The Schedule

Poor Scheduling: The Cause of Project Failure (And How Ego Drives It)

Here’s a quote that sums up the core problem with scheduling perfectly: “No schedule is worth the paper that it’s printed on unless it gets to the people in the field doing the work as a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team.” And I’m yet to see that happen or done well. The problem isn’t Gantt charts or Takt plans or CPM or pull plans. The problem is that the schedule doesn’t reach the field as a visual collaborative plan. And the reason it doesn’t is ego.

Let me explain.

The Pain of Schedules That Never Reach the Field

When I go onto a site, the supervisors haven’t even got a copy of the schedule. It’s certainly not anywhere visible. I don’t care even if it’s a Gantt. I hate a Gantt chart and we’ll talk about that later. I don’t believe it’s right, but even a Gantt, even if it’s wrong, at least if it’s on the wall and everyone’s looking at it and we’re going, “Well, these are the problems with it,” we’re doing the ORCA. At least we’re pulling it apart and we’re trying to head everyone in the same direction.

There’s a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous, which is all progress begins with the truth. So if the schedule’s not right, at least if we’ve got it on the wall and it’s visual and everyone’s looking at it every day, we can be flagging those problems up and actually starting to do something about them instead of going, “That thing’s a piece of crap, just throw it in the corner, don’t worry about it and do whatever you’re going to do anyway,” which is what then happens.

Here’s what I see. Most of the time when I go onto a site, the schedule isn’t visual. It’s not on the wall. It’s not in the hands of the foremen. It’s not in the hands of the workers. And when I ask where it is, they say, “Oh, it’s in Procore.” Or “It’s on the server.” Or “It’s in the contract.”

But the foremen and the workers aren’t going to dig through Procore to find 35 different folders. They aren’t going to filter through 75 pages of text to pull out the right information. They’re the king. They’re the value-added entities that we work for. We work to support them. So why would we not give them something that’s very simple and visual?

A project engineer’s only job is to enable the trades to start, build, and finish. So I don’t care if it’s on Procore. I care if it’s visual for them to see.

The Real Problem: Ego Drives Complexity

Here’s my theory on what the real problem is. And it’s driven by one word: ego. We love complex. We love being the smartest person in the room. We’re programmed from an early age in school, or even by your parents. When you did something good, what’d they say? “Oh, that’s so clever. You’re so clever.” How did you work that out?

At school, it was like, “Who can get the right answer?” Not “Who can produce the best result? Who can give us the best outcome? Who can ask the best question?” All comes back to that, man. That one word there is the only reason why the Gantt chart survived as long as it has. Because Gantt’s complex. People love complex. “Oh, I can understand this predecessor, successor, all this nonsense.” And we go, “No, we just want it to flow. We just need blocks. When do they start? When do they finish? And what do they need to do in that block?”

I’ve heard Paul Akers talk to this before. He talked to one of the owners of, I think it was one of the Toyota execs. And he said to him, “When Chrysler and Nissan and all these other people come here, what do they think?” And he goes, “Paul, smart people can’t believe it can be so simple.” They take the term simplicity and would complicate it again.

And if you listen to Eli Goldratt, he goes, “It won’t work unless it’s simple.” Complexity is the enemy of execution. When you have to be the expert because of the ego, guess what happens next? Everything’s got to go through you. So we’ve just killed flow. We’ve just created it. We have become the bottleneck that’s driving so many of the problems.

That one word, ego, when we have to have all the answers, when we have to be right all the time, when we have to be the loudest person in the meeting all the time, that’s killing that flow.

The Gap Between Reality and What We Ought to Be Doing

Here’s how to think about this. Draw a line. That’s the reality line where we currently are. Draw another line above it. That’s the “ought to be” line. We ought to be doing a lot better than what we are currently doing. We look at the gap between here and there and we call them the problems. “It’s on Procore, no one looks at it.” “We’ve got a Gantt, no one follows it.” We call those the problems. They’re not the problem. They’re symptoms of the real problem.

To find the problem, we’ve got to dig deeper. The Japanese use five whys or whatever it is. The problem sits back here. And the problem is ego. When you hide information behind a paywall or a single person, you stop progress. And between those two lines is the ORCA. You’re solving it as a team.

Here’s what happens when you remove ego. You let the team collaborate. You put the schedule on the wall. You make it visual. You ask, “Is this right?” And the team flags the problems. They fix it together. And the schedule becomes a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team.

How to Remove Yourself as the Constraint

Here’s the challenge. Why is it so hard for us to let go of control? Why is it so hard to stop being the bottleneck? Because we worry about the failure that’s going to happen or the uncertainty of what’s going to go wrong. We tell ourselves all these stories about, “Oh, if I don’t do it, the schedule will fall behind. If I don’t run around chasing everyone every three minutes, it’s not going to get done.”

We have to let go of that and realize that some stuff’s going to fail. It’s not going to be perfect. But we’ve got to get to a point where, while you’re chasing around, while you’re making sure everything’s perfect, you’re the constraint in the system. There’s only so fast that the system can move because everything’s got to go through you.

