Archive for the 'PM practice' Category

Construction is dangerous work. Have you heard someone say that? Have you said that? We accept that construction workers put themselves at risk. Why? Maybe it's because construction workers keep getting hurt. We're just buying into the common sense. I've done that. Have you?

A Portland, Maine landscape construction worker died. He was sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck. The tailgate gave way. He hit his head. Three days later he died. OSHA fined the company $3,550 for contributing to an unsafe work setting. [See story] My first reaction was You gotta be kiddin'! But I wasn't there. I don't know the conditions of the work site. I've learned OSHA is quite deliberate in assessing fines. How could this have happened?

Here's one theory. [Remember, I don't know the specific circumstances.] I call it a confluence of unsafe conditions. When one unsafe condition is present with another, and another, and … then you have a site that is ready for an accident. The frayed extension cord, in the presence of an 8-foot ladder, next to a few pieces of extra rebar can be a deadly setting. Each one is rather benign. Taken together we can imagine a situation where a brief interruption in power could result in a jerk on the power cord which comes in contact with the ladder sending the worker falling onto the rebar. Far-fetched? Not at all.

Our complacency is the leading contributor to construction worker injuries. We can't let there be rebar lying around. We can't have a worker on an 8-foot ladder unattended. We can't have frayed power cords on our worksites. Yet, too often we tolerate each one of these problems. None may be a threat, but taken together they contribute to 3 deaths everyday.

Next time you're on a job site look for the "little things". Stop. Do something to remove the hazard. There is a child somewhere expecting a parent to come home. Do your part to see that the worker does go home.

Read Safety Everyday's construction safety in the news sideblog.

Are you a project manager? or project leader? or both? I don't mean to play word games. I usually hear the senior person on a project refer to him or herself as PM. Barbara Fitzgerald commented on the ZweigWhite posting, "(Calling a project manager 'PM') is what allows others in the organization to turn the Project Manager into a blank projection screen." Harsh? Maybe, but project managers as Rodney Dangerfield says, "…just don't get no respect." Our conversation this week with Rob Galford suggests why that is the case.

Rob is the co-author with Anne Seibold Drapeau of the book The Trusted Leader. [book summary by QuickMBA] This past Thursday I interviewed Rob on the Project Leaders' Studio™ monthly call with project authors. Rob and Anne wrote the book in the context of the leaders of companies. After meeting Rob and reading and re-reading his book I saw opportunities for people leading temporary organizations…projects. Rob and Anne have done a good job presenting models for assessing and developing your trustworthiness and for building trust in your project organization.

I've been writing about trust, trusting, trust-worthiness, and restoring trust for quite some time. This interview with Rob is just another stop along the way. Back in October '03 I introduced The Trust Test along with Rob's and Anne's equation for assessing trust. In December '03 I wrote about Rob's and Anne's model for Building Personal Trust. In my posting Story-Telling Reforms the Project I claimed we produce alignment among the team as a basis for trusting each others' intentions. In November '03 I showed my exasperation in my comments on Michael Sheering's Trust Is Crucial in Project Coordination. Finally, any long-standing reader knows of my fondness of Fernando Flores' perspective on trust. As Patrick Lencioni points out in the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, trust is the foundational competence for team performance.

So what did I learn in the conversation with Rob? I'd read the book (three times) and listened to him speak once. Still, the conversation reminded me of one of Fernando Flores' key points on trust. If you want to increase trust you must talk about trust. Rob Galford is talking about trust…and then he went one step further. Rob and Anne took a subject that appears just beyond our grasp and gave us a handle for taking action. The simplicity of the equation for personal trust reveals the insight of the writers.

If you haven't taken the trust test, then do it today. And then go sign-up for Rob's and Anne's monthly newsletter Topics of Trust and Leadership. You won't be disappointed. And for a little more fun read a quick summary of the enemies of trust and this enemies of trust excerpt.

Catch a preview of our conversation with Rob Galford by reading the weLEAD interview. You'll read about Rob's and Anne's backgrounds and what they call the enemies of trust. We hope you can join us for our telecall on Thursday June 24 at 1:00 - 2:15 PM Eastern. If you haven't signed up, do so now by visiting Project Authors' Series. We'll listen for you…

We're having the last of our telecalls with project authors this Thursday, June 24, 2004, from 1:00 - 2:15 PM Eastern. If you've missed the prior telecalls then get over to Conversations with Project Authors to sign-up. We're tackling the topic of being a trusted leader. We will be having a conversation with authors Rob Galford and Anne Drapeau Seibold.

