Go Bananas ... Build a Winning TEAM

In the two previous articles, we established the importance of building a a team on a foundation of trust and making and keeping promises to deliver on the commitments needed to be successful in the project game. When each player on a team focuses on the prize and delivers to the best of their ability each and every day, the team will succeed.

Despite losing their quarterback prior to entering the 2018 NFL playoffs the Philadelphia Eagles were able to put together a string of wins, beat the odds and win the 2018 Super Bowl. It was an amazing victory! They acted as a team, they committed to winning and they were accountable to each other for delivering the performance needed. In this article we address how to form an exceptional team to win at the project game.

Hand pick the best TALENT

Team selection is the single most important factor for an Owner wanting to deliver an exceptional project. One that exceeds expectations, is delivered on time, at less cost and risk. Choosing a winning team requires scouting for talent as opposed to picking a team of low cost players. As the coach you will want to advise the Owner that if they want the championship, they will need to build the best integrated team based upon a balance of defense, offense and leadership. We normally don't have the budget of the New York teams, so we will may need to search out the hidden gems, that are intrinsically motivated to perform when challenged.

The drafting process should be lean, simple and focus on selecting best value proponents that have demonstrated the ability to work collaboratively in a spirit of trust to deliver successful high value projects. The process should not include a long cumbersome selection process with a dog and pony show. It needs to be a streamlined process that involves scouting talent, inviting them to training camp and testing them on their commitment, collaboration, experience and capabilities to participate in a disciplined approach.

Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing

Once the team has been selected it is very important to start building strong relationships between all of the players. This involves forming, norming, storming and you will want to get to the performing stage as soon as possible. For success, It needs to be an all for one and one for effort with commitment, discipline and accountability for getting work done.

A great way to begin the journey is to share a meal and get to know each other on a personal level. On one project we began with a round table, “Tell us something unique or funny about yourself that nobody at this table knows about you." It was great to discover that Bob was not a turkey, but rather a modern day timber salvage diver that had an amazing story to tell. By relating to people on a personal level, we can get to the level of comfort needed to care and trust each other as an integral player on the team. We also need to have a level of comfort so that we can have the tough conversations that are often required when we need to create alignment and challenge the team to up their game, for the good of the team.

Once we have trust, commitment and relationships established it is much easier to learn, practice and master the skills and systems needed to win at the project game.

Head to Boot Camp

At boot camp we learn the basic plays of delivering a project based upon lean project delivery principles and practices. We learn how to pull plan the sequences of plays that are needed to march the team down the field to meet the milestones without getting flagged for inefficiency and broken plays. We learn that with Just-In-Time delivery systems for manufacturing or the Last Planner System for construction or implementing a Minimum Viable Product for software development, that we can sequence work to be more reliable, efficient and productive.

The AHA moment comes when the team realizes that by adopting the same principles that Toyota uses for manufacturing and applying them to Construction or Starting a Business, that we can be deliver wildly successful projects with much less effort.

Prepare for Game Day

Next we need to prepare for the first stage of a project, the preseason game. This is where the team huddles to pull plan the work and execute the plays and deliver on commitments needed to move the project down the field. The daily huddles are necessary to ensure that all members of the team are focused on delivering the right work for the hand-off to the next players so that the flow of work is optimized for team throughput and not for an individual firms self interest. The team will need to take time outs to access non-performance, make adjustments and test for improvement. 

At the end of the first quarter, we count the number of planned verses completed sets of downs and mark them on a scoreboard. The team needs to measure the percentage of planned work completed as opposed to what was planned for the week, for direct feedback on performance.

The team need time to plan and coordinate the phases of work on a weekly and daily basis to ensure the work is fully sequenced, there are no constraints preventing the team from reaching the finish line. The daily huddles are for dealing with smaller issues and exploring new ways to continually improve performance.

Test for Fitness Level 
 It is also recommended to benchmark team fitness levels and continually monitor progress to learn which areas of the game may need attention. Some common performance measurements include, team collaboration, meeting owner value expectations, delivering to target cost, delivering to schedule, profitability, problem solving and continuous improvement. You will also want measure good team behavior by testing for trust, collaboration, problem solving, continuous improvement and ensuring the team is having the crucial conversations needed to maintain a healthy and productive environment.

