The Superintendent Commandments – Supers

How to Win the War Before Going to Battle in Construction

The research laboratory project was already won before we got our notice to proceed. We spent eight months in pre-construction. Some people said, “Well, of course you knocked it out of the park. You had plenty of time to plan it.” And I told them I was proud of that. That doesn’t bother me at all. That’s how you do it. You plan well enough in advance, bring trade partners on board, get a wonderful plan, align the team, and make sure you have won the war before you step foot on the ground.

I stood my ground when general superintendents told me to go work on small jobs while I was “not busy” in pre-construction. I made them mad. I didn’t care. I told them we were going to plan this the right way, and we were going to win. And every time we’ve done that, not tried but done that, we’ve won. Every single time there’s been a superintendent or project manager or both planning a project in pre-construction and winning the war before going to battle, we have had a remarkable job.

The best generals in the history of our world won the war before going to battle. In construction, that means pre-construction. And right now, most projects are not doing it. They’re hitting the ground running and expecting to win. They’re going to war and then figuring out how they’re going to win. And they’re paying for it in schedule delays, cost overruns, team burnout, and quality problems that could have been prevented.

The Real Pain: Projects That Are Lost Before They Start

Here’s what’s happening on projects across the country. Teams mobilize without a complete plan. They open up Primavera P6 or Microsoft Project before they’ve thought through the project strategy. They start scheduling activities before they’ve performed a Takt analysis. They bring trades on board before they’ve detailed out the sequences and the flow. They design trailers as an afterthought. They skip the day-to-day geographical analysis for getting out of the ground. They assume the schedule will work itself out as they go.

And then reality hits. The foundation phase takes twice as long as planned because nobody mapped out where the pump would be, where the rebar laydown would be, where the spoils would go on a daily basis. The curtain wall becomes a nightmare because nobody brought that trade partner in during design development. The team starts burning out by month three because nobody planned for team balance and health. The workers are unhappy because there are no decent bathrooms, no lunchroom, and no parking. And the project manager is fighting fires instead of leading because the entire system was set up to fail.

The Failure Pattern: Speed Over Strategy

The pattern repeats on project after project. Companies prioritize getting boots on the ground over getting the plan right. They give superintendents two weeks to plan instead of two months. They pressure project managers to compress schedules to fit predetermined durations instead of building schedules that reflect reality. They treat pre-construction as a box to check rather than the foundation for success.

And the justification is always the same. “We don’t have time to plan.” “The owner wants us to start now.” “We’ll figure it out as we go.” But here’s the truth. A day in pre-construction gives you a week of success in construction. An hour in pre-con gives you a day’s worth of success in the field. Planning multiplies your effectiveness. And when you skip it, you’re not saving time. You’re guaranteeing that you’ll waste time later fixing problems that should never have existed.

This Is Not About Perfection

Let me be clear about something. No plan will ever survive first engagement with the enemy. But you can adapt to the enemy if you have a good plan. The goal is not to create a perfect plan that never changes. The goal is to think through the project so thoroughly that when changes come, and they will come, you have the structure and the clarity to respond effectively instead of reactively.

This is also not about blame. If you’re a superintendent or project manager who has been thrown onto projects without adequate planning time, this is not your fault. The system failed you. The company that didn’t give you the resources or the time to plan failed you. The culture that celebrates speed over strategy failed you. But now you know better. And knowing better means you have the opportunity to do better.

A Field Story About Winning the War

Let me tell you about that research laboratory. We were on that project for at least eight months before we started. Eight months of planning. We brought trade partners on early. We detailed out the sequences. We performed Takt analyses for foundation, structure, exterior, and interiors. We created day-to-day geographical plans for getting out of the ground. We mapped out logistics and access and material flow. We designed trailers for collaboration and communication. We built the team before the team got on site. We identified constraints and built the plan around them.

And when we finally got our notice to proceed, the project flowed. The trades knew what they were doing. The sequences worked. The materials arrived when they needed to. The team was aligned. The workers were supported. And we finished on time with quality work and happy people. That project was already won before we started. We won the war in pre-construction. The field execution was just following the plan.

