The editors at Fast Company think Wal-Mart is about to bring about a real reduction in the use of energy. In cooperation with GE, Wal-Mart has begun a year-long initiative to replace at least one incandescent lightbulb for each customer. That's 100 million bulbs that will go out of service. In their place we'll be screwing compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). Why am I writing about this? It's one ambitious project, that's why!

CFL sales are projected to reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the road

The numbers are impressive. In FC's article How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take to Change the World? One. And You're Looking at It¹, CFLs last anywhere from 8,000 to 12,000 hours. This compares to 1000 hours for an incandescent. That's 8 to 12 bulbs taken out of service for each CFL. Each CFL bulb uses about 28% the energy of an equivalent 60 watt incandescent. At a savings in energy of $0.46/month the CFL pays back in 5 months. (If you buy the bulbs in an 8-pack at Sam's Club the payoff will come in 3 months.) It continues to generate savings for another 8-10 years! But that's not the best part.

If Wal-Mart succeeds, then their CFL sales are projected to reduce carbon emissions equivalent to taking 1.3 million cars off the road, or not burning 29,900 railcars of coal.

Now on to the project side of this. This initiative started by chance, like many company initiatives do. FC tells the story of a buyer who wondered what could be saved by replacing the incandescents in the ceiling fans with the fluorescent bulbs he saw in hotel rooms. Each lamp takes four bulbs. Each store has about 10 models on display. There are 3,230 stores selling fans. Wal-Mart alone was paying $6 million annually for the electricity for those incandescent lights. The buyers continued to wonder. And wonder some more. For me, this story is about a group of people that started with a lightbulb buyer to GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, all considering just what might be possible.

Wal-Mart is demonstrating what is possible when someone wonders and others listen and act.

Projects like this take a bunch of selling…ideas, not light bulbs. The implications turn out to be huge. By committing to provide the CFLs GE was also committing to forgo the sales of 600 million incandescents over the next few years. That would require shutting down at least one factory. It's a decision that GE eventually made.

More decisions and plans had to be made. Displays had to be created. Education programs for shoppers were developed. Shelf stocking in all 3,230 stores had to change. These are just some of the actions that we know about that had to be coordinated. Wal-Mart didn't tell FC their whole plan. I predict we'll be compelled to make the switch. Even non-Wal-Mart shoppers will buy CFLs, and many will become Wal-Mart shoppers in the process.

Selling CFLs are not like designing and coding software, nor like designing and building buildings, nor new product introductions. No, it's much bigger. Selling 100 million CFLs will take legions of people acting in concert so the bulbs are ready for you and me and then we'll replace our bulbs. While this may not save the planet, Wal-Mart is demonstrating what is possible when someone wonders and others listen and act.

1. The article will be available online to everyone on Sept 1, 2006. Subscribers and newsstand buyers can get access now by using the access code "FCSEPTCUST". [ ⇑ back ]

Last week I wrote Don't CRM Lean into Your Organization mentioning the difficulty companies have adopting organizational change. Adopting new behaviors on projects and in organizations is one of the toughest actions we take as leader-managers. This is especially true when it involves switching paradigms. At Lean Project Consulting we use a change approach¹ based on five actions. The first thing to know is these are necessary but often not sufficient conditions. If you skip one of these actions you are assured of failure in the long-term. However, performing all five actions doesn't guarantee success. Very often a situation demands additional actions to ensure success, e.g., changes to systems or acquisition of new skills. The outline that follows can serve as a point of departure for planning your changes. Do the planning in a group and be open to multiple approaches rather than one "right" answer.

1. Be clear why change is necessary in terms that make sense to the individuals:
   State clear consequences for continuing with the current state.
   Make assessments of the value for changing.

People know what is important to their managers by how they spend their time

2. Declare an initial set of standards for measuring performance and get agreement that people will set out to perform to those standards. Begin a practice of checking.
   Be public with your standard-setting.
   Create alignment with the group that they will hold themselves to the new standards.
   People are accountable when there is a customer holding them to account.
   Good customers show their appreciation for results and efforts.
3. Show how it is done.
   People need to see that it is possible to be successful performing a new (set of) behaviors. Talking about it — merely "Jawboning" — doesn't work.
   Put each new person in action while you are introducing them to the new behavior.
4. Measure, acknowledge, reward new behavior, and be clear on the consequences.
   Put yourself in the position to catch people doing it right. Be with them in their work-setting while they are working. This also gives you the opportunity to coach or adjust unsuccessful action.
   People need encouragement and redirection while they are learning. Make yourself available for that.
   Keep the context of the change – consequences of not changing and the new value available – in the foreground for performers. Remind your team and yourself with regular stories of why this change matters.
5. Work with them on improving.
   This fifth action is the one that cements the change. Often people put up with little dissatisfactions during a change telling themselves that it will get better once they are familiar or competent. The truth is usually the opposite. The annoyances are only magnified by the frequency of action. Commit yourself to continuously improve the changed situation for the benefit of the participants, the customers, and the company. That action telegraphs the importance of the change.

