Agility in Construction with Cromwel Burgos and Miljan Bajic

Felipe Engineer  0:04  
Okay, we'll go right into it. So let me practice saying your guys's names Cromwel Burgos Miljan how do you say your last name properly and your first name too?

Miljan Bajic  0:13  
Miljan Bajic but I go by Milan Bajic because in simple Croatian most people can put it out. Yeah, so for the last 27 years, people know me as Milan, except if you're from the Balkans so you can pronounce that LNJ as Yeah. Yeah, that's actually pretty good. Yeah, by like by H number t and by that I didn't tell you cron but I have a cousin that his last name is the beach. The beach? Yeah.

Felipe Engineer  0:45  
The show is getting better now. 

Cromwel Burgos  0:46  
Miljan Bajic.

Felipe Engineer  0:48  
Miljan Bajic I love that. Cromwel. Wha wha? Why was he gonna? Well, bougie. It's awesome to have you guys both on. So appreciate that. And I'll just share a story about Cromwel that I still remember so vividly. We were teaching some executives and some leaders in the company, the A three process for problem solving, and one point Cromwel. And he's just amazing. Like, you could see like, how good of a student I am of his. I'm one of I'm one of your good students Crom. Don't you forget that I understood it. Because I remember what He taught. And he, he always used to say, this is a, this is a chrome ism that he stole from somebody else. But he didn't tell us that if the student has taught the teacher, if the if the if the student hasn't learned the teacher hasn't taught, right, he said the guy Yep. But that's not what I was gonna share. Because they drew a line. So just imagine a straight line across and maybe I'll maybe I'll just draw it recreated here, and just wrote a little continuum. And he talked about leadership as being either you let everybody do whatever they want. Laissez Faire, like every just give all your control away. And that's the extreme. On the other side, he drew command and control, like, just do what I tell you to do. He asked people like, he took his marker and he said, Where are you on this continuum, tell me when to stop my hand. A lot of people were in the middle, or a little more towards giving a little bit of power, doing a little more empowerment, but one person and I won't name names crowd, one person said, I am command and control. And that's where I'm happiest. I love to just tell people to do, and I want to just be able to dictate to people and that, that makes me feel comfortable. And, and for that person to make that and admit that in this training was a breakthrough in of itself. And I know crown was who it was now. And that person I watched over three years from that point forward, change and grow when they realized, you know, what they what they were giving up by being so far to one extreme versus the other. I think it goes back to what you guys said about the iceberg analogy, the four different lenses. It's all about what you can see what people can see. And sometimes we can't see ourselves and we need other people, situations or workshops like those that you're doing. milyon to show people and help people see. 

Sponsors  3:16  
Welcome to The EBFC Show, the easier, better, for construction podcast. I'm your host Felipe Engineer Manriquez. This show is all about the business of construction. Today's episode is sponsored by Bosh RefineMySite is a cloud based construction collaboration platform that applies Lean principles to enable your entire team to plan, communicate and execute in real time. It's the digital tool that works in tandem with your last planner system process and puts it all together in one simple, collaborative ecosystem. This easy to use platform is available in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and French and can be used on desktops, tablet and mobile devices. According to Spencer Easton, scheduling manager at Oakland construction, refined my site in my opinion, is the best cleanest tool on the market for the last time. Here's what our users have to say. We've looked at three other digital scheduling platforms and none compared to the straightforward approach refund my site takes from milestone planning all the way down to daily tasks. This program gives every general contractor and their trade partners meaningful collaboration, accountability and KPIs. Registered today to try refine my site for free for 60 days. Today's show is also sponsored by the Lean construction Institute. LCI is working to lead the building industry and transforming its practices and culture. Its vision is to create a healthy and thriving industry that delivers outstanding project outcomes every time for everyone. Check the show notes for more information. Now, to the show. 

Felipe Engineer  5:04  
Welcome to the show. Miljan Bajic and Cromwel Burgos. Both of you are Agilists and Cromwel, we've known each other for so long we have Miljan at a disadvantage, because we are, we are absolutely like brothers and anyone who knows us, and has seen us working together, it is a sight to see. So I want to open it up to introductions, we're going to let the newest party member grunwell introduce himself first milyon, tell the good people of the EBFC show lots about yourself. 