Now compare that to projects I’ve seen where teams had two weeks to plan. Or where superintendents were told to “just get it started” while they were still working on another job. Those projects struggled from day one. They were always behind. They were always fighting. They were always reacting. Because they went to war without winning it first.

Why This Matters for Your Career and Your Team

Pre-construction planning is not just about project success. It’s about protecting people. When you plan well, you create stability for the trades. You give them clean handoffs, clear expectations, and the resources they need to flow. You protect them from the chaos of poor planning. You respect them by doing your job so they can do theirs.

When you skip pre-construction, you create stress for everyone. The trades show up and wait because materials aren’t ready. The workers get frustrated because the site is disorganized. The foremen struggle because they don’t have clarity. The superintendent burns out because they’re fighting fires instead of leading. And the families at home pay the price because their loved ones come home exhausted and defeated instead of fulfilled and proud.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow. Pre-construction planning is where that work begins. It’s where you set the foundation for everything that follows.

The Six Phases of Pre-Construction

What follows is the comprehensive checklist I use every time I plan a project. These six phases represent the minimum work required to win the war before going to battle. Some steps will feel basic. Some will feel overwhelming. But every single one matters. And when you do them all, you create a plan that can’t fail.

Phase One: The Plan

The plan precedes all other aspects of the project. I call this the First Planner System because these are the first people in the planning cycle. Before you open up your CPM software, before you start scheduling activities, you need to think through the strategy.

Create a project strategy first. Don’t open Primavera P6. Don’t open Microsoft Project. Open the drawings. Spread them out on a table like you’re a war general planning logistics, access, movement, flow, and sequences. Get your master builders in the room and brainstorm the overall strategy. How will this project flow? What are the major phases? What’s the critical path from a production standpoint, not just from a software standpoint?

Identify constraints. These are things that will permanently or semi-permanently constrain your project. Is there a building next door? Is there difficult weather? Are you in a tight market? Do you have owner requirements that dictate sequence? Constraints are different from roadblocks. Roadblocks can be removed. Constraints must be planned around. Know the difference and build your strategy accordingly.

Incorporate contract requirements. This step is overlooked constantly. Even in pre-construction, you need to ask for the division one specifications, the boilerplate contract, the prime agreement. You need to know what you’re going to be contractually tied to. Float requirements. Weather days. Scheduling reports. Man-loaded or cost-loaded schedules. How dare we in construction bring forward a logistics plan and a schedule without first researching what we’re contractually bound to deliver.

Identify your flow, your sequence, and any breakout areas on the project. Put these into maps immediately. In fact, you should have a Takt plan and your sequence drawings before you ever open your CPM software. That’s right. Takt planning comes first. Visual planning comes first. Understanding the production system comes first. The software is just a tool to document and communicate what you’ve already thought through.

Perform a Takt analysis of major phases of the project. Foundation, structure, exterior, interiors. Create a Takt plan. This is step one before you crack open your critical path method software. Takt planning forces you to think about zones, rhythm, crew sizes, and handoffs. It forces you to see the train of trades moving through the project. And it reveals problems you would never see in a Gantt chart.

Perform a day-to-day geographical analysis for needed areas. This is a game changer. If you have a basement, you need this. If you’re in the middle of multiple buildings, you need this. If you have a complex area, a small footprint, or a postage stamp site, you need this. Take your mobilization, excavation, undergrounds, and foundations. Put them in a nicely formatted Excel template. Build your schedule column by column on a daily basis and sketch out where things will be. Day one, pump here, forklift here, rebar laydown here, backhoe and dump trucks here. Day two, no pumping, removing spoils, backhoe here. You draw where things will be spatially because production in foundations comes from material access and site access, not just production rhythm. You might have ninety sheets. Print them out. Every day you’re drawing this out. And you will actually see how fast you can get the work done based on spatial requirements.

Define all work breakdown structures. Get yourself an outline. Then define activities for each WBS as a sequence. Do not try to compress the schedule to fit into a predetermined overall duration. Just get everything in the schedule. Go page by page through the drawings and write your sequence. Write the durations. Write the logic. Then move to the next page. Enter all that data into your software and logic tie it later. Right now you need to figure out the sequences to the right level of detail. A level 2.5 or level 3. Don’t go too deep yet. That’s for your last planner system.

