Real Life Lean 030

Happy Monday lean construction family and welcome to another edition of Real Life Lean. This newsletter is intended to give construction professionals worldwide 4 quick and easy resources to grow and continue on your lean journey.

Today's Summary:

• Lean Article - Project Production Management: Flow When You Can, Pull When You Can’t - Stop Pushing!

• Lean Podcast - Finishing Well Is A Symptom Of Maintaining Flow

• Lean Event - The Lean Builder: Operational Pathway to Implement the Last Planner System

• Real Life Lean - 2 Minute Drill

Lean Article

In part 6 of The Project Production Management series that we have been breaking down each week, Hal Macomber and Adam Hoots dive into flow on a production system and how flow is the ultimate goal when we are designing a production system. They help breakdown what “pushing” work really is and teach the reader why there needs to be intent behind the production system you develop.

Takeaway: Designing a production system that focuses on flow and that incorporates lean thinking and lean tools goes against the standard thought process on a construction site. Our standard way of thinking is based on critical path and focuses on marching to the dates outlined in the master schedule without giving thought to the production of the team. We are starting work just because the schedule shows we need to, and we are working on less important tasks just to mark a master schedule line item as started. There is no concept of value to the overall project, or thought put into another way of doing things. A main takeaway that I have from reading this article is that changing this mindset and this process is HARD! Clients and most project teams like the critical path method because they know no other way to measure and track a project. To make a change takes effort, learning and confidence.

Lean Podcast

Think slow go fast is the theme of the podcast linked below from Elevate Construction. In the episode below Jason shares a story of how a CPM schedule undercut schedule projections, which caused panic on a jobsite. Jason was able to use Takt Planning allowed the team to work based on intermediate milestones and put flow in place to finish the project.

Takeaway: Panic is a predictor of finishing late. When a project team panics, they start to make stupid decisions that put people in unsafe conditions, trade stack the site and lose sight of the overall goal. A topic that Jason shared that really stuck with me was the idea that shortening the duration does NOT make people go faster. This is contrary to popular belief, but is proven over and over again on construction sites. When you sense this is starting to happen, slow down, focus on the planning and the process and get your team back on track.

Lean Event

I came across a post on LinkedIn from The Lean Builder about an upcoming webinar (October 5) and thought this would be an awesome event to share with the Real Life Lean family. This event uses real life examples to show how teams can implement The Last Planner System on their projects.

Takeaway: I love a FREE webinar, so I signed up for this right away. This will be the first event that I have attended from the team over at The Lean Builder, but I have heard nothing but great things about this team. I am excited to jump in and hear real world examples of lean implementation. I hope to see you there!

Real Life Lean - Lean practices in the real world

Last week I shared the ‘kata’ that I was working through from the book The Pocket Sensei. I focused on observing my daily and weekly habits and looking for room for improvement. Here are some of my findings;

I (like a lot of people) have a bad habit of pushing things off until later. Often times these are simple, quick activities that can be completed in a matter of minutes. This is something I’ve been frustrated with myself about, because these small tasks add up and either become a laundry list of tasks that take a long time to complete, or just get forgotten all together. These activities I am talking about are small - at work it was things like sending follow up emails, texting a foreman a reminder or setting up a follow up meeting/check in. At home these were things like putting my dish in the dishwasher, cleaning up my workbench when I finish what Im working on. All small easy things.

After reflecting on this kata, and looking for some better ways to kick this habit, I have started to implement the 2 minute drill. If a task will take me less than 2 minutes to finish, I stop what I don’t allow myself to jump to the next thing. I knock it out right then and there. I send the email, calendar the meeting or put that dish in the dishwasher. It’s super easy and has been a refreshing change.

This week alone I’ve felt like I have more brain power to focus on my top priority tasks because I am not bogged down with small, often less important tasks. If you find yourself in a similar position to where I was, I urge you to try the 2 minute drill.

Have a Real Life Lean story you think would be a great feature in an upcoming newsletter? Send me an email at [email protected].