Lps New Users Guide [lpc].pdf

A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner™ System Nine Steps for Success (Second Draft)

Gregory L. Howell, P.E. Hal Macomber Lean Project Consulting, Inc November 18, 2002

©2002 Lean Project Consulting, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. www.leanproject.com 208-726-9989. Last Planner System is a trademark of the Center for Innovation in Project and Production Management, d.b.a. Lean Construction Institute, www.leanconstruction.org.

A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner System

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Nine Steps for Success

This guide addresses  When to use the LPS vs. other lean approaches  Step-by-step implementation plan  Improving upon the implementation  Teamwork, Trust, and Fear  Organization conditions for success (support, leadership, etc) We have also included a glossary, references, other implementation practices, and leadership and best practices appendices. Notes to Readers Italicized text is used throughout this document to designate glossary items. You will find definitions in a Glossary at the end of the book. This guide complements the coaching-by-email program Your First 30 Days on the Last Planner System. You will find references to the daily lessons in brackets throughout the text indicating more information is available in the lesson. [5] is a reference to the Day Five lesson.

When to use the Last Planner™ System The Last Planner System was designed for projects longer than eight weeks and where a number of people are required to fulfill the promises for the customer. For the uncomplicated projects the practices can be carried out on white boards. As scope, complexity, and duration increase, automation tools are necessary to do a comprehensive job of planning. Initially those tools could be a set of spreadsheets. Eventually project management environments such as MS Project are required. In either case the project can be broken into smaller projects to aid in managing. At the highest end of complexity, scope, and duration, you may want to consider web-based tools. For those projects that are short in duration, limited in scope and complexity, and where there are only two or three participants, consider using a less formal approach for planning and managing the project.

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A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner System

9 Steps for Success We can’t claim a proven path for implementing the LPS on your project. However, we can say a best practice is evolving. We have observed a set of practices that generally work. Start with these. This chapter is organized in 9 steps. The sections are both progressive: do one before the other, and they are intended to be pervasive: keep doing it throughout the project. Before jumping into the 9 steps, start by reviewing our best advice: get off to a good start.

Top Five Actions for Getting Off to a Good Start 1. Give yourself and your team the opportunity to behave as beginners. By that we mean you may find the practices to be awkward; they may take you more time than you want to take; and you may find you must revisit work that you thought was complete. You may also need to seek out help from people experienced with the LPS. 2. Don’t pretend that you already do the LPS practices. You’ll only short change the project, your team, and yourself. You may already do some of the practices, but it is the set of practices that makes the difference. 3. Don’t be concerned with understanding. Understanding will come with practice. Taking time now to understand before you act only delays being in action and there are some things that are just not possible to see or understand until they are experienced. 4. Don’t be concerned with looking good. You won’t look good if your attention is on learning. Make it your goal to make your make mistakes early and often. 5. Take care of mood of the team and your mood. We learn best when we are in moods of openness, wonder, playfulness, and appreciation. Beware of the moods of resignation, panic, arrogance, and complacency. Check in frequently. Speak about your own mood and invite team members to do the same.

Now you’re ready to begin!

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Nine Steps for Success

Step 1: Clarify the Promises of the Project with the Customer Projects are promises. Usually big promises or, they are a set of promises. Some people think that once you clarify the customer requirements, then that is it. Experience tells us otherwise. People change their minds. We learn; the situation changes; and background concerns and issues change, get resolved, and simply go away. Clarifying customer concerns and requirements is an on-going practice. Some changes, of course, can be addressed within the definition of the project and with the available resources. Other changes add scope and risk. In these situations you may need to establish new budgets, schedules, and contract terms. Meet on a regular schedule with your customer. Establish an agenda that includes:    

Your key assessments of the project (risks, opportunities, and performance to plan) Investigation of your customer’s satisfaction (example coming) Review the promises of the project for clarity and recommitment Discussion that your customer be responsible and reliable with their commitments

