Elevate Construction

Jason kicks off the Germany series from Munich, fresh off a tour of the BMW manufacturing line with Felipe, Spencer, Reno, Yanosh, and Marco. He shares his first major reflection from the trip: how Takt planning enables every other tracking and alignment system in construction, and how the shared electronic line at BMW illustrates what happens when the whole network shifts together. Then he lands...

Jason takes on a topic that comes up everywhere he travels: are we working hard enough when we're young, and are we working too much when we're old? He shares the personal story of how he became addicted to hard work as a teenager, the lessons he learned working alongside Mexican craft workers in the high desert, and why nothing good will ever accrue to anyone who hasn't first learned to grind. Th...

Jason makes the case for the aggregation of marginal gains, the discipline most leaders ignore in favor of one big move that will fix everything. Drawing from a story shared by his church leader Terry Beagley, he walks through the heartbreak of an Olympic swimmer losing a medal by one hundredth of a second, and the legendary turnaround of British cycling under Dave Brailsford. The principle lands...

Jason shares a burst of inspired thought from a recent boot camp at Petty Coach Schmidt: where is your huddle board? After years of watching superintendents drown in phone calls, interruptions, and savior fixes, he draws the line clean. The reason teams hammer the super with questions all day is because the project's huddle board lives in the super's head. People go where the plan is. If the plan...

Jason goes a foot wide and a mile deep on respect for people, the foundation underneath every Lean concept, every Takt plan, and every leadership decision. Drawing from a moment with his son at church, a line from Pacific Rim, and examples from Japanese culture, he challenges the United States default of treating respect as obedience or punishment. He walks through real decisions on the jobsite, i...

Jason makes the case that construction is not a job. It is a war, and treating it like anything less is exactly why teams stay stuck. He breaks down the six reasons construction mirrors war: an enemy to fight, an innocent to protect, sacrifice that must be honored, the discipline of a regiment, the strategy and tactics and logistics of a campaign, and the passion that fuels every great fight in hi...

Jason and Brandon Montero close out their road trip series with a candid conversation about quality and what it really takes to install work right the first time. Brandon walks through how a quality mindset starts with one simple thought: my name is on it. Jason shares the story of a major general contractor that turned its field engineering program around the moment its people accepted that human...

Jason and Brandon Montero are back on the road with Effie and Liam Schroeder, this time tackling the difference between negative feedback and feedback for improvement. They unpack why most people view criticism as a personal attack, why the compliment sandwich actually undermines both your feedback and your compliments, and why feedback is genuinely a gift that most people are starving to receive...

Jason and Brandon Montero hit the road together on the way to a boot camp, joined by Effie and Liam Schroeder, for a candid conversation about why so many people in construction know what to do but still don't do it. They get into the difference between technical skills and professional development, why most jobsite problems are really mental set point problems, and why desire is what actually fin...

After a month off the mic reading the Takt Production System, Jason is back with a critical topic for any leader trying to drive real transformation: how to sustain lasting change. He walks through Ryan Schmidt's change model, the predictable phases of chaos and pushback every organization hits, and why the moment things feel hardest is exactly when you have to press the attack. Drawing from Star...

Jason sits down with Adam Hoots for a wide ranging conversation on accountability, culture, and what it actually takes to build people up on a project. Adam walks through his accountability meter from awareness through educating, coaching, clear expectations, crucial conversations, and role modification, while Jason pushes the framework one layer deeper into environment, culture, and behavior. The...

Jason closes out the audiobook series with the final section of Elevating Construction Takt Planning, the reflections, the integrity checklist, and the closing vision for the future of construction. He covers the culture that supports Takt, why trades push back at first, how to bring problems to the surface with "Clean and Steady," and the supporting concepts that make any flow system succeed. He...

Scrum works well with Takt for complex areas like lobby, hoist erection, medical equipment, MEP renovations. The product owner populates backlog from Takt work steps. The team autonomously moves items from sprint backlog to in progress to complete. Last Planner integrates perfectly under Takt. Five levels: master, phase pull, make ready lookahead, weekly work, day planning. Elementary classroom cl...