If there are areas of weakness, the team needs to fix the problems that are the highest priority for progressing to that next level of performance. This may involve creating specialty teams to focus on a specific problem, provide training on how to make better decisions, stream line processes and developing new ways to get work to flow.
Now that you have the basics to establishing a Winning TEAM, we need you to Go BANANAS and get some Great Lean pays for Green wins and build a NetZero energy project. ... Go BANANAS!

 Next sessions we will how to Optimize Value with Target Value Design and Cross the Finish Line Early with the Last Planner System.

Good luck playing the project delivery game
 Murray Guy, @Lean_tobe_Green, Connect on LinkedIn … Email

Integrated Designs, EcoSmart Developments & Shift2Lean

TRUST is the foundation for a Lean Project Team

In last weeks’ article “Why a 3 Pronged Approach to Lean” we explored why we need to implement lean from the Top Down, Bottom Up and Inside out so that you will not be shocked by a lack of commitment and RISK losing your investment in yet another failed management approach.

We know the Return on Investment of building a company like Toyota is worth the effort.  So let’s get started by building a good foundation.

This week we establish why we need to hire people we can TRUST that be counted on to deliver on their PROMISES. In the building industry that is known for it’s INEFFICIENCY and BAD BEHAVIOR this can be a daunting task. This should come as no surprise as team selection is most often based upon low tendered price and not on the team’s ability to work in a spirit of trust and collaboration. Building a trust based team is the foundation for exceptional work to occur. Without trust we cannot make reliable commitments and keep the promises needed for constraint free workflow.


The Speed of Trust

There is one thing that is common to every Team that if developed and levered has the potential to achieve unparalleled success, that is TRUST. The economics of TRUST is that when trust goes up the speed and cost of getting a deal done or a project completed goes down. [Covey, Speed of Trust]
Building a team based upon trust enables the team to accelerate through the forming, storming, norming stages of team development and get to performing. In the selection process of building a TEAM our checklist would include: 

·      Ability to commit and stand for something
·      Chose the abundance model with the mindset that there will be more to go around
·      Be confident in abilities with a focus on measureable results
·      Be of good character including including straight talk, respectful & dependable
·      Be competent including making commitment, being accountable and delivering results
·      Be collaborative, listen and build trust
·      The company needs to support these behaviors
·      The company needs to demonstrate that trust is part of the DNA of doing Business

Teams that establish trust will out perform teams assembled for self interest, due to the efficiencies created through commitment and keeping promises that accelerate work flow.

Building TRUST

To build trust we need to lead by example by keeping commitment and promises. The team needs collaborate with open communications so that everyone is on the same page. The team needs to be get to know each other personally so that they can learn each others principles, values and what they enjoy outside of work life. It is also essential to not place blame and look into the mirror to question, what could I have done differently to avoid a situation that could negatively affect a relationship.

In traditional project delivery, working in silos is a barrier building the level of trust and collaboration needed to achieve much higher levels of performance. That is why teams often co-locate in a big room with systems and processes designed for building relationships, trust and collaboration. Finally, we need to commit to having the crucial conversations needed to transcend often perceived conflict. Knowing that only 10% of people will take the steps needed to address conflict, we need to create a safe environment for this to occur.

Trust is the foundation from which to build a high performance team, we have provided a checklist for the selection of the team, a recipe for creating the type of environment where trustful working relationship can be established and sustained. 

Next we EXPLORE
Why Keeping Promises is key for Reliable Work Flow
We need more NetZero EXPLORER Experts
Go Bananas ... Build a Winning Team

Murray Guy, Lean & Green Team Builder
Want to connect? @Lean_tobe_Green, Connect on LinkedIn … Email
Integrated Designs, EcoSmart Developments & Shift2Lean

Reliable Promising is key for Reliable Work Flow

A “Promise is a Promise” [1] is a scary story that Inuit mothers told their children about why they should not go fishing on the the sea ice without their parents. If the children did not keep their promise the Quallupilluitt, which were troll like creatures would come and grab them and take them under the ice. The young girl in this story Allashua did not listen to her folks, strayed out onto the sea ice and slipped into a scary and frightening underworld because she did not keep her PROMISE.