Agree to a schedule for regular meetings. For projects with more than 4 last planners consider having a pre-meeting to the weekly work planning meeting to address the constraints. Make it your job that these meetings occur. Anything might seem more urgent than a standing meeting, until something has gone wrong on the project. These meetings will provide the opportunity for you to develop a trusting relationship with your customer. Don’t short-change yourself. Step 2: Build Your Team Building a team starts with selecting people who are well-suited for the project and who want to be on the project. Nothing beats a team whose members want to perform and are capable of doing so. Too often teams are established with whoever is available at the moment without regard to what the people are good at, what they enjoy doing, what else they are involved in, and the extent to which they care about the mission of the project. The dirty little secret behind many project failures is the use of full time equivalent people. When a team is staffed with FTEs you are resigning yourselves to multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is one of the top three sources of project unreliability. Some might say that any engineer is better than no engineer. On the other hand, an engineer who is enthusiastic, competent, and dedicated will make a real difference on your project. Further, teams develop a working style. Having people coming and going from your team will be disruptive and is generally ineffective.

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A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner System

Building a team is an on-going process. How team members coordinate with each other requires continued attention. So does the mood of each individual and the mood or spirit of the team. People fall (or drift) into bad moods. Those moods show up in the conversations, “Ain’t it awful…” “It wasn’t our fault…” “We did our best…” “Who could have known…” and my favorite “There’s nothing we can do about it…” The leader and team members can take responsibility for producing moods that are appropriate for the task at hand. When in planning conversations moods of ambition and prudence may be appropriate. When working on resolving a breakdown you may want your team in moods of determination and seriousness. Don’t let the project get away from you; take charge of the mood. You take charge in the assessments you make. People get lazy with their assessments often thinking their first reaction is the ‘right’ one. Teams depend on the assessments of the leader. When we take the time to craft assessments we respect the members of the team while creating the opportunity for success. Explore your assessments with your team. Invite them to improve upon your assessment rather than agreeing or disagreeing with you. The assessments we make open and close possibilities. Use the practice of crafting your assessments to increase the possibilities for action.1 Step 3: Establish a Milestone Plan and Pull Schedule The production system to complete the work required to complete a milestone is designed by pull scheduling. The people responsible for the work in the phase prepare the pull schedule. The resulting plan is detailed to show the hand-offs between trades or groups of specialists, but not so detailed as to show the work within a group. Pull scheduling begins by starting from the ending milestone and working backward. The person responsible for the milestone establishes the milestone completion criteria and explains how it supports the project promise. The process works best by placing a card representing the milestone, its completion criteria and its link to the project promise on cards at the far right side of a blank wall. Then, working back from the ending milestone, activities are added by the Responsible Individuals (RIs) present (or provisionally by others if they are not)2. Specific conditions for the release of work between activities must be described so that upstream participants know what they must do to complete their work so that the downstream activity can begin. The pull schedule should answer the following questions;

 In what chunks will work be assigned to specialists? 1

Example: The client changes his mind about one of his conditions of satisfaction. You might be inclined to think the customer is flaky. What action is opened by that? You might decide you have to pin the customer down on requirements. On the other hand, you might conclude the customer is learning what he could be getting. Your action in this case is to help the customer learn faster. Crafting assessments with your team, gives you the chance to choose the more powerful of assessments. 2 Every effort should be made to assure the RI supervising each activity in the phase is present. The Pull Schedule should not be considered complete until these parties have carefully considered the Pull Schedule, understood the criteria expected for the release of work to them and from them to the next activity, and agree that they can do their work within the time allowed.

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Nine Steps for Success

 How will work chunks be sequenced?  How will work be released from one production unit to the next?  Will consecutive production units execute work in a continuous flow process or will their work be de-coupled?