The authors have done a great job in The Trusted Leader of presenting the challenges and avenues for developing oneself as a trusted leader. I won't say more here. Get over to their website The Trusted Leader. While you're there look at Trust Topics and take the Trust Test.

Again, if you have signed up for the series get over to Conversations with Project Authors to do so now! Now that you've done all that, leave your questions for the authors as a comment at the end of this posting. We'll do our best to get your questions answered.

Have you ever read Contractor Mag.com? It's the news magazine for the Mechanical Contracting (plumbing and HVAC) industry. H. Kent Craig writes a regular column titled Craig on Project Management. In today's column Craig's article is titled, The New Project Management Paradigm. Here's how it opens:

"HOLD ON TO YOUR hats for the big winds of change headed our way sometime in the next couple decades in the way jobs are run and buildings built. The traditional sequence of "design-build-validate" project management, which has been the mainstay — if not the only way — jobs have been built for the past 100 years, has now become a suicidal strategy."

Among other things, Craig argues that buildings cost too much. That alone may bring about a change in project management. Read the article for the rest of the argument.

Mark Zweig, guru to the AE industry, noticed there just aren't enough good project managers. Writing in his Zweig Letter Mark offered four reasons and three recommendations. I urge you to take his views seriously even if you don't agree. Mark has a knack of getting to the heart of a subject. And he does so with few words. Mark graciously allowed me to republish his essay. Following Mark's writing is my commentary.

Editorial: Not enough good project managers?

This article first appeared in The Zweig Letter (ISSN 1068-1310) Issue # 566.
Originally published 06/14/04

Instead of lamenting the lack of good PMs, leaders should focus on why that's the case.

My theory is that no firm is completely happy with how it handles project management. There are always problems. And one of the common complaints heard is, "We don't have enough good project managers."

While I will accept that as fact — i.e., A/E/P and environmental firms DON'T have enough good project managers — it may be helpful to explore the question of WHY that's the case. Here are my thoughts:

Project manager is a very difficult job.
There's no doubt about it — being a PM is a tough role. As a PM, you may get responsibility for completing a job you didn't start. A lot of bad decisions could have been made that you will have to live with. The fee allocated to do the work may be too low. The client could be impossible to please, yet your job is to please them. You could be stuck with a team of low performers and not have the authority to get rid of them. The job you are assigned to manage may be one of 10 jobs that you are responsible for managing. Your computer system may not support moving the work around the firm to get it completed by those best qualified to do it. There just isn't enough time, money, or manpower to do the job properly. The fact is, project manager is probably the most difficult job in the firm to do well for any number of reasons.

Project manager is a thankless job — at least internally.
Not only is being a PM a tough job, but you get very little appreciation from your firm for doing it. If the budgets are routinely exceeded, deliverables late, or quality lacking for any number of reasons, it's no wonder PMs are not universally lauded in our firms. The fact that many, if not all, of these things were not/are not under the control of the PM is not usually brought up when top management is griping about it, or when other employees who aren't project managers are looking for someone to blame about their lack of a bonus. The good news for PMs is that they can at least get some positive feedback from the client. As the lead person handling the project from the A/E/P or environmental firm, they are also in the best position to see the firm's successes from the client's point of view. That's tremendously gratifying.

Project managers have to be tethered to the office.
While most everyone these days in any position of responsibility in a design or consulting firm has to accept more intrusion of work time into personal time (especially if we let personal time intrude on work time occasionally!), project managers probably face more of this than anyone else.

Clients expect an immediate response to every question. Team members need to be informed of changes in direction immediately. Contractors with questions in the field need an immediate response. The need for rapid-fire response requires that the cell phone be turned on and the BlackBerry be constantly checked. And this level of connectedness can create stress in your personal life.

The higher education system doesn't turn out project managers.
What the system does tend to turn out are experts (if you can call anyone with a technical degree an "expert"). What I mean by "expert," is someone with specific technical knowledge in a particular engineering/design/scientific discipline.

NO amount of technical knowledge, however, is a replacement for being able to communicate, being able to work well with others, or being able to solve complex problems.

These are the skills that are essential to being a good project manager, and they really are not emphasized in the typical engineering, architecture, or science education. The reasons for that are many? employers want people with certain training, accreditation boards drive higher-ed institution curriculums in certain directions, and academics often lack real-world work experience.