Lean construction pioneers Glen Ballard and Greg Howell discovered that not keeping promises also leads to scary situations with project teams falling through the cracks and drowning in a sea of excuses, missed deadlines and extra costs. So they decided to throw the construction industry a lifeline called the Last Planner System (LPS).

 Last Planner System

The Last Planner System was designed to address two main problems with the construction industry, inefficiency and bad behavior. To address inefficiency they designed the system around fixing one of the biggest wastes on a construction site which is work waiting for workers and workers waiting for work. They discovered that by turning the planning process on its head and getting the people directly responsible for coordinating the work in the field (Last Planners) to also plan the work it became much more efficient and reliable. 

To address the issue of the bad behavior of not keeping commitments to scheduled work, they added team discipline and accountability that is managed on a daily basis at stand-up meetings and at the weekly coordination meeting where, Last Planners need to report in to the whole team on the percentage of planned work completed.

The Last Planner System system promotes collaborative team based planning and discipline in managing the commitments and promises required to achieve reliable work flow. In a future article we will delve more into the details of how this system works. For the rest of this article we want to explore what is needed for a reliable promise, a keystone for getting work to flow. 

What is needed for a Reliable Promise?

To help understand WHY people are not keeping commitments we need to look at the root cause of why traditional project delivery execution is flawed.

• Companies disengage because they don’t buy in to the project priorities; they become dissatisfied and unproductive. 
• Companies operate in silos that hinder the coordination necessary to effectively manage work
• Organizational structures obscure accountability for projects and initiative
• Improperly executed plans can mostly be contributed to broken or poorly crafted commitments. 

 At its heart, every project or business is run based upon is a network of promises. Promises are the strands that weave together coordinated activity in organizations. We can foster productive, reliable work by practicing what we call “promise-based management”: cultivating and coordinating commitments in a systematic way.
Well-made promises can help bridge the gap between individuals working in different locations and for different companies. The dialogues that are central to promise-based management allow people from disparate backgrounds to achieve a common understanding of what needs to be done.  Promises also foster a mutual sense of personal obligation to deliver the goods as clearly understood by the parties to the promise
 Well-made promises share the following five characteristics.  [1, Harvard Business Review]

1.    Good promises are public as opposed to side deals hammered out in private 
2.    Good promises are active and collaborative process.
3.    Good promises are voluntary.
4.    Good promises are explicit about who will do what for whom and by when.
5.    Good promises explain why the commitment is needed

Pull Planning is used to create the Network of Promises?  

 Pull Planning is a collaborative process that is used to establish the sequence of activities and the network of promises needed to deliver reliable work flow. It involves having the Last Planners pull plan the work in sequence to meet project schedules that are often 4 to 6 months shorter due to the efficiencies of proactively managing work flow from the bottom up and delivering on commitments.

On a weekly basis the team is required to report in on the percentage of planned work 
completed. (PPC) On a traditional project the PPC would normally be in the 40% to 50% range. On a Lean Project the PPC would range from 75% to 85%.  To put this in perspective, when teams make and keep reliable promises that are optimized to improve work flow, projects can be completed four to six months early, at significant less cost, while improving the profitability of the project team.

Next we will look at the the use of the Last Planner System in design and how Target Value Design can reduce project costs by 18%.

Murray Guy, @Lean_tobe_Green, Connect on LinkedIn … Email
Integrated Designs, EcoSmart Developments & Shift2Lean


[1] Promise-Based Management: The Essence of Execution Donald Sull, Charles Spinosa

A 3 Pronged Approach to Lean Implementation

In this article we want to discuss WHY lean is easy to say but hard to do and what it takes to build a successful lean company.

Why 3 Prongs?
When we look at an electrical receptacle The left slot is slightly larger than the right. The left slot is called "neutral, " the right slot is called "hot" and the hole below them is called "ground." The prongs on a plug fit into these slots in the outlet. When we look around the house some appliances have 2 prongs and some have 3, what is the difference? The purpose of the third prong is to prevent electrical shock in the event that a wire comes loose in a receptacle. The devices will work with 2, but are you going to RISK it? 

 Similarly, we could try and take a two pronged approach implementing lean and green strategies, but do you want to run the risk of not achieving a safe and reliable return on investment?

