Get Concrete! Fast!

I feel stupid. Really stupid! How many times will it take before I learn the lesson that "90% of the population are honorary show-me Missourians?" as Tom Peters says in This I Believe TIB #20: He who makes the Quickest & Coolest Prototypes Reigns! I thought I learned that lesson…a long time ago. But my recent efforts to introduce design professionals (architects and engineers) to a different way of doing projects was met with great resistance.

Many people in the architecture and construction industry are exploring their discontent with the results of their projects. Greg Howell and I have been working quite successfully with project teams and companies introducing a different way to deliver projects. We decided that it was time to work intensively with a group of architects and engineers to explore two things as learning and innovation in action:

1. How much value can be created from adopting lean project practices in the A&E work settings?
2. What will it take to be successful in adopting a different approach in those settings?

We've come up with a series of six workshops and project-based actions for introducing new practices and exploring results. While we have confidence that our background in doing projects in a variety of settings will allow us to succeed with A&E teams, our audience didn't grant us their confidence. Rather, the overwhelming response was, "Show us (me) what this will do for us (me)."

The ironic aspect of the response is the set of workshops and project-setting changes are designed to produce exactly the evidence that people are looking for. And even more ironic was our opening the first of six workshops without addressing the 90% of those concerns in the room.

We're in a Catch-22. Until we produce examples and data we struggle getting people to try a different approach. Yet, we need people to try so we can produce the examples and data. The exception are those A&E project teams that are in trouble on their projects. These people listen to us, take direction from us, and begin to adopt new practices. However, the vast majority of A&E firms don't recognize that they have trouble doing their projects. From where they sit it's just fine.

We started out working with nine A&E firms (teams). I expect there are two or three teams that won't continue with the series, maybe more. But I thank each of them for helping me to learn the lesson (again). As Tom Peters says, "(It's time to) Get Concrete! Fast!" I'm setting out to do just that for workshop #2. I'll let you know how it goes.

By the way, I can thank Tom Peters again for rocking my world. It has been my great fortune stumbling upon his latest booklet Project04: Snapshots of Excellence in Unstable Times.

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