If we want to solve the problem of not enough good project managers in our firms, we are going to have to do some things differently. That includes making the job as easy as we can for our PMs by giving them some permanently assigned staff resources, fixing accounting policies that don't reinforce resource sharing, and building intelligent wide area networks.

We need to thank our effective PMs for the amazing job they do, and we need to get those who don't do so well into roles that they can be successful filling. We need to make sure we don't have overly restrictive policies on work hours or absences during the day if we expect on-call response from the PMs 24/7.

And we need to make sure we can tell people what the PM role is and provide some good guidance to those who want to succeed as project managers? not allowing them to go on with a dysfunctional idea that it is less important than the technical stuff they do. All of these things will help!? M.Z. (mzweig@zweigwhite.com)

The above was Mark's views. Now my commentary. Please join in with your own in a comment at the end of this posting.

• Project manager is a very difficult job.
  Mark offers a litany of usual circumstances that make the role difficult. I'll add three more:
  1. The firm lacks standard practices for organizing teams and delivering projects relying instead on the idiosyncrasies of project managers.
  2. There are no practices for learning from one project to the next.
  3. Team members are isolated from one another performing one task after the other on one project to the next.

  The job is difficult enough. And then we add to it!

• Project manager is a thankless job — at least internally.
  Appreciation and acknowledgement are easy to do. But the project manager too often only hears the griping…from the team, from the customer, from the management, and to top it off from his or her family for doing all of what is necessary to get the job done while missing or being late for one precious family event after another.
• Project managers have to be tethered to the office.
  The always-on always-available project manager is the current standard. This undoubtedly has a toll on the individual. And the uncertainty and ever-changing situation of AE projects demands nothing less.
• The higher education system doesn't turn out project managers.
  This is the big issue. Architects, engineers, and planners are not being prepared for the role they play as project managers. Worse, the preparation available is having little to no effect on project performance. As Mark says technical expertise is no replacement for communication skills, relating to others, and solving complex problems. And so often projects require all three at once in the form of collaboration.

Mark offers three recommendations for managers of AE firms. Building on those I will

• Make the project manager job easier. Adjust policies and systems to suit their tasks and challenges.
  Ask the projects managers what dissatisfies them. Then address each one.
• Thank project managers for the amazing job they do.
  Take care of your project managers. Stay close to them. Not to keep track of their actions, but to see they are getting what they need. And that includes telling them how well they are doing and how much you appreciate them. The Gallup organization claims that people only consistently perform at high levels when they are appreciated at least once every 7 days.
• Provide guidance on the role of project manager.
  Make it a point to understand the day-to-day nature of the role. There is nothing more important than communication. See that project managers have exceptional communication skills. See that company practices support everyday good communications.

The project manager role doesn't have to be difficult, thankless, or restraining. Projects are the exciting work of organizations. Make the time to support your project managers.

There's another Safety Thursday initiative. It's run by Landstar. Safety Thursday Calls: dial 877-717-5921 at noon Eastern on the third Thursday of each month for a discussion of safety. I've yet to participate. Client meetings have kept me away.

How about a few readers joining this month and then leaving comments on this weblog. The next meeting is June 17th. No need to make a reservation. Mark your calendar and call in.

I'm reluctantpleased to write about Business 2.0 articles since the publishers decided to restrict access to open the website. But Jeffrey Pfeffer is always a good read. He doesn't disappoint in his June '04 article How to Turn On the Charm.

Show a little courtesy; it pays off!

Paying attention to other people, in addition to being the best way to learn from them, happens to be one of the most powerful means of influencing them. And influencing others is what leadership is about — getting other people to get things done.

Courtesy pays off! People stand ready to serve you when you show respect and serve them. Didn't we learn this in kindergarten? Probably not! My current beef is with Blackberry-toting email-obsessive executives who constantly multi-task conversations and replying to whatever shows up on their screen.

Show a little courtesy. Give those around you your full attention. There's no telling what you will learn if you put your attention on listenting.

Silence is the principal source of dysfunction in organizations.

Clarke Ching sent along the latest VitalSmarts whitepaper Silence Kills, by Joseph Grenny. The paper is one in a series on Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, Patterson, et al. I've authored a paper with Greg Howell on wastes in organizations and on projects. There certainly is no greater waste than death. Greg and I argue that the two sources of great waste are not speaking and not listening. While you'll have to wait for publication of our paper on August 3rd, don't wait reading Grenny's take on silence.

