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Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1219. The title of this podcast is the metrics you need to know early on in the project. I'm going to cover the things that you need to know in order to get a frame of reference, understand your program type, and really start to plan your project.

And if you are into that, then please 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. Okay, welcome everybody. I hope you're having a good time out there.

Excuse me, sorry. And I hope you're staying safe. Like I said, today is my birthday, and I am really excited about getting home to my family.

I'm in Kelowna right now, flying the rest of the day, missing some meetings, which I'm not happy about, but getting a really warm reception from people on LinkedIn. And I'm just really appreciative of everybody who's being so kind and sweet to me. So this is going to be a very, very short podcast.

So I apologize for that. But let me go ahead and get it out, because this shouldn't be included in another podcast. It should be its own, and I really hope you enjoy it.

So let me first read some feedback from our listeners. This one, bravo, sir. When I started listening to the episode, I thought, what in the world to see you talking about that critical path schedules are not useful? By the end, I was clear on your intent and absolutely loved the analogy of yelling at your kid at a baseball game, priceless.

Okay. Well, I appreciate that. I really sometimes feel frustrated at the circumstances that we're in, in this industry.

In fact, I'm going to do a LinkedIn post today talking about that. Sometimes I feel like the Mad Queen on the Game of Thrones, when Daenerys literally burns King's Landing because she's so frustrated and has a look of emotion and meaning a look of sadness and anger in her face. Absolutely fantastically acted because like the Church of Disrespect for People is rampant.

It's rampant with CPM. It's rampant with contracts. It's rampant with politics.

It's rampant with EVM. We even have lean influencers out there that are literally saying non-lean things that you should prioritize workflow at the expense of workers. And it's really, really just quite destructive, careless.

And I just feel frustrated sometimes. So comments like that are very, very appreciated by me. Let me go into this very, very short podcast.

Kevin Rice is great at metrics. He's our chief visionary officer and is always just doing a great job and knows historically what things take because he always knows the data. And in some of our reviews of projects, whether it's with the client or with our people internally, we've literally been in reviews and asked people, well, okay, what's the square foot by zone? I don't know.

Or, okay, well, what's the complexity of these zones? Well, I don't know. Well, how many floors are there? Okay, let me check. And finally, Kevin and I just made a list.

Kevin, Kate and I made a list and we were like, well, these are the metrics or not the metrics, but the things that you need to know about a building before you start. And it's key because not only do you need to associate the project with the right numbers for future program types or build projects, but it also bears on how you look at the project from a production standpoint. So we made this checklist, need to know early on in every project.

Number one, total area. Obviously, this is important. I usually gauge the complexity of projects by their total cost.

I need to get better at associating that with the total area as well, because a lot of times in construction, we analyze buildings by their cost per square foot. So it's great to know about the cost, but what is the overall square footage of the project? The other one is the area by zone. This is key because you have to know your zone sizes to know if there's optimization.

If you go to smaller zone sizes, you can really speed up your project. So knowing your area by zone is key on average because they're not going to be the same. What are the different phases? How do you phase your project? Is it foundations, structure, exterior, interiors? Do you have a basement? Do you have some ancillary building? Do you have a clubhouse? Do you have a central utility plant? What are your phases? This is super important because you have to know who's supervising the phases.

One or two or three phases or a single phase may become a functional area, and a functional area has supervision from a project manager and a superintendent with a PE and a field engineer at a minimum with dedicated crew leaders or foremen. So you have to know your phases. Number of floors, this is key because that shows you how you're going to cascade through the overall building and calculate the overall correct zoning strategy.

Type of building, this is pretty self-explanatory. I would also add how many cubic yards of concrete, how much wood. This will definitely help us with production rates in the superstructure to make sure that we're doing the right planning using the right production rates.

The amount of units, so like not just the number of floors, but how many units of a standard space unit you have is very, very important because then that will educate your zoning and everything else and let you understand how repeatable things are. The complexity of the project is absolutely huge, right? If you're doing a new terminal and an airport renovation, obviously that's much different from a new build, even if it was something like a hospital or a laboratory. The complexity of the project has a lot to do with how we're going to plan it in the production plan.

I'll close out by saying the quality needed and any constraints. Constraints is the biggest one. What's the hardest zone? What's the slowest trade? What's the most limiting factor? What are the things that you just have to deal with on the project? If you don't know these things, then you're not prepared to plan it.

And so I'm not saying that in a shaming way. I'm just saying what I want for you is the most effective scenario. And so we've got to know these.

We created a checklist at Leantakt for every project manager to make sure they know these things before they start. Remember, we're not just building things, we're building people and we've got to know these numbers. 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.

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