As-Planned vs Pure Luck

A Goal is Not a Plan

As Zig Ziglar would say, "You gotta have Goals!!"-- Ideally, goals are realistic, written down, and with some timeframe. Goals are important, there is a ton of stuff written about them, and that's not what this article is going to discuss further--

OK, so having a goal is a big step, but you can't just do that and go to lunch. I would say the hard part is the execution-- the subsequent actions that lead to the achievement of the goal. There is an excellent book by David Allen - "Getting Things Done" -- one of the best take-aways I learned from that was the concept of the NEXT STEP. If you think about it, most of the anxiety people have (and the resulting procrastination) in going about a task, a project or a goal, is "How the heck am I going to accomplish this?" --Allen says that you can get anything off dead-center by making a note, right on it, saying what the next actionable step needs to be. As an example, you may have an in-basket with a pile of mail, reports, etc., that need your inspection, approval, review or other action. If you were to set aside an hour or so, and go through each item and, if the action would take less than a few minutes, then act immediately (like "throw in trash")-- if not, then make a note as to what the VERY NEXT STEP needs to be. You should find this very satisfying and feel a great sense of accomplishment when you finish. I don't do that nearly as much as I should - but every time I do, that is how I feel.

Luck Isn't a Plan Either

When it comes to project planning, everyone probably can agree that the GOAL is to complete the project on time, within budget and to the expected level of quality--- but the PLAN (the steps toward reaching the goal) is the most significant contributor to SUCCESS --with LUCK, being the other contributing factor. Most projects get completed, but there is a wide-range of degrees of success (good vs bad), with the more successful projects being on the better-planned end of the spectrum.

You may be thinking "That's just Common Sense" - OK, how many times do we all jump in to an activity, saying to ourselves "I can just wing this", or "I have an idea of what to do in my head" - and the task may be so simple that it works out, or if it is complicated, luck plays a role - and success results. But more often than not, action involving multiple parts or team members, or communication (even between a client and builder), to achieve success REQUIRES a PLAN. The PLAN that is more thought-through, and communicated with the team, the better.

What's The PLAN?

The PLAN I'm taking about should have:
1. Clear Completion Expectations (including Drawings, Specifications or other Scope Clarifiers) - What will it look like when it's done?
2. Sequence & Logistics of Assembly (pre-building the project) - How will the parts come together? Where do the parts get placed prior to assembly? What equipment will be needed?
3. Time Frame (Schedule & Milestones) - What will happen first, second, etc? How long will each (and the total) activity take? What are the activities that will affect other activities (critical path)?
4. Special Considerations (Safety, Access, Adjacency, Noise, Weather Protection, Utilities Service) - What is unusual about this project? What assistance is needed?
5. Estimate of Cost (Sum of all the anticipated labor, materials, equipment, utilities, and other stuff that will be needed to complete the project - plus an appropriate allowance for unknowns and inexperience) matching Budget (How much available for the project) - Is there enough money to do the project? - DON'T START if there is a question about this.

No Egg On Your Face

I could go on about planning, and there are thousands of resources available that provide much more detail about planning - and, in fact, I would be delighted to assist with specific project needs by providing a professional consultation or referral - but the intent of this is to outline a simplified way of thinking about projects, from constructing large commercial buildings, to making furniture, assembling a child's toy or building a tree fort.

So hopefully, you are already doing these things, and this is just a reminder for those times when you may think you have everything set in your mind - But, when starting a new project, I would ask you to think to yourself: "Is this something I do all the time, every day?" if not, it may be more like building your first tree fort, but now you're older - if you're not lucky, someone might get hurt.

This cracked me up when I was a kid:

Shemp is flipping eggs a couple of times, when they don't come down, he turns around, shocked to see Moe who just walked through the door--

Shemp: "Hey Moe, where'd you get the sunglasses?"

From: Hokus Pokus 1949



Keep smilin'!
Happy Memorial Weekend--

Done? What Would Smokey Say?

The Production Crew

Early in my construction career I was responsible for the interior build-out of the Headquarters office of the mall developer, Taubman Company, in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The drywall contractor had begun falling behind - the steel studs had been installed on time but the wallboard had not started as scheduled. The drywall contractor's superintendent assured me that he would be "done" in two weeks (heard that before?). He said his "production crew" was coming off another job and they were going to "knock it out in no time"-- Sure enough, within a week, the job looked completely different. Upon closer inspection, the crew had installed all the full-sheets of wallboard, and had left uncompleted the cut-outs at the top of the wall, where the structure above and the above-ceiling services intersected the wall. The crew was packing up when I asked them when they planned to finish -- they said they were "done" - another crew did the cut-out work.