Align all of your activities and logic tie them according to your sequence and your flow. Make sure your logic ties match your Takt plan from a crew tie perspective. Perform an analysis of bottleneck activities. We learn from The Goal and from Lean Construction that we need to look at the trades that are going the slowest and see if they can be optimized. If not, we need to even out or slow down some of the other activities to keep rhythm and flow throughout the project.

Schedule constraints and support systems next. Dry-in, air-on, MEP, weather constraints. Put those in the schedule. Make a procurement strategy. Add procurement to the schedule. Any long lead items. And here’s what’s critical. You want elevators broken out in detail in your CPM schedule. You want all exterior systems, metal panels, curtain wall, glass detailed out and tied to actual activities. And you want to start that coordination in design development. You want to do that with complex stone and any other complex system that has long leads. I cannot tell you how many projects I step on and everything is going well except the exterior curtain wall. You’d think we would know by now that we have to start that at the beginning of design development.

Consider regional constraints such as weather, permitting, or workforce capabilities. Review the plan with the wider team and review safety and quality as part of the schedule. Make sure you have your quality process plugged in. Make sure you have pull plans, phase planning milestones, or triggers. Get your procurement log up and running and tied to your project management software and the schedule. Start setting up procurement meetings and get the exterior, elevator, and other long lead items going in a good direction.

Create a ninety-day mobilization plan and get that first part of the schedule really detailed out. You want design in there. You want actual sequence paths for your bid packages. For each bid package, you need a permitting path, a procurement path, a contracting path, and a coordination path. All of those things need to be tied to your first ninety days so they can be expedited in the right amount of detail. Begin working on entitlements and permitting. Make sure you have a plan for permitting and that if you have yearly reminders or updates that have to be done with permits, you put those in your schedule.

Phase Two: People and Teaming

This is the phase I call build the team first. You cannot execute a plan without the right people in the right structure.

Encourage the project team to have a superintendent on board as soon as possible and begin planning early. If you’re a company that doesn’t always have superintendents on the bench, if you’re always hiring and letting go instead of vetting and keeping good people, you’re going to struggle with this. And you’re never going to conquer pre-construction.

Design your trailers for collaboration, communication, and enjoyment. I cannot emphasize this enough. Your trailer design is one of the most important things you can do in pre-construction. Reach out for help. There are ways to do this and ways not to do this. You cannot saddle your team with a bad trailer, a bad environment throughout the duration of that project, and then expect to implement lean.

Identify roles by role, scope, and geography. Create a project team organization chart that is focused on functional teams, clusters, scrum teams, and communication teams that have proximity. If you’re setting up your project team where everyone’s just organized by scope or you’re using a hierarchical system, you’re not setting up for success. The key in construction is communication, proximity, and functional groups between six and nine people. Organize people by geographical area and functional team first.

Create leader standard work for all team members. Once you have everybody enrolled, detail this out. Ensure the plan has enough time in the schedule to prevent a crash landing. There’s a ten to twenty percent difference between what we can sell in our industry and what we can actually build without hurting the team. Some people put themselves in a logical box and say there’s a stipulated sum or end date and we can’t do anything about it. From a people standpoint, ask yourself if this project has enough time to where we’re not going to burn people out. If it doesn’t, tell the team ahead of time, make sure you have enough people, and sign them up for the deal. Maybe give them a bonus at the end because they know it’s going to be difficult.

Review your general conditions and general requirements with the team before setting the deal. Make sure you have enough support systems in your project to execute the way you want. If you don’t buy it out with your contract and if you don’t set it up in your GCs and GRs, you’re not going to have the support systems to implement lean the way you want.

Identify the project logistics foreman. You will rise or fall based on the quality of who is overseeing the site from a craft standpoint as your logistics foreman. We need to make sure we have the GCs and GRs set up to where we have enough field engineers, enough craft support, enough laborers. Then we need to identify the key personnel and get somebody who can win for us in the field.