Commit yourself to success. Nothing beats a passionate determined individual. Let your passion show to the people you lead in change. Stay engaged with them so they see first-hand that the change is a priority for you, not just them. And be consistent with that involvement.

Remember, people know what is important to their managers by how they spend their time, particularly changes to how they spend their time. Err on the side of spending extra time when you set out to make change.

1. This posting was abstracted from Lean Project Consulting's special report: Five Necessary Actions for Organizational Change, by Hal Macomber and Gregory Howell. You can get a complete copy by sending an email to 5-actions-change@leanproject.com. You'll get a link to a 2-page PDF which you are welcome to share with your colleagues. [ ⇑ back ]

Listen up!  If you hear any of these phrases, then it's time to have a conversation with your project manager or your team.  Johanna Rothman writing in the Fast Company blog FC Now recounts overhearing, "We'll try to find the resources to finish the project on schedule."  "Trying" is an announcement of impending failure.  Alarm bells should also go off when you hear these other phrases she identifies:

• We'll try (the one above)
• We'll work smarter (we're working stupidly now?)
• It's just one more change (many phrases with "just" are project killers)
• Let's hope for the best (I wouldn't bank my company's future on hope)
• We'll multi-task (that way we can not make progress on anything)
• We'll find the resources somewhere (where?)
• We'll make do (being resigned to the worst certainly won't help finish a project)

Listen closely on projects.  You'll hear warnings in everyday language…everyday.

Marlon Sanders, the father, the inventor of the two-page website, and one of the more successful online marketers, has three lessons for anyone doing projects.  He says, "People mess up on the really simple stuff."  Here's Marlon's rules of getting it done:

1. Not done equals no dollars.
2. Get one project done rather than 99 undone.
3. Almost done is the enemy of done.

Done is beautiful!

Mitch Myerson, the Guerilla Marketing Coach, has hosted Marlon's 3-minute Getting it Done lesson on his website.  Don't miss it.

Can you guess what industry change the following quote is about?

"Failed implementations aren't new…even after a decade of industry advice about helping employees help themselves, executives still run head-on into end-user buy-in rejection."

Making a change to deliver projects lean is an organizational matter not a lean matter.

Any number of guesses could be correct. It is not about adopting lean approaches to delivering projects. But it could have been. Making a change to deliver projects lean is an organizational matter not a lean matter. Affecting any organization-wide change is tough, even for those who know what they are doing. Many companies are attempting a level of a change that they've never made before.
I see companies make the same mistake. They focus on the technical aspects of the underlying change without considering the human side of the change. The whole field of "change management" is focussed on being effective with whatever change is underway. With lean, change never ends.

"The process of winning over end-users doesn't end with the project go-live." Bob Stutz

I overheard someone speculating what would come after lean. I laughed. I can't imagine someone at Toyota wondering what would come next. Any casual student knows Toyota will minimize variation, un-burden operations, and eliminate more waste. In other words, more of the same. According to Gary Convis, Toyota can work on that for another 30 years.
The first quotation was from the opening paragraph of You'll Like It, by Marshall Lager, appearing in the August edition of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Magazine. CRM is "just" a computer system coupled with new procedures. Becoming lean is committing oneself and the organization to a paradigm change. Imagine how difficult that could be. (For all of you CRM folk, please don't shoot me. I implemented ERP systems. I know how challenging it can be implementing systems change.)
Next, I'll share the Five Necessary Actions for Organizational Change that we use to plan introducing lean project delivery to a company.

Silence Fails, a research endeavor by David Maxwell, Vital Smarts, finds that projects suffer when team members fail to have the crucial conversations they need to have. Projects @ Work picked up the research writing about it in Crucial Conversations.

"One of the keys to successful project management is holding the right conversations on the right issues at the right times."

The article identifies five conversations that project teams need to have to be successful. The findings are the result of research Maxwell did starting with people standing in line. He first asked people what would they do if someone cut in front of them in line. 95% said they would speak up. Then Maxwell secretly watched the same people as someone cut them in line. Surprisingly, the majority didn't say anything. With further research Maxwell identified five crucial conversations that could make a difference on projects. Read the rest of this entry ¶

This month and next I will be speaking about the subject of my coming book. I start this week on a concall with project managers from Jones Lang LaSalle. Frankly, I'm a little intimidated. I've got so much I can speak about, but only one hour to do so. I really don't know what I'll do. Except, I had to submit slides last night. Won't they be surprised! I understand it will be taped. I'll share it if I'm able.