 Where will de-coupling buffers be needed and how should they be sized?  How will tolerances be managed?  When will different chunks of work be done? Once the structure of work in the phase is firm and activities are identified, the RI for each establishes durations. The RI should be reasonably confident that the duration can be met and should identify any sources of significant risk. The group then determines the amount of time available for ‘contingency’ and decides, as a group, how to spend it. Typically, this means allocating more time to those activities likely to run late. If no float is available after the backward pass, the team must examine the schedule and find a way to create float. If no solution is apparent within the phase, the milestone schedule may have to be adjusted. A completed pull schedule represents the design of the production system in terms of the work done by each craft or crew, and establishes the conditions for release of work3. More detailed design of specific operations is left for the look-ahead period unless operational details or coordination requirements demand earlier attention. Each party understands and supports the schedule, i.e., both how their effort contributes to the larger goal, and the nature of their commitment to the project and downstream workers. A pull schedule is a promise from each team that, “We can accomplish the work in this phase by working in this sequence. And given what I know now, I believe I can do my work in the time allotted.” Pull Scheduling will be successful when these questions can be answered fully.

 Were the criteria for completing the milestone clear and linked to the promise of the project to the client?

 Did RIs prepare the Pull Schedule?  Did each RI establish specific criteria for the completion of previous work in the phase?

 Is each participant confident they can start the work and complete it as planned?  Have risks or sources of uncertainty in doing the work safely, in completing it on time, and to established quality standards been identified and actions taken to cope with or eliminate the problems?

3

Safety should be considered here. If one step is to prepare a deck, the conditions for release should identify that all holes are protected by barricades.

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A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner System

 Were circumstances considered where work might be completed late or early and tentative plans made to cope with or take advantage of the situation?

 Was coordination required during the phase discussed to assure a common understanding of how action will be coordinated?

 Will the way work is done within any one activity require adjustments in the Pull Schedule?

 Have all items required for work in the phase that take longer than the look-ahead period been identified?

Step 4: Make Work Ready Using the Look-Ahead Plan The look-ahead plan (LAP) is central to project reliability. It supports the practice of making work ready. Work is made-ready through systematically investigating and addressing each of the constraints for performing an activity. Those constraints fall in three classes: directives, prerequisites, and resources. Directives represent declarations, rules and guidance for the project. Directives answer the questions what, where, how, and how well? Customer conditions of satisfaction, company policy, laws, regulations, procedure, standards, and specifications are all directives. Prerequisites as a class represent action that must be taken prior to the performance of another activity. A better way to understand this is to define the conditions upon which work can proceed or is released. Work advances when others’ work is completed, when material is made available (whether in the course of performing the project or as a supply to the project), when decisions are made, and authorizations or permission to act are given. Resources carry a load or have capacity. There are three resource types: machines, space, and labor. Some people expect to find material in this class. Material however doesn’t have capacity. It belongs in the class of prerequisites. Step 5: Produce a Weekly Work Plan The weekly work plan (WWP) is the basic tool for coordinating action and maintaining control on your project. The plan is a record of the conversations you have that establish exactly what will be done by whom and by when. Here is another way of thinking about this: What are the promises each team member is making for the up-coming week? When you establish the WWP you are agreeing in detail how you are fulfilling the lookahead plan. This takes place in promising conversations. These conversations take the Page 8 of 21

Nine Steps for Success following form: last planners make proposals of what it is they see they can and will do to meet the LAP. Those proposals are negotiated with the project manager in the presence of other last planners. This public conversation provides the opportunity to align the performers’ actions with each other. We say this is planning as conversation bringing about a coherency of commitments to deliver on the promises of the project. Project coordination and control in the Last Planner System is principally the practice of eliciting reliable promises and declarations of completion of those activities that release work to others. This allows the project work to stay in the desired sequence and advance as quickly as possible. By paying attention to the declarations of completion – performers say they are done – one task can follow the other with little delay. Mechanics of weekly work planning fall into three classes: preparation, negotiation, and commitment. Notice we haven’t said it is about filling out forms or entering data in the computer, and we do have to do that. However, planning is conversation. We recommend that last planners prepare for the WWP meeting by reviewing the current performance and upcoming requirements with the team or crew who will perform the work. Conversations with ‘doers’ will result in reasonable and reliable promises. Last planners come together with the project manager to negotiate their proposed work at the WWP meeting. When people are prepared these conversations are short. Last planners have the benefit of being in these sessions from one week to the next. That gives them confidence to make proposals that will satisfy the LAP and fit with the other work planned for the week. The aim of the conversation is to produce a coherent plan of action for the up-coming week that keeps the project on schedule. Finally, a consolidated plan is presented to all last planners as the opportunity to (re) commit themselves to completing the work for the up-coming week. Step 6: Conduct the First WWP Meeting Start by establishing a small set of guidelines. We recommend three: 1. Be respectful: Be on time and prepared for the meeting. 2. Grant legitimacy: Investigate each others’ opinions and invite others to investigate your opinions. 3. Be responsible: Promise reliablyi and help others do so. You could adopt more rules. We think these suffice for the WWP meeting. Adopt a standard agenda for each meeting.  Start by reviewing the last session’s plus-delta comments. Select one or two points of attention for the days’ planning session.

