If you subscribe to the blog feed via RSS or venture to our website regularly,  you may have noticed a lack of posting to blogs by me and my colleagues over the last few months.  To practice what we preach, I have decided to investigate this issue using A3 thinking.  I fully intend to share the A3 with you all faithfully reading the blogs on this website over the coming weeks.

Thank you for your patience and continued interest.

Something to think about over the Holidays for that New Year's resolution...

"...Accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

Yes, this is a quote from the Declaration of Independence.  Using this quote to offer some commentary on the state of the AEC industry would have probably been more appropriate near Independence Day but when a good thought strikes, why wait?  I like this quote because it so eloquently describes how we are more likely to go with the flow no matter how frustrating that practice can be. 

On my way back to Colorado yesterday I struck up a conversation with the gentleman sitting in my row of the airplane. It turns out he also is connected to the AEC industry, although a niche service indeed. He is a wood flooring consultant. He is usually brought in by owners or contractors to shed light on problems that occur with the wood flooring during and post installation. There is usually a dispute between project participants as to who is to blame for the problem. He was on his way to Chicago to investigate yet another installation.

When he was describing his work, I thought, “Would this gentleman have work if the concrete slab installer, the flooring installer, and the general contractor (I like to call them builders but more on that in another post) on these projects had been engaged in the design with the architect and owner?” My initial answer was no.  Certainly the deep conversation that an integrated, collaborative, diverse work team would have about the requirements for a satisfactorily installed wood floor would uncover many of the issues this gentleman is brought in to investigate. However working in the Responsibility-Based Project Delivery™ approach would bring other opportunities for this gentleman. Wood flooring issues seem prevalent. Think of how his opportunities would grow if he were sought out on the front-end of projects to work with the parties noted above rather than post-incident. The consultant would still be hired but the owner and the rest of the project participants wouldn't have to spend money on argument documentation and rework. Bringing in the knowledge early saves money (and heartache) for the project.

How would your opportunities change by developing a knowledge-based approach to your work? What more value could you bring the owner by being involved earlier in the project?

Great tip today from the Harvard Business Review on achieving culture change.  I'm sure you've noticed the effect of behaviors of influential people within your company or project.  Those behaviors create a mood on the team which then influences actions.  Notice that these examples in the link are not of a grand scale.  They are small changes, but because the changes vary from the norm, they are noticed.  A conversation develops.

Recently I was working with a client on developing a road map to deliver projects on a lean basis.  The executive champion for this client would stop by occasionally for a briefing on progress.  The focus was always on the result, i.e. what work was completed, what still had to be done, are you on schedule.  What if this champion came into the room and asked, "What are your roadblocks?  How can I help?"

What behaviors and language can you exhibit in your interaction with others in your company or project team to create the stories that will lead to developing a collaborative learning organization?

As did my colleague Christine, I came out of the recent Lean Construction Institute Congress inspired about the progress that organizations are making in delivering projects on a lean basis. Mike Gnazzo of Joseph Gnazzo Company gave a particularly effective presentation of his company's efforts. The thought that resonated with me throughout his presentation is how having “skin in the game” makes all of the difference in the success of a lean initiative. Mike is a 3^rd generation owner of the family business. He spoke of the challenges facing the business and the probability of it continuing to be a going concern without beginning the lean journey. His desire to do well by the family members that worked hard to build the business provided him with the drive to guide the current success of Gnazzo's lean efforts.

We don't all need to have financial risk to get skin in the game in our organization's lean initiative. What matters to you? What actions can you take to achieve what matters to you while delivering value to your customer? Whether its increased professional stature within the industry, avoiding the after-hours firefighting that steals time between you and your family, or something else, personalize the lean journey and take ownership of it.