Miljan Bajic  5:38  
So my journey has been really short and long. I grew up in Sarajevo during the Civil War and in Boston, and essentially, my dad decided to leave after being in three concentration camps decided to leave diarrhoea, for obvious reasons. And he got drunk with his buddies back in, I don't know 94 and applied to go to United States, Australia, Canada, wherever we could. And we ended up being United States was the first call that we got. And when we got here, I was a teenager. And at that time, I worked at Circuit City, but also started building websites. And eventually I got fired from Circuit City. And I continued building websites. And when I went to college, I went, I thought I was going to be like a soccer player, coming from Europe and playing here getting a scholarship, I thought, you know, that's what I want to do. But I always loved this idea of designing, building things. So in college, I joined the entrepreneurship program, and they encouraged us to form entities and companies and start now being entrepreneurs. So back in 2002, I started working, or started working for myself with a couple of buddies, we started this company called Mellanox. And we were building websites at that time for anybody that wanted a website. And we're happy to make money in college. And I wish I paid off the school loans instead of spending it on drinks and other stuff. It was it was interesting, in a way that we started, like networking with people, I went to school in Providence, Rhode Island. And we started networking with people in Providence, and one of our clients in Providence referred us to this company in Lexington mass called Visible Systems. And college students, we didn't have any structure as far as like how we work, we would play games, and then work play games work really late at night. And eventually, what happened, we started working with this company visible systems, they were doing some agile, extreme programming, and some even daily stand up, they will do daily stand up. So I remember like we wouldn't go every day for the standard would join him like twice a week. And that was something that that was my first exposure to this concept of agile work. And I think like, by nature, the way that we did stuff was agile. And because this was a big company, they were trying to they were mostly using waterfall, the rest of the company was using waterfall approaches. So that was my first exposure to Agile. And over the I don't know now, last 20 years, I've worked with large publicly traded companies, large banks, insurance, small startups, government agencies, one that you are very familiar with, which I won't name in California. And over the last five years, I've started working more and more with the companies and people outside of software development industry. And hence I met Crom and we started talking and we had a lot in common as far as like, how do you look at organizational transformation? And what he was telling me about what's happening in the construction industry resonated with both of us in a sense, like, yeah, it's a different industry. But there's a lot of similar challenges that we're facing trying to deal with. So we've been talking and trying to think about how do we bring some of this awareness because it feels like the contract construction companies about construction companies are about 10 years behind. Generally speaking in some of this stuff, and some of the stuff they're really ahead. But there's I think a lot that the construction industry can learn from the software development, moving thinking and brainstorming what we can do to bring more awareness to the professions.

Felipe Engineer  10:00  
Appreciate that kindness to the construction industry. It's, we say inside the biz, we're about 20 years behind adopting. And text is not to say that there are lots of companies that are hyper focused on innovation and adopting new strategies and techniques, but there are far more in the middle that are just been using traditions that have worked for a while that are contending not to work down. So you know, awesome way that you guys met and fast, fascinating background you have there. I definitely have some some questions burn flat. I'm dying to hear kronwall introduce himself. So Cromwel take it away.

Cromwel Burgos  10:43  
Yeah. Let me let me pick up where he left off. So when I met him, you know, it goes right, there's always a wall and throwing things. I started drawing things.

Felipe Engineer  10:56  
That's amazing. But you have no idea.