Silence is the principal source of dysfunction in organizations. Using examples of deaths in hospitals, the downfall of companies, and the gross tragedy of the Columbia shuttle, Grenny describes how a habit of silence during crucial conversations kills.

Choose speaking rather than silence to keep people alive.

Everyday on jobsites people avoid speaking about hazards, the recklessness of others' actions, and the inattention to the sanctity of life. The consequence of that silence is 1,300 injuries and 3 deaths each day. I've been quick to place responsibility for that silence at the feet of management. Grenny reports on a study of hand-washing in hospitals. The single greatest factor in having medical staff wash their hands at the appropriate frequency is the hand-washing example set by the senior staff. It is not training, nor is it the availability of sinks. What safety example do you set when you walk a site, in your conversations with workers, and in the actions you take? If we can generalize from hospital hand-washing, then your conversations and actions have more significance to the safety on the jobsite than the safety program.

Having said that, silence is a choice. What is the threshold at which we refuse to remain silent. Is it self interest? Must your life be threatened before you cross that threshold? Or, can you choose to speak at the first recognition that we are not doing all we can to care for the sanctity of all life? Can you do that? Sure you can. And I can. And everyone on our jobsites can.

We lack neither the know-how, nor the capability — speaking — for avoiding the needless deaths of construction workers. Perhaps, it is only a lack of love that is preventing those deaths. Love is the one resource with an endless supply. Giving love creates more love. Show your love to keep everyone safe. Choose speaking rather than silence.

Tom Peters has joined the Blogging Revolution. Bookmark this site. Really. Yes, Tom Peters can be cranky. Yes, he can be iconoclastic. But Tom Peters is not to be ignored. If you are running projects, leading people, or managing a business, then you MUST read Tom Peters.

Last week I attended Coachville's Third Annual Conference. I so love hanging out with coaches. The perspective, compassion, and curiosity of coaches inspires. The theme for the conference is the business of coaching. Does it surprise you that we spoke repeatedly of love?

One of the highlights was the keynote address by Tim Sanders, Love Cat. This guy is one amazing person. Tim is the author of the best-selling book on business Love is the Killer App. That's right, it's a book on business…the philosophy behind Southwest Airlines, SAS, and Yahoo! Here are my notes. Enjoy.

The only purpose to lead or coach is to change the world. It's a hero's journey. Every good leader and coach is a life-long learner.

Get the right paradigm…abundance. Faith drives it. Choose to be a good human being. Scarcity comes from reality minus perspective. It works in the short term. Fear predominates. Abundance is synchronized with the information world. Abundance is the driver of increasing returns.

Take the right prescription.

• Aggregate and share knowledge.
  Be a student. Inspire people to be students again. Read. People don't read because people aren't held accountable to read. Give a book not a box of chocolates. "Leaders are readers."
• Network.
  Your network is your network. Develop it. It is the greatest asset to share. Take serious delight by putting two people who wouldn't have come together without expecting anything in return. "Invest in others' success."
• Have compassion.
  "In a dog-eat-dog world it's better to be a (love) cat." Achievement breeds the situation for loving again. Appreciate and acknowledge others. Listen generously.

Tim has a simple and powerful message that applies to the project world. Successful project managers are leaders and coaches. Choose the paradigm of abundance and the love cat prescription.

This posting was inspired by Peter Drucker's Manager's Journal article in the June 1, 2004 Wall Street Journal titled The Rules of Executive Class. The article was adapted from his article "What Makes an Effective Executive" appearing in the June issue of the Harvard Business Review. Mr. Drucker argues that effective executives don't need to be charismatic out-going leaders. Who am I to argue with Peter Drucker? So I won't. I'll use his eight prescribed practices to develop a list for those people who are in the role of project executive.

What is a project executive? I first heard the term only 5 years ago. While I haven't done any research on it my anecdotal experience suggests that more and more people are finding themselves in that role. Some companies are using the title to give status or to recognize the competence and increased responsibilities of a project manager. It falls in the line of assistant PM, project manager, Sr. PM, and project executive. The term even has its own abbreviation: PX. I propose we use the role to describe responsibilities for client relationship, growth or development of project managers, selection of project team members, and overall functioning of project teams. Mr. Drucker says effective executives all follow the same eight practices. The italicized statement at the beginning of each list item is by Peter Drucker. The text that follows is mine. Consider it one run-on Project e-Tip!

