The Culture Shock of Applying Agile and Lean to Construction | Luca Cotta Ramusino

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: The Culture Shock of Applying Agile and Lean to Construction
Guest: Luca Cotto Ramosino
Release Date: June 17, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in an insightful conversation with Luca Cotto Ramosino, an expert in applying Agile and Lean methodologies to the construction industry. Luca shares his journey of integrating these principles from manufacturing into the unique environment of construction, highlighting both challenges and successes.

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Inspiring Literature: Catalysts for Change

Luca begins by discussing the pivotal books that shaped his approach to Agile and Lean in construction:

• "A Machine that Changed the World"
• "The Toyota Way"

Luca (01:44): "The Toyota Way and the Machine that Changed the World were two of the books that gave me the aha moment."

He emphasizes the profound impact these works had on his understanding, particularly appreciating the Italian translation of "The Toyota Way" by Luciano Atolico, who enriched the material with case studies relevant to Italian companies.

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Applying Lean to Construction: Overcoming Initial Challenges

Transitioning Lean principles from manufacturing to construction initially presented a culture shock for Luca. Construction projects are inherently unique, lacking the repetitive assembly lines of manufacturing, which made the direct application of Lean concepts challenging.

Luca (02:30): "I kept thinking, I'm not building a car, I don't have an assembly line... a construction site is a one-of-a-kind artifact."

However, Luca discovered that foundational Lean tools like visual management, collaboration, and continuous improvement are equally vital in construction settings.

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Key Lean Principles for Construction

1. Visual Management

Visual management ensures that problems are quickly identified and addressed, minimizing costly rework.

Luca (05:13): "If the problem comes to the surface right away, then you can act on it."

In construction, detecting issues early—such as a misaligned pipe—prevents extensive and expensive corrections later in the project lifecycle.

2. Swarming Approach

Inspired by Toyota's assembly lines, the swarming technique involves mobilizing a team to focus intensively on resolving a specific issue rapidly.

Luca (07:00): "It means that the problem got fixed faster, and it's a great team-building effort."

This method not only accelerates problem resolution but also fosters a collaborative team environment.

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Team Dynamics in Construction Projects

Construction sites often involve multiple companies working together, each with their own hierarchy and objectives. This can lead to territorial behavior, where teams compete for resources or recognition rather than collaborating.

Luca (09:00): "People come into the room saying, 'You're not my boss. You're not the one paying my wage...'"

Such attitudes hinder the collective goal of project delivery, transforming the project into a fixed pie where teams vie for a larger share instead of contributing to mutual success.

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Collaboration vs. Territoriality: The Pie Analogy

Luca uses the pie analogy to illustrate the common pitfall in team dynamics:

Luca (10:45): "A construction project is not a pie of fixed dimensions... it's people coming together to deliver something."

He advocates for a mindset shift where teams focus on collective success rather than individual gains, emphasizing that collaboration leads to higher quality outcomes within agreed-upon time and budget constraints.

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Case Example: Fiber Cable and Water Piping Coordination

A practical example highlighted involves the inefficiencies arising when different crews—like fiber cable installers and water pipers—operate sequentially without coordination.

Host (13:00): "If they work together, they could find a place in time where they could help each other."

Luca explains that simultaneous collaboration would eliminate redundant work, such as multiple rounds of cutting and filling streets, thereby saving time and resources.

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Importance of Planning and Preventing Rework

Luca underscores the critical nature of planning and communication to prevent rework, which is a significant source of waste in construction projects.

Luca (14:14): "If you don't have time to do it right, then you definitely don't have time to do it twice."

He often references his grandmother's wisdom, paralleling it with W. Edwards Deming's philosophy on quality and efficiency, reinforcing the necessity of doing things correctly the first time to avoid costly mistakes.

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Deming's Influence and Quality Mindset

The conversation touches upon W. Edwards Deming's influence on Lean thinking and his role in transforming the Japanese manufacturing industry.

Host (15:15): "Deming quietly went on about creating the highest quality, most productive industry in the world in Japan."

Luca connects Deming's principles to the construction industry's need for a quality-centric approach, advocating for a culture that prioritizes meticulous planning and execution.