Unknown Speaker  11:03  
You pan out of my hand and then tried to like draw, he's like, Oh, well, we share the same thing here. And that was, that was really neat. I think we hit it off right away. Miljan is very focused on something that is missing from my journey. And so this whole thing about Lean started early 2000. Right. So I worked for general contractor, there was all over California. So we moved here in Sacramento from the office in Irvine. And this is one of the more progressive general contractors, right? If you if you look at the list of clients that they have, mostly Silicon Valley, I mean, during the time 90% Repeat client, that that's, that's unheard of, right? This company, started directed maximum price anyway, this is the company where I learned all the basic, the right things in construction as we know it, right. And as you go through your journey, I mean, there's opportunities, and then cider health started on this Lean journey. What if you trace all of this, it's probably going to come back to solder. All of this, all of this transformation, right? Because that's when they say, Hey, we this is not sustainable. So they have billions of dollars in development. And they start talking to all the general contractors. Anyway, long story short, there was a general contractor outside of California. And solder, did a test project was done. And they actually have savings, which is unheard of. Right. And so they were looking for somebody to lead in the pre construction in Sacramento. And I was I never believed in this kind of things. Previously, the first solder got together. I mean, it was like 2004 2005, when they start talking about Lean, I was probably very skeptic, right? integrated project delivery. Because construction is where there's a lot of corruption, right? I mean, if you if you use trust, it's not gonna reload. Anyway, that was like, way back like 20 years ago. Long story short, I started my journey, in Lean, very lucky to have a lot of mentors, right, that, that guide me through it. But there's, there's always that something missing, right, that you don't looking back, right. And this is where this agility in construction that we came up with, I think we'd fill that gap in. Because there's, there's, there's a there's a, there's a gap out there in how we how we impart learning in the beginning, right. But anyway, so I went from a project engineered to go in the office as pre construction, and then started to do other work, right, and started to use different words, right, like, during the time when you use the word champion, it was like what, like people would say, like, What are you talking about? Right now? It's, it's very common, just different vernaculars and through the years, I think back in was it 2011 or 2012? I started to come across, because there was lolis flyers, right, a joint project management, and then started to do my own just testing of like scrum framework like to do doing done. And then that's when I met you, Felipe, right? We it back in 2016.

Felipe Engineer  15:00  
Yeah, we used to work together the first time. Really, you're gonna love it. First time, I still have the picture crumble because I favorited it on my phone. First time I saw him near a whiteboard, it was like watching a planet get drawn into a black hole in his hand, and he just went and started drawing, I will, I will try to find the picture of Crom and I will get it up on the screen so people could see him in his glory, with the dry erase marker going to the board. And he literally and this was the first time that I met you, you and I got to see you working, he knocked my socks off. Ladies and gentlemen, he blew me. Unscripted, we did an all day training in San Francisco. And we're in this office, there was wall to wall whiteboards, except for one art wall. It was like a feature art wall. But everywhere was whiteboard. And by the end of the eight hour session, Cromwell had made sure that all of those whiteboard spaces were filled. But the thing that was most amazing, I don't know if you remember this chrome, but at the end million, he found a little like one, one and a half foot square section that was still white. He has a blue dry erase marker. And he did a quick calculation. He turned around, he counted how many people were in the room. And he said, Oh, they hated that. He said today, today we spent $25,000, what's going to be our return on the investment for our training today? And I was just like, ah, first of all, like those the first time, I think in the 20 years that I've been in construction, Crom, that was the first time somebody had said that training costs us money.

Cromwel Burgos  16:43  
A lot of people that's why we do it. That's like hey, no, it's an event. Right? We you train and then people forget, they just show up if breakfast and lunch. What's next? What's next?

Felipe Engineer  16:53  
Yeah, I think it's worth saying Crom. And where are you working? If you don't mind, I wonder what do you what?

Cromwel Burgos  16:59  
So again, enjoyed it. It took me now into a company that does manufacturing. And we still do general contracting. So we're now in this. Now, I mean to this world of productization. So we're now looking at markets rather than projects. So the problem that so I, the companies plugged Pacific. So through the years plug projects have been around 60 plus years. And there's always a ramp up and ramp down, right, either in innovation or just at Project. Right. So projects like Apple and Stanford, Escondido. These are millions and millions of square feet projects. But when they're done, I mean, now we start over. Right? Right. Oh, what we're trying to do is now we're we're looking at what is the market the problem that the market is trying to solve. And then from there, we would create those products. So that it's not a project based approach is a it's a market based approach. So example is we're looking at, we have a product for office building, we have a product for a parking garage. And then in my case, we have a product for excluded housing and dormitories and general housing, right. And then you put some standard decision into this product, but then you leave some flexibility depending on your customer. So it's been an exciting journey. As far as learning, you realize that you have there's there's more out there, right? That's why I sort of learning in. So we're getting into agile product development, right? So there's this Lean product and process development very close. But our president is more exposed to agile, that's why we're, we tend to gravitate to Agile development. So...