Today I visited NUMMI with a group of 10 construction people. We did the standard tour. Then we followed it with a luncheon where we discussed what we could bring back to our project settings. All participants had read and discussed The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey Liker. It was quite easy to see one example after another taken right out of the book.

The two big opportunities were adopting project-based kaizen and communicating current project results publicly every day in prominent public places. We'll try them both out on a healthcare project underway in California. I'll let you know what we learn.

Each year the International Group for Lean Construction (IGLC) holds a conference in one of four parts of the world. This year IGLC-14 was conducted in the southern American hemisphere in Santiago, Chile. Professor Luis Fernando Alarcon, one of the founders of the IGLC, was the organizer and host. While it got off to a lousy start for me — American Airlines lost my luggage — and for Greg Howell — it took 3 days for him to get from Denver to Santiago thanks to departure delays and airplane maintenance problems — they proved to be short memories due to the wonderful hosts and enthusiastic participants. Here's my list (Letterman-style):

IGLC-14 was a fine conference. The organizers have set the bar very high for next year.

10. The more we learn about and develop lean construction the more value we get from revisiting prior work. Some of the best papers were on topics that have been presented many times.
9. The world is turning towards lean construction. 50 papers were presented from people representing 22 countries.¹
8. The Internet is a wonderful thing. Skype allowed people around the world to make presentations to the group. (Do we really need to travel 18 hours to attend a conference?)
7. Computer modeling and simulation are at a point where design and construction firms can make use of them for learning and for design of the production system.
6. There is a solid argument supported by research and simulations for using the Last Planner System®² in a way that project performers share and discuss PPC data about reliability. Post that data for everyone to see. Have daily conversations where performers declare complete. Sharing PPC builds trust and planning reliability.
5. Less than 10% of the papers were on the people aspects of lean construction. Toyota's Thinking Production System gives equal weights to just-in-time and respect for people, a.k.a. autonomation and jidoka. The lean construction community needs to do the same.
4. More work can and should be done on construction safety. The few papers presented showed promise, but not enough is being done to link reliability of workflow to the safety of workers.
3. The language action perspective has taken hold as a theory to explain effective project management. Researchers used the terms network of commitments, declaring complete, and re-promising to explain good project behaviors.
2. The people researching and writing in the IGLC community are passionate about their work. They are ready to share what they are doing, to listen intently while others describe what they are doing, and to collaborate on research.
1. There are no finer hosts than Chileans. The Universidad Catolica faculty and staff impressed me throughout the week with their charm, engaging smiles, offers to take care of our smallest needs, and their curiosity. And the food was outstanding!

One thing I didn't learn at IGLC-14, but many people might have learned, is Senator Fernando Flores — called 'Fernando' throughout Chile — is a powerful leader, philosopher, entrepreneur, teacher, and collaborator. It was a pleasure to have my friend and teacher speak at the IGLC conference.

1. Australia, Belgium, Brazil (11 papers), Chile, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, United Kingdom (7 papers), and United States(14 papers) (Why none from Canada?) [ ⇑ back ]
2. Registered trademark of the Lean Construction Institute, www.leanconstruction.org [ ⇑ back ]

This is the year of the language action perspective for project management. IGLC researchers have been exploring underlying theory of projects seriously for the last 7 years. The discussion appeared to be reaching a conclusion earlier this year with Glenn Ballard's and Lauri Koskela's paper, "Should project management be based on theories of economics or production?" for Building Research and Information. Greg Howell and I concluded that project management (in general) shouldn't be based on either. We wrote our paper to answer what should it be based on. Then, I invited Fernando Flores to speak to the IGLC. As it turned out, Greg ceded our time for presenting our paper to Fernando so he could speak longer. Our paper was not presented. I'll do my best to present it here.

What Should Project Management Be Based On?

I have to start any discussion off by saying how we understand projects.

Projects are unique undertakings of a group of people convened to fulfill a promise made by one person to a customer.

Construction projects are like software projects and class reunions when understood from the above definition. Those three types of projects are dissimilar, as well. But it is the similarity that guided our look at projects to allow us to reach our conclusions on the theory base for projects. Read the rest of this entry ¶

Aprecedent was set at IGLC-14. We had our first keynote speaker. It was an easy precedent to set. Fernando Flores addressed the group. Fernando is the founder of a paradigm. There aren't too many others who can say that. The paradigm is know as the language action perspective (LAP). The LAP paradigm is reshaping how the AEC community is thinking about project delivery.