 The reality is that lean implementation needs to be a 3 pronged approach or you could be shocked by the lack of commitment for lean. To achieve a lean transformation requires the time and effort required to to build from the bottom up and should be the starting point, as this part takes the longest. Lean needs to be applied to how you manage your business, how people work with-in the business and how you deliver services. The bottom line is that lean only works when it is adopted completely with an all for one and one for all approach with partners that are interested in pursuing business excellence.

How to Build the Team from Top Down, Bottom Up and Inside Out?
Providing hands on workshops and practicing lean concepts on a daily basis is key for building lean capabilities with-in your organization. Getting commitment to implementing a lean transformation and putting in place the discipline and accountability is required to achieve rapid results. Leaning forward this will involve developing a lean mindset in the way you work, the work that you do and how you interface with business partners.


From the top down, it is recommended that the leadership team include a lean champion and that lean practices become the operations strategy. The company’s metrics/scorecard should include challenging targets, measuring adoption of lean principles and practices and hold the team accountable for continuous improvement.  At Integrated Designs, we are in the process of integrating lean principles into the DNA of the company by making lean practices a requirement of the companies operating system.

One way is to adopt a system like the Entrepreneur Operating System to help get the leadership team on the same page and rowing in the same direction. You will also want to establish a team of advisors that can provide mentorship and guidance for the lean journey. We also recommend adopting the 14 business principles that are outlined in “The Toyota Way” as a key measures of lean leadership and capabilities.
 From the Bottom Up, nobody that I know has been as successful in building a lean culture as rapidly as Paul Akers the CEO and President of Fast Cap. The key to their success has been to make lean fun and everyone’s responsibility to continually improve the business everyday by making a two second improvement every day.  By holding a short first thing in the morning daily team meeting, Paul has been able to build and sustain a lean culture that has brought his business huge success, just like his hero’s and mentors at Toyota. This process works well in a manufacturing environment.

For knowledge based work, Darren Becks at St. Jerome’s University recommends using Personal Kanban Boards as a good starting point. Kanban is a method for visually managing the delivery of work with a focus on creating work flow while not over burdening the the team. It also ensures that individuals focus on the three most important tasks that as a collective, will enable the delivery of services just in time for the internal or external customers. Like the 2 Second lean approach, Kanban requires short weekly and daily coordination huddles to ensure the team is fully coordinated for work to flow.

Bringing in a lean champion to run a product system boot camp using simulations like the airplane game is also a good way to ramp up the team on lean. The hands on simulations are effective in demonstrating the effectiveness of small batch or single piece flow and why we need to deliver what the market is pulling just in time for the customer. It is also good to build a tool box by experimenting with methods like Choosing by Advantages to help with decision making, Value Stream Mapping to map out processes and A3 Problem Solving to analyze and systematically develop the business case for improvements.

From the Inside Out, organizations need to work with there customers and the supply chain to create integrated, transparent and trustful business relationships. For project work this involves the careful selection of teams, the adoption of Lean Project Delivery Systems including the Last Planner System and Target Value Delivery. For project work there often in not a lot of time to build from the Bottom up so a Boot Camp approach that involves full day workshops and simulations can be a good way to ramp a team.

In summary, organizations need to implement a business operating systems that includes challenging targets and lean principles and practices as a measure for business success. Your business needs to go to war on waste from the bottom up and build lean thinking and capabilities. Finally, you will need to select business partners that have a lean mindset and are committed to striving for excellence and developing mutually beneficial business relationships.

If you take a three pronged approach you will not be shocked by a lack of commitment from your leadership team or employees or external business partners.

 In the next article we will explore why building TRUST is key for high performance. Murray Guy, @Lean_tobe_Green, Connect on LinkedIn … Email
Integrated Designs, EcoSmart Developments & Shift2Lean

Sending the Team to BOOT CAMP

WHY Lean Project Boot Camp?

Have you ever heard of a team winning a Championship that didn’t go to BOOT CAMP? 

At boot camp we learn why other teams are sluggish, why they drop balls, have bottlenecks and don’t win championships. The Boot camp day includes an overview of lean principles and practices that enable work to flow, value to be created and higher productivity and business success to be achieved. 

We learn how the Last Planner System is used to create reliable work flow on a project and how it delivers amazing results. The whole purpose of BOOT CAMP is to learn the basic principles of how to create flow and why the Last Planner System is the system that we need everyone to buy-in to using for design and construction. Think of BOOT CAMP as a “Lean Immersion Weekend Getaway”, where we immerse ourselves in lean so we understand just how BIG an impact process change can have on productivity. 