Felipe Engineer  18:55  
Yeah, and either one of you could just make the picture of agility construction, what is it where to come from, and of course, we will put links in the show notes for anyone listening to get in contact with both of these amazing gentlemen. million by each and Kronoberg. The Show Notes people because that's going to be there. They're pretty active on social media, one more than you'll, you'll figure out which one it is when you start to follow them. So yeah, tell me a little bit about agility construction.

Miljan Bajic  19:24  
I can share my thoughts on it in a sense, like, you know, it's just I think, you know, agility and construction agility. You know, in general, like, you know, business agility. It's really like, ability for organizations to be able to respond.

Felipe Engineer  19:38  
And I mean, just the actual because I'm looking at crumbles picture, really, and it's not a trick question. Like, I'm not on the next question.

Cromwel Burgos  19:45  
You're asking us about the..

Felipe Engineer  19:47  
website, you have you planned,

Miljan Bajic  19:50  
Maybe let's maybe, let's maybe define agility. So let me just finish because it'll make more sense. Okay. I think so in a sense Like, because a lot of times we talk about agility, but what is really agility? And it's that ability for organization to respond, right? And respond and benefit from change, right? So this ability to respond to change or benefit from change, you know, one good example is called, you know, how many companies actually benefit and were able to respond to change. So that's in a sense, agility. Right. So what does it mean in the context of agility in construction? Well, it's kind of same idea, right? How can construction companies benefit from constant change? Right, the the world is increasing complexity, that things are getting Messier. They're not getting simpler. So how could a company, you know, essentially, develop that resilience to change. So that's, you know, agility in construction and Chrome, and I've been talking about, like, you know, starting this nonprofit, and like, you know, like, anytime we talk about starting, like, you know, something that's has an idea behind, and for us, it's like, how can we speed up the process of construction companies, you know, adopting some of these things lean, they've been around for a while. And in that process, we're thrown names, and we've got the agility in construction, resembled or portrayed, you know, the underlying idea of what we wanted to promote more, I guess, I don't know, Crom. From your perspective, I think.

Cromwel Burgos  21:39  
the vision is really looking at an individual person that's struggling, right. And then you have a team, as an individual, you have a team. And they there's been an increasing amount of information that we're bombarded every day. And projects are still two to three years to build, right? There's just a lot of complexity in that only the systems but how we manage now that you're dealing with all these different entities, right? So really, the vision is really that in the future, individuals and teams can easily adapt to that increasing complexity. And our, again, construction is an easy target. Because construction has been, we've been always compared to the other industries. And it's just there's just something in construction. That is that is I can't put my finger on it. But it's like this. There's a lot of resistance. There's a top tier contractors and owners out there, and they may just be 10 20%, there's there's is a big gap in understanding that how you transform and keep evolving as a company. So it could be a trade partner subcontractors, right? There's just a lot of conventional things. So we thinking, hey, maybe we collaborate with all these other thought leaders, including you, Philippe, right, you're, you're like a star in construction. Right? And we're thinking, what if, what if we collaborate and we later later when we all meet in and try to craft our own manifesto, right, as a as a joint group, and it's an open source? And then we can conduct some experiments, right? Do this, do some research, maybe finance some of those experiments if we can facilitate workshops? Right. So that's, that's agility in construction? Much?

Felipe Engineer  23:55  
That's a great, that's a great answer, because a lot of people listening and I appreciate both of you, really on and Crom giving me that background. Because, I mean, I know what it is. I live and breathe it every day. But a lot of the people in the end, it's not just unique to construction, many industry. You're not. You don't wake up and learn about this every day in life. Right? For some, I'd argue and you can anyone could argue against me that we start completely agile. And then through conditioning, we become traditional. We lose our agility, and then we have to relearn it. rediscover it again. But I want to get one to go back to you early on and get your perspective since you're primarily working other industries. I think your perspective, looking into construction, working with Chrome is going to be priceless. From your outside in view. What are some of the biggest challenges that you see the construction industry has right now?

