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Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1371. In this podcast, I'm going to talk to you about the path of critical flow and exactly how it's different from a critical path. Stay with us.

This is the Elevate Construction Podcast, delivering remarkable content for workers, leaders, and companies in construction wanting to take their next step. Get ready to step out of your comfort zone with Jason Schroeder as he encourages you to do better, live a remarkable life, and expect more. Let's go.

Welcome everybody. I hope you're doing well. I'm excited to be with you here.

Let me get caught up this week. Um, I hope you're doing well out there, staying safe. Really do.

Um, I was able to interact with a number of people on social media and have some good fun, especially on the general superintendent WhatsApp chat that we started to write this new book. I'm really stoked about everything. The field engineer book is going well and the CPM book is written.

And our newest version of the tact book has just been uploaded. So we are productive over here, uh, doing really, really cool things. So let me go ahead and read our builder's code for the day.

Keep attacking until negotiations are over. By the way, this is one of the most important ones that I've ever learned from the art of war. Um, whether it's an RFI design change, possible design change negotiation or official change order, don't halt or change our current progress in the field until negotiations are finalized.

It never works to anticipate the change and reroute before the official notice. Keep doing contract work until we are legally obligated to stop. Okay.

Let me also go over to our feedback and let me give you some, okay, I'll do the long one today. Jason, I hope you're doing well. I've been following your YouTube channel and love the content you provide.

I'm interested in attending one of your bootcamp trainings, but not sure which camp would fit my current need. I've worked with my current Marine construction company for 15 years. I started in the field as a labor and was quickly moved into managing a team.

Over the years, I've moved into my current role of construction manager. I currently manage our team leaders and often take a team of my own to complete projects. It is a small company with 10 people in the field, the two owners, brothers, a secretary and a shop manager and mechanic.

In my role, I take over projects from the owner once they're under contract and the plans are drawn up. I handle my material procurement, site logistics, equipment, and material delivery, daily interactions with our two team leaders, daily shuffling of team members between the two to three job sites, quality control on all work, layout for all work, oversee the shop manager's work and schedule in-house technical trainings and pre-construction meetings, job site safety, two to three weeks scheduling, managing any subcontractor work, and handle in-field team member coaching. We build commercial and residential bulkheads and docs.

I'm in the field every day leading our team leads, monitoring progress, addressing safety issues, answering questions that come up and making sure we have the right materials and equipment. I have focused on growing as a leader and completed leadership courses that include Dale Carnegie 13-week course, John Maxwell leadership training and disc Enneagram work genius assessments. I feel lacking in the office demands.

I feel lacking in the office demands of the commercial jobs that we run. And currently our PM handles commercial client communications. I am hungry to learn and want to set myself up to manage larger projects.

Most of our residential jobs are 100 to 300 K and span four to eight weeks. Our commercial jobs range from one week, jobs where we install temporary steel pipe to three month jobs that include pile driving, tie back installation and concrete forming, pouring and finishing. Your project success 101 IPC training video laid out the process in a great way.

I feel like the FEP bootcamp would be too basic and the super PM might be over my head. Let me know what you think. Okay.

I'll tell you specifically, I think you need to do training with Jesse Hernandez on the position of a foreman and, uh, read elevating construction foreman and elevating construction superintendents. And I really think that the Jocko Willick muster would be another option that you could, uh, go for. I really appreciate the feedback and I think it's fantastic that people are reaching out.

Okay. Let's get into the podcast topic at hand here, ladies and gentlemen. So let's go ahead right into a path of critical flow.

It hit me today in the Gates meeting in our company. That means that each project that we have has a Gates process. There's five Gates and you can't move through the gate until you've accomplished the gate items.

And it's reviewed by somebody who knows what they're talking about. Typically that's a leadership or a team member or another leader or a pod member, uh, basically people who really know what they're talking about and can really do a nice review. So in these Gates meetings, um, we are reviewing the overall project strategy.

We're looking for optimization. We're making sure everything's right. And I always look at the path of critical flow and the path of critical flow is a much, much, much different thing, uh, than a critical path.

And it didn't really hit me until today, how different it was and exactly all the ways that it was different. Let me explain that now because I believe it's really, really profound. A critical path essentially says, okay, uh, we need to accomplish this work.

And assuming there is a critical path on a construction schedule, it says, this is the critical path and I'll always remember what a superintendent said to me. And I will say, this is probably one time this week that I'll be a little bit petty. It was so, so stupid, this comment, and I will never, ever forget it.

