Five Big Ideas Rehaping Project Delivery

© 2004, 2006 Lean Project Consulting, Inc.

Putting the Focus On the Customer

Five Big Ideas Reshaping

Project Delivery

Hal Macomber and Gregory Howell


It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

– John Wooden UCLA Basketball Coach


Lean Principles

• Lean Revolution– Toyota Production

System – Lean Thinking– Project-Based

Production• Reliability before

Productivity• Collaborative Design• Rethinking Construction

– Lean Solutions

• Five Lean Principles– Customer Value– Value Stream– Flow– Pull– Pursue Perfection


Five Big IdeasLean Philosophy for Projects

Collaborate;Really

Collaborate

Optimize the Whole

Tightly CoupleLearning w/

Action

Projects as Networks ofCommitment

IncreaseRelatedness


1. Collaborate, Really Collaborate in Design, Planning, and Execution

• Finding and working to a purpose held in common.• Discover why others are there.• Aim for coherence: Align rewards and systems• Pay attention to timing level of detail• Learn from people who will perform• Create situations for surprise contributions• Reinforce positive iterations (learning)• Avoid negative iterations (rework)


Teams: Seeing the Fragmentation

OwnerArchitect

Civil

Structural

Mechanical

Electrical

Plumbing

Landscape

Elevators

Interior

Parking

CM/GC

Site

Steel

Mechanical

Electrical

Plumbing

Landscape

FramingFloor Cover

Painting

Geotech

Materials

Service

Traffic

Equipment

OfficeLabsManufact’

gDistribution

Eng’g

Operations


Possibilities from Collaboration

• Design and construction are iterative– solutions to a series of problems– possible solution often creates another

problem– art of the conversation allows creative, yet

realistic exploration of the possible


2. Increase Relatedness among All Project Participants.

• People come together as strangers on AEC projects.

• Healthcare projects require learning, innovation, and collaboration.

• That takes deep relatedness.• Learn to build relationships intentionally.• Key skill is listening.


Transforming Teams:Building Relatedness of the Players

M/E/P

CORE GROUP

Structure

Landscape

Material Handling

Vertical Transp.

Site Improvements

Interior/ Finishes

Building Envelope

• Relationships Based on Prudent Trust

• Teams don’t have meaningless players

• Teams participate from beginning to completion

• Execution virtually never relies on only one player!

• Team members learn to play the game together.


3. Projects Are NetworksOf Commitments

There are three kinds of work:1. Design (from nothing to something)2. Material transformation3. Coordination of action

Coordination is possible among task performers in the conversations people have with each other


Work in Projects

• Transformation work – physical “touch” work turns inputs into outputs

• Making and Keeping Commitments – the basic work of all business

• Design – Creating Conditions of Satisfaction


Conditions of Satisfaction

&Date of

Completion

CUSTOMER

Request“Will You?”

Prepar

atio

n

1

3

4

PO

InquiryNegotiation

Clarification&

Negotiation

Signed

PROVIDER2

Perfo

rman

ce

Declare Complete“I’m Done”

Accepted Submitted

Commit“I Promise I WILL”

Assurance

DeclareSatisfaction“Thank you”

Conditions of Satisfaction&

Completion Date

The “Physics” of Coordination


Building the Network of Commitments in Planning

• Hold planning conversations in public.• Identify key milestones to deliver the promise of the

project. Identify long lead items and make requests.• Build phase schedules with those responsible for

the work in each phase. Establish rules for speaking up.

• Make work ready by screening, requesting and securing reliable promises. Only release when ready and needed.

• Secure promises for daily task completions from each performer or Last Planner

• Report completions each day. Identify reasons for incompletions. Take action. Re-plan.


