00:00Welcome to Unified Consulting Solutions, or UCS for short.
00:04We're all about helping you simplify complexity and really amplify the performance on every single project you tackle.
00:10In this explainer, we are going to get right to the heart of what makes projects tick, or what makes them fail.
00:16We'll be looking at three concepts that are completely interconnected.
00:20Workflow, which is how work moves.
00:22Variability, all the uncertainty that messes with that movement.
00:25And batching, which is how we group our work.
00:27You know, understanding these isn't just some academic exercise.
00:31It's truly the key to unlocking predictable, efficient delivery for your projects.
00:36So here's what we've got lined up.
00:38We'll kick things off with what I call the project paradox.
00:41Then we'll bust the myth that busy equals productive, and figure out our real goal, achieving flow.
00:47After that, we'll identify the enemies that get in our way.
00:49I'll introduce you to the Lean Project Toolkit, and then we'll map out your next steps.
00:53And hey, by the time we're done here, you're going to have some seriously powerful new skills.
00:58You'll be able to spot the difference between two completely opposite ways of thinking, resource efficiency and flow efficiency.
01:05You'll also learn how to identify those silent project killers, variability in large batches, and you'll get the principles of a flow-based system to fight back.
01:14But honestly, the most important thing is you'll walk away with a whole new mindset that you can apply to your work tomorrow.
01:19Okay, let's get into it.
01:21Our first section, the project paradox.
01:24This is a problem I'm pretty sure everyone listening has run into.
01:28So let's just ask the big question right up front.
01:31You've seen it.
01:31I've definitely seen it.
01:32You've got the perfect plan.
01:34The schedule is detailed down to the hour, and the kickoff meeting is full of nothing but optimism.
01:39And yet, a few weeks or months later, the project's already behind, and the budget's blown.
01:44How can our best plans go so wrong, so consistently?
01:47Look, this isn't just bad luck.
01:49It's a systemic problem, a paradox that's literally baked into the traditional way we manage projects.
01:55And we're not talking about a small issue here.
01:58Just look at India's architecture, engineering, and construction sector.
02:02It's booming, right?
02:03But the average project delay is a massive 40%.
02:06A number like that tells you this isn't just theory.
02:09It has huge real-world consequences, both financially and socially.
02:13It's a flashing red light telling us that the way we've always done things, well, it just isn't working.
02:19Okay, so to figure out the solution, we've got to tear down the brute cause first.
02:23And that brings us to this idea that's everywhere in our industry.
02:27And it's just plain wrong.
02:29The myth that keeping people busy is the same thing as being productive.
02:33The best way to understand this myth is to put two philosophies side by side.
02:38On one hand, you have resource efficiency.
02:40The goal here is pretty simple.
02:42Keep every single person, every machine, running at 100%.
02:45It looks fantastic on a report, right?
02:47But on the other hand, you have flow efficiency.
02:50And here, the focus is totally different.
02:52We don't really care if a person looks busy.
02:54We care if the work is actually moving forward.
02:56And the outcome?
02:58Resource efficiency gives you these little pockets of frantic activity, but the whole system ends up in chaos.
03:03Flow efficiency, though, it optimizes the entire system for a predictable, smooth delivery.
03:09Let's be really clear where this idea comes from.
03:12Resource efficiency is born from a very traditional, finance-driven way of thinking.
03:16The logic goes that any resource that's idle, a worker who's waiting, a machine that's turned off, is basically wasted money.
03:23I mean, it sounds logical on the surface, doesn't it?
03:25If we paid for it, it should be working.
03:28But that logic is dangerously simple, because it totally ignores how all the pieces of a project have to fit together.
03:34And this flawed thinking does an incredible amount of damage.
03:38When you push everyone and everything to be utilized all the time, you don't actually get maximum output.
03:44What you get are constant delays, because one tiny problem creates a massive traffic jam.
03:50You get piles of work in progress, things that are started but nowhere near finished.
03:53People get disengaged because they're just trying to look busy.
03:57And here's the most important part.
03:59You get system-wide sub-optimization.
04:01Every individual part might be working hard, but the project as a whole just grinds to a halt.
04:07So, if keeping everyone busy is the wrong goal, then what's the right one?
04:11Well, it's time to change our focus entirely, to a new paradigm for success, achieving a state of flow.
04:18Flow efficiency is actually a pretty simple but really profound idea.
04:22It just asks this question.
04:24For the total time a piece of work is in our system, from the very start to the very end,
04:29what percentage of that time were we actually adding value to it?
04:32You know, the answer is often shockingly low, maybe 10-15%.
04:36The rest of that time is just waiting around.
04:39So, the whole goal of flow efficiency is to attack that waiting time,
04:42to make the work's journey smooth, not to make the people doing the work look busy.
04:47Let's make this super concrete with a quick example.
04:50Imagine you have 10 electricians and 10 rooms that need wiring.
04:54The old resource-efficient mindset says,
04:57great, put one electrician in each room.
04:59That way, all 10 are busy.
05:00We're at 100% utilization.
05:01And this creates 10 big parallel batches of work.
05:05But what's the actual result?
05:07Well, you have 10 rooms that are all about 10% done.
05:10You've got lots of activity, sure, but you have zero finished work.
05:13And the painter who's supposed to come in next, they can't start in a single room.
