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- [00:03]
Nick Soto
Welcome to the Construction Leaders podcast, Season 3, Episode 11. In each episode, we attempt to uncover the secrets and facts about leading construction programs and projects, along with some nuances and innovations to help make you more successful as a construction manager. Today, we'll dive into lean construction, a philosophy that focuses on maximizing value while minimizing waste. We'll hear from lean experts that are transforming the way we build and the organization's facilitating conversations around lean practices. As we discuss the core principles of lean construction, including continuous improvement and collaboration, we will discover ways you can implement lean practices on your job site, like real world examples, practical tips, and innovative strategies. Together, we'll learn how lean construction can lead to higher efficiency, better quality, and improved project outcomes. We have several guests on our show today, but first let me welcome Tammy McConaughey, the director of Education and Certification at the Lean Construction Institute. Welcome to the show, Tammy.
- [01:08]
Tammy McConaughey
Nick, I'm happy to be here. I brought some good friends with me today and just to give you an intro, and I'll let them introduce themselves further, but we have Katie Wells, who is a vice president of Project Delivery for Brassfield and Gorey. She is also on our Board of directors for lci. We have Christopher vine, who is a Project Superintendent for Hensel Phelps, but has also received his certification for being an LCI Certified Practitioner of Construction this year, which is an amazing feat, by the way. That's not an easy process. And then to wrap it up, we have John Zakara, who is with our Chicago Community of Practice, and he is just a big, huge help with anything else here that we ever need. So it's always a great time bringing him along. He's a vice president with Integrated Facilities Solutions.
- [01:57]
Nick Soto
Tammy, tell us a little bit about yourself, what you do at LCI and what lci, the Lean Construction Institute, actually does.
- [02:05]
Tammy McConaughey
Yeah.
- [02:05]
Katie Wells
So myself, John, I've been on a.
- [02:07]
Tammy McConaughey
Lean journey since 2003. So it's been a while. I came into the construction industry in about 2007, and that's where I started to apply my Lean and Six Sigma to the mechanical company that I was working for. And I really just fell in love with Lean Construct at that point, and I got heavily involved as a volunteer in the San Diego Community of Practice. Since then, I've been involved with the San Diego Community of Practice, the Portland Community of Practice, and now where I reside In Colorado, in 2012 came the opportunity to become the Director of Education and Certification. And I stepped into that role just with a lot of enthusiasm, being a lean coach for the last 10 years. And being a Lean director in that time has just really led me to believe and see the impact that LCI does make on our industry. Lean Construction is the best way to build. And LCI really brings that together for architects, engineers, contractors, trade partners, consultants, owners, anybody in that AEC world to really bring together those tools, training and networking and connections to apply Lean principles, methods and learn how to build better and to be better teams together as well.
- [03:20]
Nick Soto
Since we have a board member from LCI on the call today, I'm going to ask first and foremost, Katie, before we jump too far down the rabbit hole, why don't you give us like a 30 second description for our newer audience members about what Lean actually is in the eyes of lci.
- [03:36]
Christopher Vine
What Lean actually is with lci. It is truly about, you said it in your description, about eliminating waste out of a process. But to me and to the organization, it is truly about breaking down the silos of our industry and promoting true collaboration for us to be more efficient in how we do it, but also to build relationships that take care of the people in our industry. And that's truly what we focus on too, from a board perspective, is what are the means and methods that we need to employ as an industry to help really try to drive people to want, have a desire to work in construction and work in the design and construction industry. Our industry is super tough to work in. Everybody on this panel knows that. And so we really want to, you know, employ better practices in order to drive more people to the industry.
- [04:30]
Katie Wells
So, Chris, I'm curious. Katie mentioned what Lean Construction is, but maybe you can chime in and tell us a little bit about maybe what is not. There could be misconceptions out there about Lean and it's used in the industry. Can you let us know what some of those misconceptions are and why you think maybe they exist?