It was one of the trainers at a schedule scheduling seminar said that if I know my critical path, I know what to focus on and what's critical on the job site. Okay. Absolutely hate that concept.

It's it's concept. Sorry. It's so myopic.

It's so wrong. It all it does is create pushing because if you think you have a critical path to focus on what's critical and the only answer that you have for speeding it up is to rush, push and panic, work overtime, add labor, throw materials at it, right? If these are your only solutions, then it would be better. Oh my gosh, this is such a good point.

It would be better that you didn't even know what a critical path was in the first place. Okay. This is true because it's driving you to do stupid things.

If you think this is critical, oh my gosh, it's so critical. I've got to go do this. This is, I, I'm, I, I have to do this.

It's critical. I have to push them. They have to work overtime.

We need more people. We need blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, no, no, no.

That is not helpful. And in fact, people for some reason love the concepts of a critical path. It sounds cool.

People like it. You know, it makes you feel better inside. Uh, you know, but like Tommy boy said, um, you know, this is this dude putting a guarantee on the box.

You know, what if he's a glue sniffer? What if he's going to come and steal all your stuff? And next thing you know, your family's hurt. You know, like you think of Tommy boy in that, in that moment, a critical path sounds like it'd be a nice thing to have, but at the end of the day, you've just invited a serial killer into your house. Okay.

Because to articulate it very, very specifically, your critical path is going to panic you into doing stupid nonproductive things. Okay. Now let's talk about a path of critical flow.

If I was listening to me, I'd be like, Jason, you're being dramatic. Calm down. Your path of critical flow is nothing different.

Well, let me tell you something because I love you and I think you're great. And I think that's a fair question. The path of critical flow shows the longest flowable possible path.

You don't need to crash activities. You don't need yet. It already has buffers.

You don't need to panic. You don't need to add labor. You don't need to work weekends.

You don't need to bring out a bunch of materials. You don't need to throw money at the problem. You good.

Okay. You are good. We are fine.

What it does show is the path and allows you to confirm that you have enough buffers so that you don't have to panic ever, ever. Okay. And what utility actually seeing it has, meaning the reason it's so important to see it is because if you don't have enough buffers to create stability, then you go and look, are we starting things soon enough? Do we have the right transitions between phases? Meaning is it sequence properly to where I can start well enough soon enough? Do I have any bottlenecks that need to be optimized? And do I have a proper line of balance in the phases? And do I need to go look at the calculator to bring, to speed me up and to get me time? And if along the path of critical flow analysis, you don't have buffers and you think for one moment that you might have to panic, rush or push or panic.

Then you say, Hey, we need to make some strategic decisions so that the team is cared for here well, and that's much different. It's not pushing. It's not critical.

It's mapping out a clear, easy path. Like, think about this, think about this. This is a bad analogy because women shouldn't be doing all the work in the home, it should be co-parenting or co-partnering, but I have actually seen this before I knew how to co-parent or co-partner with Kay.

She would be like, I'm going out of town. This is how you do the laundry. This is how you make the dishes.

This is how you blah, blah, blah. This is how you, where the kids need to go. These are the appointments.

These are the teacher's names. These are all the things, right? She's lining it out for me. Now that's not her job.

Nowadays I could write the list just as well as her because we both partner on it, but that vision there, a path of critical flow is like analyzing the, Hey, does this person have all the information they need to babysit the kids while I'm gone? It's not, Oh my God, rush or push or panic. A critical path would be like your spouse saying, Hey, you're in charge of the kids and then calling, uh, like every couple of seconds being like, are you sure the house isn't on fire? Are you sure that the kids haven't been kidnapped or even calling and being like, like pretending you're a kidnapper and being like, I've kidnapped your kids and like, unless you panic and give me $50,000, I will kill them. Right? All you're doing is panicking the parent you left at home.

They're not helped at all. It's only creating stress and poor decisions are being made. That's actually not a bad analogy.

I kind of like that. So it's absolutely ridiculous. These are two very different things.

And I would encourage you to remember a path of critical flow is about optimization, not pushing, and it's not critical. It's not crashing and it's not panic. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast.

On we go. Please join us next time in elevating the entire construction experience for workers, leaders, and companies coast to coast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to share with your construction colleagues and help us spread the word by rating, subscribing, and leaving a review on your preferred podcast listening platform.

We really appreciate it. We'll catch you next time on the elevate construction podcast.

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