The Boot Camp Day can handle a maximum of  thirty participants. It includes:

• The Business Case for Lean Project Delivery
• Last Planner System Overview
• Villego Stage 1: Bench mark production capabilities (Traditional methods)
• Parade of Trades: Learn that we need to minimize production variability
• Airplane Game: Learn why small batch and single piece flow improves productivity
• Villego Stage 2: How Collaboration, Planning and Discipline lead to Extraordinary results

Creating an AHA Moment!

When participants experience hands on lean production and see the huge potential of a different way of approaching production, the light bulb goes on and there is an AHA moment. Creating this AHA moment is instrumental in getting the team engaged and primed for the cultural change needed for Lean Project Delivery.

Our goal with this Boot Camp is to provide all the training needed to apply lean project delivery to your project. The next step for participants is to plan and execute a phase of a project using the principles and practices learned in this session.

Murray Guy 

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Can Promise-Based Management fix a Broken Building Industry | Murray Guy

The article Promise-Based Management: The Essence of Execution:  addresses one of the fundamental issues "lack of commitment" that is inherent in a very traditional building industry. An industry that is failing miserably in getting projects completed on time and to budget.  An industry that fails in delivering value for the customer.  An industry that wastes $500 Billion dollars annually due to poor productivity and bad behavior.

The following is a summary of how the important principles of Promises and Commitment apply to the Lean Construction Industry.

Why we have a Problem?

The building industry is declining in productivity as companies work in silos and do not make and keep the commitments needed to get productive work flow.

 Execution fails for a variety of depressingly familiar reasons: 

• Companies disengage because they don’t buy in to the project priorities; they become dissatisfied and unproductive.  
• Companies operate in silos that hinder the coordination necessary to effectively manage work
• Organizational structures obscure accountability for projects and initiatives.

Improperly executed plans can mostly be contributed to broken or poorly crafted commitments. 

How do we Fix our Projects?

Project Managers must fundamentally rethink how work gets done. Specifically, they must acknowledge that a company is more than a bundle of processes or a set of boxes and lines on an org chart. 

At its heart, every company is a dynamic network of promises. Employees up and down the corporate hierarchy make pledges to one another—the typical management by objectives. Employees also make commitments to colleagues in other divisions and to customers, outsourcing partners, and other stakeholders. 

Promises are the strands that weave together coordinated activity in organizations.

We can foster productive, reliable work by practicing what we call “promise-based management”: cultivating and coordinating commitments in a systematic way.

Why Promises, and Why Now?

Promise-based management builds on a tradition that extends back at least to the emergence of contract law in the Roman Empire. It draws on the tenets of speech act theory, a branch of linguistic philosophy that explores how people commit themselves to action through assertions, questions, requests, promises, declarations, and other speech acts. 

Well-made promises can help bridge the gap between such individuals, who may be literally and figuratively miles apart. The dialogues that are central to promise-based management allow people from disparate backgrounds to achieve a common understanding of what needs to be done. 

Promises also foster a mutual sense of personal obligation to deliver the goods.

Conversations for Commitment

A promise is a pledge a provider makes to satisfy the concerns of a customer within or outside an organization. More important than the actual content of a promise, however, are the discussions that give it life. Both sides must explicitly thrash out what the customer wants and why, how the provider would go about satisfying the request, and any constraints or competing priorities that could derail fulfillment of the promise.

The Five Characteristics of a Good Promise

In more than a decade of research on commitments, we’ve asked hundreds of managers to evaluate the quality of promises made within their organizations. We’ve asked them what percentage of all commitments made to them they could actually rely on. The typical response is about 50%.  We’ve found that well-made promises share the following five characteristics.