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A Guide for New Users of the Last Planner System

 

 

Review last week’s plan reliability. Simple yes|no responses for each task that was promised to be complete. Record the reason for variance for each ‘no’ answer that is presented. Review the look-ahead plan. Consider revisiting the promises of the project and the up-coming milestones. Pay particular attention to next week’s work. Exercise prudence by questioning any work from advancing to the WWP when there are unresolved constraints. Secure promises to address all open constraints. Record those promises as tasks on the up-coming weekly work plan.4 Review next week’s WWP. Get reliable promises for each task: performer, estimate of time to perform (not duration), and exactly when the work will be performed. Finish the meeting with a plus-delta review.

Throughout the meeting keep everyone’s attention on improving performance rather than punishing for poor performance. It helps to acknowledge progress as well as behaviors demonstrated in the meeting that are good for overall team performance. For instance, look for the opportunity to praise people who offer help, ask for help, invite people to investigate their opinions, and keep the conversation focused. Beware of happy talk, complacency, avoidance of conflict, and problem-solving. Keep people on topic. Also beware during promising conversations to look for the elements of reliability, particularly the freedom to decline. When people don’t see they have a choice, then they fall into resignation and resentment. You want your team members in moods of ambition and perseverance. Step 7: Track Plan Reliability (PPC) on the Wall The principal way we measure plan reliability is the percent of the plan that is completed (PPC). The planning horizon is less than 1 week. For planning work weeks that run Monday through Friday people usually will update next week’s weekly work plan each Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. To measure whether work is performed reliably use the question “Did you do the work as you promised when you promised?” There are only two answers: yes or no. The answers: almost, substantially complete, 90% complete, and “yes-but…” are not allowed. Performance is calculated as a percentage of tasks completed on the plan divided by total tasks on the plan. No credit is given for tasks completed that were not on the plan, nor is the base adjusted downward for work that was planned that later was found to not be needed. The purpose of this measurement is to assess the reliability of the planning system.

4

The look-ahead plan is used for making work ready. As you go through the plan with key people consider what might keep the work from starting and completing as intended. The constraints will fall into the three categories of directives, prerequisites and resources. Get someone to promise to resolve each open or ambiguous item.

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Nine Steps for Success Posting the performance of planning reliability (on the wall) is critical to improving performance. Good performance is above 80%; poor performance is below 60%. Mature teams are able to keep performance above 85% on a daily basis. Here are some other useful ways for measuring the performance of the planning system:  What percent of work performed in the week was planned to be performed? This is a measurement of how well the team anticipates.  What work was added to the plan inside of the one-week planning horizon? This is a measurement of surprises.  What is the percent of work that can be done versus what should be done? This measures the readiness or preparedness of planning.  What is the percent of work that did get done versus should be done? This measures the original planning. Step 8: Track Reasons for Plan Variance on the Wall We have included standard reasons for plan variance. Use these to establish your Pareto chart. The following chart details the usual reasons found on your WWP. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Reason Name

Explanation

Unclear COS Unclear rules or standards Client change Unclear requirement Failure to request No customer

Didn’t understand conditions of satisfaction Didn’t understand external directives Criteria change after the assignment I didn’t know what was needed I failed to request what I knew was needed I didn’t identify who would be receiving what was needed I didn’t identify who was providing what was needed I didn’t specify exactly what was needed I didn’t establish by when it was needed Ordered too late Provider failed to deliver Agreement broke down with the provider Misunderstood the workload Misunderstood the capacity of requested resources The resource was absent with or without notice The resource shifted to other work

No performer Unclear COS No due date Late request Prerequisite work No promise to deliver Insufficient resource Overestimated capacity Unavailable resource Unplanned work

The Pareto chart is updated as each variance occurs. Reason for the incidence rather than severity is what is being recorded. Be wary of the first answer to why did the variance occur. A five why analysis usually reveals a different reason. One of the other usual findings is that the source of variation is usually in the control of project participants (failure to request protective covering) rather than out of their control (poor weather).