4. Optimize the Project

• Optimize at the project level – Not the subcontractor performer group– Not the task level

• Think work streams• Think systems• Think customer outcomes• Pursue planning reliability before worker

productivity


Lean Design: An Overview

* Involve downstream players in upstream decisions* Alternate between all-group meetings and task force activities* Create and exploit opportunities to increase value in every phase of the project

Organize in Cross Functional Teams

Pursue a set based strategy

* Select from alternatives at the last responsible moment* Share incomplete information* Share ranges of acceptable solutions

Structure design work to approach the lean ideal

* Simultaneous design of product and process* Consider decommissioning, commissioning, assembly, fabrication, purchasing, logistics, detailed engineering, and design* Shift detailed design to fabricators and installers

Minimize Negative Iteration * Pull scheduling* Design Structure Matrix* Strategies for managing irreducible loops

Use Last Planner System of Production Control

* Try to make only quality assignment* Make work ready within a lookahead period* Measure PPC* Identify and act on reasons for plan failure

Use technologies that facilitate lean design

* Shared geometry; single model* Web based interface

© Lean Construction Institute 2003, used with permission.


Embrace Uncertainty

• Modern science has moved well beyond a fixation on exact prediction and control; it has learned to accept unpredictability as an unavoidable and, at times, even beneficial aspect of the world, as a resource that can sometimes be harnessed.

Mark Buchanan, Power Laws and the New Science of Complexity Management, Strategy+Business, Spring 2004


5. Tightly couple actionwith learning

• Toyota calls it single piece flow• For so long we’ve misunderstood what Toyota

was doing• They have designed their whole system of work to

align with customer demand and to give performers throughout the process opportunity to learn while in action

• Applying the scientific method - PDCA.


Designing Work for Learning

• Experimentation• Single-Piece Flow• Habits for Feedback

– Plus/Delta Reviews– Five Why Analysis

• Planning that Anticipates Learning


• The tough part is that many times you’ve got to change before the real requirement to change is necessarily seen. That means people will make mistakes.

• You’ve got to give people the opportunity to make mistakes, to fail, and not to crucify them for doing that.

Art Collins, Medtronic, CEO’s on Innovation, Fortune Magazine, March 8, 2004


Reaching a New Frontier: Leadership, Planning and Management

Traditional Thought• Leadership dictates direction

• Planning is partitioned by trades/disciplines and is linear. It is predictive and generally fixed, setting parameters for management

• Management controls are inflexible, autocratic - processes are fixed and measures are isolated and generally historical

Lean Thought• Leadership facilitates collaborative

direction• Planning is collaborative, project based

and seeks to integrate efforts to eliminate negative iterations. It learns as project evolves

• Management develops a “network of commitments” to implement plan, evolves intelligence, measures are integrated and proactive


Limitations of theCurrent Approach

• Activity Centered: Ignores the effect of workflow variation on performance.

• Separates downstream players from upstream activities

• Command and control creates a commitment free zone– Requires motivation, ignores promising. – Fails to produce trust.– Push Planning cannot Coordinate the specialists

• Control only as tracking misses the best opportunity for control



Project Management Works

When Practices, Systems and Leadership produce coherent commitments connecting the promise of the project to the work of specialists, and coordinates their actions.– Creating reliable workflow within and between

workgroups– Allowing decisions to be delayed to the last

responsible moment.– Adjusting appropriately in the moment to increase

value and reduce waste.



Master Scheduling

Weekly Work Planning

Lookahead Planning

Learning

Phase Scheduling

Set milestones

Specify handoffs

Make ready &Launchreplanning whenneeded

Promise

Measure PPC &Act on reasonsfor failure tokeep promises

SHOULD

CAN

WILL

DID

Planning, Controlling & Correcting



Connecting to the Big Ideas

• Collaborate - Wait till you see the movie• Increase Relatedness - Keeping promises sure

helps. • Networks of Commitments - Designed and

activated in planning.• Optimize the Whole - Improving reliability

increases total capacity.• Connecting Action to Learning - Immediate

feedback every day improves planning system performance.


Five Big IdeasEmergent Outcomes

Collaborate;Really

Collaborate

Projects as Networks ofCommitment

Tightly CoupleLearning w/

Action

OptimizeThe Whole

IncreaseRelatedness

Innovation Competitive

ContinuousImprovement

Reliability

BuildTrust


Breaking with Common Sense

Learning to deal with discontinuity requires that individuals and organizations face the difficult task of thinking differently; of breaking habits and questioning long-standing conceptual and cultural commitments.

Mark Buchanan, Power Laws and the New Science of Complexity Management, Strategy+Business, Spring 2004