Posts – Old and New

Some things require compromise. Give and take. Pick your battles. You probably know all the sayings. Some things require no compromise. Not giving in. Not backing down. You have to choose. What’s critical? What’s important?

4 Minutes Early Previously I wrote about the Project leader who was cracking down on workers who were leaving work 4 minutes early. He felt they were stealing time. They were being unproductive. They we cheating. It’s easy to say that the four minutes weren’t really important. It easy to say he was right. These…

The National Coalition for Homeless Veterans is holding their annual event called Stand Down around the country. Their site explains Stand Down this way: The original Stand Down for homeless veterans was modeled after the Stand Down concept used during the Vietnam War to provide a safe retreat for units returning from combat operations. At…

They were all 4 minutes early. Some might have been even earlier. Not early for an appointment. Not early for a meeting. Not early getting to work. Four minutes early – leaving from work. But, he was watching. For some reason he had decided that too many were leaving too early. He kept it up…

People don’t always agree. When they obviously don’t, we often call it “conflict”. For some people, conflict is always considered “bad”. Somehow, their expectation is that we should never have conflict. Project work is obviously not immune to this kind of disagreement. Some of this conflict or disagreement is beneficial to the Project. Some of…

Ted Garrison writes an interesting discussion of the construction low bid process here at the Southeast Construction site. The industry’s thinking about this process seems to be changing more publicly. The changes have taken a long time, however. As it became the norm, the “bidder” mentality may have produced a breed of construction contractors who…

A few years ago I was driving a winding back road in middle Tennessee. This was an area with mixtures of single houses, plant nurseries, and farms. As I passed a field I noticed a cow on the ground near the road. She was about half-way to delivering her calf. No one was around. No…

No Time for Thinking Sometimes there is just no time for thinking at work. Other than thinking “what do I have to do next?”. You may come across an issue that needs to be changed or a problem that needs to be solved. But, it’s time for a meeting or someone walks in with a…

Much of construction Project focus is on safety. It’s an important focus. It’s about protecting workers and keeping them injury-free. Life – even work life – should always be foremost in our thinking – ahead of profit and schedule and everything else. Construction once had a reputation for being lackluster about safety. Even as safety…

Project management tools have grown rapidly in the past few years, but there are still frequent problems with Project actions and results. New tools give you more sophisticated ways of measuring and reporting and analyzing. Tools can be on your laptop, on your phone, in the cloud. Teams can collaborate without being in the same…