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Schedule your first review of the data after accumulating data for three weeks or until you have more than 10 data points. Address the highest occurring reason first. Do an analysis with your team to remove the source of the variation. While there are different methods in use (seven problem-solving (QC) tools, the new seven tools, etc), the most important question to answer in selecting a variance to act on is “Do we have the authority and wherewithal to address the situation?” Don’t waste time on items that are not yours to address. Instead, get the responsible parties involved and get a promise from them to eliminate the source of planning variation. Planning performance will not just improve by itself. Tracking, isolating, and eliminating sources of variation are the chief way you will improve project reliability. Step 9: Establish practices for Improvement Habits follow practice. Start by establishing practices that you want adopted as habit. We’ll use the practice of plus-delta reviews to examine what to focus on and how to go about it. The plus-delta review is a form of in-the-moment peer coaching. The intent is to provide real-time feedback on what worked to produce value and what could be done to produce more value. The spirit of the plus-delta review is unconditionally positive. That’s not to mean sugar-coating. Rather it has attention on progress and what is working. It also provides the opportunity for each person to express their opinion, which early on in projects reinforces that you are interested in each others’ opinions. Eventually, people will not wait until the end of the meeting to provide peer coaching. You will find people will take responsibility in the midst of a conversation to have it be successful. That is just what you want. Be diligent about taking action after each plus-delta review. Failing to act on the plusdelta review comments is disastrous for the project. Notice we didn’t say ‘can be disastrous’. It is always disastrous. People will perceive it as going through the motions, insincere, or a waste of time. Assess your performance at regular intervals. Do this as a team and then again with your customer and any sponsor group. We suggest three standard questions for assessing performance: 1. What are we doing well? 2. What have we learned? 3. What needs more attention? The focus of a project assessment is on the future, not the past. Reviewing past performance is for creating the basis for taking action in the future. Keep your attention on the promises of the project when doing these assessments and you will come up with actions that make a difference to the future performance of the project. Let’s go over these questions one-at-a-time. Page 12 of 21

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We ask the first question, “What are we doing well?” with the intention to acknowledge performance and preserve performance for the future. Use the question to examine team practices of planning and coordination. For instance, do you start and end weekly work planning sessions on time? Are you diligent about doing a five why analysis for each plan variance? Use the question to look for what you are routinely doing well. By starting with the question you will put yourselves in a positive mood setting the stage for the next two assessments. The second question, “What have we learned?” gives the team the opportunity to appreciate each other and to set a standard for continued learning. Learning is an assessment. Be clear for yourselves how you know you learned. What is it that you can now do that you were not able to do previously? When looking at learning, use a ladder of proficiency to gauge progress. For example, when learning to play soccer you don’t expect the new player to pass without having the ball intercepted. Getting the ball to a team mate some of the time is progress. Keep your attention on the progress you and your team are making. With the third question, “What needs more attention?” we put our attention on only those areas that will make a difference to tomorrow’s results. There is no sense beating on someone for something that won’t matter tomorrow. Here is another way of asking the question, “What do we need to get good at?” Maybe the answer is something you are already good at, but more proficiency is needed. We have a tendency to focus on what is not working. Don’t fall into that trap when you answer this question. Some of the greatest opportunities for improvement can be found among the people who are already doing well. Do these reviews in a spirit of unconditional constructiveness. That’s not to mean be positive for positive’s sake. No. It means we are building something together. Remember that. Underscore ‘building’ and ‘together’. We need each other and we have the opportunity to improve our collective performance.5