- [04:49]
John Zakara
Sure. Lean is not a bunch of extra stuff. The foundational principles of continuous improvement and respect for people encapsulates everything that's been mentioned thus far. And if you're respecting people, then you're trying to eliminate waste. You're trying to be more efficient, you're trying to be more collaborative. If you have a true culture of continuous improvement, then you'll want to do better. That's the kind of people that our companies want to hire. That's the kind of people we want in the industry, frankly, anywhere. People that just want to do better each day and figure out how to make their lives easier, for lack of a better word, but certainly more Efficient and more productive. Who wouldn't want to get 12 hours worth of work done in 10 hours so they could have two more hours a day with their kids or with their spouse or doing something fun? My background is with Hetzel Phelps and I've been here for 24 and a half years and we have a lot of the continued improvement and respect for people type attributes within our company. About 10, 11 years ago, we had a client introduce us to what's called Lean and had consultants come in and trained us and we had a 4,000 person craft force for a semiconductor manufacturer that really wanted to turn things around. So we saw the similarities with what we had been doing, we saw the improvements and we saw the things we weren't doing. And so we really embraced it and took it on for that client and have taken it to other. Now, that's not to say we didn't have hurdles, we didn't have challenges, we didn't have pushback. Some people think we're already doing that. Okay, then let's do it better or let's continuously improve. So it's really the mindset, I think, of the continuous improvement and the respects of people. If you got those at the heart of what you're trying to do, then every day you should be getting better and you should be trying to take care of your people and those people who work with you to make these projects successful.
- [06:39]
Katie Wells
Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned collaboration as well. John, I'm wondering if you could jump in here and talk a little bit about collaboration and how Lean Construction fosters that collaboration among stakeholders compared to other delivery methods.
- [06:54]
Carly Trout
Thank you. As Katie and Chris both mentioned, and so did Tammy, was this idea of culture and people. When we talk about a philosophy of Lean, one of the things we really need to focus on is the people. And if you build a good culture, that culture can create outcomes that are positive to the construction industry. And so ultimate collaboration is when you build a culture where a team wants to work together and really enjoys working together. And if they enjoy working together, then if you have that culture, that's the driver to outcomes on projects. So what we've measured is I could have a great budget on a project, or I could be right on schedule, but have a terrible culture. But really the big driver is if I have a great culture, I know I'm going to get a great schedule outcome and a great budget outcome. And so those are actually things that have been measured for project improvement. So it really starts with people and how people want to work together and collaborate together.
- [07:52]
Christopher Vine
Donna, I love that idea of the culture, especially culture on job sites. And thinking back to what I was saying earlier about that's a tough industry to be in and we want to drive people to construction. This whole industry is all about that culture. And I was actually talking to a coworker earlier, and he was describing being with one of our superintendents. And the superintendent, the first thing he does on Mondays is he fires up the grill and does baked potatoes and does barbecue and hamburgers and drives all his people in to come build those relationships. And they want to be a part of that. And then that makes them want to lead with him and drive change on site, too. From a culture standpoint, that is such a huge part of it.
- [08:36]
Carly Trout
Yeah. I think what Chris said was, this is not something that adds. So somebody can hear that and say, wow, that's adding time, and people are not being productive. But the point is, if you build a team effort, you can devote small portions of time to things to really drive team effort and to drive performance with teammates and really point out the great things that they're doing. Job sites become safer, just cleaner, safer, because people really care. And so I'd rather if the construction industry actually has 70% of waste like we talk about, most of the activities that we do are wasteful. Those activities that you're talking about are not wasteful. And so what is Lean is not a get rich quick scheme. It is not a way to cut costs or to cut resources out of a job. What it is, it's there to drive value and make your job the most valuable it can be for project outcome. And so if Katie's superintendent is building that team effort, we're going to get performance, and people are going to want to show up there, and they're not going to be like, ah, I got to go to work today. They're going to want to show up and perform at their highest level for that person.
- [09:40]
Nick Soto
That's excellent, and I'm glad you said that because we spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about workforce development. To me, this is where this is retention and things like that are coming into play. And that's an excellent point.
- [09:50]
Katie Wells
Thank you, John, and thank you for the idea. I'm going to try to get Nick to barbecue at our next staff meeting. I'll keep you updated. Tammy, I'm curious about trends that you've seen over the past 10 years or so and how lean construction has evolved.
