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

Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1190. In this podcast, I'm going to talk about a critical mistake in the flow of the last planner system that you cannot make on your projects if you want to be successful. This is something you've never heard before. 

Stay with us. Welcome everyone. I hope you're doing well. 

This is going to be a good podcast, or at least I think it's going to be. This is something that we're running into continuously. This will be a short little podcast. 

I think you'll enjoy it. Let me first mention some feedback from our listeners. Here's one from the Foreman Bootcamp. 

I want to extend a secondary Ric Flair. By the way, if anybody listening to this podcast doesn't know what a Ric Flair is, we usually do two claps in a Ric Flair where we do clap, clap, and then we throw our hands up and there we go. Whoo! So two claps in a Ric Flair. 

So this person said, I wanted to extend a secondary Ric Flair to you and your team. Your presentation was absolutely excellent and exciting. I wish you all the best to come. 

It was a pleasure to meet you, and Jason, keep crushing it. Ah, that's awesome. I super love the feedback from folks. 

I even read the not so good feedback. That's why somebody the other day thought I was insane or lost my mind. Anyway, I'm super stoked about this. 

So let me see if I can verbally discuss this. So one of the things that we ask our people when they're implementing with clients is this, sorry, I'm saying this right, is the question of is the project team using the weekly work plan to build or something else? And if the team is still using CPM, they will be failing. Let me just preface this by saying that there are some non-negotiables that we have that we're going to be more strict about when working with clients. 

It is a non-negotiable that we do work package planning, that we host an accurate pull plan, that we do look ahead planning with the six week make ready look ahead, that we hold quality pre-construction meetings in an effective way, that we use and maintain an effective procurement log with material inventory buffers, that we have our host really good trade partner weekly tacticals, that the afternoon formal huddle is effective and removing roadblocks, that the morning worker huddle is getting everybody on the same page, and that we are implementing zone control and IDSing, identify, discuss, and solving problems visually. So those are requirements. Otherwise, the system fails. 

We're really experienced with this. You can't just throw stickies up on a wall or do some kind of half ass pull plan and implement the last planner system. You just can't do it. 

So there are some rules to this. And one of the things that I've noticed that's detrimental is when I ask our engineers, hey, are they using the weekly work plan? And they say no, typically, it's because of this. So the way it should work is that you have a master or a macro level, normal level tax plan. 

And then you have the pull plan towards the milestone. And then from there, you have your six week make ready look ahead, your weekly work plan, that's all filtered from your normal level production plan. And then your day plan and your purchase percent plan complete is tracked from there. 

I have seen companies that really get in our way when they do this, that will say, okay, we've got a master schedule and CPM, our milestones will pull plan to the milestone. Then we will that whole plan will establish a sequence. But then we won't do make really look ahead planning. 

The CPM schedule isn't, I would say holistically updated based off of the pull plan. The pull plan is just a suggestion. And the project team, meaning the schedulers on site, send out a filter of the CPM schedule to trade partners and tell the trade partners to provide a weekly work plan to the scheduling team. 

Then the scheduling team makes any recommended suggestions to the P six schedule, the CPM schedule. And I shouldn't have said P six to the CPM schedule. And then they use the weekly work plan as filtered from the CPM schedule. 

When you do that, now the trades can't see what's going on. Now you don't have a good weekly work plan. Now you don't have trade flow. 

Now you don't have accurate vertical alignment. Now you don't have all of the benefits of tact. And because you're asking for a weekly work plan separate from the pull plan, you're nulling and voiding the pull plan that you did in the first place. 

And so what we have to do is break them of this process and get them, if they have to use CPM, have them do it like this. Macro level, norm level, tact plan. And then you pull plan your phases, which updates your norm level, tact plan. 

Then you do six week, make ready, look ahead, planning right off of your norm level, tact plan. And then weekly work planning right off of your norm level, tact plan in the weekly work planning format. And then you build from that. 

That's what you build from. And as you status that, then the status from the week can go to the CPM schedulers and update the overall master schedule so that they can keep their, what would I call it? So that they can keep their false sense of hope for an imaginary court case that will never come, which if it did, the lawyer would null and void the schedule within a day and still allow everybody to keep their phony jobs and pay, you know, an incredible amount. amount of wasted money. 

So this, this is the way we have to do it. That the day plan should come from the weekly work plan, which should come from the look ahead, which should come from the norm level, tact plan, which is created from a pull plan, which is done based off of the macro level, tact plan. That's it. 

It, any thing that's done with CPM cannot be a primary or active information. It must be secondary or passive information. Meaning if, if CPM is allowed to exist, which I would allow it to exist if it was passive or secondary and not in contracts, if people wanted to as built it on the back end, but we never use it as a builder schedule. 

Absolutely not. And I'll tell you the consequences. If you have this in place, oh, let me say one thing. 

There's a lot of people out there and some of these people are in like big, big companies, like big companies. And they're like, oh, let's do a pull plan. And they have no idea how to do a pull plan. 

And they're like, oh, let's get a weekly work plan from the trade partner submitted to us. That's not how you do the last planner system. It's the most wasteful time wasting thing that I've ever heard of in my life. 

If you do this, you will, you will null and void the effectiveness, meaning the wrong way. The process that I showed you, that was a wrong way. You will null and void the effectiveness of the weekly work plan. 

You will completely waste the efforts that you had, whether they were right or wrong with the pull plan. And you'll still be in the same CPM system, trying to placate everybody. You see a lot of these things, like when CPM tries to work with last planner, or when we still try and force CPM or EVM or advanced work packaging with the comment that we can pull intact principles. 

That's like if you're a king of an empire and you have a neighbor empire that you don't want to go to war with, so you marry your son to their daughter or something like that. It's all just BS placating to avoid a war. And so a CPM scheduler may allow trade partners to send in their weekly work plans, but they're not sincere about it. 

They don't really care about the last planner system. They're just trying to placate the last planner people and still use the CPM systems. So we've got to make sure that we stay away from this. 

Otherwise we'll get in trouble. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast and on we go. 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.

Thanks for watching.

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