Teamwork, Trust, and Fear Projects succeed and fail for all sorts of reasons. Often our success is just good luck like so many failures can be attributed to bad luck. What does luck have to do with it? When preparation meets opportunity we have luck. Where can we focus our efforts on preparation? On the dynamics of teams: teamwork, trust, and timidity. Teamwork, hot groups, in the groove, or flow, is what we’re after. How do you get it? Put your attention on how people interact with each other. Practices of coordinating action make or break teams. Coordination on projects occurs in 5

There’s a currently popular book Whale Done! by Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager. It seems killer whales are trained with only positive feedback, no negative feedback. The reason is quite practical: trainers have to get in the water with the killer whale. If these animals can learn without negative feedback why are we giving negative feedback to our coworkers?

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conversation. Are people making reliable promises? Do they act with free will and generosity? Do people invite others to offer their opinions? These are the acts for coordinating. Trust is foundational to team performance. Trust doesn’t just happen. There’s nothing mysterious about it either. Trust, trusting, and trust-worthiness all take cultivation, conversation, and commitment. Many people say, “I’ll trust when I’ve got evidence that the other person is trust-worthy.” What if that person is at the center of coordination? Imagine the waste, the hedging, the buffers, the resulting bad moods of the people who aren’t being trusted. How much damage could that do to your project? What is trust? For starters it is a complex assessment about a person’s sincerity, competence, reliability, and care to perform for and on your behalf. We say, “I trust my son to take out the trash without being reminded” or “I trust the babysitter will keep my daughter safe and see that she is content” or “I trust the engineer will produce a design that is within the budget allotted and the time available.” Notice that when we trust, we are always speaking about another person in action taking care of our concerns. That trust is often based on experiences from the past. But not limited to it. For instance, I trust the surgeon recommended by my family practitioner will take care of me through my operation. In that case I am relying on another person’s ability to assess competence, sincerity, reliability, and care. It is not an assessment that I am competent to make. So what must we do on our projects? We must be open to talking about trust. ‘Trusting’ builds in conversation as well as through the successful completion of work with and for one another. Give yourself and each other permission to raise issues of trust. Have those conversations in moods of inquiry, care for each other, and concern for the success of the project. The conversations needn’t be accusatory. We’ve learned that most of the time people are just doing their best; no more; no less. Engage in conversations of trust with that supposition and you can only produce more trust. Fear gets in the way of all performance. Navigating off of our fear rather than grounded assessments of risk and consequence keeps us from attaining our goals. It’s been said that what people fear most is public speaking. Perhaps. It is a good example of paying attention to one’s emotions rather than the risk and consequences of the situation. No one dies speaking in public, but people report having fear similar to the risk of death. What does this have to do with projects? People on your team are surely acting from their fears rather than the ambitions and commitments of the team. They continue to do so and will until you intervene. You do not want team members withholding their views for fear of displeasing the boss. You don’t want people saying “Yes” when they mean “No” because they don’t want to appear uncooperative. These actions put your project at risk.

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Nine Steps for Success Assess your readiness for a LPS implementation. We see people jumping into Last Planner System implementations without considering if they are ready, how the LPS is different from current practice, and without taking the time to bring their team on board. Projects are tough enough without introducing more challenges. We urge you to take the time you need to get you and your team ready to succeed. We prepared the following assessment tool from working with numerous teams. While it conveniently comes out to 10 points, we couldn’t come up with an 11th nor could we agree on dropping one. At the same time, being able to satisfy the assessment doesn’t ensure a successful project, only that you have a good chance of getting off to a good start. Use the assessment tool with your team members. Starting off this way will set a good example for working collaboratively. Use this first opportunity to explore your own style and to encourage team members to try on new styles for themselves. Assessing Project Readiness 1 There is a single person speaking as the customer of this project. 2 There is a clear set of promises made by the project manager and accepted by the customer. 3 We understand why this project is important to the customer. 4 We understand the risks, opportunities, and consequences in the project. 5 We have the right people to do this project. 6 We have enough time to accomplish the promises of the project. 7 Standard meetings have been established for weekly work planning, customer reviews, and improving project performance. 8 The project team has declared its set of rules of conduct. 9 Team members commit to the outcome(s) of the project. 10 Nothing will get in the way of our success.