- [10:05]
Tammy McConaughey
It's interesting. I think it comes in waves, and it comes in waves as we see that new people influx into the industry and a lot of generational knowledge passed down, or tribal knowledge passed down. If I would have gone back to where I was 10 years ago and you would have given me a dollar for every time I had a superintendent or a foreman tell me, like, why are you here trying to tell me how to do my job? I've been doing this for 20 years, and I don't need somebody to tell me how to do my job. Or my favorite one was, Tammy, I love you as a person, but the snake oil you're trying to sell me is just not working. Like, we see that because there was the way that we've always done it, this is the way we've always done it, and there's nothing different. But as the years has progressed, we've learned that there's better ways to do it. And as Lean has become more available and information has become more available and it's become more common language, we actually see a lot more of what Chris was talking about, that it's not that we have to schedule this way or we have to do this method or this tool or this process. It's more about how can we get better, how can we improve what we're doing? And when we create that culture that John and Katie were really talking about, too, and we instill that into the field, we find that they are wanting more and more. Hey, there's a better way to do this. What if we did this? Or what if we built this template? Or what if we fabricated this off site? Or what if we reduce the number of steps from here to there, right? We open up that culture and that ability for Lean to really grow, we've really seen that starting to grow. I'm actually really excited for our next Dodge analytics study that'll be coming out this year, because I'm sure, and I'm almost positive that we're going to see those numbers of what we're seeing as far as Lean on projects increasing and how they're helping projects.
- [11:53]
Nick Soto
We look forward to seeing those numbers. Chris, I want to put you on the spot. One of the things that Carly asked you earlier about some. Some things that people may confuse for not good Lean practices, but one of the things I like to find out, and I think the audience always likes to find out, whether it's session, podcast, webinar, whatever, is lessons learned that you might be able to share, maybe on your personal journey or something you've heard or seen. But lessons learned are what everyone wants to know. Where was the failure and how did you learn from it? By using Lean Construction or through Lean Construction?
- [12:26]
John Zakara
Oh, that's a good question, Nick. I'm going to piggyback that into something I jotted down while Tammy was talking. We say collaborate, we say respect for people, but maybe we don't define that enough. One of my favorite stories was a trade partner who came and said, hey, I was really glad that you took our full plan information and put it into the cpm. And I said, what else would I do with it? We spent hours preparing for that. We got the team together, we put everybody in the room, and we talked through all these great ideas, and this is our new plan. That's where it's supposed to go. And that was a surprise. So we still today struggle with trust, and I think construction has been command and control forever. Superintendent says, Superintendent wishes, Superintendent desires. Everybody else goes and does. You have to learn to ask the questions. We talked about conversation and communication. You have to not know the answers. You have to go ask Katie or ask John and say, hey, this is what I need to do. This is what the team needs to. Sorry, this is what the team needs to do. So Lean is also about getting the project team around the project goals, whether you use conditions and satisfaction or whether you just say, hey, we gotta be finished by March 1, whatever those goals happen to be. And then trying to get out of the silos that Katie mentioned into a this is our success, and if I'm successful, then she's successful, then John's successful, and we succeed or fail as a team. And that's hard because people are used to somebody always telling them what to do, not taking their opinion, hey, you need to be done by Friday. I can't. I don't care. Be done by Friday. When you tell me why you can't, then I can go try to solve that problem for you, and I could go help support. And someone else can say, if you can't do that by Friday, I can take something from next week and maybe I can do that a couple of days this weekend, and you can have my time next weekend at zero. And we're good. So there's so much more communication. It's honest, it's open, it's trust. I trust my trade partner, my trade partners trust me. And that's how we get more successful than the old way. So regressing into those tactics or those techniques or those habits is what's hard not to do. But the more you do it, as like I said, it goes through cycles, but we continue to grow and develop together in this fashion. And it makes us all better builders and makes our clients happier. And clients are part of a team. So sometimes the client has a solution that helps solve a problem for a contractor or trade partner.
- [14:52]
Tammy McConaughey
Great point. Because I remember one of the very first projects I was on as a lean coach. It was the owner contractual, they needed a lean coach on site, all this. So. But the end of the project, we were on time, under budget and the owner was still not happy. Like it was not seen as successful project because of the experience. Right. It was the whole experience. And the in value there was just not there. Even though we were on time, on budget. And we so often are like the owner just wants this on time and on budget. But there's so much more to it than that. So if we don't take that time to understand what the value is, what the true value is, not a dollar amount. The true value is how those conditions of satisfaction around that. What does success look like for each team member? Like that's where it all starts. That's really where the culture starts.
