Ok, so you have heard that Lean Construction works, you don’t have 10,000 hours to develop mastery but you want to Giv’er a Go. If you want to spend less time on the WHY we need to change our wasteful ways and gets more into the meat and potatoes of how to deliver a lean project, this 2-day immersion workshop is for you! First we will quickly establish the business case and review the fundamentals of Lean and then delve into the most critical aspects of Lean Construction: Fo

I really enjoyed writing the last couple of blog articles as the Murray Brain is full of new ideas from attending the Lean Construction Institute - Canada conference, hosting workshops from coast to coast and having to solve some real problems on a couple of projects I am involved with. The following important story needs to be told as a stand alone story, so I unplugged it from a previous post "Embrace Failure as a Driver for Change." In the Moneyball story we learn the impo

In last weeks article we explored why we need to get "Back to the Future with a Master Builder Approach" and how that lead to strong customer relations and business success. What I didn't tell you was that the next day I stayed over and attended a Seattle Community of Practice meeting and joined Jack the Master Builder for the Target Value Delivery kick-off of a third 45-story Amazon tower. Communities of Practice (COP's) are a great opportunities for networking and learning.

As an early adopter of Lean Project Delivery in Canada, I felt very lonely on my lean journey. With only Google, the book Broken Buildings Busted Budgets, a desperate client that was $10M over budget, it was a miracle that we were able to deliver an exceptional RCFE project. In hind site it was mostly with heroic efforts, collaboration and an awesome hand picked team, rather than the implementation of well defined lean project delivery system that enabled success. With no for

This is my first day at home after a 3 week coast to coast tour that included 3 Shift2Lean workshops in 3 cities. (Toronto, St John's Newfoundland and Vancouver). The purpose of this " Lean Project Gospel" tour was to share lessons learned on how to deliver hugely more successful projects. It also provided a battery recharge opportunity as I was fortunate to have timed this tour with the annual Saskatchewan & Manitoba WindRiders kiteboarding safari to Hatteras. With kite boar

The key to winning the "the race" is to assemble a team of players that are lean, fit and committed to completing their leg of the journey on pace. It is essential to practice getting the pace and the hand offs right as we know that dropping the baton is disastrous to team performance. A good starting point to is to hand pick "the team" and then send them to boot camp to get on the same page. On the first day of boot camp we learn the basic techniques needed to win races. On

One of the biggest wastes on a project can be the cost and time delays caused by projects going over budget and having to delay the project to go through a value engineering process that strips all of the VALUE our of the project. This occurs on traditional projects as the Owner, contractors, trades users work in SILOS with minimal collaboration on value creation. Target Value Design Unlike traditional design processes where design, budgeting, and then redesign are an iterat

In previous articles, we established the importance of building "the 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 end game 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

Once upon a time there were three little pigs that wanted to build new homes. The first little pig decided to build with a traditional straw process and found that his budget got blown to little pieces. The second little pig decided to build with a more integrated design approach and was able to deliver a fine sustainable wood project but got burned on schedule, it was 4 months late. The smart little pig decided to go to school at Shift2Lean where he learned that he could b

In 2014, a modern day EXPLORER, Paul Hanley wrote a book on the monumental changes that are needed for Eleven billion people to occupy this marvellous planet at the end of this century. With optimism, Paul concluded we have the knowledge and systems needed for the sweeping changes that are needed to transform humankind in culture, agriculture and ultimately a new human race. [Eleven, Paul Hanley] The seeping sweeping changes that are needed, need to start now and focus on the

In the last LEAN to be GREEN article, "What’s in it for me” we explored the idea that it will take two types of GREEN to motivate the industry for wide spread adoption of Lean Project Delivery. The first GREEN being the higher purpose sustainable GREEN that companies like Interface Carpets adopt that helps to motivate their people to do great work. The working for a higher purpose GREEN helps to create a sustainable advantage that was measured to be 38% higher profit in a stu

In our last article “LEAN to be GREEN is a 2020 Vision for a NetZero Building Industry” we introduced the Lean to be Green strategy as a smart way to fix productivity issues in building design and construction for the purpose of creating a NetZero building industry. Based upon the success of the two #NetZero buildings outlined in the case studies that were delivered using #LEAN Project Delivery, it is proposed that North America adopt a NetZero energy standard by the year 202

There are a number of ways to get your foot in the door to learn lean. It can be as simple as reading a book like "This is Lean", going online to connect with lean practitioners or by joining or starting a Community of Practice. In Saskatoon we were fortunate to have a core group of people interested in creating a Community of Practice (COP), so it made it easy for others to become involved. Organizing our first event was as simple as getting a few people together to disc