(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1128. In this podcast, I've got another series of random topics for you to stay with, but they're good. So stay with us.

Welcome everyone. I hope you're doing well and staying safe out there. I'm on PTO in California.

Oh my gosh, it's such a different experience to wake up in the morning and have it be decently cool. In Phoenix, I don't know if you knew this, but it stays hot all night. I mean, not the same temperature, right? It lowers a little bit, but I'm out here in Southern California at my parents' house and it's beautiful outside. 

I'm having fun with this podcast lately because every now and then, I dip on topics and I'm like, is this even interesting anymore? It happens probably every 150 to 300 episodes and then I reinvigorate myself. But right now, even the little topics, I'm like, yes, yes. All of this information from the lean world and the community, which I appreciate so much, is coming together and really helping me to start to piece some things together. 

So I've got some random thoughts, but they're not super long topics and I don't want to waste your time with intros and outros just doing them one by one. So I'm going to share some of these with you. So before we go on, I'm going to mention some feedback from our listeners. 

Hello, Jason. I just found your YouTube channel and have already sent it out to several supers and PMs as a valuable resource and teaching tool. I really like what you're putting out there. 

Please keep up the great content. Cheers. I really appreciate this feedback and interestingly enough, so the last 90 days on the YouTube channel just as an FYI have been more of topics of what people need rather than what they want. 

Typically, we use a Google search, YouTube searches, and then a program called SEMrush on YouTube to find out what people are searching and then we record a video on that. The last 90 days, I've done videos on YouTube that are more of what we need in the industry, topics like about commissioning or the trade partner preparation process or the integrated production control system. So if you, in fact, I got a lot of comments today about the commissioning video about how it was very well needed. 

So check out that YouTube channel if you want to. We really put a lot of good hard work into it. So let's go ahead and start. 

I've got some thoughts. The first one I want to call the rise of the builders. I have been a little bit blown away. 

No, no, not blown away. Disappointed is probably my word, but real quick, let me preface this by saying I love PMs and supers. I love both. 

But there's a lot of companies that are going strictly towards project management, empowering their PMs, making their PMs in charge of their superintendents instead of them being equal. There's been a lot of this going on and it finally clicked what's happening. What's happening is era one of construction with Taylorism really had us pushing workers and era two of administration with the project management institute and the PMP certifications and all of this worthless project management concepts have really created a system and a structure and a basis for this excess administration. 

And it's created the rise of the project manager and the loss of the builder, meaning we don't focus on, as an industry, we don't focus on field engineers. We don't focus on foreman. We don't focus on really core builder techniques. 

We don't focus on production theory. And like Todd Zabel says, we need to enter into era three, the era of profitability, productivity, and production systems. And so I had this little note that we need to enter into what's called the rise of the builders. 

And we still need project managers, but they need to be focused back on things that matter. And we need really, really well trained field engineers, foremen, and superintendents so that the concepts that are in production theory can take over this worthless administration and these worthless reports and CPM and things like that. And we can get back to the greatness of construction that we used to know. 

And so I just want to invite everybody to rise with the builders. And I was thinking how cool it was that the series title of our books is The Art of the Builder. As we have more information, we're going to be able to do this. 

In fact, Kate right now is working over the weekend while I'm on PTO, and she wants to, by the way. I'm not an abusive partner, but she's finishing the graphics and the text and the editing of the first planner system book so we can have it out by August 1st. That is going to be huge for builders. 

Now we'll have elevating construction of foremen, superintendents, senior superintendents for teams, senior superintendents for the integrated production control system, and then January 1st, 2025 when tax steering and control, that book comes out. We are going to be set and have a library of builder information so that we can actually make that leap. So that's my first topic. 

Another one is hiding the schedules from the trades. It's interesting. I feel like I may be more in touch than I ever have been because we have, like I said, and this is not bragging, this is just data, 40 people and our construction company is starting. 

So we see it on two fronts. We do training with people and hear feedback. We do actual integrator visits and visit projects and help them with support and recovery. 