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Conclusion

Luca Cotto Ramosino's insights reveal that Agile and Lean methodologies, though born in manufacturing, possess versatile principles that can significantly enhance the construction industry's efficiency and collaborative spirit. By embracing practices like visual management and swarming, and fostering a culture of collaboration over competition, construction projects can achieve higher quality outcomes with reduced waste.

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Notable Quotes

• Luca Ramosino (01:44): "The Toyota Way and the Machine that Changed the World were two of the books that gave me the aha moment."
• Luca Ramosino (05:13): "If the problem comes to the surface right away, then you can act on it."
• Luca Ramosino (09:00): "People come into the room saying, 'You're not my boss. You're not the one paying my wage...'"
• Luca Ramosino (14:14): "If you don't have time to do it right, then you definitely don't have time to do it twice."
• Host (15:15): "Deming quietly went on about creating the highest quality, most productive industry in the world in Japan."

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This episode provides valuable lessons for Agile practitioners in any domain, illustrating how foundational Lean principles can bridge the gap between different industries to foster efficiency and collaboration.

Transcript

[Vasko]

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[Host]

Hello, everybody. Welcome to our team Tuesday. This week we have with us Luca Cotto Ramosino. Hey, Luca, welcome back.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

Thank you. Happy to be here.

[Host]

So we'll talk about teams and since you're an expert in agile and Lean applied to construction, we'll talk about teams in a construction environment. And before we go there though, share with us what is one book that really inspired you and influenced you when thinking about applying agile and Lean to construction work.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

Okay, Vasco, I'm gonna give you a bonus. I'm gonna give you two for the price of one. I would say. A Machine that Changed the World and the Toyota Way were two of the books that kind of gave me the aha moment. Okay, also the Toyota Way I read in English, but also the translation in Italian by Luciano Atolico. He's like the patron saint of lean in Italy because he supplemented the material with case studies of Italian companies that had successfully adopted Lean. Okay, so yeah, definitely the Toyota Way and the machine that changed the world. Of course, initially it was like a culture shock for me because I kept thinking, I'm not building a car, I don't have an assembly line. So everybody was, you know, Kaizen this and Kaizen that and Kanban this and Kanban that. I struggled to find ways to apply these methods to what is essentially a one off project. So a construction site is a one of a kind artifact. You don't build a thousand identical things. Okay, but then, yeah, but then it dawned on me on the different ways in which lean thinking could be applied to construction. You know, visual management, collaboration, continuous improvement. These are tools that are just as important in construction as they are in manufacturing.

[Host]

Yeah, absolutely. And when we think about this, I mean, we could call it translation, right? Like the translation of ideas from a domain like manufacturing into another domain. Like in your case, construction, in my case, and in the case of many of our listeners, the development of software, there's this translation layer that we need to do some effort to figure out. Right. And that would lead us to what are some of the key principles that we can then easily move from one domain to the other with local application, with local adaptation, if you will. So when you think about the machine, change the world or the Toyota way, what are a couple of principles? One, two, three principles that you think, okay, it was hard for me, but finally when I understood these were principles I could translate and apply from manufacturing to construction.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

Okay. I would say visual management. The way a Toyota factory floor is organized is that problems bubble to the surface very quickly. Okay. This is much more important on a construction site because if you, if you think about construction, it's like you're adding layers to, to a skeleton, okay? And the farther down the problem is, the more costly is going to be to fix it. Because in the meantime, you've added bricks and layers of installations and fireproofing and whatnot. And now you discover that the pipe that's going through there, it's not supposed to go there. So you need to, to tear down these layers, these successive skins to get to the problem where. And that's costing you a lot, okay. In terms of wasted material, waste of time and of course, manpower. Whereas if the problem comes to the surface right away, then you can act on it. Okay? There is this practice which I find fascinating that originated in Toyota that is called swarming. So when, when more people concentrate on a problem and it's usually a fault, okay. And, and these are knowledgeable people, so they fix the problem faster, okay? The Toyota assembly lines actually have a. Well, used to have, now it's all digital, but they used to have an andon, okay, Something. It's like an emergency, an emergency lever, okay? You pull on that lever and red lights come on. And different workers would concentrate in that section of the assembly line to fix that problem. And that means that the problem got fixed faster, okay. And it's a great team building effort.