Last night, instead of writing the blog post I've been meaning to write for the last month, I installed a baby gate at the top of the stairs of my new house. It seemed simple enough and my wife had already installed the mounting brackets around the banister. With directions in hand I got to work. Two and a half hours later the gate was installed. No...it doesn't take two and a half hours to install a baby gate. There were three separate instances where I had to redo work that I had already done in order to install the gate properly. I won't go into the details of the issues. I followed the installation instructions, but that still didn't prevent the rework. In hindsight I should planned the work rather than just followed instructions. I should have read over the instructions for the mounting bracket and the gate (they are two separate products), determined where exactly I could place the brackets as to not interfere with the fastening of the gate, thought about how the gate should operate in the location I was installing it and determined if the hardware provided by the manufacturer was appropriate for my situation. I think the value added work would have amounted to about thirty minutes, and I could have spent another two hours sleeping.

It's probably not a good idea to comment or otherwise reference politics in this blog. However, as Mr. Obama spoke last night regarding his plan for health care reform I thought how the discussion over the last few months might have been different had he and his advisers investigated the issue using A3 thinking.

Does Obama's team truly understand the background of the problem? Is there a clear understanding of the current condition that is based on going to the source of the problem rather than choosing data that suits a preferred course of action? Are there clear future state goals? Has rigorous analysis been done on multiple options? What criteria have those options been weighed against to determine the optimum solution? Did the options include extreme solutions such as nationalized healthcare or complete removal of federal and state government from all aspects of healthcare?

A3 thinking allows for objectivity to reign over intuition and provides a concise, visual path forward that everyone, even if they do not agree, can understand. I have my ideology like everyone else but I find that since I have learned about A3 thinking that I am more willing to listen and less apt to dismiss ideas out of hand.

“Don't Put Out the Fire, Let it Burn” This was the title to a post at the Harvard Management Publishing's Management Tip of the Day. I didn't get far into the tip when my mind drifted to the concept of project firefighting. You know this concept. Firefighting is when one project member makes an extraordinary effort to manage some issue that is an imminent threat to maintaining the schedule. What would happen without the efforts of these people? Well, we just might learn something critical to the nature of the project sooner instead of covering the issue up through action and allowing the wrong work to continue to be done.  Projects have become a series of high-stress firefights.

Yes, in some respects it seems counter-intuitive that the easiest way to maintain the schedule is to stop work, but try it.  Pull that metaphorical andon cord when the unexpected arises, collaborate with your team's to correct the understanding of the project through a Good 5 Why (TM) and deliver a more suitable product to our customer on schedule without rework.

A number of months ago a caregiver in the daycare facility I use for my son forgot to give him his late afternoon bottle as my wife and I had requested. When I arrived I noticed that the feeding had not been documented as it usually is and questioned the caregiver. She was very apologetic and I fed my son the bottle before taking him home. The next day the owner of the facility told me he learned of the issue and that it would never happen again. I took him at his word and to date the issue has not reoccurred.

Because the owner has remained true to his commitment, I have a greater trust in their ability to adequately care for my son. Reliability breeds trust. I haven't asked him what actions the facility undertook to address this mistake, but I think I will. I suspect that word got around to all caregivers that this incident happened and that the caregivers made their own effort to ensure they would not forget a feeding. It seems to have worked but unless the facility undertook a root cause analysis, such as a Good 5 Why ™, there is still the possibility that a missed feeding could reoccur. If my assumption above is correct, reliability in this instance is a result of luck rather than built into the work practice. But I'll go to the source and find out. Perhaps my daycare facility is a lean practicioner.

I'm posting today instead of my usual Wednesday because our blog editor software was not functioning as expected this week. These things happen. They happen on our projects all the time. So how do we keep our schedule commitments to our customer?

Traditionally we firefight (i.e. throw a bunch of people and resources at an issue to catch up) and/or overburden work teams with overtime. This rarely works. Firefighting addresses the current work at the expense of future work. Future work cannot be made ready by existing teams or people inexperienced with the current project are brought to the project and do not perform the work correctly the first time. Overburden stresses people so that they do not perform reliably in the future. The result is that the schedule losses accumulate rather than dissipate.

A lean approach focuses on understanding the issue that occurred so that we may limit future instances of similar issues. Working in a lean way also promotes those doing the work to replan the project collaboratively in order to meet the schedule commitment. When we combine learning with respect for the people on the work teams, we open opportunities to greater understanding of the future work. The result is improved flow of work, less non- value added activity and meeting schedule commitments.