Project scheduling is suppose to be for the purpose of . . . well, scheduling, projecting a work flow for a project. But invariably schedules become tools for assigning responsibility to unrealistic goals . . .
This week I'll post a scheduling story from a recent project to illustrate this point.
It is essential to realize schedules are weapons, both for offense and defense. If you are bad at scheduling, then I'll see you in court, and you'll lose . . . here's what I mean:
10/19/2009
The 80/20 Measure
The Proactive/Reactive Ratio
Sweat was turning Charlie’s T-shirt to salt, white lines marking perspiration flows down his back. A thick gray blanket of clouds kept the summer heat and humidity close to ground . . . and we were close to ground, actually below ground excavating an 8” gas pipe trench in 20ft of sand. Sean swung the X300 track hoe around and leaned out the door, “hey, troubles coming”. He pointed to a moving dark speck stumbling over the sand towards us, shrugging, Sean closed the cab door.
Short, broad, a bulldog of a man, Douglas the Irishman came storming over the dunes. Douglas was the owner’s construction manager, responsible for scheduling, among other things. But the funny thing was, he never seemed to have a schedule, at least not an accurate one.
Douglas walked the project every morning, after which he disappeared into his job trailer, emerging only if there was a crisis . . . Obviously, today, there was a crisis.
As he got within earshot we could here Douglas yelling to no one in particular, a kind of “it’s not my fault these owners are idiots” self talk that he wanted everyone to hear. Arriving at the tailgate of my pickup, which was my desk and office for the morning, Douglas told me the whole sorry story.
The owners had neglected to inform Douglas the entire 47 acre site would need a security fence, full video monitoring and 24/7 guards at every gate due to federal homeland security regulations on production plants of the type we were building, and this would need to be accomplished within a week or the upcoming Coast Guard inspection would need to be canceled, delaying start up for a month, and plant opening for six weeks. Bad news.
Douglas finished up with, “I’ll tell you one thing boys, these idiot owners are going to drive me to drink, no doubt about it, I’ll be nipping a bit of mee ole' whiskey stash this evening.”
Our crews worked double shifts, as is the case with most crisis intervention, and Douglas passed his Coast Guard inspection with flying colors. So all is well that ends well, right?
Not exactly. Douglas’ budget was busted, his critical path sequence damaged, his nerves were shot and his owners were not happy. So whose fault was it? Douglas, over time, had fallen victim to a malady that strikes many project managers: the proactive/reactive imbalance.
The sign of a project in reactive mode is seen in crisis. If an unexpected crisis occur more than an absolute maximum of 20% of the time, then a project has lost its way, lost its focus, is probably behind schedule and losing money.
Even on the best run projects there will be 10% unexpected crisis events, which you must react to, but any more than that and you can be sure you have a project in trouble. Crisis, for Douglas’ project, became a daily occurrence; his reactive ratio flipping to 80% reactive crisis, and only 20% proactive work.
“Douglas, why didn’t you know about this Coast Guard stuff?” I asked him that evening.
“Well the bloody fool of an owner we have, never informed me . . . none of 'em know a thing about construction. They’re a bunch of bloody production people. I tell ya, I gotta baby 'em all the time.”
“My point exactly, they didn’t know, you should have, right?”
"Bull . . . " retorted Douglas, "My jobs to build, not run there bloody business . . . "
I’ll cut this story short, because you've heard the conversation before. But sufficient to say, you can size up a project quickly by watching for a few days, monitoring reactive vs. proactive work.
If so, this will be an incredible drain on productivity, hindering the construction process. Monitor it closely, and keep your projects in balance. Remember the 80/20 measure, 80% proactive activity, and no more than 20% reactive activity.
Sweat was turning Charlie’s T-shirt to salt, white lines marking perspiration flows down his back. A thick gray blanket of clouds kept the summer heat and humidity close to ground . . . and we were close to ground, actually below ground excavating an 8” gas pipe trench in 20ft of sand. Sean swung the X300 track hoe around and leaned out the door, “hey, troubles coming”. He pointed to a moving dark speck stumbling over the sand towards us, shrugging, Sean closed the cab door.
Short, broad, a bulldog of a man, Douglas the Irishman came storming over the dunes. Douglas was the owner’s construction manager, responsible for scheduling, among other things. But the funny thing was, he never seemed to have a schedule, at least not an accurate one.
Douglas walked the project every morning, after which he disappeared into his job trailer, emerging only if there was a crisis . . . Obviously, today, there was a crisis.
As he got within earshot we could here Douglas yelling to no one in particular, a kind of “it’s not my fault these owners are idiots” self talk that he wanted everyone to hear. Arriving at the tailgate of my pickup, which was my desk and office for the morning, Douglas told me the whole sorry story.
The owners had neglected to inform Douglas the entire 47 acre site would need a security fence, full video monitoring and 24/7 guards at every gate due to federal homeland security regulations on production plants of the type we were building, and this would need to be accomplished within a week or the upcoming Coast Guard inspection would need to be canceled, delaying start up for a month, and plant opening for six weeks. Bad news.
Douglas finished up with, “I’ll tell you one thing boys, these idiot owners are going to drive me to drink, no doubt about it, I’ll be nipping a bit of mee ole' whiskey stash this evening.”