O O O O O O O O O O

Use an agree|disagree approach for this assessment. Fill in the circle if you agree; leave it blank if you disagree. Do not proceed with your project until you can answer positively to all ten statements. Story-telling is part of keeping the promises and context alive for the project team. The best approach is the one that works for you and your team. Get comfortable with speaking about what you are delivering and why you are doing it. Make opportunities to speak at project team meetings, in one-on-one conversations with team members and other interested parties, and invite your key project team members to do the same. Consider establishing an email list and/or project klog to support the team. Go all out to keep your customer engaged in your project. For some people this could sound dangerous. We can tell you that it is dangerous when you don’t keep your customer engaged. Notice we didn’t say “involved” in the day-today activities. To the extent you can avoid having your customer perform for you on the

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project. At the same time the customer is the only one who can say what is to be provided and to what standards. That is unavoidable. Meet regularly with your customer to review project performance. Invite the customer to make assessments. Practice listening during these sessions. You may need to work on being more open and less defensive. Perform regular team assessments of the project. We offer the following tool. Use it with your team, your customer, and your project sponsor or other interested parties. We selected just ten characteristics of high performing project teams. Answering that you strongly agree to just two or three of these characteristics is often a feat. Don’t be discouraged by the results. Remember to use this for the basis of action planning. Assessing Project Performance 1 The look-ahead plan and weekly work plan are updated and agreed to every week. 2 We start and end each planning session with a plus-delta review. 3 WWP tasks are proposed by the last planner and negotiated with the project manager or other responsible party. 4 Project performance (PPC & Pareto data) is prominently displayed in the project work-setting. 5 Pareto data is used to improve project performance. 6 This project is on an improving path. 7 Only tasks in a made-ready condition go on the WWP. 8 New project team members get support using the LPS. 9 Our motto is, "Reliable everyday." 10 We are steering this project rather than just responding to each day's urgencies.

O O O O O O O O O O

Fill the circle to the right of the question if you strongly agree with the statement. Fill one half of the circle if you somewhat agree with the statement. Leave the circle empty if you disagree with the statement.

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Glossary Items

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Assessments Synonyms: opinion, characterization, view. Assessments are the basis upon which we take action. Deliberate action results from the assessments we make together about the state or condition of the project. A best practice on projects is to make assessments collaboratively considering the extent to which possibilities have been opened for action. Background Concerns In the background of someone’s assessments and requests exist a set of concerns – a kind of caring for something – that the speaker may or may not notice. A concern is not a worry. Rather it exists as what we care about…why we are asking for something. Example: I care about my relations with my new neighbors so I ask the contractor to keep the job site clean and safe. Surfacing those concerns can lead to the opening of alternate paths and requirements for the project. Buffers A mechanism for deadening the force of a concussion; e.g., a capacity buffer is created by scheduling less than all the time available. If production falls behind schedule, there is capacity available for catching up. (Lean production/construction generally prefers capacity buffers to inventory buffers.) Conditions of Satisfaction (COS) Directives, often criteria, imposed by the entity initiating a process (usually the owner) that specify how success of the outcome will be gauged. COS are expressed by the customer or on behalf of the customer. Customer The user of one’s output . Example: John needs the results of our acoustical tests in order to select the best location for his mechanical equipment. John is our customer because he will use what we produce. De-coupled Engaged Five Why Analysis A problem-solving technique to get at the root cause of a problem by asking ‘why’ five times. The approach is often followed by other techiniques, often cause-and-effect analysis. Float Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) The practice of considering human capacity as the equivalent of 40 available hours of a class or group of performers without consideration to who exactly is available and through what period the hours are available. The use of FTEs often leads to multitasking and resources in contention. Grant Legitimacy Think about the right of a person to be who he is and to think and do as they choose without anyone’s approval. Granting legitimacy is critical between project participants. Each has their own view whether or not that view turns out to be useful in furthering the aims of the project. Accepting that and finding a way to incorporate the differences of perspective can result in more innovation, learning, and performance.