• Ask "What needs to be done?" Project executives are not the doers on any project. Still, project team members can get in a rut of doing what they have been doing. Or worse, doing what the plan says to do. Every day is a new day. Project team members learn, innovate, and face the unexpected. The PX can bring a perspective that shifts the drift of the project.
• Ask "What is right for the (project)?" Projects are single-purpose networks of commitment undertaken by temporary social systems. It is easy to imagine constituencies pursuing what is right only for them without regard to what is right for the project as a whole. As temporary organizations it might be hard to uncover the differences in the aims of the constituencies. Use your role as PX to bring the intentions of the many into alignment with the aims of the project.
• Develop (project) plans. This is where the PX can shine. Mr. Drucker describes action plans as "statements of intention that need to be revised" as people have success or failure with the plan. The same is true for project plans. Project teams need help adjusting and revising project plans as they learn and innovate.
• Take responsibility for decisions. Selecting people for projects is one of the more important roles of the PX. It is neither art nor science. It's more like a crap-shoot. While we might try to follow a rule of assigning roles based on strengths, talents, and interests, we can make mistakes in our assessments. Own up quickly to your project organization decisions. Temporary organizations can't tolerate the inaction when it comes to team members that are not performing as needed.
• Take responsibility for communicating. One common sense view of communication is as information needs. Projects have different communication needs. The need is for the everyday functioning of the commitment-making and keeping practices of the team. The strength of the project team is developed in the network of commitment on the project. See to it that people have the habit of making and securing reliable promises.
• Focus on opportunities, not problems. Project teams are notorious for spending the bulk of their time dealing with what didn't go right yesterday. That focus on problem-solving gets in the way of pursuing the opportunities that just might allow the team to avoid problems. Let's not be naive to think the team can do this all by themselves. Make it a point to start your interactions with project team members with a conversation about the opportunities they see, then help the team pursue those opportunities.
• Make (project) meetings productive. Meetings are meetings are meetings. Right? Wrong! Design meetings for well-targeted purposes. Separate the meeting to review and adjust the project plan from the meeting to negotiate the work plan for the coming week. Have a stand-up five to ten minute meeting every day conducted by the PM or superintendent to hear reports of what was accomplished as promised and what is needed to fulfill the open promises. Bring an interest in learning to all of the meetings, but take time out on a regular basis for special sessions to explore how learnings can be exploited during the balance of the project.
• Think and say "We." The PX role is there to take care of the needs of the project team and the customer. Always put those needs and interests before your own interests.

Mr. Drucker offered a bonus practice he suggests executives take as a rule. Listen first; speak last. Ditto. Thank you Mr. Drucker!

Someone please send this along to Mr. Henshaw. I don't have his email address.

On May 18th, the US House of Representatives passed legislation reducing OSHA's role making it easy on employers. The bill is not predicted to pass in the Senate. Still, in the face of continued deaths and injuries I wonder just what Congress is thinking. I have been a critic of OSHA for negotiating the terms of violations and the subsequent penalties. Repeat offenders seem to create a large percentage of the incidents. Certainly the annual statistics indicate we aren't making any real progress with construction safety. Yet, there is an approach that is resulting in significantly better safety performance. Here's my plan:

OSHA needs to spend time with companies that are doing well. Let's have a working session among firms whose experience modifier ratio is 0.6 or below. We need to learn how they got there and what they are doing to continue to improve.

Get companies on OSHA's VPP - Voluntary Protection Program. The VPP recognizes companies for the safe environment they maintain by exempting them from OSHA inspections. This frees OSHA's limited staff to spend their time with other companies while creating work environments that are far safer.

Adopt a requirement for doing business with the US government. A minimum qualification is to have an EMR of less than 0.85. This would go for all contractors and subcontractors on a project — NO EXCEPTIONS. If you want to do business with the government then you must be safe.

Encourage companies to train their workers to work at the edge of safety. Construction work is hazardous. Programs that stress avoidance of hazard miss an important element. At one time or another people will be faced with needing to act in the moment to protect themselves or others. People need to be trained to fall. They need to be trained to function in precarious situations. We train police to drive fast. We need to train construction workers to effectively perform during the most unsafe of times.

