These ten ideas will dramatically improve your projects. Are these ten rules the top ten? You decide. But don't take too long. Share these rules with your team. Your team members are sure to help you carry them out!

Pay attention: OSHA has fined Broadway Concrete for 15 willful violations involving fall protection and unprotected rebar on a 50-story NYC building. Let's not let it happen again.

Two years ago I read Matthew May's book The Elegant Solution. It's a description of how to create an organization that day-after-day is recognized by the innovation that it creates.

The book is based on the time Matthew spent with the University of Toyota. I've reread the book to prepare for a Study Action Team™¹ that I am leading for a hospital that is being designed and constructed. Toyota is best known as the world's best manufacturer. But even more important to their long-term success, Toyota knows how to do projects.

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1. Study Action Team is a trademark of Lean Project Consulting. [ ⇑ back ]

I won't bore you with all the references to how multi-tasking produces waste. But do understand, the company policy to have very high utilization of staff creates the requirement for multi-tasking. Full utilization is not sustainable. Until you can lower utilization, thereby creating slack, you won't be learning and innovating. You can't be lean.

Clarke Ching, writing for Sticky Minds, uses a simple exercise to show just how evil multi-tasking is. Do the exercise for yourself and then have your boss do it. It goes like this:

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I still meet many project managers who just state that sharing a project vision (if ever there is one) is a waste of time and that the project team should just concentrate on what they are asked (told ?) to do. This always reminds me of my first project management courses, more than 30 years ago (dinosaurs were still alive), when I was told that: "The more information people have about a project, the more veto power we are giving them…so, it is important to keep information sharing to the strict minimum, using as a strict yardstick of information distribution direct-task-oriented need-to-know information."

I am appalled to see that this primitive belief still endures today, since it shows so little understanding of how human minds and hearts really work. I am also appalled that, each time I ask about Vroom's Expectancy Theory of Motivation (dating back from the early 1960s) and it's significance to project management audiences (including many PMPs), I find out that it is still mostly unheard of or, when it is known of, it rings no bell about the relationship between sharing a project vision and mobilizing project teams to ensure project success. This is very unfortunate since Vroom's simple theory:

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We have another new blogger at RPM, Alan Mossman, Director of Lean Construction Institute UK. He trained as an architect and then worked as a socio-technical systems consultant. Returning to construction in 2000 he is co-editor of the Lean Construction Journal and from 2005-07 was Director of Constructing Excellence South West. Alan will be contributing articles every few weeks, or so. Please welcome him with your comments and questions.

When you're done reading the following post, head over to ChangeThis to vote on his manifesto proposal Together at the Workface: Improving Construction Logistics.

Hi. I’m Alan Mossman, a consultant based in the UK. Hal has invited me to contribute occasional posts to RPM in the areas of design, safety and collaboration.

One of my profs at Uni, Stafford Beer, asserted "A system is what a system does". So why would anyone create a system that in Hal’s words “turns strangers into enemies”.
Will Lichtig addressed this issue in an article for the Fall 07 American Institute of Architects Practice Management Digest. In Projects as Patients, Will suggests a scoring system for project health — should we call it the Lichtig Score? Four of the categories - Collaborative Planning, Reliable Promising, Unaccounted-for Constraints, Safety - have clear criteria.

The questions for the equally important fifth category, Mood, are not so straight-forward to answer:

• To what extent is the team positive?
• To what extent is honesty and trust evident?
• To what extent is the team learning and improving?
• Is morale improving, steady or declining?
• To what extent are team members being open and honest with each other?
• Are there barriers between trades and professions and if so How high are the silo walls?
• How long or short are tempers?
• To what extent are team members collaborating?

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In my first guest-blogger entry, I mentioned the importance of managing perceptions. I wrote that not doing so was the main cause of why only one project out of three was considered successful by major stakeholders, according to the Standish Group's Chaos Report¹. I concluded that "not managing perceptions" could be considered the 10th waste of ill-managed projects.

It is easy to say that we have to manage perceptions. But where and how should we start doing that? The Chaos Report gives us pretty good leads on that. The report identifies the involvement of end-users as the No.1 in its Top Ten List of project key success factors. I talked about that also when Hal gave me the opportunity to contribute a project e-tip back in 2003 (e-tip 016: Keep the Customer/End-User Involved). After all these years, this e-tip is still relevant and I propose to rename it The Proximity Principle and to revisit it as it pertains to fighting the 10th waste.

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1. www.projectsmart.co.uk/docs/chaos-report.pdf [ ⇑ back ]

Back in the fall 2007, the AIA Practice Management Digest asked Greg Howell, Executive Director of the Lean Construction Institute, to convene a panel of design and construction lean thinkers to write on lean design (for construction). I was one of the invited essayists. I wrote a paper with Greg and John Barberio. Our topic was Target-Value Design.

We proposed that Target-Value Design (TVD) turns the current design practice upside-down.

• Rather than estimate based on a detailed design, design based on a detailed estimate.
• Rather than evaluate the constructibility of a design, design for what is constructible.
• Rather than design alone and then come together for group reviews and decisions, work together to define the issues and produce decisions then design to those decisions.
• Rather than narrow choices to proceed with design, carry solution sets far into the design process.
• Rather than work alone in separate rooms, work in pairs or a larger group face-to-face.

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"Project Quality Management must address the management of the project and the product of the project"

(p.180, PMBoK, 3rd edition)

In an earlier blog entry, I presented the Nine Wastes of Mismanaged Projects, according to Lean Project Management gurus (Howell, Macomber, Koskela, Bodek). I said then that I saw a 10th waste adversely affecting project success: Not Managing Perceptions. Today, I will briefly explain why I believe that not managing perceptions is a major project waste, and why it has to be taken care of for our projects to be successful.