Our crews worked double shifts, as is the case with most crisis intervention, and Douglas passed his Coast Guard inspection with flying colors. So all is well that ends well, right?
Not exactly. Douglas’ budget was busted, his critical path sequence damaged, his nerves were shot and his owners were not happy. So whose fault was it? Douglas, over time, had fallen victim to a malady that strikes many project managers: the proactive/reactive imbalance.
The sign of a project in reactive mode is seen in crisis. If an unexpected crisis occur more than an absolute maximum of 20% of the time, then a project has lost its way, lost its focus, is probably behind schedule and losing money.
Even on the best run projects there will be 10% unexpected crisis events, which you must react to, but any more than that and you can be sure you have a project in trouble. Crisis, for Douglas’ project, became a daily occurrence; his reactive ratio flipping to 80% reactive crisis, and only 20% proactive work.
“Douglas, why didn’t you know about this Coast Guard stuff?” I asked him that evening.
“Well the bloody fool of an owner we have, never informed me . . . none of 'em know a thing about construction. They’re a bunch of bloody production people. I tell ya, I gotta baby 'em all the time.”
“My point exactly, they didn’t know, you should have, right?”
"Bull . . . " retorted Douglas, "My jobs to build, not run there bloody business . . . "
I’ll cut this story short, because you've heard the conversation before. But sufficient to say, you can size up a project quickly by watching for a few days, monitoring reactive vs. proactive work.
- Is energy and manpower caught up in handling one crisis after another?
- Is management blaming others?
If so, this will be an incredible drain on productivity, hindering the construction process. Monitor it closely, and keep your projects in balance. Remember the 80/20 measure, 80% proactive activity, and no more than 20% reactive activity.
10/13/2009
Who's Got Your Back - Core Team Integrity
Singularly lonely, perched on a small Noll, our 14' Wide x 44' Long job trailer jerked and rocked on wobbly tires. No tie downs anchored us into the ground . . . which was nothing but blow sand anyway. But we were set perpendicular to a steady 50mph western wind, so we acted safe and confident, but felt like . . . what are doing here?
Just after dawn on the first day "the team", Mike, site superintendent and myself, had been gazing over our new, raw, 47 acre construction site. No power, no water, no road, no nothin' but blow sand. In 18 months the construction plan required that a new 160,000sf food processing facility to be up and running.
By noon that same day the arrival of the first, of many, sand storms did a vanishing trick on our construction site. Like a TV set that has lost its signal, the view out our job trailer window became brown chaos, flying horizontal. We held onto the trailer wall and stared at the brown out, . . . Mike, in a low, gravelly voice muttered, "Ever see that movie Hadalgo?" I replied, "Ever see that movie Perfect Storm?"
He was referring to the flying sand, I was referring to the project. The real question we were asking each other was should we stay and fight, or do we run? Only hindsight could tell us the best answer.
We chose to stay, and without consciously knowing it, we began to lay the foundation for a successful project. It wasn't a foundation of concrete or steel, but something stronger . . . willing commitment. Sometimes its called "buy in". But the key is that it is not what is said verbally, it's what is felt . . . internally. Commitment isn't found in contracts, speeches, promises, motivational excitement, or money, its found in facing reality . . . and committing to stay. Facing reality and committing to stay is known by another word: integrity.
When faced with a difficult project the first ingredient of success that must be present is integrity. Every project, no matter how big, has at its core a small pack of people. A bond of real integrity must exist in that group. Our core project team, our pack, consisted of only four people, but each one had integrity . . . willing commitment to the project. Consequently, I knew, no matter how tough things got, eventually we would succeed, and we did . . . under budget and on schedule.
Run from projects without it, commit to projects with it . . . a primary ingredient of project success: core team integrity.
Just after dawn on the first day "the team", Mike, site superintendent and myself, had been gazing over our new, raw, 47 acre construction site. No power, no water, no road, no nothin' but blow sand. In 18 months the construction plan required that a new 160,000sf food processing facility to be up and running.
By noon that same day the arrival of the first, of many, sand storms did a vanishing trick on our construction site. Like a TV set that has lost its signal, the view out our job trailer window became brown chaos, flying horizontal. We held onto the trailer wall and stared at the brown out, . . . Mike, in a low, gravelly voice muttered, "Ever see that movie Hadalgo?" I replied, "Ever see that movie Perfect Storm?"
He was referring to the flying sand, I was referring to the project. The real question we were asking each other was should we stay and fight, or do we run? Only hindsight could tell us the best answer.
We chose to stay, and without consciously knowing it, we began to lay the foundation for a successful project. It wasn't a foundation of concrete or steel, but something stronger . . . willing commitment. Sometimes its called "buy in". But the key is that it is not what is said verbally, it's what is felt . . . internally. Commitment isn't found in contracts, speeches, promises, motivational excitement, or money, its found in facing reality . . . and committing to stay. Facing reality and committing to stay is known by another word: integrity.
When faced with a difficult project the first ingredient of success that must be present is integrity. Every project, no matter how big, has at its core a small pack of people. A bond of real integrity must exist in that group. Our core project team, our pack, consisted of only four people, but each one had integrity . . . willing commitment to the project. Consequently, I knew, no matter how tough things got, eventually we would succeed, and we did . . . under budget and on schedule.
Run from projects without it, commit to projects with it . . . a primary ingredient of project success: core team integrity.
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