third, track how far out you’re starting to see a considerable number of roadblocks. If you can get out to six weeks, you’re doing a great job. That’s leading indicator territory. These metrics tell you whether you’re getting better at preventing problems before they impact work. Percent plan complete tells you after work was supposed to happen whether it happened. One creates flow. The other measures failure.

The Practical Path Forward

Start by taking down your percent plan complete boards. I know that sounds radical. But until you have a fanatical roadblock removal system, PPC is just noise. It’s data you can’t act on. It’s measuring after the game is already lost. Put up a roadblock removal scoreboard instead. Keep it in a central location where your entire project site can see it. Track the things I mentioned: number of roadblocks surfaced, time to resolve them, how far out you’re seeing them. Make it visual. Make it the scoreboard for your project.

In your team meetings, stop reviewing variance. Stop talking about why commitments weren’t met last week. Instead, talk about what obstacles are coming in the next six weeks. What could stop work? What’s not made ready? What materials might be late? What information is missing?

Ask deep questions. Do you have the manpower for this? Is your start date confirmed? Do you have the materials? Will they be here just in time? Do you have all the information? Do you have all the layout? Have a list of questions about what work being made ready actually means and go through them systematically.

Create a daily rhythm. Plan the next day. Communicate the plan and get feedback. Take the roadblocks to your team for fanatical removal. Execute the day. Repeat. Make this the heartbeat of your project.

And when trade partners complain, praise them. Thank them. Make them feel like valued members of the team. Because that’s what they are. They’re showing you exactly where to focus your energy. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Why This Protects More Than Just your Schedule

We’re not just building projects. We’re building people who build things. And when we create flow by removing roadblocks before they impact work, we’re protecting families. Every time work stops because areas aren’t made ready, workers wait. When workers wait, schedules slip. When schedules slip, teams work weekends. When teams work weekends, families suffer. When families suffer, we’ve failed at respect for people.

Roadblock removal isn’t soft. It’s a production strategy. It’s how you protect flow. It’s how you make money. It’s how you keep promises to owners and workers and families. This is respect for people in action. Not the version where we’re just nice to everyone. The version where we design systems that clear the path so people can succeed without burning out.

The Decision Facing Every Leader

You can keep tracking percent plan complete. You can keep measuring variance. You can keep reviewing what went wrong after it’s already too late to fix it. Or you can shift to leading indicators. You can make roadblock removal your number one priority. You can create an environment where problems surface early and get cleared fast. You can build flow instead of measuring failure.

The companies that win aren’t the ones with the best variance reports. They’re the ones that prevent variance by clearing the path ahead of work. They’re fanatical about roadblock removal. They celebrate trade partners who surface problems. They track leading indicators and ignore lagging noise. Edwards Deming understood this: “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” Most companies can describe their measurement process in detail. Almost none can describe their roadblock removal process. That’s the gap. Be absolutely crazy, weird, over-the-top, fanatical, and creepy about roadblock removal. Make it your priority. Make it your obsession. Clear the path. Create flow. On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s wrong with tracking percent plan complete if it shows us where we’re struggling?

PPC is a lagging indicator that tells you after work was supposed to happen whether it happened or not. You can’t act on that data to prevent the next failure. Roadblock removal is a leading indicator that clears the path before work starts so commitments actually get met.

How do you get trade partners to surface roadblocks instead of just complaining?

Create an environment where surfacing problems is praised, not punished. When someone raises a roadblock, thank them publicly, track it visually, and remove it fast. They’ll keep bringing problems when they see you actually clear the path.

What if you’re contractually required to use CPM scheduling?

Fine, maintain CPM for contract requirements, but start with Takt planning to create the flow first. Use CPM as a reporting tool, not a planning tool. Focus your team’s energy on roadblock removal, not CPM updates.

How far ahead should you be identifying roadblocks?

Start with two weeks and work toward six weeks. The farther out you can see obstacles, the more time you have to remove them before they impact work. Track this as one of your three key metrics.

What’s the first step if you’ve never tracked roadblocks systematically?

Start simple: create a visual board showing every obstacle that could stop work in the next two weeks. In daily huddles, ask what’s in the way. Track it. Remove it. Show the team you’re serious about clearing the path.