Fernando's speech to IGLC

Here's a little background on Fernando Flores. At age 27 he was the Minister of Finance for Chile in the government of Allende. He was imprisoned for three years by General Pinochet following the overthrow of the government. Eventually, Fernando was released and joined his family in California where he studied at Stanford for a masters degree in computer science and at UC Berkeley for a Ph.D. in philosophy. Fernando is the co-author of three books. He has been a serial entrepreneur and innovator. A few years back he returned to his beloved Chile to become a Senator. Fernando was also my teacher, a consultant to my company, and an employer.

"Bullshit (in business) starts by making ambiguous contracts."

Fernando took the room through a historical perspective on the development of the LAP paradigm. He was careful to give credit and show appreciation to his teachers. He also expertly connected to the concerns of the AEC project community. There was no doubt, in my opinion, that Fernando was prepared for the IGLC audience. At one moment he expressed his amusement that the network of commitments — something he first wrote about in 1983 — was having such a big impact 23 years later.

One of the more interesting things Fernando shared was his view of damaging ideas. He claims we suffer from our perspective of

• A fixed-object reality, and
• Communication as the transfer of information

He went on to say that what we need in the project community is a kind of "social therapy" to rid those damaging ideas.

There's much more I could say. But you're better off viewing the speech for yourself: Fernando's speech to IGLC.

Client changes to apartment designs after the project starts are both expected and disruptive. The researchers were curious how lean approaches might mitigate the impacts of those changes. They built a role-playing simulation to collect data then modeled it with simulation software. The results were stunning.

Evaluation of Lean Improvements in Residential Construction

Rafael Sacks and Alberto Esquenazi

The researchers called on their students to build a Lego simulation of a construction project. Design changes were introduced along the way. The students played the game to collect data that was then used in the computer simulation.

"Reduced batch size appears to be the key to improving workflow."

They wanted to explore how lean approaches might affect the performance of construction results. They modeled these approaches:

• Align the flows
• Pull flow
• Single-piece flow
• Make ready process
• Stabilize the workplan
• Streamline the process by changing construction methods

The simulation started with a traditional push system. The second round introduced the lean approaches. When going from traditional to lean approaches throughput increased along with cash flow.

Stroboscope was used to investigate the effects of the individual lean approaches. The simulation results were stunning. Reducing batch size was the main source of improving cash flow. Multi-skilled teams in a push environment improved time but reduced the amount of work done. But cutting batch size and multi-skilled teams was responsible for the biggest improvement in throughput. Only when customization is required does pull flow make a big contribution.

The authors concluded that reduced batch size appears to be the key to improving workflow. It has positive effects on WIP levels, cash flow, and project completion time.

Precast productivity in one construction setting already was improved from 28 man-hours/cubic meter to 21 man-hours/cubic meter due to prior improvement initiatives. But the plant suffered from product variation. The LPS was introduced to address it.

Stabilization and Standardization of a Precast Production Process

Carlos Antonio Samaniego Gallardo, et al

Carlos started by introducing a Production Status Andon¹. They started with a blackboard in the production area. The workers developed the approach further and in three weeks had a more sophisticated approach. They were investigating in an empirical way what process steps provided a rhythm to the process. The Last Planner® was introduced to bring reliability to the process.

Stabilize production activities with andons.

PPC improved from 25% to 75% in about three months. During the same time productivity was further improved to 16 man-hours/cubic meter. They attribute their results to:

• Adopting an analysis-implementation-evaluation cycle that also increased participation
• Adopting basic lean approaches including standardized work and value stream mapping
• Bringing organization with a daily task schedule

Fabrication operations offer great potential for adopting lean approaches. As key parts of the supply chain on construction projects getting lean upstream can have some downstream positive outcomes from higher quality and reliability of completions.

1. Andon is the Japanese word for "signal" or to bring attention to something. Andons are used to alert others to come for help. [ ⇑ back ]

Construction supply chains share many of the characteristics and problems of make-to-order (MTO) supply chains. Most of the problems can be traced to managerial issues. The authors explain how the language action perspective¹ can offers insights for managing more effectively.

Importance of Commitments Management to the Integration of Make-to-Order Supply Chains in Construction Industry

Eduardo Luis Isatto, et al

The authors presented Fernando Flores' action workflow approach to explain how ineffective actions can be traced to the incompletion of conversations for action.

"Effective coordination of action is the same as the effective management of commitments."

Some conclusions:

• Large part of the information flow can be traced back to the commitments are managed
• LAP provides a means to understand information flow problems in MTO supply chains
• A large percentage of failures can be traced to a small number of classes of miscoordination

I am encouraged by the work of these researchers. Their case studies provide solid grounding for the serious application of the LAP to managing projects.

1. See Language Action Perspective Lens for further references [ ⇑ back ]