Miljan Bajic  24:52  
I think the biggest the biggest issue in construction, not just in construction. It's just like the status quo and like You know, trying to get people to be open to trying different things, right? Understanding like that age old or traditional world, we had leaders or like this more of a, you know, command and control, like where we had people tell us what to do, and we would do it. And then the world that we live today, it's more about self management and self organization. So the question that, you know, I ask is, like, how many people actually don't want to move to self management, because in Agile, and these approaches that deal with complexity, it's all about self organization of self management, but people, you know, when I talk to people, and I think it's the same thing as an attraction, it's like, well, you know, this is my silo, this is what I work. This is what I went to school for, don't ask me to do anything else. Or, you know, when we talk about changing the organizational culture, people talk about cultures this thing, but it's really like, you know, how do we, how do we look at customers and solving customers problems? And I think that's another thing that, at least from my far view, or not, as you know, I'm not as immersive as you is, how do we look at the flow? And how do we look at all the bottlenecks in organizations? And I think there's a lot of if I had to look at end to end flow and value delivery, in construction, I'm assuming there's so much waste, and nobody even knows, it's almost going back to what you said about Trump pointing out, like, you know, this is how much this training costs. And that's great, but like, you know, in a sense, like, Okay, can we are we going to internalize what we're learning here? And you know, what is it going to be returned from this or just even having a discussion, rather than going through emotion, hey, we go once a year through these training, let's get it over with and then one more part something else. So I think that's, that's that general, kind of like the status quo. And maybe like, as we're all busy ability to step back and say, how do we continuously improve, and maybe just to add something that I've been talking about recently on my podcast, and also, like, agility is like, fit? Right? Like, you know, personal fitness. So it's not something like, I'm going to be agile today, or I'm gonna work, you know, for next two weeks, and I'm going to be agile, and organizations think, Oh, well, kind of adopt these lean practices, or agile practices. And we'll have teams do it. And you know, somehow will become better or whatever they do, but it's more like fitness where, like, you know, it doesn't, you have to have a mindset. And it's a lifestyle that you have to embrace, you know, in a sense, like, you know, the Lean principles of eliminating waste, right. end to end view. And I think that's something that the construction, at least, in my opinion, is probably the biggest issue. So I don't know, from your perspective, maybe put that back to you guys who are close to them. What do you think are the biggest? 

Felipe Engineer  28:08  
And while Cromwel gets his thoughts together let people know that are listening. Where can we find your podcast so that we can listen to you know, the conversations, you're having an agility.

Miljan Bajic  28:20  
So right now, you can either go to Agiletoagility.com or just search for on YouTube right now. It's only on YouTube, I'll have it on other platforms. So if you go to YouTube and just search for Agile to agility, you should be able to find them. Right? Awesome. Maybe you can include it in a in a description or something like that?

Felipe Engineer  28:42  
Absolutely. Absolutely. Put it in the show notes for for people, but some people are just listening and driving. And they're like, What was that podcast episode? I know, people I've been that person. Especially when you're driving across California use a lot of tight windshield. So Chrome and outdoor agility.com That he's trying to he's trying to turn the questions on me, but I'm going to pivot to you.

Cromwel Burgos  29:06  
But enough not to answer. Oh, no. It's same, like just like what we're talking about. Right? But it's really also the, you know, the trifecta of cost, schedule and quality. Right? And we're always conditioned that you can only have two Did you remember this Felipe? Some somewhere in the in the door and I challenge it, right? We made it for you and I about this cry? So how do you really be reliable and in your schedule and at the same time predictable in your costs? Because that's, that's something that we in construction. So think of the practices right? So so we plan and then we stick to the plan? Right? And you hear this? All this mantra of create the plan, work the plan, right? I think there's something missing the right way to say.

Felipe Engineer  30:07  
This because when you said that that phrase my mind instantly Rolodex, like 25 people that have said that exact phrase to me, and it's only ever said, when the project's behind schedule just..

Cromwel Burgos  30:23  
Right, how about create the plan, inspect the plan and adjust the plan, right?

Felipe Engineer  30:29  
Never been sent before this. This is a podcast, first.