The Last 5%

It ended up taking another two weeks to get the last 5% of the wallboard installed---- and the lesson I learned from that experience has become vivid in my mind - There is a natural tendancy on any job to accomplish the high-productivity work (the big pieces, the repetitive work that makes the most money per amount-of-time-spent) FIRST, and leave the rest to be done "all at the same time", "when we come back to finish-up", etc.---

Allowing that to happen adversely affects the attitude and overall quality on the job. If one trade sees another trade's work left incomplete or with significant corrections to be made, they are less inclined to raise the standard themselves. It is best for the project NOT to allow the work to be "finished later" -- the goal should be, to add-on to the Nike ad: Just Do It --NOW!

Done? or Smoldering?

Another lesson from the "production crew" that I have learned over the years is the concept of what "done" means. "Done" should mean "done", but often it means, "complete, EXCEPT for a few things that in my mind are insignificant compared to the overall amount of work I have done, but probably did not bring up . . . "

Many years ago, the US Forest Service had a problem with people leaving campfires "mostly extinguished", and major forest fires starting hours later from the smoldering ashes left by well-meaning campers. They created an ad campaign with Smokey The Bear, where he would urge people to make sure their fires were "out -- dead out". This may be a good image when you think of "mostly complete" work or issues -- similar to a fire that could flare-up unless extra attention or efforts are paid to make SURE.

Smokey would say: DONE = Dead Out.

I hope this is helpful when working with construction teams or in everyday communication--



Answer to the Trivia Question:
President who could write Latin with one hand while writing Greek in the other:
James A. Garfield (20th president), who unfortunately died in office from an assassin's bullet that was never found. They later concluded from an autopsy that he would have lived if the doctors had not tried to find it (!!).

Latest Construction Trends Update

Please send me an e-mail if you are interested in receiving information from the AGC, Bureau of labor Statistics and AIA on the latest Construction Industry Trends. Things are improving for the single family market, Stimulus money is getting to Construction projects, employment is up and AIA work on the boards is on the rise.

Hopefully these trends solidify and continue---

Clean Up - Later? Or As-You-Go?

Professional builders or trade contractors look at projects (or they should, if they want to stay in business) as "How can I Get In, Exceed Expectations, Get Out, and Get Paid?"--- All well planned projects should be approached the same way, except the "paid" part may be in the form of non-monetary remuneration (accomplishment, praise or thanks). If you approach the planning of the construction of a project, but neglect the clean-up part, a lot of the good done in planning can come unraveled.

Successful projects are very much a product of the process of construction "How did it go as the project was being built?" -- You don't see a lot of ruins, or partially completed projects around (although with funding problems, there seem to be more lately), so projects get built eventually -- "Was it a good process, well planned?", "How was it viewed by the public?" -- these perceptions all contribute to the success or failure of the project.

The End In Mind

There are generally two ends of the spectrum on project clean up: Clean up at the end of a project and Clean up as-you-go. Many believe that clean up as-you-go is more time consuming and costly (for those being paid in money), but I am convinced that well-planned cleanup as-you-go actually reduces the amount of clean up needed to be performed, and saves overall time/money.

Consider project jobsites - We have all seen examples of the cluttered, trash-strewn jobsites (maybe even in your neighborhood). The idea is that a separate crew comes in at the end, or on a weekend and "does all the cleanup at the same time". The trash created in those sites invariably gets run over by equipment, foot traffic, carts, vehicles, etc and even if damage to adjoining work is avoided, all the debris is never completely removed. In the case of exterior masonry for example, it is difficult to pick up all of the brick, mortar and other debris, and when landscaping is later planted, it may affect the proper growth of trees or bushes. In the case of interior flooring and cabinetry, it is difficult to ensure that completed work is properly protected, amongst debris, and additional damage could result. Both of these examples show that although the initial work may be completed faster than the as-you-go cleanup, the likelihood of call-back or rework is greatly increased.

I learned a lesson early in my career when I was in Detroit, when I used to drive north up Jefferson Avenue along the lake to a hospital project I was working on (now St John Riverview Hospital)--- I got to see first hand the demolition of the old Uniroyal Plant that was nearly across the street. It took a relatively short time to get most of the structure torn down, but removing the debris took months. The huge pile of debris, with water squirting up, seemed to grow, flow into the street, first taking one lane, then two, and then I heard they got fined for having to shut down all the northbound lanes. The takeaway from this was, the hard part is not the initial work, but getting the debris out! You may have seen fabulously produced "building implosions" that take about 10 seconds for the building to come down, but months later they still are cleaning up the last of the rubble.

So, when it comes to your project, think about how you can get the waste material out as-you-go, and you will save time, save money and you will get credit (from those who appreciate well-built projects) for the great job you and/or your team did as the project was constructed.

I hope you find this thought-provoking and useful in your project pursuits--



Trivia question:
Which US President was famous for his parlor trick of writing in Latin with one hand while writing in Greek with the other, at the same time?