How many projects have you been involved with that unfolded as scripted by “The Plan”? As of yet, I haven’t been. Yet time and again we make detailed plans with thousands of activities interconnected together in a labyrinth of logical ties. Usually “The Plan” was prepared by a handful of “experts” that somehow were able to visualize and understand in detail how the project should be prosecuted. We then cajole, order, beg, plead and scream at our subcontractors with dictums to get “back on schedule” or else.
Projects don’t unfold exactly as we would like because it is humanly impossible to visualize, analyze and take into account every little detail of a complex undertaking. In other words, stuff happens that wasn’t foreseen. Just as adding decimal places to a computation, which is easy to do on today’s calculators and computers, does not make the answer any more accurate, using all of the “whiz bang” functionality of today’s scheduling software does not inherently mean that we have represented the real world more accurately than before.
Here we can learn from a profession that undertakes “projects” that are extremely risky, dangerous and very uncertain. From the Army’s Field Manual on Operations:
“Plans forecast but do not predict. A plan is a continuous, evolving framework of anticipated actions that maximizes opportunities. It guides subordinates as they progress through each phase of the operation. Any plan is a framework from which to adapt, not a script to be followed to the letter. The measure of a good plan is not whether execution transpires as planned but whether the plan facilitates effective action in the face of unforeseen events. Good plans foster initiative.”
From the same source:
“The purpose of any plan is to establish the conceptual basis for action. The plan provides a reasonably accurate forecast of execution. However, it remains a starting point, not the centerpiece of the operation. As GEN George S. Patton Jr. cautioned, “…one makes plans to fit circumstances and does not try to create circumstances to fit plans. That way danger lies.”
I will say more about planning and plans in future blogs.
We talk about information as though it were a substance – a liquid, actually, something which flows. This metaphor suggests that information is something we can pour into people, disseminate, transmit, or deliver through a hose. It draws our attention to the sender or the source of the information. All we need to worry about is bandwidth or the effectiveness of the spray nozzle. I question whether this interpretation makes sense.
Think about information from the point of view of the person receiving it. They don’t care about bandwidth, because they can pay attention to only one thing at a time (OK, maybe a few). If they are not listening, then they are not being informed. There’s that word again, listening. It always seems to matter. I walk around with a set of problems and concerns, trying to take care of them. When I hear something that opens up a new possibility for addressing a concern or solving a problem, then I am informed – I change. My nervous system is modified. Information is that constant process of listening and learning which changes us and increases our range of possible actions.
It is 9:30 PM on July 3rd in Grant Park in Chicago. I am surrounded by a million people (really – this is not a figure of speech). I am about to experience my second favorite sight of the year, after the fireworks which have just ended, the flow of people out of the park. At the top of the bridge on Monroe Street, you can see in all directions, and on every street, there is a river of people flowing outward, down Monroe, down Michigan, up Columbus, on both levels of Randolph Street. Mixed in with the flow are baby carriages, coolers on wheels, people in wheelchairs, people walking bicycles, groups of 6 or 8 trying to keep track of each other by holding hands. Any car is in the wrong place at the wrong time and completely immobilized.
People flow out of the park like water out of a spring. It is such an amazing sight I could watch them all night. Yet each of us has a destination, each person is trying to get home. I have tried various combinations of walking, riding the bus, taking the train, and driving as a way to get home, but never made it the eight miles in less than two hours until I started riding my bike two years ago. This year, I made it up the lake front in an hour and 10 minutes. What looks like a flow of people is just the sum of every individual carrying out their own intention, pursuing their own interests, keeping their own commitments.
I am working with a 6-year-old girl, teaching her forward rolls in the children’s Aikido class. A forward roll is a way of transferring your weight from your arm across your shoulder and back to the opposite leg as you go over. Your head should never touch the mat. My student’s forward rolls look like somersaults. She has done two of them. She says, "I’m good at it."
I say, "Try to do it without touching your head. See, like this." I demonstrate. She does another somersault. I say, "Try it again." I guide her movement so that she does not touch her head. She does not look pleased. We do a few more, she improves a little.
"Now lets try some backward rolls." I change the subject.
She says, "I’m not good at them." We proceed.
Is this conversation about being good at it helping her to learn or getting in her way? If I want to learn, I need to say, "Sensei, would you please take a look at my forward rolls and tell me how I can improve them?" If I want to learn a skill, I first need to be willing to do it badly. Then I can be observed, get corrected, practice some more, and improve
There is a training principle adhered to by most distance runners that states that each workout needs to have a purpose or objective. Are you going to work on endurance, speed, hills, etc? Just going out and running without a purpose is known as running "junk" miles, which does nothing to make you a better runner and could lead to injury.
So, on your LPS project, are you "running junk miles"? Are you going through the motions of the LPS without really having a purpose? After you are proficient with the mechanics of the LPS, you should focus on an improvement objective each week. According to Geoff Colvin in his book Talent Is Overrated, high performance is a result of "deliberate practice" and not a result of just plain hard work or innate talent. The special kind of hard work that Colvin describes is focused on an objective and is repeated with discipline until you get it right or obtain the improvement that you were seeking. It is not fun and usually "hurts."
