Preview of Linguistic Action Foundations of Lean Construction
June 29th, 2003 by Hal
I've written about linguistic action as a theory that does a better job at explaining why projects succeed and why they don't succeed. In three weeks I get to present my case at the International Group for Lean Construction 11th Annual Conference at Virginia Tech. You can still register for the event. Visit: http://strobos.cee.vt.edu/IGLC11/.
I'll offer up the paper in this forum as soon as IGLC publishes it, most likely in the next few days. In the meantime, I want to call attention to an aspect of project management that gets far too little attention and is often not performing for us. You guessed it, project controls. I've never quite understood project controls. Project managers set up a structure for tracking and reporting cost and schedule variances often weeks after the incident and we refer to this as 'control'. I've always thought of control as a mechanism for staying on track. There's no way to stay on track when third parties are accumulating data and reporting on it. The only possibility for control is to have the performers take responsibility for making adjustments in the midst of their action.
Some would call that being out of control. Performers are supposed to execute the plan as it is given to them. Doing otherwise would put the project at risk, or so goes the argument. Our common sense is betraying us.
The greatest untapped opportunity for staying in control is the distributed capacity for observing and making assessments. Performers are scattered all about the project setting, whether physical or not. By simply engaging performers in the planning conversations they will be prepared for for noticing, assessing, and taking actions that will keep them on plan. Without including them in the planning conversation they don't know what to look for, let alone what assessments to make.
So there you have it. The most profound thing Greg and I say in our IGLC paper is to stay in control you have to share it with the performers on the team. You do that first by including them in the planning. Then you hold them accountable for offering up observations and assessments that only they can make. How's that? Only they can make those assessments because they were the only ones present to the events as they work wherever they happen to be and the project management team is not.
We stay in control on projects by sharing the responsibility for control. There's more coming! Hope to see some of you in Virginia.
Related Posts
- The Role of Management I've written in this weblog about the linguistic action perspective as it applies to projects. Greg Howell and I have a...
- Here’s the Paper on Linguistic Action Theory Foundations of Lean Construction: Linguistic Action, by Hal Macomber and Gregory Howell, to be presented at the Internat...
- Care for Critical Conversations I always thought that when one writes a paper it is to stand on its own. Well, that certainly wasn't the case with La...
- Running on Rails: Two Kinds of Action I had the pleasure of visiting a construction site last week in Milwaukee. It is a good sized project -- over $100 mill...
- Linguistic Action Perspective of Projects Before I get too far into these postings on the Linguistic Action Perspective, I think I should speak about my prejudice...
June 30th, 2003 at 2:40 pm
Hal, I agree that controls need to be built in. In fact, this is the difference between quality control and quality assurance: QC must be built in to the process, QA is a review function.
You can’t inspect qualiuty into a project but if controls are built in they will help to achieve quality.
July 2nd, 2003 at 1:29 am
What’s with the hope thing? I expect I’ll land every time I take off!