With real clients and real projects, we are doing our own projects. So we are hitting data centers, hospitals, laboratories, multifamily complexes, custom built homes, airports, all the things. I could just keep going on. 

And so we're getting a lot of feedback loops. That's why I'm really enjoying the podcast because I can comment on these things. And it's not just Jason rambling. 

Well, it might be me rambling, but it's not like worthless rambling. These are real problems that we're seeing. Let's go ahead and address these and fix them because if we have a proper mindset, that will lead into the proper beliefs and then the proper actions and then the proper outcomes. 

So we've heard a couple of times, hide the schedule from the trades. I don't want their trades to know what the real schedule is, what the real milestone is, what the real information is, how many buffers we have. And I just want them to know this one thing about their scope and I want them to think that it's an emergency. 

So let me tell you why this is destructive. This is probably, and I'm not saying that it's intentional. Like whoever said this, or well, it's not whoever. 

This is, I've heard this multiple times, but whoever is saying this was probably taught wrong, probably have good intentions, but they just probably haven't thought this out. This is disgusting behavior. First of all, the trades are our partners.

Second of all, they're the ones that are actually making this stuff work in spite of our stupid systems. Third of all, they're human beings and this is not transparent or honest if we're lying. Fourth of all, the last planner system does not work unless we have shared information where we can all see as a group, know as a group, and act as a group.

And fifth of all, and I'll probably just leave it at that, when you rush and push and panic people, you hurt them, you extend project timelines, and you go into a productivity spiral. So if there are buffers, you need to use them. If there's a common plan, you need to use it to get everybody on the same page. 

If there is a production plan or a schedule, you need to show it to your trade partners so that they can be bought off on it, buy into it, and help you execute it. No good thing happens from hiding things from your trade partners. They're good people. 

If you're trying to hide stuff, that means that you're in fear mode and defensive and you lack trust, or you're incompetent and you don't know what you're doing, there's no reason. I've never, just so everybody knows, this is the stupid things that I hear all the time. If we show the trades buffers, they'll just use them willy-nilly. 

Or if they see the schedule, they'll want to change it. Or if I show them everything, they'll have the power. Or they only need to know their scope.

Or stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I'm not criticizing the person, but these are stupid thoughts. These are stupid behaviors. 

In fact, Kate, not to go too much on a side rant, but there are many that believe the ninth waste in construction is behaviors, human behaviors. And I remember Rick Boats with Unitek saying that it was unhealthy conflict. And so I'm thinking that this category of behavior is probably the ninth waste. 

This is stupid, non-transparent behavior. I have never, let me just be very definitive here. I have never ever seen a trade partner just want to take advantage of the job site. 

I've seen trades falsely think that they can just show up with large batched areas and just say, everyone get out of my way, let me do my work. I've seen that, but that's ignorance. That's not negative behavior.

I've never seen a trade want to eat up all the buffers willy-nilly. I've never seen a trade just want to screw the rest of the team. I've never seen a trade want to just take over the production plant from the general contractor. 

I've never seen these things. It's not going to happen. And even if you're like, well, Jason, it happened to me. 

I'm sure there were other system components that were forcing behavior. Trade partners want to get out of there fast. They want to be productive. 

They want to do well. They want to take care of other trade partners and they want to work collaboratively with others. That's just the bottom line.

So never ever hide anything from your trade partners. The last one that I want to talk about is the hell of CPM. I know everybody's probably getting tired of me talking about this, but let me give it one more shot. 

I got a call from two of our team members who are integrators that are working on a massive site. And they were stressed. And Kate was like, Jason, Kevin, you've got to meet with them. 

And we're like, okay, sorry. We got to meet with them. So we started meeting with them every day. 

And they were stressed and they were feeling like hell. And the people that they were working on site were feeling that way too. And I was like, what's going wrong? You know the system. 

You know tact. You're putting it together. You're doing great. 

And they're like, well, actually, Jason, that's not the problem. We have our macro level tact plan. We understand and have validated the milestones.