Cromwel Burgos  30:34  
We stick we stick those things. That's that's a that's, that's a symptom of a problem, right? It because they, there's an underlying problem in that the the people in leadership position, I'm not gonna use the word leaders, the people in leadership positions are the experts. So the culture is always about telling, right? It's a telling culture. And that as you go through the the why Right? Like, why is this happening? It's really about that it's really about that, and then it's handed over, is handed over nobody's immune, right? That a company is immune. Because in the 1930s, that's what they do. And then second generation third, fourth, this just it's not their fault. It's not it's not their fault. But now our job our job, right, the problem we're trying to solve here is how do how do we make people see, just like our journey took us to where we are, and it's hard to unsee. Right? So the guys that I mentor, example here, like in our office, right? I always tell them that first the first thing Hey, so I got this guy is top notch project manager. He's now into production planning, but before he is doing it, is it his name's Josh, Josh, whatever you learn, you'll never see, you'll never unsee the wasteful things that we do. And so I checked in with him like three, four weeks ago. And he remember that a year ago, I told you, he said, Oh, my God, I can't. You're right. I can't unsee this. So I think that, that we need to break that cycle right of that telling people what to do by exposing the be transparent with everything that we have, right? Or work right or thinking, right? Because once we do that the the pedaling starts, starts to fade away. Because now what's your you got to get the thinking in there? Right now people start thinking and question. So I think the that's the underlying the unpredictable schedule, and the defective work that we have the unreliable cost, right? How many flip a euro project manager? Yeah, right. Change orders. I like part. It's like breathing. It's exactly, exactly. 

Felipe Engineer  33:01  
Yeah, you have to have them.

Cromwel Burgos  33:02  
Right. So so how do you that that's a symptom of a problem, right, that you stick to something and you don't adjust right now, in what we're trying to do if we go back to agility to destruction is how can we incrementally learn every hour every day? So that we don't stick to the plan? Right, we have a plan. We, we inspect our work, right? We inspect our whatever things that we're doing. And and, again, in construction, we have last planner system. And the last one is just that, I mean, land, you're familiar with it now. Right? It's a it's a production process and tool that that we use, it's a kanban system limiting work in progress. But the thing that I see that a lot of practitioners would miss is the last conversation, because there's there's five conversations in that that system, the last player system, the last conversation is what did you do? Right, that learning cycle on a weekly basis is usually what's missed. And that's inherent in still in our, in our culture in construction. So I know that makes sense.

Miljan Bajic  34:20  
In an environment, a couple of things. I went to a conference couple of years ago, just before COVID. And they had like, this company was giving out T shirts where it says like, I plan to be planned. Right. And that's kind of, you know, a lot of times we take these estimates and, you know, we take them as commitments, but I think, you know, one, one aspect of construction, that's pretty evident is that it's becoming less and less predictable, right? And I think people are trying to embrace and pull themselves that you know, it's still predictable. I'm just saying like, Okay, some aspects of it might be predictable. Some may not be but What do we do here? And I think this happens in other industries as well. I just recently worked with actually a company in California. And they make it's a combination of software and hardware, they make essentially robots for the warehouses to move things around. Right? They have one mobile ones, the one stationary. But one of the things that, you know, is changing for them, too, is just like they used to say, like, oh, you know, we know we're going to get this art, and we have to wait on it for three weeks. Now that's become, you know, unpredictable, too. So they have to think about like, Okay, if that part is not going, and then what can we do to prototype things? Right? How so they've started making like these, these molds and things that like, essentially, what can we do just to learn, even though we don't have the original part, but can we do and can we innovate in some way. So when that part come, that part comes in, we'll kind of have some better idea, we want something that gives us an advantage. Rather, if we just wait, it'll move to another thing to do. I think that's, that's that idea of, we might have plans, but unexpected things will happen. So this goes back to what Chrome you were saying a sense of, I think you were alluding to, but like, getting people to start thinking about rather than waiting for managers and having managers tell them what to do, like starting for them to think about, okay, this is what the situation is, how can I learn something here or get the ball moving? Rather than just, hey, I'll pick up another thing. So that reminded me that I plan that replan. And that reminded me of...

Cromwel Burgos  36:44  
The waterfall approach, right. And we stick to it, because it looks really good. So we have all the software, like Microsoft projects, P six, you have a plan looks so good, everybody's there, everybody's contributing, everybody goes home, at the end of the day, show up the following day plans already behind. Just like that, right? How do you how do you get into the predict, predict and plan? Do well, and adapt approach? Right?

