“Usually mass production raises costs.” Taiichi Ohno
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ISSN: 1557-9212
Reforming Project Management (RPM) is a magazine for those of us who are unsettled with common practice. The current focus is on the design and construction industry, however we call on the best of project management from all disciplines and practices.
While RPM started as a personal weblog, we welcome others to contribute articles and to join authors here in co-blogging activities. Please contact us with your proposals.
Many thanks go to Kim Black for her technical support in publishing this magazine.
The taglines under the "Reforming Project Management" header are from books by Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo, all published by Productivity Press.
Last Planner is a registered trademark of the Lean Construction Institute, www.leanconstruction.org. Essential Conversations, Responsibility-based Project Delivery, Study-Action Team and Good 5 Why are trademarks of Lean Project Consulting, Inc., www.leanproject.com.
© 2005, 2009 All content is available for republishing with permission.
RPM is published by Hal Macomber, White Mtns., NH 03223 603-726-5051.
These ten ideas will dramatically improve your projects. Are these ten rules the top ten? You decide. But don't take too long. Share these rules with your team. Your team members are sure to help you carry them out!
I did an interview with Bas de Baar via Skype video. We discussed how my company is using collaborative tools in support of our clients' projects. Enjoy!
Did you catch the Foreword to In Pursuit of Elegance
The Lean Project Coaches hit the 50 posts mark on Friday. Quite a milestone for just 6 weeks blogging at Coaches Corner. They are writing on all aspects of lean projects. Tap into that for your projects.
Chris Slivon shares a bit of her journey in being a lean coach in the post
Knowing and Not Knowing where she and others write for Lean Project Consulting's Coaches Corner.
Daily improvement to make our jobs safer, easier and more interesting is a corner-stone for Toyota. My colleague Rebecca Bettler describes how Quick 'n'Easy Kaizen is even more powerful when it's team sport. Read A Hidden Beauty...
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Learn about the TWI approach from the only Senior Master Trainer in the US. Patrick Graupp will introduce you to this landmark program: Webinar.
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Adopt this mnemonic for your project environment. Thanks Matt for writing about it.
Raven is consolidating project management hash tags for use on Twitter. Thank you Raven!
Read the latest story of how green meets lean, or should I say kaizen? It's a Wall St Journal article that you don't want to miss.
It irks me when people play games with their writing. It wastes the readers' time, turns them off to what one has to say, and creates idealogical warfares. Write clearly...for the readers. Sorry for this outburst. Let's speak (and write) so we can be understood. Our projects will benefit from that.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Hi Hal,
I’m a new reader so let me introduce myself. My name is João (the same as John) Petrocelle and I’m a 34 years old Construction Manager from São Paulo, Brazil. I have almost 10 years of experience as a Project Manager of construction projects in Brazil like Supermarkets, Data centers, Malls and Warehouses. I’m also a PMP and I have been studying Lean Construction for the last 4 months from now, reading some of the most important short papers by the authors: Koskella, Howell, Ballard and Formoso, etc…. My future intention is to write a Graduate (masters) paper on Planning and Control new approaches like the Last Planner in opposition to CPM, Cost Quality Time trade off Triangle, EV etc….,but I’m still struggling with the initial ideas, questions and definitions. One of these questions I would really like to share with you.
Here in Brazil the Design Build model of contracts in non-Residential constructions (the market I work in) is beginning to become the mainstream model. Turn Key is beginning to be abandoned for Fixed Price plus incentive Fee contracts. And designs and specs of the tenders are becoming more and more incomplete, for example: im am working on a R$ 72 million project (40 million USD) that was closed with only two or tree architectural blueprints and a few specs soli conditions, etc… The design is done by the main contractor like a normal Design Build premise.
I would really like to understand (if it exists) and establish a connection between Design Build Contracts and the need in these type of contracts for more empowered and collaborative approaches of Planning, Execution and Control like LPS. Is this true on your opinion? If so can you exemplify why? Is there any work on this theme?
In Construction Management here in Brazil, we face and suffer a great contradiction. The model of contracts is getting newer and more agile (of course; it is done by young financial and law experts). But planning, control and executing mistakes still ends with finger pointing (an old paradigm, i guess more close to the design bid build form of contract).
I would really like your comment on that.
Please write if in any point I didn’t make myself clear.
Thanks in advance