Reforming Project Management » Last Planner

Lean Project Implementation Is Not Adoption

Hal — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:18:11 +0000

I was speaking today with the COO of a large construction firm that has been on a journey to deliver their projects on a lean basis for the last 8 years. We were speaking about the usual comments senior people make about lean. He said, "Don't paper the projects; you need to change your practices to deliver a lean project." In other words, going through the motions won't make the project lean. But what will make it lean?

You need to change your practices to deliver a lean project.Doing a project lean is not an implementation issue. Rather, it is about adopting a different set of behaviors. Behaviors are an individual issue. Each person has to decide that they will approach their work differently. This is the bad news. It's also the good news. Why? There's really nothing to implement. My colleagues (and clients) might disagree. So be it. The fundamental issue is for people to approach their work with a new attitude and a new commitment.

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Does Reliability Matter in Project Planning?

Hal — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:20:27 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Ihad an interesting question about plan reliability. "Why does reliability (PPC) matter?" My first thought was, "Where do I start? Of course it matters!" Ok. Breathe in; breathe out. I know what to do.

A good planning system will enable project team members to fulfill their promises just as they make them

Let's start with PPC. We recommend measuring planning reliability using the measurement percent of promises completed. Our thinking is if people can do what they promise to do, then the planning is good. It doesn't mean that the future should be just as we planned it to be. Life's not like that. But, if we're doing a really good job with our planning, then most of the promises we make for completing work will be kept. PPC is a measure of reliability.(...)
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Ten New Project Management Bloggers at Lean Project Consulting

Hal — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:04:14 +0000

Pardon me for tooting my team's horn. I'm quite proud of my colleagues' efforts at sharing their views and wisdom at delivering design and construction projects on a lean basis. The group is blogging at Coaches Corner. Each has their own blog. Their writing somewhat overlaps, but they each have a specialty.

Please visit Coaches Corner and leave a comment.

Here are 5 of the latest subjects and quotes:

Personal Pull, by Matt Horvat: "I've found a new way to work that is really effective for me…To get started, I worked really hard to get caught up, and now only accept work that fits within my schedule. If I can't do it I'll negotiate with whoever is requesting the work. What I find is that I have much more energy this way. I am pulling work into my life rather than having it pushed on me."

Rules of Lean Project Management

Hal — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:29:21 +0000

Claude Emonde writes the weblog Surviving the Project Age at Project Times. He recently finished a four-part series on the Rules of Lean Project Management. Overall, he did a good job. Those of us who developed and teach the lean project approach don't refer to these ideas as rules. For us, we tend to think about principles. But, Claude has done a good job.

Make your choices and commitments at the last responsible moment.

Let's take a look at Claude's four rules.

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Be Lean…Build Lean

Hal — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:07:22 +0000

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…(...)
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Surprise! It’s a Lean Herrero at the 9th Lean Construction Congress

Hal — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:39:16 +0000

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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Day Two Daily Scrum

Hal — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:44:06 +0000

Another great day of work. We got through the Daily Scrum in 13 minutes (without standing). I asked for a weekly retrospective to examine what we are learning and what needs our attention. In short, team members assessed they were learning and accomplishing far more than they expected. Let's see if we can keep this going. There's a lot for us to accomplish in the coming vacation week.

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Scrum: Inspect and Adapt

Hal — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 02:03:26 +0000

There's nothing like learning-in-action.¹. We just finished our planning session for our development project. I was surprised by how much time we spent defining what it meant to be done. In the LPS world we call that establishing conditions of satisfaction. But we struggle to get team members to stay in that conversation. "Just tell me what you want!" The ScrumMaster wouldn't let us move on 'til he confirmed that the whole team understood what would satisfy the Product Owner.

I'm looking forward to comprehending!

Towards the end of today's session, I noticed that our ScrumMaster frequently said, "We'll inspect and adapt." (He said it before we started the planning. I just hadn't noticed.) "Of course," I thought. The future is uncertain and unknowable. That's just what we do on (LPS) projects. But I also know it's not what is usually done on CPM-style projects. Conventional wisdom (and scheduling software) guides people to put a plan in place and stick to it. The result is project managers often try to get reality to match their plan. Doesn't work. Never did.

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Moving Beyond Obsolete Theory

Hal — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 20:53:36 +0000

It's my pleasure to speak again at a meeting of the Puget Sound PMI Chapter. Two years ago I gave a rather long and complicated presentation on obsolete theory, Fayol, Flores, and what can be learned from construction project management. This time I'll be attempting a much shorter and less complicated talk. Originally I titled it "An Update on Obsolete Theory", but I've reconsidered. (...)
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Planning, Scheduling, and Forecasting

Hal — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 04:20:25 +0000

Glen Alleman took me to task for yesterday's posting Misunderstanding Project Planning as Anticipation. He wrote a rather comprehensive rebuttal to my claim that the general understanding of planning is as anticipating a future. Glen makes a good case that best practice — at least in DoD projects — doesn't misunderstand planning. Since I've only worked at one defense contractor, I won't contradict him. I will say that my experience of the everyday practice of planning is as I described. Project managers/planners usually take an approach that limits alternatives concluding with "the plan". The plan is then represented as a CPM schedule. I don't argue with Glen that this is inadequate, nor am I saying that some people know better AND do something different. I am saying that the usual practice is to have a smart experienced person create a plan that is then represented as a schedule for others to follow. That is a practice that must change if we want better project performance. (...)
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A New Idea…Can I Face the Pain?

Hal — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 02:37:25 +0000

Article Series - Notes on Obsolete Project Management Theory

I read the following quote from Walter Bagehot in Time Magazine's end-of-year farewell to John Kenneth Galbraith.

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea."

The quote reminds me of the theory-trap we are in with projects. So with this posting I am updating my Notes on the Underlying Theory of Project Management is Obsolete.

While our tools are ever more sophisticated and there is more project management training, our project results languish. The new idea — projects are conducted in an unfolding network of commitments — challenges the very nature of what people do today in the project setting. The PMI is going to great lengths to teach people the old ideas.¹ In essence saying, "Just get good at doing what we've been telling you to do all along and your projects will come out just fine." Following that teaching with certification is producing a world-wide paradigm that is having the affect of blinding practitioners to alternative ideas (theories). In the face of that, the agilists are dealing with the pain of their new ideas; so are those adopting lean construction.(...)
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What Project Planning Approach Improves Construction Safety?

Hal — Sun, 03 Dec 2006 21:41:10 +0000

Article Series - Improving Construction Safety

The Key to Improve Construction Safety
What Project Planning Approach Improves Construction Safety?

Some people think that construction safety is a matter of establishing safety as a value. If people value safety, those people argue, then workers will work safely. While that might be true, we don't have time for that. It can take years to establish a value for anything. The task of producing the value for safety becomes more difficult with new people always being introduced to the construction environment. We need to improve safety immediately. And we can.

While most planning approaches define what should be done that is insufficient to assure work will be done.

In the previous post in this series I said we need to follow the rule to only do work that is in a condition to be started and finished. But how do we do that without impacting productivity? Working to the safety rule is supported by a process for making work ready.

Making work ready — including all aspects for working safely — is an aspect of the planning system. While most planning approaches define what should be done that is insufficient to assure work will be done.(...)
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