If you really want to improve, stop running "junk miles" and institute a discipline of "deliberate practice" on your project.
Manufacturers, inspired by Toyota as a role model, have learned to take customer satisfaction seriously. In businesses such as construction, where each product is custom-made, the practice of negotiation to understand the customer’s conditions of satisfaction has also achieved its rightful level of importance.
In manufacturing, a single process is used to make a large number of products. The process is designed and then can be improved incrementally as the participants contribute their ideas for kaizen.
In construction, a one-time process is used to make a single complex product. The product is usually so complex that the process can’t be understood and fully designed in advance. The Last Planner ® System offers the possibility of continuously negotiating the process by which the product will be built through the discipline of planning.
Negotiation puts people back into the center of the production process.
How do you go about answering this question? First you may ask, "What do you mean by ‘under control’?" In my mind there are two dimensions to project control, financial and operational. Although both of these are highly dependent on and interrelated to each other I am going to just talk about operational control in this blog. In my view, a project is in operational control when the work that is being done is the work that should be getting done. Okay then, what work should be getting done? The milestone plan or high level master schedule establishes what should be happening and when on the project in order to deliver it to the client as promised.
Here is a simple way to assess your project. Get a copy of the latest work plan, look-ahead plan, schedule or whatever you use on your project to schedule work crews. Does the work plan support what should be done on the project for the time period in question? Go out onto the project and observe. On what tasks does the work plan say that crews should be working? Are they? Are they working on tasks which don’t appear on the work plan or should be happening in the future or should have happened in the past?
I think you will be surprised to find that your project isn’t as under control as you might have previously thought. So what can we do to bring it under control? The Last Planner® System, which was developed precisely because of this observation, is a methodology for bringing and keeping a project under operational control.
Engineers have long been concerned with production. We focus on this word when we think about the factors of production (land, labor, and capital) or the measurement of production (production per unit time, unit of output per unit of input). This focus leads engineers to look for ways to make production more efficient through automation and economies of scale. Our underlying standards are: more output is better, less input is better.
What happens when we shift the language of this discussion to who is producing what for whom using what tools, systems, skills, and materials? A whole different set of concerns appears. Who – the producer appears as a person, not just as labor. What – the product appears. For whom – the customer appears. We can ask new questions – What does the customer want, and what tools, systems, and skills does the producer need to be most effective in serving the customer? We remember that products, tools, and systems are all designed by people and for people to meet their needs. Listening appears as a skill. Instead of just designing tools and processes to meet some abstract standard of efficiency, we can engage in conversations in which people articulate their conditions of satisfaction. Just right is the best.
One of the precepts of lean manufacturing is the reduction of batch size as a means to control overproduction. Since the concept of "overproduction" on a construction project is more difficult to grasp we tend not to pay a lot of attention to batch sizes. This neglect can result in less than efficient production and even worse. By batch size, I am referring to the amount of "work-in-place" that is released to the next trade.
Here is an example from a multi-unit residential project to illustrate the point. This project consisted of several multi-story buildings. Each floor was framed-out with metal studs and gypsum wallboard. As typical, the metal framer went through each floor erecting the metal studs, with the plumber and electrician following a floor or so behind with their rough installation. As part of his installation, the plumber installed prefabricated shower units in pre-framed alcoves. However, when he installed the shower nozzle piping, he had to do so off-center in the shower because a double wall stud assembly had been constructed dead-center behind the shower enclosure. Since, no one was paying attention to batch sizing and the framer was ahead of the shower installation crews by several floors when this issue was discovered, instead of one or two off-centered shower heads, now there were several hundred. If the framer had not "overproduced" framed walls and gotten so far ahead of the plumber, only one or two framed walls would have had to be changed for proper installation of the shower head and the stud layout could have been adjusted on all future walls.
The reliable workflow that results from the disciplined use of the Last Planner® System allows the project team to closely coordinate their work on the project which in turn provides the opportunity for the reduction of batch sizes. On such a project, there would be no advantage and only disadvantages for having the framer more than a couple of days ahead of the plumber.
Lean is the culmination of a history of changing attitudes towards people and work. We can imagine a time when work was just what people did from the time they woke up in the morning until the time they went to sleep. People would have worked for themselves, to keep their families alive.
With the industrial revolution and the rise of capitalism, work became more complex. Some people began to design and manage the work of others, while the rest began to sell their labor for wages. This contractual arrangement gave the designers and managers the right to tell the worker what to do and how to do it. The worker was viewed as a "hand", his labor was viewed as a commodity, and the management style was command and control.
With improvements in technology over the last few decades, smaller numbers of manual laborers are now able to create all the physical things we need. More work is being done by what we call "knowledge workers". These new workers, exemplified by computer programmers, are not willing to simply follow orders and demand to have a say in what what they will do and how they will do it. They required a management style of consultation and collaboration.
In the meantime, Japanese companies such as Toyota, who were manufacturing on a shoestring, made a stunning discovery. They needed not only the hands but also the minds of their workforce in order to perform well. They began to treat all their workers like knowledge workers and got remarkable results.
This is respect for people. We are all knowledge workers now. How long until we all realize it?
christine-slivon