- [15:44]
John Zakara
Absolutely.
- [15:45]
Carly Trout
That's when we. When you hear people use the phrase pole planning or the pull, what Chris was talking about early on was this push. So we're this constant push for people to as a superintendent or a foreman to push their people to do a job. But the pull is really pulling that information out from to get that real answer about what is valuable to you. What do you actually need me to finish, Chris, so that you can start your job tomorrow? And so that's the pull that you hear at pull planning. It's not about pulling back from an end date or something like that. That's what people tend to not realize that we're used to push scheduling. Now we're actually trying to pull information out from each other and get it out and uncover it. And then we get to start to put countermeasures in place to solve real problems. That's where there's values driven. We talked about value earlier about I want my job to be as valuable as possible. One of the things we do early on when we get together with teams like we are on this project we're working on now, we're going to do one on one interviews with every team member just to take team health. What's going on right now? Like we just started, right. We're maybe six months into the job total. How do you feel about the process? How do you feel what's going on? What are the goals that you want to try to achieve at the end of the project, we want to try to gather all the information together and really develop these one on one connections with people and see where they're coming from. But that's that pull of information.
- [17:07]
Nick Soto
Let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsor.
- [17:11]
John Zakara
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- [17:37]
Katie Wells
Katie Chris talked about this a little bit, but just about the common challenges and barriers to implementing lean what do you think the biggest challenges, the biggest hurdles are and how folks can overcome them?
- [17:49]
Christopher Vine
Honestly, it's a function of a change in mindset, a potential change in our approach to culture. It's doing something a little bit different, challenging how you have done things for the last 20, 30 years. And I think that is really scary to a lot of people, especially in the day and age we are with new technology and things that we're having to adapt to on a regular basis now anyways. And then when you're trying to help a team have a different experience and getting their buy in and them seeing value in that, it's really tough. And I really like John's perspective on the one on one conversations because we do a lot of that too. When we get a job started, we do a team alignment session where it is almost like a retrospective where we are what went well, what didn't go well in the last project and then also if the team has worked together before, what are some ideas for improvement or what were some of your pain points that we need to address and try to create some alignment as we get engaged so you can create that sense of okay, we're here to help, we're here to push and get buy in because we're trying to fix the problem so you don't have them again on the next project. But fundamentally, at least what I've seen it is down to just that fear of change.
- [19:07]
John Zakara
Just to add a little pity change. Tammy said that's the way we've always done. Takes the quote unquote leader, whether it's a manager or superintendent or executive, whatever it is, somebody has to be a little bit vulnerable because I'm used to just telling you all how to do this and it'll get done come hell or high water. We're going to go make it happen and burn people out. We turn people off to the industry, we lower quality of life. Just say, as a superintendent, I don't know how you do your job. I think I know I've seen it done for a long time. But why don't you tell me how you'd like to approach this challenge or this task and then let's figure out how that dovetails into the next persons and when it needs to be done to support them and just have those conversations and be open to other people. You can't be always right, so get used to it and start being open to other people's opinions and expertise.
- [19:58]
Carly Trout
Chris, just a question on I live in a project management kind of owner world where we're working with design professionals in the office and we're doing planning meetings with user groups and things like that. But when you get out to the field, you actually see less resistance. Do you think with the boots on the ground, men and women, because they want to take ownership for what they're doing, or do they like being commanded around and being told what to do?
- [20:24]
John Zakara
No, I don't think they ever did like it.
- [20:27]
Carly Trout
I wouldn't say so. I wouldn't think so.