1. Good promises are public. Promises that are made, monitored, and completed in public are more binding—and therefore more desirable—than side deals hammered out in private.  
2. Good promises are active. Negotiating a commitment should an active, collaborative process. Active conversations should comprise offers, counteroffers, commitments, and refusals rather than endless assertions about the state of nature.  Conversations should comprise offers, counteroffers, commitments, and refusals rather than endless assertions about the state of nature.
3. Good promises are voluntary.The most effective promises are not coerced; they are voluntary. The provider has viable options for saying something other than yes. Contracts signed under duress are not binding in a court of law. 
4. Good promises are explicit. Customers and providers should clearly acknowledge who will do what for whom and by when. The customer and the provider must be explicit about their promise throughout its life cycle. Requests must be clear from the start, progress reports should accurately reflect how the promise is being executed, and success (or failure) should be outlined in detail at the time of delivery rather than after the fact.  
5. Good promises are mission based.  The most effective promises are mission based—that is, the customer explains the rationale for the request and invests time to ensure that the provider understands the mission.   When providers understand why their promise matters, they are more likely to persist in executing even when they encounter conflicting demands and unforeseen roadblocks. 

Promises are the fundamental units of interaction in businesses. They coordinate organizational activity and stoke the passions of employees, customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. While they hold an organization together, they are as fragile as they are crucial. Leaders must therefore weave and manage their webs of promises with great care—encouraging iterative conversation to make sure commitments are fulfilled reliably. If they do, they can enhance coordination and cooperation among colleagues, build the agility required to seize new business opportunities, and tap employees’ entrepreneurial energies. If they don’t, they will lose out to rivals who do.

A version of this article appeared in the April 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Working to create a more Sustainable Building Industry!
Murray Guy @Lean_tobe_Green
Learn: LEAN LAB. … Design: Integrated Designs … Build: EcoSmart
For inquires: Mguy@i-designs.ca or 306.934.6818


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Integrated Design and Delivery Guide | CEC

The environmental impacts of buildings and the costs of construction projects can be significantly reduced through the use of an integrated design, delivery and operations process. 

The definition and application of this building approach, however, varies widely across industry sectors and regulatory jurisdictions in North America.
This guide, which draws on the 2013 report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC)

This guide is intended to introduce building practitioners to tested methods for incorporating deeper levels of integrated design and delivery into their construction projects. It can also help all stakeholders concerned in meeting their goals for constructing better and greener buildings.


Integrated Design and Delivery The building industry has long suffered from a lack of integration among industry sectors. Business-as-usual leads different firms and individuals to enter into a project in phases and take responsibility for only what falls in their area of expertise or responsibility: architects and engineers are responsible for planning and design, contractors are responsible for constructing the building or structure, and building owners are left to deal with the outcome. This assembly line approach very rarely works to create a building that is optimized as a system. Rather, the final product often underperforms and may not even meet the needs of the owner. 

Over the years, different approaches have been developed to help building professionals execute a construction project more collaboratively. These include: Partnering, Integrated Design Process, Lean Design and Construction, Integrative Process, or Integrated Project Delivery. Each approach has helped project teams achieve higher levels of success by encouraging some level of integration among the responsibilities of the various team members. 

This guide distills the key tenets of these various approaches, under the blanket term “integrated design and delivery,” to help project teams achieve the kind of integration that will have transformative and tangible effects. To get there, this guide outlines five main steps, which are supported by several case studies, expert comments, reference documents, and specific guidelines for each expert group.

Why increase integration?

1. Integrated teams agree on a clear path forward before construction starts. Key team members are selected before the design phase. The team defines project goals and maps responsibilities for going forward together. Input from multiple disciplines helps find the best solutions.

2. Integrated teams achieve greener buildings. System efficiencies are discovered through identifying synergies. Waste and redundancy are avoided through better coordination, thus reducing material, energy, and water use. Contractor and trade input during design increases cost predictability, which protects green features from being cut during construction.

3. Integrated teams save the owner money. Construction costs are weighed from the beginning.  Fewer changes are made later in the design process, when they become most expensive. Fewer Requests for Information (RFIs) and change orders are placed. Embedded contingencies and variable costs are reduced. An integrated team generally spends more time and energy making decisions early in the project, when the ability is highest to affect the project positively.

Based upon our experience on over ten successful lean to be green projects, we concur that a more integrated design and delivery approach achieves far superior results as demonstrated at the University of Winnipeg, Okanagan College and the Mosaic Center projects


Murray Guy @Lean_tobe_Green
Learn: LEAN LAB. … Design: Integrated Designs … Build: EcoSmart
For inquires: Mguy@i-designs.ca or 306.934.6818
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