Treat all construction work like you would getting ready for pouring concrete. The consequences of not seeing that all conditions have been addressed are severe…the concrete would need to be removed. Consequently, people go to an extreme to see that the site is in a ready state for the pour. That isn't just a process of checking and re-checking. It involves having processes, protocols, standard practices, and training that supports performing work in ways that the site will be ready for the pour. These are the same actions that will keep people safe across the jobsite. The Last Planner System™ is one successful approach for achieving the result.

Adopt a two-strike policy for all workers. Some people just won't learn and maybe we just don't know how to teach. Either way, we can't allow people to be on our sites who work unsafely. Doing so jeopardizes others on the site. It is not responsible of us to allow that to continue.

Spanish speaking people are dying at two to three times their representation in the workforce. We can make inferences as to why this is occurring. Language and training are certainly keys. We cannot have the situation where people are unable to look after each other. At a minimum work crews need foremen and lead hands who speak Spanish and English.

Finally, mete out heavy penalties to the repeat offenders. Willful negligence that leads to a death carries a far smaller penalty than the white collar crime of cooking the books. This has to change.

I don't claim that this plan is the best plan. I do claim that we can make great strides beginning down the path. Please, please let's come together to try. Daddies and mommies don't need to die. And please, let's not wait for OSHA to act. If my plan makes any sense to you, then put at least that part into action. And if you want some help, just write me at hal@halmacomber.com.

Read Safety Everyday's construction safety in the news sideblog.

Jim Womack, co-author of The Machine that Changed the World and Lean Thinking, joined Greg Howell and me and dozens more for a 75 minute concall. Right off the bat Jim teased us with his announcement that a new book is in the works to be published in the fall. No title as of yet, but he's dealing with the subject of lean consumption. What he means by that will have to wait. (I hope to offer a preview on this page.)

We did record the session. You can listen by calling 405-244-4000, Box 199. The recordng will be available until the next teleconference. (Sorry for the first few minutes of confusion on the recording.)

Jim acknowledged his inattention to the world of projects. Even so, he offered insights that are instructive to all of us attempting to do our projects more reliably and without waste. Two comments stood out for me. First, even the best intentioned companies struggle to accomplish a lean transformation. The "common sense" of economies of scale, mass production, and the pursuit of local productivity gains pervades. Second, just getting something started takes lean leadership — someone with enough respect and clout bringing a sense of urgency — otherwise you can expect just curious experiments.

One of our questions was about the eighth waste. Jim and Dan Jones have been quoted as changing their view. Not so. In the first edition of Lean Thinking the authors called the eighth waste providing something that the client didn't value. In the second edition the authors spoke about the underutilization of human potential as a key concern. In no way did they intend to give the impression that they were abandoning the described eighth waste.

Those are my highlights. Now let's hear from some of the other participants. Please leave your comments.

Next up: Rob Galford and Anne Seibold Drapeau speaking about their book The Trusted Leader. Read this review. Mark your calendar for June 24th, 1:00 - 2:15 PM Eastern. If you haven't signed up for the series then do so now by visiting Conversations with Project Authors. I had the pleasure of meeting Rob at a breakfast session. Not only will the conversation be practical it will be provocative.

Projects @ Work relaunched recently as an online only (for now) offering. Aaron Smith is the editor and publisher. In his commentary yesterday, Bad News Bears Repeating, Aaron claims we place too much emphasis on process and not enough on the people using the process. It's a nice piece worth your attention.

If you've been following the Safety Everyday sideblog you've noticed numerous trench accidents and deaths. OSHA usually finds contractors in some way responsible. It ranges from willful disregard of regulations to poor training. I have a different take. The planning system performance plays a big role.

People are starting work before the tasks are ready to be started AND completed. Trenches are dug when excavators are available. Or, the work has gotten behind, so in an attempt to catch up people begin work without planning for it. Trenches stay open while the rest of the work is prepared. Everyday the trench is open the walls degrade. A trench is a hazard. Working in a trench is risky. Spreading that work over a series of days is significantly more dangerous than getting in and out on one day. That is compounded by similar poorly prepared tasks that are started around the trench. At some point there is a network effect. The confluence of small issues "tips" the site to a dangerous situation.

Construction work is hazardous. We expose our workers unnecessarily to further hazard due to the failure of work not being prepared and other work not finishing reliably as promised. It's time to get serious about only asking people to do work that is in a condition to start and complete uninterrupted.

Read Safety Everyday's construction safety in the news sideblog.