00:00Welcome to this explainer from Unified Consulting Solutions, where our whole goal is to simplify
00:05complexity and amplify performance.
00:07Today, we're going to dig into a system that is totally changing the game for how projects
00:12get built.
00:12The Last Planner System.
00:14Alright, let's just jump right in with a number that might, well, it might shock you.
00:1954%.
00:19That's the average number of weekly tasks on a construction project that actually get
00:24done as promised.
00:25Just let that sink in for a second.
00:27That's basically a coin toss for whether or not the work we plan for the week will
00:30actually happen.
00:31Kind of crazy, right?
00:33So, what's behind this huge gap between what we plan to do and what we actually get done?
00:39You know, this isn't just some small hiccup.
00:41It's a fundamental breakdown in the workflow.
00:44And it's the root cause of those delays, the budget blowouts, and just the sheer frustration
00:48that we see all too often.
00:50It's a massive red flag that our old school way of planning is broken.
00:54And this diagram here, it just lays it all out, doesn't it?
00:59It shows you exactly why this is so tough.
01:01It's never just one thing.
01:03It's this tangled web of problems.
01:05You've got poor communication over here, material shortages over there, planning methods that
01:10just aren't up to snuff, and then, of course, all the unexpected stuff that happens on site.
01:15The point is, the problem is deep.
01:17It's systemic.
01:18So, here's our game plan for this explainer.
01:21We're going to start with that core problem, the unreliable workflow.
01:24Then, we'll introduce you to a new hero in this story, the last planner.
01:28We'll break down the five connected conversations that make up their framework, and then we'll
01:32get to the good part, the payoff.
01:34We'll see how this creates a predictable system, and maybe most importantly, why this
01:38whole thing matters more today than ever before.
01:41All right.
01:42First up, the core problem, which is all about that unreliable workflow we've been talking
01:47about.
01:47So, with a problem that big, we need a solution.
01:50And that brings us to our hero, a concept we call the last planner.
01:55Okay, so what is a last planner?
01:58Well, think about traditional scheduling.
02:00You've got this huge top-down master plan, right?
02:04It looks perfect in the office, but it often gives us this false sense of security because,
02:08let's be real, it just doesn't account for the chaos of a real project site.
02:12The solution isn't a more complex schedule.
02:14No way.
02:14The solution is to empower the last planners, the people actually responsible for assigning
02:20the work.
02:20We're talking about the foreman, the superintendents, the design team leaders, the people on the
02:25ground who know what's really going on.
02:26This is a huge shift in thinking.
02:29As the Lean Construction Institute puts it, it lets workers plan together, not in some
02:34vacuum.
02:35We're moving away from that top-down style where a plan is just pushed onto crews, ready
02:39or not.
02:40Instead, it's a bottom-up, collaborative approach, where the crews themselves pull the
02:44work when they are ready for it.
02:46It's the difference between planning for people and planning with them.
02:49And that difference is everything.
02:51So, how does this actually work?
02:54Well, the beauty of the last planner system is that it structures all this collaboration
02:58into what we call five connected conversations.
03:02It's a really logical flow.
03:04First, the team figures out what should be done.
03:06Then, they get real about what can be done.
03:09You know, removing constraints and making sure everything is ready.
03:12After that, they make a firm commitment to what will be done.
03:15Then, you track what did get done.
03:17And maybe the most important part, you learn from what happened.
03:20Should.
03:20Can.
03:21Will.
03:21Did.
03:22Learn.
03:22It's this powerful, continuous loop of planning, doing, and improving that just builds reliability
03:27over time.
03:28And that whole cycle really kicks off with something called pull planning.
03:32And this, this flips the old way of doing things completely on its head.
03:35With traditional push planning, work gets shoved onto crews based on a schedule.
03:39With pull planning, it's the opposite.
03:41The crews start from a big milestone and work backward, pulling in tasks only when they know
03:46they can actually get them done.
03:48And this is what it looks like in the real world.
03:50You can just forget about those rigid Gantt charts stuck on someone's laptop.
03:54This is planning as a conversation.
03:56It's dynamic.
03:57It's visual.
03:57It's hands-on.