The sentence from the PMBoK quoted above is one of the most important messages on successful project management. It means that project quality, a strong indicator of project success, does not only depend on the physical characteristics of project deliverables, it also depends on HOW they were delivered. It means that a project is not only a destination, it is also a journey. It means that in matters of quality, BOTH the journey and the destination are important.

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Our inclination is to ease into new situations. We take baby steps thinking that it is the safe way to engage in something new. Two of my sons just went sky diving. There's no reasonable way to ease out of the plane…particularly when you are jumping tandem. There's no reasonable way to ease into cold water. How do I know? I've tried it. I suspect many of you have tried it too!

"…incremental change promotes a parochial outlook and attitude"

Lean practices are as shocking as cold water. There's no sense easing into lean. It only extends the pain. We know that lean thinking is superior to conventional wisdom. What most people don't know is how to engage in the new lean practices. Jump in! ¶ Continue reading this post…

Don't you just love Industry Week? Whether you work in manufacturing or you do projects for manufacturers you gotta pay attention to IW stories. In the December 2007 issue there was a sidebar on careers. IW quoted from John M. McKee's book, Career Wisdom: 101 Proven Strategies to Ensure Workplace Success. McKee offered these 10 ways to get yourself fired:

1. Don't have a clear life plan.
2. Don't keep your skill set current.
3. Never deliver results.
4. Confuse efficiency with effectiveness.

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LPSThe Last Planner System® is a lean approach to planning and delivering projects. It is based on a hierarchy of planning: should, can, will, and did. LPS is not a computer system. It is a set of protocols corresponding with the four above items: pull planning, look-ahead planning, task planning, and daily coordination. The Last Planner System is a registered trademark of the Lean Construction Institute. Last Planner SystemThe Last Planner System® is a lean approach to planning and delivering projects. It is based on a hierarchy of planning: should, can, will, and did. LPS is not a computer system. It is a set of protocols corresponding with the four above items: pull planning, look-ahead planning, task planning, and daily coordination. The Last Planner System is a registered trademark of the Lean Construction Institute.

As 2007 came to a close, lean design and construction got some well-deserved press. The manufacturing community shares their successes and learning about lean through Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and their "Target Magazine". Most lean manufacturers operate in buildings that were neither designed or built lean. That can change. Karen Wilhelm, writing for Target, spent quite some time investigating the lean construction movement. She shares what she learned in a cover story, Collaboration Makes Construction Lean.

"The culture of heroes works against the smooth flow of work."

I won't spoil the article for you by summarizing it. Not only does Karen write well, she shares a vision of what we can be doing in the built environment. I will offer one teaser… ¶ Continue reading this post…

This is not a book review. That will come later. I'm only sharing the news that there is a new Shigeo Shingo book: kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking. Norman Bodek gave me the chance to review an early version of the book. I'm quite impressed. I've wondered for quite some time if there is a systematic behind Toyota's success other than PDCA. We now all know the answer. Shingo developed an approach that helps everyone to be more creative. And that approach is readily learned.

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It's that time of year again. I'm attending the Lean Construction Congress in San Francisco. This is the 9th annual event. As usual, the focus is on companies who have adopted lean approaches for delivering AEC projects. The morning presentations have been great. Company presenters are doing a fine job speaking about the benefits they are getting and how the lean approaches and principles cause that to happen.

Becoming lean and being evermore lean is fundamentally about learning, not about lean.

It's a little early in the two days to be saying this, but what the heck… Herrero Contractors, not yet three years into their lean transformation, is the most advanced lean contractor in the US.¹ Herrero understands that becoming lean and being evermore lean is fundamentally about learning, not about lean. They seem to be learning everywhere and everyday.

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1. Full disclosure, they used to be our client. A year ago they hired away one of our staff members to be their Director of Learning…not Director of Lean. [ ⇑ back ]

What must we do to open our organizations to change? Whether it's pursuing lean or any other transformational change it's only when we break with history that we have a chance for change. One necessary way we do that by changing the stories we tell.

Few business leaders appreciate the power of stories to connect with their audiences.

Business Week just reported on leadership…the kind of leadership that alters forever who we are and where we are going…The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders, by Carmine Gallo. He says it's not a single act, rather it is a set of actions taken over and over that has the chance of effecting permanent change.

These seven actions can make your change effort successful:

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Nearly 20 years ago Robert Reich made a big claim: Americans can't change who they are until they change the story of who they've been. His book, Tales of a New America detailed classical American stories: the rot at the top; the mob at the gate; the rise of the individual…

It's only in changing the story that we can be someone different.

I've come to believe it's our stories that anchor us — that keep us from achieving what we say we want. Norman calls it resistance. But that presupposes intentionality. In other words, resistance is cognitive. That doesn't make sense to me.

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Norman Bodek is concerned that companies are not taking up a lean way of working. This is in the face of overwhelming evidence that a lean approach is one of the best ways of working. What gets in the way? Norman attributes it to middle managers who resist change. He says the resistance is manifest in saying, "No," to employees' proposals of improvement. I don't buy it.

Norman is right when he says the people get in the way of change. It is not organizations that resist change. Only individuals can choose to not change. But why? Why in the face of overwhelming evidence that lean is a better approach would someone not embrace the change? Fear is the first answer. People see that something is at risk if they embrace something different. That makes sense, however when firms get into real trouble — the threat of bankruptcy — managers find a way to get behind a change to a lean approach. In the face of big stakes people come through.

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