Detailing a CPM schedule at schematic design is not only a waste of time. It is useless, distracting, and irresponsible. Submitting a CPM schedule says we had one person detail this plan without team input and are now asking you to trust this person guessed what you want perfectly. Submitting a Takt plan says our team sketched out the simplest plan possible and we can quickly collaborate with you...

  There is one real parameter when creating a Takt plan. Do not overburden the system. If more crews are needed, make sure the market has them. If materials are needed at expedited rate, make sure supply chain can accommodate. Research drawings before going to software. Builders who go straight to drawings are different from builders who go straight to software. The latter method puts things in th...

There are three levels of Takt plan development. Macro level is the process analysis where you create the overall Takt plan and identify preliminary zones, time, and sequences. Norm level is harmonization where resource leveling occurs, buffers are integrated, and work steps are created for each work package. Micro level is crucial and cannot be omitted. This is where you detail work packages to m...

The current industry approach is chaos. Workers do not see the planning. Foremen try to follow an uncollaborative dictated schedule or they ignore it completely. The famous Office fire drill episode shows what this looks like. People run around in different directions with false urgency. Deadlines are unnecessary or too late. Teams throw workers, money, materials at the project. It is like putting...

The parade of trades dice game reveals the power of flow. Red team rolls normal dice with numbers 1 to 6. Blue team rolls dice showing only 2, 3, and 4. Red team tries to move fast with 6s then hits painful 1s. Blue team maintains steady flow with no variation. Red team finishes in 26 weeks with 380 workers. Blue team finishes in 21 weeks with 280 workers. The cost difference is 8.8 million dollar...

CPM does not obey any of the four production laws. Little's Law says throughput time equals flow units times cycle time. CPM does not allow calculating optimal batch sizes. CPM does not help reduce work in process. CPM does not enable finishing as you go. The Bottleneck Law says every system has at least one constraint. CPM cannot see bottlenecks because you cannot see trade flow. The Law of Varia...

Takt has been used successfully in Europe for over a century. The Empire State Building used it. The Pentagon renovation used it. Yet CPM continues to dominate in the United States. Do not build boats when you can build trains and railways. Rivers cannot be controlled. Railways let you control your destiny. Takt is a collaborative system where you predict what should take place and prepare for suc...

Flow is the single most important condition to strive for in construction. It is the most value-added effort on the journey to increase safety, customer delight, profits, employee satisfaction, and reduce production durations. Overproduction and excess inventory are the mother and father of all wastes. When we overproduce, we have excess inventory which needs to be transported and causes excess mo...

Takt planning is a one-page, one-process flow schedule that focuses on throughput, bottlenecks, and creating flow. The water vortex demonstrates why this works. Forcing water through the opening as fast as possible creates turbulence and takes 11 seconds. Creating a coordinated spiral flow with space in the center for air to rise takes 5 seconds. CPM pushes activities through as fast as possible a...

Takt is a holding system, not a push system. Holding means flow. When you flow you go fast, much like the Navy SEAL saying slow is smooth and smooth is fast. With lean, holding is smooth and smooth is fast. When the assistant super kept pushing the schedule instead of holding the Takt start dates, it caused friction with trade foremen. After three weeks of coaching, they transferred him to a diffe...

Brad and David build the entire Takt plan in just one week. Even if they cannot fully achieve what they worked through, having the full schedule on one page has Brad sold on the new format. The work steps within each Takt wagon transfer directly into weekly work plans for Last Planner or sprint backlogs for Scrum. Make ready work steps go three weeks ahead of the work. Execution work steps go in t...

Brad resists the Takt plan because it feels like scrapping everything they built together for seven years just to cater to a few bad foremen. Olivia counters that the foremen are not bad. The team keeps putting them into impossible situations. The stakes are clear. Evergreen will not be shortlisted for future work until they fix the problems permanently. Brad's real fear is that David will be a se...