And now to the heart of the course, Lean, and Lean Scheduling. First, what is Lean? Well it's an operations strategy to deliver increased productivity via flow efficiency. It's the project delivery system that strips away unnecessary effort, time and cost in capital project development to deliver what the owner values, and is also Lean design. But when we're talking Lean Scheduling, we're talking project delivery and operational strategy. Lean came from the asking of the question, well why not think about projects differently? There are three interconnected opportunities for impeccable coordination, the project as a collective enterprise, and the project as a production system. Now, I'm not going to focus in this course on the importance of alignment, and that often means financial alignment. Lean does require people to behave differently. And to behave differently, their interests have to be protected. So the idea of a project as a collective enterprise where financial incentives are aligned, and that the production system of a project changes a structure of work so that we achieve the implacable coordination. There's a lot involved with getting a team of different contracted players to behave Lean. For the purposes of this exercise, we're going to assumed that alignment has been achieved, perhaps through contractual methods. And what to do to achieve Lean Scheduling once you are aligned as a team and you really want to be Lean. So Lean Project Delivery has its base, its foundation in the culture of Lean. Then there's pull planning, target value design, set base design, and choosing by advantages. The last planner is the trademark term for the generic term of pull planning. And the last planner refers to the last person who's actually doing the work, who can think about the work, and is authorized to say yes and no about the work. So the last planner is about empowering people who are actually going to get the work done. And we're going to see more about that in a little bit. I like to refer to the four key processes above Lean Theory, Choosing By Advantages, Set Based Design, Target Value Design, and Pull Planning as the Big Four. These four processes are essential to Lean Project Delivery. We're going to focus on Pull Planning because the schedule, remember earlier the importance of time, if we get the schedule right other good things will happen. So when we talk about Lean, we often talk about Waste, and Value, and Flow. And when we talk about Lean Scheduling, we are very much talking about flow. How does it happen? How do we create hand-offs from trade to trade, discipline to discipline, so that projects can move ahead step by step adding value. So Pull Planning begins with the end in mind. And we work our way back reverse planning to a starting point. But we go a little bit further. In Pull Planning we have detailed questioning. What do I really need from you to do my work, and when do I really need it? And then as a group, what can our system provide? When can I reliably deliver it? Let's take an example of push verses pull in the real world. In the push example an electrical trade installs conduit and junction boxes at the slab. The concrete trade, at some later date, comes to pours and finish that slab. Well there's a waiting time in between that's a waste, there's a time gap. The installed work could be a tripping hazard in the way of the trades. It could be subject to weather. That's a waste. That's push thinking, because the electrical trade is getting their work done. That's what they're focused on. Now, in pull thinking, we work backwards. The concrete trade tells us when they need to begin pouring and finishing that slab. And then determine when the electrical trade installs their conduit, junction boxes, et cetera. The difference is, where are the milestones? In push, the milestone is when the electrical finish their work. Whereas in pull, is when their work enables the next trade to do their work. Hand-offs are the essence of pull planning. Not finishing our jobs, but enabling the next step in the value chain to happen. So let's recap. It's system-driven pull planning, the milestones are here to enable next steps. The Big Four are Pull-Plannng, Target Value Design, Set Based Design, Choosing By Advantages. The Foundational Elements are Lean Theory and Alignment. And we're not going to focus on alignment today, but we are going to assume it's been achieved for the purposes of Pull-Planning. And the Last Planner is that person at the work who's authorized to say yes or no. Pull-Planning, four keywords. Should, begins with a Master Schedule. Can, which has two steps, the pull-planning events, and a six week look ahead. Will, the one week planner of what we will do. And Did, the look backward at our percent of promises completed. So the master planner, Master Schedule, maybe a CPM which then leads to a pull planning event in what we call the big room. That pull planning event is documented in a look ahead schedule, typically six weeks in duration, which then drives the one week plan of promises. What will be done next week. Which is measured in percent promises completed, PPC. And if you're at a target of 75 to 85%, you will find that your project is flowing well. Let's look at these each in detail, these steps. Should is the CPM, it's the master schedule. Can is pull planning sessions and the look aheads, Will is the promise, and Did is the target. So, Should sets milestones, particularly those certain milestones that we're working to. We should not be misled by a detailed future, we're going to figure out the detail as a group in the pull planning session. But that master schedule tells us the strategic intent. The strategic intent of the owners need, the value that we have to achieve over time, and it visually communicates the big picture. The bird's eye view, the synoptic view of what the project is all about. From the should, we then talk about reliability, what can we reliably and actually achieve? That begins in a pull planning session in what's called the big room, where the immediate players are involved to talk about what can they do. Now, often times there's a trainer and facilitator to help that team. It's a safe zone where people are encouraged to say what they truly mean to say. The Last Planner is the essence of pull planning, and we talk about capacity, our understanding not only of what we need to do but how that hand-off enables the next, the timeliness required, and integrity. And it's not just the integrity to speak truth, but also the sweet truth to power and to ask important questions to make sure that the requests being made of you, are the right requests. And its responsibility, people making commitments in the big room are responsible to follow through. So Pull-Planning Worksessions begin as most sessions always have, with a blank space on a wall, some dates, and a team gets up and talks through what can we do? And you'll see on these walls that there are little sticky notes in different colors. The sticky notes are very important, it allows people to get physical in the room. You're not just sitting down you are interacting, and you're having dialogues. We try for one sticky note color per trade, and those sticky notes can be touched only by that trade. You might not like the sticky that says they're going to finish work A on this date because you need earlier, but you are not allowed to touch that. You can however make the request, and have the conversation about where you want to see that sticky note. Which is committing an activity, a duration and a crew size to a specific date. Sticky notes, we'll talk about the constraints, and very importantly, because pull planning is about enabling hand-offs, what work is enabled at the hand-off. In the pull planning session, you must keep your answers simple. At bottom, only two responses are allowed, yes, no. In the process of dialogue, some other responses happen, such as yes, if. Which is the conditional response where you say yes, I can hand off my work to you if the following things happen, either from the system or through our interaction. Another powerful question is, what if, where you begin to explore make-ready opportunities, for example. So, what if we do this? That will then allow me to make the hand-offs that you're looking for. And finally, tell me more. This is where integrity is important. Because you want to challenge the request for getting your work done at a certain time and place, to make sure that the request is coming from someone who really needs it, and that they truly understand what they're asking for. But at the end of the pull session what gets recorded are basically two responses, yes and no. What can and cannot be done based on both the individuals and the system that they're designing together to deliver the project. I mentioned the what if conversation, very powerful to explore make ready opportunities. Pre-fabrication, maybe it's same work is done off-site we can speed up what happens on the project site. Non sequential work, maybe some work gets done at a time that wasn't expected because it will have an impact that benefits the project schedule as a whole. Perhaps we set new parameters. A recent example I heard of was the mechanical engineer suggesting to an electrical trade contractor who was doing some work in trenches, that the entire project pay for some additional lean concrete along the bottom of those trenches. So that when the weather rained, the electrical work wasn't floating away. That's a new parameter, it cost a little bit more, but saved much more in terms of the schedule for that electrical trade. And small batch planning, our old friend, thinking about the big project in terms of its batches. And that's something we've been doing for some time, but now thinking about it in a more complex, holistic way
