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: Approaching Construction TAKTfully (Part 9)

• Lean Podcast - Elevate Construction - The Five Leadership Practice Questions

• Lean Event - LCI Congress October 24-27

• Real Life Lean - Lean Safety

Lean Article

Last weeks Project Production Management article went through how to construct a basic takt plan. This weeks article goes step further and breaks down the different parts of a takt plan (Takt Zones, Takt Wagons, Takt Trains and Takt Time). The author, George Hunt, also shares that planning construction to a specific pace, or takt, is not a new concept in the industry. One of the most successful construction projects on record, The Empire State Building, was built using a schedule that sets the pace for the project. The article continues through takt definitions and ends with the overlap between takt planning and The Last Planner system. It is great to see lean tools working together.

Takeaway: I really like how George goes back to the basics on this one and breaks down the different aspects of a takt plan. This really helps to reiterate the lesson from the previous article. I also enjoyed how the article is closed out with the relationship between takt and Last Planner. If you are already using Last Planner System, it might not be a bad idea to learn more about takt and take your planning to the next level. Check out the special offer for Takt University at the bottom of this newsletter.

Lean Podcast

Leadership is a tough thing to measure. A lot of people would say to look at the end result of a project or endeavor and you will be able to tell the quality of the leader. If you are a leader on your lean journey, you can’t wait until the end to review where you are at. You want to know in real time how effective of a leader you are. In the podcast linked below, Jason offers 5 practice questions that a leader can ask themselves to review how they are leading their teams. There is no better example of continuous improvement than this! Don’t wait until the end to see if you are being an effective leader, take a few minutes out of your day to review these questions.

Takeaway: These questions that Jason shares won’t take you long to get through and are a great way to reflect on where are currently at. You can spend a few minutes on each question while you are driving (skip the part about writing things down as he mentions) or find some quiet time during your day to reflect on your leadership journey and see where you have improvement opportunities. I hope to make these 5 questions part of a monthly or bi-monthly internal review.

Lean Event

LCI Congress is taking place later this week and I am so excited to be attending and presenting for my first time. I will be presenting on in the morning on Thursday 10-26, and will be focused on “You Can Lead A Team to Culture, But Can You Make Them Think”. Our live lab will be an interactive discussion around setting the culture on your project. I hope to see you there!

Real Life Lean - Lean practices in the real world

I am blessed in my current role as an owners rep to be working for a client that embraces lean teachings and methods. This week my client put on two separate field leadership trainings all focused on safety and a lean approach to safety.

The presenter focused the first half of the presentation on building a lean culture and how to positively drive the culture in the direction you want, and spent the second half talking about pre task planning and effective leadership engagement. Here are my top 3 takeaways

1. Respect For People is the Center - This mindset is something I am a huge fan of and it resonates with me daily. It is great to see company leaders starting with respect as the center of a safety culture. Approaching safety from a “respect for peoples lives and families” has such a bigger impact than a “do what I say” safety culture.

2. Importance Of Gemba Walks - Project leaders should be in the field daily, and having safety interactions DAILY. For some reason I always thought of the term Gemba Walk as a walk when something was wrong, instead of just “going to the work”. Our project leaders need to have a presence onsite and must have simple safety moments with the trades each and every day. This shows that project leaders care about safety on a daily basis and not just at the next safety BBQ.

3. Practice Makes Perfect - We cannot get better at something that we do not practices. Reviewing safety plans, talking to crews about safety and conducting safety walks are all things that take practice and repetition to improve. It is important as project leaders that we put ourselves out there and practice making safety a value on our job site.

Special Offer

I have partnered with Takt University to offer Real Life Lean subscribers 50% off courses.

USE CODE ‘realifelean2023’ FOR 50% OFF ANY COURSE PURCHASE FROM SPENCER’S SITE.

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