Start doing pre-construction pull plans with the design team. Make sure you’re doing pre-construction the right way from a schedule standpoint, budget standpoint, constructability standpoint, coordination standpoint. Keep your general contractor pre-con team and your trade partners on track with good pull plans. Know exactly when contracts have to come out, when bid packs are coming out, when permitting needs to be done, when coordination needs to happen.

Create a respect for people plan. Do you want nice bathrooms? Now’s the time to plan for it. Do you want a nice lunchroom? Now’s the time to plan for it. Do you want huddles? Now’s the time to buy it out. Do you want lean systems? Now’s the time to buy it out. Do you want morning crew preparation huddles? Now’s the time to buy it out. Figure out how you’re going to structure your people to win with integration and with lean.

Begin a team balance and health strategy with the team. This is a fail-proof system, if implemented right, to keep your team in balance, healthy, going home properly to their families, and to make sure you have coverage throughout construction.

Phase Three: Win Over the Workforce

How are you going to win over the hearts and minds of your people? This phase is about creating an environment where workers want to be.

Create a plan for on-site bathrooms and on-site lunchrooms. Schedule the start of your morning huddle systems and train your people on your project team to communicate properly in those huddles to the workers. Make a plan for monthly barbecues, craft feedback, and any other workforce events. Make sure that’s budgeted properly.

Design your trailers and interaction areas for worker enjoyment. Not just your trailers, but your signage and everything on site for worker enjoyment, interaction, involvement, and participation. Try to provide workers with thirty minutes in the morning to set up their day for work. Buy that out in the contract if you can and if you’re allowed.

Provide smoking areas if possible. I don’t smoke, but there are a lot of people who do, and we need to give them smoking areas if it’s allowed unless it’s prohibited by your owner. Provide good parking on site. This is one of the biggest things you can do to keep your craft happy. Provide accessible potable water and ice machines. Make sure that’s planned. We need to get people what they need on the site.

Decide on decorations for holidays and make work fun. How are you going to set up a family wall in your office? Are you going to bring in Christmas decorations, holiday decorations? Do you have a budget to make sure you have the right amount of screens in the office, the right desks, the right things to create this environment inside your office trailers?

Phase Four: Contracts and Costs for Culture

Buy out the behaviors that are needed on site. Modify all work exhibits or attachments to work orders that drive behaviors on site. Make sure you’re buying what you want. Track all needed contract inclusions for site logistics and operations with your estimators. Buy out coordination efforts that will predict schedule success. That’s in-wall coordination, BIM, prefab.

Buy out just-in-time procurement by area per the sequence drawings. This is crucial. Buy out the last planner system and lean methodology. Ensure items about zero tolerance systems are included in the contracts. You cannot expect behaviors you didn’t buy out.

Phase Five: Schedule Health and Write Detail

Maintain the schedule as a tool. Detail out all remaining portions of the project in your schedule. Enter in lift drawings, BIM, and other coordination efforts into your schedule. Detail MEP, startup, commissioning, balancing, life safety testing, fire protection, and any of your commissioning items.

Review and update your schedule for schedule health per your company’s checklist. Perform an Acumen Fuse and Acumen Risk analysis and update the schedule. Identify your plan for the level of detail you want in your schedule so you can use the last planner system. Set up pull planning sessions to map out and detail phases at the right point to feed into your make ready schedules and into your last planner system.

Phase Six: Risk Analysis

Widen your circle and prevent risk by seeing the future. Use the template P6 or Microsoft Project files for your schedule so that typical company information is in there. Maintain a basis of schedule that contextually describes all of the nuances of the schedule so that can become an exhibit for your contract.

Maintain sequence and flow maps, especially if you have comeback rooms or variation in your schedule that you need to communicate to trade partners. Get trade partner input and buy-in for the schedule when possible. Use production rates for activities that do not have trade input. Agree on milestones with the wider team and the owner.

Perform an Acumen Risk analysis for the proposed baseline for your owner. Hold a fresh eyes meeting with people outside of your team who can look at the project objectively and make sure you have a great plan for success. Establish a baseline with the owner. Back up the schedule monthly in PDF and XER and snap baselines. Perform your schedule health survey monthly and your monthly reports. Establish your owner interface and manage that strategy. Update your schedule weekly.