So you can actually get a better result, even though you’ll get failures and you will, a better result by removing yourself as a constraint. Always be asking yourself, “Am I the constraint? And what’s my real fear here of what’s going to happen?”

Then you go back to Keith Cunningham. This book, The Road Less Stupid. Three killer questions in there for risk management: What’s the upside? What’s the downside? If the downside happens, can I live with it? That’s all you need to do, man. When you’re in that spot and you go, “Oh, what’s the worst that could possibly happen there?” which is never, ever as bad as what we think it is. So someone fails. If they do fail, what happens? “Oh, we’ll fix it anyway.”

And here’s the brilliant thing. If it’s a collaborative plan and it’s our plan, then when something goes wrong, which you already said isn’t as bad as we think it’s going to be, then we have the whole team to lean in and fix it together. And what can’t we solve together?

Here are the symptoms that you’re the constraint:

• Everything has to go through you for approval or decision-making
• You’re the only one who understands the schedule or the plan
• The team waits for you to tell them what to do next instead of collaborating
• You spend all day chasing people and putting out fires
• When you’re not on site, nothing gets done or decisions stall

If you see these symptoms, you’re the bottleneck. Remove yourself. Let the team collaborate. Put the schedule on the wall. Make it visual. And fix it together.

One Caveat: Safety Stops Everything

One caveat around this. If someone’s doing something reckless and you need to stop it because they’re going to hurt themselves, that’s out the window. You stop it because you’ve seen it, done it, got enough experience. But that’s rarely the case. Most of what we’re dealing with is just, if something does go wrong, the impact and the consequences are minimal. And it’s actually going to improve things moving forward because that person is going to learn from it and they’re going to do a better job next time. And things are going to move even quicker because you don’t have to deal with that next time. They know how to do it.

It’s the same way you and I learned. How did you learn? We learned by getting out in the field and doing it. We got some stuff wrong. A lot of it. But we also got coaching and help along the way. And even if somebody was yelling, they were doing more coaching and helping us than we think. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

The Challenge: Selling Simplicity

So what’s one thing that would be a challenge for folks to implement this? Selling simplicity. The Takt plan is the tool that we need to get to. We need to get rid of the Gantt, which is not an easy sell because we’re so conditioned to it, so used to it. Everybody wants it. Selling simplicity is the hard bit.

And the more people that we do this, this is not something, this is something that happens step-by-step from the people at the workforce down. If you’re leading in the field, you’re on site, I don’t care. Draw it on a bit of paper. “This is where our crew’s heading this week.” Get yourself some texters and highlighters, some colored pens. Block it out. Do it yourself. Don’t wait for the likes of Jason or myself, the superintendent, the project manager, the construction manager, whatever.

If you want to improve yourself and what’s going on your site, do it yourself. Learn to see waste, where your non-value-added activity is. There’s tons of videos online. Jason’s got a mile of them on his YouTube channel. Learn what waste is and how to increase flow. Don’t wait for someone else’s permission to fix it. Fix stuff yourself. And start bringing problems to the surface so we can fix it together as a team.

A Challenge for Leaders

Here’s what I want you to do this week. Stop hiding the schedule in Procore or on the server or in the contract. Put it on the wall. Make it visual. Make it collaborative. Get the team to look at it. Ask, “Is this right?” Flag the problems. Fix it together.

Remove yourself as the constraint. Let the team collaborate. And stop letting ego drive complexity. Simplicity drives flow. Ego drives bottlenecks. Choose flow. As we say at Elevate, no schedule is worth the paper it’s printed on unless it gets to the people in the field doing the work as a visual representation of collaborative planning amongst the entire team. Make it visual. Make it collaborative. Fix it together.

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is ego the real problem with scheduling?

Because we love complex. We love being the smartest person in the room. When we have to be the expert, everything goes through us. We become the bottleneck. And we kill flow. Simplicity drives flow. Ego drives complexity and bottlenecks.

Why doesn’t the schedule reach the field?

Because it’s hidden in Procore, on the server, or in the contract. It’s not visual. It’s not collaborative. And the foremen and workers aren’t going to dig through 35 folders to find it. We need to put it on the wall where everyone can see it and collaborate on it.

What’s wrong with Gantt charts?

They’re complex. People love complex because it makes them feel smart. But complexity is the enemy of execution. Gantt charts survived because of ego, not because they work. We just need blocks. When do they start? When do they finish? What do they need to do? That’s flow.

How do you remove yourself as the constraint?

Stop being the bottleneck. Let the team collaborate. Put the schedule on the wall. Ask, “Is this right?” Flag the problems. Fix it together. And always ask yourself, “Am I the constraint? What’s my real fear here?”

What if something fails when you let go of control?

Some stuff’s going to fail. It’s not going to be perfect. But the failures aren’t as bad as you think. And if it’s a collaborative plan, the whole team fixes it together. What can’t we solve together? Letting go creates flow. Controlling creates bottlenecks.