Takt & CPM

I’m in Texas about to do a quick two-day boot camp for the Manhattan team. I think we’ll have 30 to 40 people there, and I just had some of the best barbecue of my life. I love coming to Texas for that!

Let’s begin with the builder’s code. Great builders know there’s no such thing as a win-lose. All win-lose situations quickly become lose-lose. Success comes when the owner and stakeholders, the general contractor, and the trade partners all win together.

I also want to share some feedback I received: “After your class, I got hired onto Baker Construction as a superintendent on a multi-billion-dollar project for a nuclear plant. Your class gave me the confidence and missing pieces to chase that dream.” That’s inspiring, and I’m grateful to hear it.

Now let’s get into how takt and CPM connect.

How takt and CPM tie together

CPM should only serve as an as-built schedule, not as your production plan. Takt, on the other hand, is both your strategic and production plan. At the macro level, takt is your high-level strategy. At the norm level, takt becomes the detailed production plan, usually built from pull planning. From there, you can filter into your six-week look ahead, your weekly work plan, and your daily plan.

Once the takt plan is built, you can export into CPM to create a high-level as-built schedule. CPM should remain at level two or three details, never more. Takt is the plan you build from, work from, and trust. CPM is simply the record.

What comes first

Always the takt plan. Your macro takt plan sets the overall structure and informs the CPM work breakdown structure. Start with takt, then align CPM to follow as an export.

The deliverable cycle

When using takt and Last Planner, the flow looks like this:

• Build the macro takt plan.
• Pull plan milestones.
• Develop the norm takt plan for each phase.
• Filter into look aheads to remove roadblocks.
• Filter into weekly work plans to confirm commitments and handoffs.
• Filter into daily plans for execution.

Once updates come back from the field, refresh the takt production plan weekly, then export that to CPM as the as-built record.

The update cycle

The wrong way is to lead with CPM, build pull plans from CPM milestones, filter look aheads from CPM, and create trade weekly work plans separately. That creates chaos.

The right way is to let the macro takt plan lead. Pull plan milestones feed into the norm takt plan, which automatically drives look aheads, weekly work plans, and daily plans. Superintendents then update the production plan daily with zone control walks. At the end of the week, update takt and export to CPM.

Who sees what

Owners who only want CPM can view the CPM schedule and narrative. Owners who understand flow may also see the macro takt plan. Superintendents and trade partners should see the entire takt system from top to bottom. In the field, trades mainly interact with pull plans, look aheads, weekly plans, and daily plans.

How updates work

Each day, superintendents or field engineers perform zone control walks with foremen. They check progress, prepare ahead, and finish behind to capture real status. These updates roll back into the weekly work plan, which updates the takt plan. If there are delays, the team uses the takt problem-solving matrix to recover.

Delays and impacts

In the takt production system, delays are not handled with crashing, adding labor, working weekends, or pushing more materials into the site. Instead, you follow takt’s recovery methods and show impacts through the path of critical flow, not a critical path. If a time extension is required, takt provides a process for that.

Legal coverage

Exports from takt into CPM meet the 14-point DCMA checklist and QC guidelines. That means you can use the CPM schedule as your as-built legal record while keeping takt as your actual production system.

I hope this breakdown shows how takt and CPM can work together, one as the living system that drives production, the other as the official record.

Key Takeaway:
Takt must always lead as the production and strategic plan while CPM stays in the background as the as-built record. With takt in charge, projects gain rhythm, clarity, and reliability without falling into the traps of CPM-driven chaos.