Construction, like healthcare, is learning from another industry. I was just watching David Fillingham, Chief Executive, Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Trust give his speech on Managing the Lean Hospital: what it takes to engage the whole hospital for the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit 2009. In this he has four points on how to convert the skeptics that I thought fit very nicely to our industry (construction):

• Rigorous use of lean methods
• Convincing data
• Hands on experience
• Reinforce through changed management system and leadership style.

So, in my own words this means that we need to:

• Adopt some tools and not to deviate from them. Make a concerted effort to use the Last Planner® System, A3 Learning, and a Visual Management System like Toyota's Safety-Quality-Deliverable-Cost-Morale work cell management boards.
• Find success stories and share them. Celebrate and publish all the wins. Go to www.leanconstruction.org and share a new presentation with your team once per week. 
• Get into action early and reflect on the learning. Experiment! When is it the right time to change anyway?
• And finally, change at the top. Leadership needs to be fully engaged. The Project Executive needs to be very well versed in Standard Work and all the tools that are being adopted so that they can coach the practice.

It is challenging to learn from other industries. Construction is not the first industry to adopt lean; there are great examples in the healthcare industry. I just read A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare: A Practical Method for Eliminating Waste to learn more about the A3 process and came away with some very helpful tips:

• State the issue through the eyes of the customer (always maintain focus on customer).
• The value of drawing with pencil and eraser the current condition can't be over stated.
• Leader/managers can use A3s to coach versus educate in a classroom.

Pick up the book at Amazon or your local reseller. There are examples and even a tip on creating maps electronically.