03:58Every single one of those sticky notes you see is a task.
04:01But it's more than that.
04:02It's a promise from one trade to another, all sequenced out by the very people who are
04:06going to be doing the work.
04:08It's powerful stuff.
04:09And that word, promise, is absolutely central to this whole thing.
04:14The entire system is built on making reliable promises.
04:18You know, I love this analogy of a relay race.
04:20A construction project is just a series of handoffs, right?
04:23From one trade to the next.
04:25A smooth handoff is everything.
04:27If you drop that baton, if you break a promise, the whole team grinds to a halt.
04:32So, to make sure those handoffs are solid, every promise is handled like a formal agreement.
04:37You have a customer, the person who needs the work done, and a performer.
04:40The customer lays out what they need, and here's the key.
04:43The performer has options.
04:45They can accept, sure, but they can also decline.
04:47Or they can make a counteroffer.
04:49This is so important.
04:50Giving people the power to say, no, I'm not ready for that yet, forces an honest conversation
04:54and stops bad promises from getting into the plan.
04:57Okay, so you do all this collaborative work, all this promising.
05:00What's the payoff?
05:01Simple.
05:02You get a predictable system.
05:04And of course, if you want to get better, you have to measure your performance.
05:08The key metric here is called percent plan complete, or PPC.
05:13It's a beautifully simple and honest score.
05:16It just asks one question.
05:18Did we do what we said we were going to do?
05:21It's the number of tasks we finished divided by the number we promised.
05:25No hiding.
05:26Now, when things don't go to plan, when a task gets missed and our PPC takes a hit,
05:31we don't just shrug and move on.
05:33No, we dig in.
05:34We analyze the reasons why.
05:36And what you often find, as this chart shows, is that the reasons are systemic.
05:41Things like waiting on the crew before you, not having the right information, or issues
05:45with workers.
05:45The goal here isn't to point fingers.
05:47It's to find the root causes so we can fix the system itself.
05:50And all that analysis of what went wrong, it feeds right back into that learning loop
05:55we talked about.
05:56The classic plan, do, check, act cycle.
05:58The team learns from what happened in the check part of the cycle, and then they come
06:02up with ways to prevent it from happening again in the act phase.
06:05This is how you systematically, week by week, get better and better.
06:09You build that reliability muscle.
06:11Okay, so that's the system.
06:13But let's bring it into today.
06:15Why is this more relevant now than ever before?
06:17Well, for one, the Last Planner system isn't static.
06:21It's evolving.
06:22It's going digital.
06:23We have virtual big rooms and amazing tools that let teams collaborate this way even when
06:27they're spread out.
06:28It also plays incredibly well with other agile methods like Scrum.
06:31And it's a direct answer to the biggest pressures in the industry right now, like labor shortages
06:35because it empowers our frontline people and cuts down on waste.
06:38And get this, we're even seeing AI being integrated to find roadblocks in real time.
06:43It's pretty amazing.
06:44So when you boil it all down, what the Last Planner system really does is transform planning
06:49from this static, dead document into a living, breathing, social commitment.
06:55It's about people making promises to people.
06:58Okay, with that, let's quickly recap what we've covered.
07:01All right, so we started with that shocking statistic, right?
07:04That traditional scheduling is just plain unreliable.
07:07The answer, empower the Last Planners, the folks actually doing the work.
07:13The how is that framework of five connected conversations, should, can, will, did, and learn.
07:21And the result of all this is a predictable workflow and, just as importantly, a system
07:26that gets smarter over time.
07:27So, I want to leave you with a question to think about.
07:30Just imagine for a moment, if your team could reliably predict its workflow, if you could
07:35consistently do what you say you're going to do, what would that open up for you?
07:39What could you achieve?
07:40A big thank you for joining this explainer from Unified Consulting Solutions.
07:43To keep the conversation going, please come join the LinkedIn community for UCS by Dr.
07:48Maramuthu Kay.
07:49You'll find the link right there in the description.
07:51And for anyone who wants to really geek out on this stuff and dive deeper, here are some of
07:55the key resources we used for this presentation.
07:57Thanks so much for your time.
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