- [20:29]
John Zakara
That's the stereotype of I'm going to throw my hard hat during the trade partner meeting. Needs to be a subcontractor meeting. You're all my subcontractors. You all do what I say. I wake the contract and scream and yell, throw my hard hat. That's how stuff gets done. And we don't do that anymore. And I remember as a much younger employee, before we knew what a floor plan was, we would just go from trailer to trailer and take the full week and say, here's what I need your help with and let this trade fill it out. And then you go to the next trade and sit down with them. And then you go back to the first trade because there's something that. And then you go to the meeting and you present it. We've gotten much more efficient with that, with last buying system and bull planning and doing those things a better way. But no, I don't think anybody liked it that way. I think that's just the industry stereotype. And I think we've all come a long way, but there's a long way to go. Like I said, I still have trades that don't really believe me, but I want their opinion. I think we all know, and hopefully the listeners know that if someone tells you no. Oh, sorry, they have to have the power to say no. We forget that in construction because no means there's a why. And if there's a why, then there's a how to fix it. So you tell me what's keeping you from doing what we've agreed to. We said this is our schedule and we want to go get this done and something's come up that's caused a problem and we are going to figure that out because you're going to tell me no versus yeah, boss. And then it's just not done three days later and we haven't had a chance to fix it or recover from it.
- [21:52]
Katie Wells
So Chris, you told us how it used to be and how it's evolving and how it is now. What do you see in the future for how Lean is evolving and what innovations or trends should we look out for?
- [22:04]
John Zakara
Regression would be what to watch out for. Because like Katie said, it's change. It's something that's different for people. When you have a team that's done it a couple of times together or major parts of those teams have regrouped for another project, then things tend to want to perpetuate. We tell people that aren't super excited about an extra meeting air quotes that the daily huddle will be the best 10 to 15 minutes they spend on the job site. And so give me a month coming to the daily huddle and if you don't like it, probably I failed. Or somebody that's running that huddle or coordinating that meeting has failed. But that is the place where another favorite story, two trade contractors are talking to me about one another and they're standing next to each other in the circle. So I finally John, Billy, why don't you talk to each other? This sounds like something we can work out on the side. You don't need the general contractor. And you start to see traits not avoid the general contractor. But now they just go talk to each other and they go say, hey, I'd like you to be out of section zone, or I'm supposed to be in Zone 2 tomorrow. Looks like you might not be making it out of there. Is there something I can do? How can we help? And it really changes the dynamic when you put it into practice and try it going forward. I think as we all continue to do it and continue to do it better because at least, perfect, we don't all have a great day, but just continue to preach the word and drink the Kool Aid. We want to make our industry a better place to work. We have a shortage of half a million craft personnel nationwide. I don't even know what the salary or supervisory personnel shortage is, but we can't hire fast enough. I'm guessing everybody else on here is trying to hire faster, train and bring people into the industry that want to be here. Enjoy being here. At the end of the day, it's a lot of fun. We all build really cool stuff, we meet great people and we've solved problems and that's what you're looking for. Then this is the place to be.
- [23:55]
Katie Wells
We won't be sharing the video for this podcast, but I wish everyone could see all the nodding heads from all of the panelists as you're saying that.
- [24:04]
Nick Soto
So we have time for one last question, and I'm going to direct this towards Katie as the board member and Tammy as staff of lci. And that's talk to the audience. This is your opportunity to tell them what's available through LCI to support someone new to Lean or want to advance Lean practices.
- [24:21]
Tammy McConaughey
Joining LCI brings a lot of value by being a corporate member or an individual member, a vendor member. We have several different levels of membership, but really what that gets you is just a plethora of opportunities to learn more about Lean, from our Elearning series to short Lean topics to our opportunities to be at the education days at Design Forum and Congress. If you sign up as a new member, you automatically get one free ticket to Congress.
- [24:52]
Nick Soto
I'm going to interrupt you just for a second because I know what it is. But when you say Congress, not all of our listeners are going to think the same thing. So would you please define what Congress is to lci?
- [25:02]
Tammy McConaughey
Yeah, sorry, I was trying to ramble through the list in my head.
- [25:05]
Christopher Vine
And here we are.