Happy talk Insincere conversations that are positive on the surface but conceal negative assessments and unspoken complaints. Hot Groups The term was coined to refer to groups who demonstrated top performance over extended timeframes. While people differ on characteristics of hot groups and how to sustain them, members of hot groups are known by their care and trust for each other, the learning and innovation they produce, and an everyday attention to results. Ladder of Proficiency Competency is not an absolute notion. Beginners are expected to know less and perform below those who are competent. People who are virtuoso or masterful have higer levels of competencey. The ‘ladder’ refers to the range of competency available and attainable. LAP Look-ahead plan. Last Planner™ The person or group that makes assignments to direct workers. ‘Squad boss’ and ‘discipline lead’ are common names for last planners in design processes. ‘Superintendent’ (if a job is small) or ‘foreman’ are common names for last planners in construction processes. Look-ahead plan The middle level in the planning system hierarchy, below front end planning and above commitment planning, dedicated to controlling the flow of work through the production system. Look-ahead Schedule The output of look-ahead planning, resulting from exploding master schedule activities by means of the activity definition model, screening the resultant tasks before allowing entry into the look-ahead window or advancement within the window, and execution of actions needed to make tasks ready for assignment when scheduled. Look-ahead schedules may be presented in list form or bar charts. LPS Last Planner System. LPS Practices Make ready ‘To make ready’ is to take actions needed to remove constraints from assignments to make them sound. MS Project Software application “Microsoft Project”. Pareto Chart Displayed as a bar chart. Used to portray the leading sources of variability on a project. Pareto is also known as the 80-20 rule.

Percent Plan Complete (PPC) Percent plan complete; i.e., the number of planned completions divided into the number of actual completions, usually referring to activities on a weekly work plan. Plus-Delta This is a technique for continuously improving the project (pursuing perfection). Meeting participants are asked to make positive characterizations of what added particular value for them and what could be changed so that the meeting would be of more value. PPC Percent Plan Complete. Calculated as tasks on the plan that are completed as a percent of all tasks planned for completion. No credit is given for partial completion of a task. PPC is a measure of the performance of the planning system. Project klog A klog is a special kind of weblog for accumulating and disseminating knowledge among a group. Think of a weblog as a continuously updated web page. Project teams use klogs to tell the story of the project, record key assessments, commitments, and events, and they use it for conveying what they learn for the project and for other projects. Pull Initiating the delivery of input based on the readiness of the process into which they will enter for transformation into outputs. Example: Request delivery of prerequisite information at or before the time you will be ready to process that information. Note: what’s different here is that the readiness of the process is known rather than wished. Either the process is ready prior to requesting delivery or plan reliability is sufficiently high that work plans can be used to predict readiness. Pull Scheduling Push vs. Pull A push system schedules the release of work based on demand, while a pull system authorizes the release of work based on system status (from Hopp and Spearman 1996 p. 317) Reason for variance ...for failing to complete weekly assignments; e.g., lack of prerequisites, insufficient time, unclear directives. Reasons can also be sought for failing to advance scheduled tasks from master schedule to look-ahead schedule or from one week to the next within the look-ahead schedule. Release of work Work is released when it is in a ready state and it is time to perform the work. Ready work has all constraints resolved. The team can declare work as workable backlog thus making it time to perform the work even though it is ahead of the orginal schedule. Reliable promises A promise is considered reliable at the time it is made when one can assess that the performer has the wherewithal (materials, tools, skills, etc.) for performing the task, has assessed the time to perform, has

allocated sufficient capacity for performing, is sincere in making the promise, and is ready to be responsible for the consequences in the likelihood that the promise cannot be fulfilled for whatever reason. Responsible Individual A person who makes promises on the project. These promises usually encompass a domain of action or responsibility, like structural engineering. RIs Responsible individuals. Seven problem-solving (QC) tools Weekly Work Plan A list of assignments to be completed within the specified week; typically produced as near as possible to the beginning of the week. WWP Weekly Work Plan.