[Host]

So talking about teams, today's Tuesday, and on Tuesdays we like to explore what are patterns that lead to problems within teams. What is a pattern or situation where you've seen the team's ability to collaborate or deliver being destroyed by that pattern. And of course now we're looking into construction. So I'm curious to see if there's an analogy there to software as well.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

So the typical situation on a construction site, unless it's small, is many different companies working together to deliver the project. Okay? So different people who have to work together actually are employed by different companies and they come into the room saying, you know, you're not my boss. You don't tell me what to do. You're not the one paying my, my wage, okay? I'm, I'm doing what my boss tells me to do. This means that the trade crews think of the project like as, as a pie. Okay? So if you, Bosco, get a bigger slice, right. Then I get a smaller slice, right? And that's not going to happen, right? I'm not letting you get a bigger slice. Now, of course, your purpose, the reason you're on that construction site is to deliver a construction project, not making sure that all your buddies don't get a bigger slice than you. And this is, this is the wrong way to go about the problem. A construction project is not a pie of fixed dimensions so that, you know, if you take a larger bite, then I'm left with a smaller piece of the pie. It's people coming together to deliver something. And it's much more effective in getting to the end with outstanding quality within the time budget that you have agreed with the client. If you work together, if you collaborate. Now, collaborating doesn't necessarily mean you, you build with the other crew because, you know, if you are a heating engineer, then maybe you don't know much about electricians work. What I mean is tell people what you're doing, listen to what other people are doing, tell people where you are experiencing problems, and listen to other people's problems.

[Host]

So what you're referring to is like this perspective or even like attitudes that people bring with them to the work that they're doing, right? Like, one possible attitude is, you know, if you do something more than I need to do something less, and I get paid less. But in fact, what we're doing is figuring out, or at least that's what I understood that you're saying is that what you're doing in practice in a construction site is figuring out what we sometimes need to share and do together so that we can quickly find potential problems and quickly fix them together, right? Because, and I see this, you know, when people are building a street or just doing some, like in my street, a couple of months ago, they started putting fiber cables under the Ground. Right. And you see this completely counterintuitive thing that happens, that the fiber cable crew comes in, they cut the street, they put the cables, they close the street, they put the asphalt on top. Then the water piping company comes in, they cut the street.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

The following week, they do. They dig in the hole. Yeah.

[Host]

So if they would work together, if they had an ability and even the scheme or the techniques to work together, they could find a place in time where they could help each other. Right. Like, for example, one of them would do the digging and the other one would finally fix the one would do the filling. Exactly. So what you're saying is both the attitude and the understanding that even though I might be an expert electrician, I actually need to work with the drywall and with the plumber, because that will help me complete my work faster, and it will help them complete their work faster.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

And sometimes, you know, sometimes I get this pushback from teams, because, as always, this is not just for construction. I think it's. Any complex project suffers from this. Everybody keeps saying, we don't have time. Okay. So anything. Anything that requires planning or meeting or, you know, discussing how you will do the work is seen as a waste of time. What I usually tell them is what my grandmother used to tell me, if you don't have time to do it right, then you definitely don't have time to do it twice. The fiber cable example you mentioned is that you're cutting and filling the road bed twice because of lack of planning. You know, if the fiber crew and the water crew came on site at the same time, you would need to cut and fill just once.

[Host]

Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned your grandmother immediately when you said that if you don't have time to do it right, I immediately thought of Deming, who used to say the same thing with other words over and over again. And of course, Deming is one of the inspirations behind what eventually became the Toyota production system and also the industrial revolution in Japan, as he was shipped by the Americans to Japan because nobody liked him in the States. And he quietly went on about creating the highest quality, most productive industry in the world in Japan. Of course, together with many people, he wasn't doing it alone. And then later on came back to the US and started doing the lecture tour, saying things like, if you don't have time to do it right, you definitely don't have time to do it twice. That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that, Luca.

[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

Thank you.

[Vasko]

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[Luca Cotto Ramosino]

Slack.

[Host]

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