We're doing great poll plans with the team. And we're already on the right track and we're creating the right visuals and organizing the conference. And when I was like, well, what's wrong? And they were like, well, the senior scheduler wants to take the poll plan and the look ahead plan and throw it all away and make the trade partners all come up with their own weekly work plans every week, enter that into CPM, network it together and then export it out.

And it's such a massive process that it's stressing them out and us out. It just takes like a seemingly an infinite amount of hours. And I was like, well, why are we doing that? You should pull plan, which becomes your norm level tact phase, which is where you filter your six week look ahead, weekly work plan, your day plan, and you're good to go. 

And they're yeah, but that's the way the senior scheduler wants to do it. And it's a nightmare. And I was just remembering, just real quick, everybody, all of you out there that really like your CPM scheduled, tell me that it's not hell to do these processes. 

Tell me that these large chip factories and data centers, that it's not an absolute nightmare to aggregate all of these schedules into your EPS. Tell me that it's not a nightmare to pull it for the trades to create their weekly work plans from whole cloth. Tell me that it's not a nightmare to aggregate it. 

Tell me that it's not a nightmare deadline to get it all out to the trades. Tell me it's not a nightmare to add the activity codes per activity so you can filter it by trade, which is painstakingly time consuming. Tell me that it's not horrific when you have to make a logic change. 

Tell me that it's not absolutely hell when you have to create fragments and create time impact analysis. Tell me that it's not overwhelming. Every single bit of this is like hell. 

Let me just give you a quick little story. And this is what I liken it to. This may or may not land, but I'll attempt it anyway. 

You know how when you get sick, you have nightmares? Well, when I was younger, I would always have this nightmare when I was sick. Like if I had the flu or a stomach bug or something, because I grew up in construction around my dad who drove a ready-mixed truck and concrete professionals and masons. This dream is what I would always have. 

The dream was that there was two masons and they were out ahead of me and they would bring the wall up. It was a four foot tall wall. They would bring the wall up at three quarters of the way and I was coming behind them to cap it off. 

And in my dream, they would be going and I would be keeping up. And then all of a sudden, like you were turning up the speed like on YouTube or something, they started to go faster out ahead and then almost like shot off into the distance with super mega speed and left like it wasn't miles. It was so far. 

It was almost infinite. And it was and I knew there was no way I could catch up. And the impossibility of the task, the non-realistic situation, the pressure of actually having to accomplish something that was impossible was such a nightmare. 

I would wake up sweating and I know you're probably like, Jason, that's a silly dream. But for somebody who's hardworking, who's programmed himself to like earn love through doing good things, this is a horrific nightmare. And there was a nightmare because it was impossible. 

The only other time or place that I've ever felt that nightmare was in a CPM schedule with the amount of activities, the size and complexity, the difficulty of changing everything and how much is riding on it. It's just absolutely horrible. Let me give you another analogy. 

Like having a CPM schedule is like having binoculars when you're watching your child drown in a river. Like what I mean by this is that there's not a single thing that a critical path method schedule can give you. Not a single suggestion on how to recover or fix the situation.

All it does is give you more computer data and metrics to monitor the shit storm that you're already in. So it would be like you walking up to the river, you see your child drowning and you're like somebody give me a pair of binoculars so I can watch my kid drown all the way. I actually want to see him or her drown and like take their last breath five feet underwater. 

Tacked is like walking up to the river and seeing your child drowning and jumping in and grabbing a tree branch or throwing a life preserve or getting help from friends or sending a friend to call 911 or it's the tact is like going to actually save the child. Screw the binoculars. Let's go save the child. 

So on a project it's like screw your stupid computer database that tells you behind your behind schedule. I can already tell you you're behind schedule. What are we going to do about it? We've got to have this in a format and we've got to be taking action to actually recover the project. 

I'm so tired of CPM. So these are my three random thoughts. I don't know that they're random. 

Maybe I should call them three short thought. Oh my gosh. That's three short thoughts for the podcast. 

I hope you've enjoyed them. 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.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)