The Anchor Projects Trend

Before I close, I want to mention something I’m seeing in the industry that gives me hope. There are more and more anchor projects nowadays. These are IPD projects, lean projects, mega projects that are absolutely over-the-top fantastic. They have integrated teams. They’re implementing lean as far as they can possibly take it. And it’s paying dividends.

You’ll find project managers and superintendents on these projects who can talk about just-in-time deliveries, prefabrication, integration, pull planning, scrum. These are the folks presenting at Lean Construction Institute conferences, doing webinars, talking about integrated project delivery. And here’s the trend. People are reaching out to visit these anchor projects. They’re touring them. They’re videotaping them. They’re watching lean videos. They’re learning from people who have figured out the success formula.

Here’s my challenge to you. If you’re in construction and you know of a job that’s kicking butt, or you went to a conference and you know of somebody on a project like that, or you’ve heard of a project even at a different company, go ask to tour that project. This industry trend will be game-changing for us and allow us to leverage more and more success.

A Final Word on Morning Routines

I want to mention one more thing that connects to pre-construction planning. My mind has been focused on the morning routine lately because it allows us to create focus. And focus is the key to success. If we have bad behaviors, bad moods, patterns, anything that takes us out of clarity and context, that’s going to muddle our days.

Box breathing is a technique Mark Divine teaches in Unbeatable Mind. You breathe in for five seconds, hold it for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, and hold it. You’re counting and visualizing the numbers. By doing that and calming yourself and breathing, you’re bringing your mind from all these random thoughts to looking at, focusing on, and counting those numbers. And as you’re breathing, you’re aligning your mind with the physical actions in your body.

This strengthens your executive center, keeps your focus, gives you clarity, and allows you to be flexible and nimble throughout the day. How are you going to discipline yourself to put something on your to-do list, set an alarm, time block something, communicate, if you don’t have the mental discipline through box breathing, meditation, or mental focus that keeps you sharp? Get yourself a morning routine. Whether it’s Dean Graziosi, Tony Robbins, Garrett Gunderson, or any of the greats who have a morning routine, get one. It will trigger you to follow your disciplines, and your disciplines will bring your success and focus throughout the day.

The Vision for Success

The glimpse of the future, the vision for success, is that we win these projects before we ever get out there and start work. Before we get a notice to proceed, we have already planned the project to where it can’t fail. Now, a word of caution. No plan will ever sustain engagement with the enemy, but we can adapt to the enemy if we have a good plan.

So keep that in mind. Let’s win in pre-construction. Take the time during pre-construction to plan the project. Design all of your systems, not just the construction and not just the plan. Design everything about your job. Build the team before the team gets on site. Get help with pre-con if you need help. Have people on the bench doing this. Have superintendents available to come in, builders, project managers who can build. Or have a system where your project executives or directors take the project from the beginning to the end with your general superintendents or field directors so they can stay with it from start to finish.

A day in pre-construction gives you a week of success in construction. An hour in pre-con gives you a day’s worth of success in the field. Win the war before going to battle. That’s how you build remarkable projects.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean to win the war before going to battle in construction?

It means spending adequate time in pre-construction planning so the project is set up for success before mobilization. The research laboratory project spent eight months planning before starting and was already won before getting the notice to proceed.

How long should pre-construction planning take?

It depends on project complexity, but a day in pre-construction gives you a week of success in construction. Major projects may need six to eight months of planning. The key is taking enough time to work through all six phases rather than rushing to mobilize.

What is a day-to-day geographical analysis?

It’s a detailed spatial plan for getting out of the ground where you sketch on drawings where equipment, materials, and operations will be located each day. This reveals how fast work can actually be done based on spatial constraints rather than just production rates.

Why does Takt planning come before CPM scheduling?

Takt planning forces you to think about zones, rhythm, crew sizes, and handoffs before you open scheduling software. It helps you see the train of trades moving through the project and reveals production problems you’d never see in a Gantt chart.

What are anchor projects and why should I visit them?

Anchor projects are IPD, lean, or mega projects that are over-the-top successful with integrated teams implementing lean principles. Touring these projects and learning from teams who have figured out the success formula is an industry trend that accelerates learning and spreads best practices.