05:17No real value has been delivered.
05:20Now, let's look at that exact same situation, but through a flow efficiency lens.
05:2410 electricians, 10 rooms.
05:26The goal isn't busyness.
05:28It's getting work completed.
05:29So you put all 10 electricians into room one.
05:32You create one small, super-focused batch of work.
05:36Sure, they might have to coordinate with each other a bit more,
05:38but they're going to finish that one room incredibly fast.
05:41The second they finish, you've created value.
05:43The painters can jump right into room one,
05:45while your whole team of electricians move together into room two.
05:49You create this reliable, predictable flow of finished rooms,
05:52delivering value way faster and more consistently.
05:56And listen, this isn't some brand new idea.
05:58It's got deep roots in the principles from pioneers like Taichi Ono at Toyota.
06:03His goal couldn't have been clearer.
06:05Produce exactly what the customer needs, right when they need it, in the right amount, and with zero waste.
06:09That right there is the essence of flow.
06:11It's a relentless focus on delivering value, not just on generating activity.
06:16Okay, so if achieving flow is our goal, we absolutely have to understand what's trying to stop us.
06:22Let's talk about the two main enemies that are always threatening to break our workflow.
06:26So, enemy number one is variability.
06:30This is all the uncertainty and unpredictability that's just part of our work.
06:34In construction, man, it is everywhere.
06:37Unexpected weather.
06:38Discovering something weird with the site conditions.
06:41A last-minute design change.
06:42That critical piece of information that's late.
06:44Supplier issues.
06:45A machine breaking down.
06:47Variability is just a fact of life for us.
06:49In this slide right here shows a very simple but very brutal equation.
06:55When you take a high-variability world like construction, and you combine it with a target for high-resource utilization, the result isn't efficiency.
07:03It's just chaos.
07:05Every little disruption sends this massive ripple effect through the whole system.
07:09Because there's absolutely no slack, no buffer to absorb the hit.
07:12This is exactly why that old keep-everyone-busy approach is just doomed to fail on a real construction site.
07:19Enemy number two is working in large batches.
07:23Remember our electricians?
07:24Spreading them out created 10 big batches.
07:27And this approach, kind of like deciding you're going to pour the concrete for an entire massive building all at once,
07:33it feels efficient, but it creates huge problems.
07:36First, the downstream trades, they have to wait forever for the whole giant batch to be done.
07:41If there's a mistake, you might not find it until the very end, which means a ton of rework.
07:46And it makes you incredibly inflexible.
07:49If anything needs to change, good luck trying to adjust a massive batch of work.
07:54All right, we now understand the goal is flow, and the enemies are variability in large batches.
07:59So let's shift from the what to the how.
08:02What are the actual practical tools we can use to fight back and win?
08:06One of the most powerful tools out there is the Last Planner System, or LPS.
08:11This system is amazing because it directly attacks variability and helps manage batch sizes just by changing who does the planning.
08:18So instead of some top-down schedule from an office, it brings the last planners, you know, the foreman, the crew leads, the people on the ground, into a collaborative process.
08:26They make commitments for what can realistically be done in the near future, creating these small, reliable batches of work.
08:32And we measure our success with something called Percent Plan Complete, or PPC, which tells us how reliable our plans actually are.
08:39And this isn't just a nice theory.
08:41The results really do speak for themselves.
08:43This case study data shows you what happens when these tools are used the right way.
08:47Your Percent Plan Complete, that's our reliability measure, it shoots up to 85%.
08:51And that predictability, that reliability, it leads to a 25% reduction in the project schedule and an 18% savings on cost.
08:59So the really crucial thing to get here is that by focusing on flow and reliability first,
09:03you end up getting the cost and time savings that traditional management is always chasing but can never seem to catch.
09:09We've covered a ton of ground, haven't we?
09:12From the paradox that plagues our projects to the practical tools of lean.
09:15Now, let's pull it all together and focus on the most important part, how you can go from just learning about this to actually doing it.
09:22So here are the absolute must-remember takeaways from our time together.
09:26Number one, and this is the big one, shift your focus.
09:29Stop managing for busyness and start managing for completion.
09:33Number two, declare war on the enemies of flow.
09:36That means you need to actively manage variability and be relentless about making your batch sizes smaller.
09:41Third, start using collaborative tools like the Last Planner system to make your plan something people can actually count on.
09:48And finally, just remember, this is all a journey of small, consistent improvements.
09:52That's what creates massive results over time.
09:55You know, this journey is always easier and a lot more effective when we take it together.
10:00To keep this conversation going, I really want to invite you to follow the link you'll find in the description
10:05and connect with me, Dr. Mary Muthukay, on LinkedIn.
10:08Let's build this community of lean practitioners together.
10:11And I want to leave you with one final thought, really a challenge to put this into action right away.
10:17I want you to look at your own work.
10:20What is the single biggest batch you're working on right now?
10:23Maybe it's a huge report, a whole design package, or a big phase of construction.
10:28What is one thing you could do, tomorrow, to make that batch just a little bit smaller and speed up its flow?
10:36The ideas we've talked about today, they're built on decades of amazing research and practice from some brilliant people in this field.
10:43For anyone who wants to go even deeper, here are some of the key sources.
10:46Thank you so much for joining this explainer.
Be the first to comment