- [25:06]
Tammy McConaughey
Congress is our biggest conference of the year, and it is a week of bringing professionals together, people who are practicing implementing new on their journey far, on their journey together to share their experiences, to share their lessons learned, and also offer education to each other. I lovingly refer to it as the super bowl of Lean construction. No competition needed, but the festivities are just as great. I look forward to it every year and a half for the past 10 years. So there's that. And then Design Forum is usually in May of every year. Last year's was in Chicago and this coming years will be in Chicago as well. And we do the same thing on a smaller scale for our design community. And it is very focused on offering Lean presentations, interactions, networking classes, curriculum for our A and E employees within our community. So if you sign up as a member, you get an automatically get a free ticket to Congress, which by the way, is a. I don't know the exact number off my head, but a couple thousand dollars value. So it is well worth it if you're learning. But I think the biggest thing that I have gotten from LCI and I've been fortunate to be a part of organizations that have always held a corporate membership over the years is just the networking and the learning. Having the resources at my fingertips, not only in an individual that pick up the phone and call and be like, hey, have you experienced this before? To have a set community, but also to be able to go onto the website and have the curriculum have the ability to use what they have. So I'm not having to recreate the wheel, but I'm also using something that is tried and true and built by professionals, but also built by those subject matter experts in our community.
- [26:56]
Christopher Vine
And I'll tag on to the community aspect of that. To me, and really a big part of LCI for me has been the community and the network that it's created. I will tell you that my two favorite events are what Tammy referred to as the super bowl, it's Congress and then Design Forum. Our two favorite events to go to. I have a team of 10 and we all go to each event because it is truly an avenue for us to reconnect with Arlene family. And I say that pretty genuinely that I have some of my best friends and relationships through the projects and through LCI and just other events that I have been fortunate enough to be a part of over the last decade or more. And it is a really fun time to get together and talk about war stories and things that I've gone like, things that aren't and just reconnect as old friends and have that avenue. And I think that we get to experience that in the smaller communities of practice that we have, but then also get these really cool events that we get to do across the whole nation. I think that is the biggest piece that I see as a valued LCI member is that community and network and.
- [28:14]
John Zakara
Those relationships as a non board member slash employee of lci. Yes, I agree. They're not just saying that because they represent it. The community of practice in Phoenix is outstanding. We've got designers, we've got trade partners, we've got contractors, we've got homage. The website has improved immensely over the past decade or more that I've used it. The resources there for people trying to get involved and get engaged or even when you've done it for a while, you just want to remember something and go look up what the route really is and make sure you're staying on track. Haven't tweaked it, but the networking opportunities to be local communities. Wherever you are, you should be looking for an LCI community of practice. They're all over the country now and there's a lot of good people and they'll help you, they'll walk with you, they'll help you on your journey and just mentor you along the way.
- [28:59]
Tammy McConaughey
And I would be remiss if I did not give a shameless plug for our certification, which we have the Certified Practitioner of Construction and the Certified Practitioner of Design now and those are really focused on skill based certifications. So what we're looking for there is three plus years of practical application of Lean methods and practices and tools in a project setting. There is a knowledge assessment that goes through that and then submitting a portfolio of your experience. And like I said earlier, Chris has earned his certification this year, which is really exciting. But the drive, the pull for that was really from owners and wanting to look at and say, hey, we're starting to see more and ask more and more of we want last Planner system or we want Target value delivery or tell us how you're going to use Lean on this project. And we're getting to a point that people are able to speak fluently about it. This proves that they are able to practice it as well and this proves that they have the subject matter experts in their teams that are actually able to implement that as well. So not only on that owner side, but as an individual being, to show up on a project and say, yeah, I have this certification, I've earned this. And knowing the work that went into that is just, it's great for a team to know that they have that support and that backup.
- [30:17]
Katie Wells
Great. I want to thank you all for joining the podcast today. It was great to listen to your passion for Lean and thank you for everything you're doing for the industry and advancing construction. So for all those, if you're interested in checking out one of the certifications that Tammy mentioned or checking out other resources on LCI's website, you can go to leanconstruction.org to learn more. On the next episode of the Construction Leaders Podcast, we will be joined by two members of CMAA's sustainability subcommittee to discuss ESG, a new trend in construction that prioritizes environmental issues, social issues and governance. As always, make sure to download or subscribe to the podcast and follow us on social social media maahq and don't forget to leave us a review with your thoughts on today's episode and let us know what you'd like to hear on an upcoming episode. On behalf of cmaa, I'm Carly Trout with Nick Soto. Thank you for listening.