Miljan Bajic  37:16  
I'm interested to hear your thoughts maybe on this, but like, you know, the one one thing I say if you want to be predictable, you have to have stability, right? In Lean, like, if you have high variance, and things are changing, it's very difficult to be predictable. So in what ways? Do you have stable teams stable, whatever it is, like, throughput or whatever you're looking at, like, you know, in order to be predictable, you have to have stability? In my opinion, I don't know if you guys think the same thing. It'll be maybe interesting to just spend a little bit on that because I think this always happens and you know, in Agile or or like traditional iron triangle, right? What's in the middle, it's quality. So in software, we usually, you know, compromise on quality because you can in software, you can high quality, right? So I don't know what are your thoughts on on the idea of predictability and 

Felipe Engineer  38:09  
You're speaking my love language like you don't even know this, but statistical process control theory for fun understanding variation and some of the work by William Edwards Deming and others. Yeah, we do have in and it's really it came to light when I started getting deeper into agile, particularly in Scrum, when we started looking at these different patterns, like there's a book even called the spirit of the game, where there are over 250 patterns to use in agility, particularly in Scrum. Most of them are software specific, but they can be adapted. And for those patterns to even come into existence that to be tested for a decade. And you can get some of the patterns for free. online, I'll put a link in the show notes to scrum flop dot o RG so that people can can find some patterns. And there's some patterns that are really applicable to construction and the variation that you guys are both talking about. But just to paint a picture before we transition to this mindset is construction on very large projects at the billion dollar size and larger 98% of those projects failed to deliver what the client wanted, and 98% of them fail to deliver on time when the thing was needed. So billion dollars in larger, it's almost a guaranteed failure. Now projects less than a billion dollars, which the vast majority in the United States alone. Construction represents about a 2.8 to $3.2 trillion industry any given year. And it's been consistent even through COVID the pandemic that number has been consistent for the last five, five ish years. So $3 trillion. The vast majority of projects are less than a billion of those projects. Researchers have been studying this because people united states are obsessed with productivity. And clients are obsessed with why construction costs rise every year. Three out of four projects fail to be delivered on time three out of 470 5%, only 25% of projects less than a billion dollars are delivered on time. And of the 25% that make it many of those are only completed with heroic efforts where people are working two shifts, three shifts, sometimes overtime weekend's nights, labor, up and down ton of variation, lots of overtime, a lot of tactics that we know, don't work for sustained periods of time and definitely have high human cost of burnout. So that's, that's some of what's wrong with the problem, I think you guys did a great job of hitting on some of the causes of those things. So I don't want to beat that dead horse. But for people that don't know, the industry that we're in, and where that compares to other industries, then the waste factor. So just looking at a store of value first, what the client would actually pay for and value for what they do, I'm going to use the textbook definition. Something that is valuable value added work is something that's information or material that's transformed or combination of both in a way that the customer finds valuable once it and would pay for it, period. I think I might have a sound effect for that. But I just go with that one for now.

Miljan Bajic  41:33  
But you know what, Philippe, like you bring up an interesting point, because like, there were a lot of studies done and like, I remember the Standish Group that did the study, like back in 2012.

Felipe Engineer  41:45  
And they do a case report every year. 

Miljan Bajic  41:48  
But the thing is, like I think before agile really until we started taking seriously this iterative incremental approach, like software development, I remember, like back then, like, there, were saying, like about 75% of software is never really used. So when you said that, like, you know, that that's just like a waste, like what we're talking about is just a lot of waste, like, you know, in a sense, like, you know, working on stuff that that adding value to the customer people are, you know, if I'm building something and not seeing the light of day, I'm seeing that people are not using it demotivate, right, I want to see stuff done building that's actually valuable and that people love using. So I think it has an effect on people and motivation, which is another thing where like, I don't know what is in in your industry, but about 70 75% of people in the United States that do knowledge work, are disengaged at work.

Felipe Engineer  42:40  
There is research failures, where people I talked to somebody just let me see as about four weeks ago. And they were they work actively in construction for a large, multi regional contractor. And they were they were talking about their work in using language that you would hear people in jail, use. Many days left, I've got yours. And then I'm out. And then they said, and then I'm out. And I'm like, That's yeah.

Cromwel Burgos  43:11  
So I was yesterday playing golf with our Friday with a couple guys. Same thing talking about retirement. Like, these guys are like 5-6-7 younger than me

Felipe Engineer  43:21  
Yeah, people already the guy that I was talking to sentence younger than me. The me talking about how many years he has left? I don't think that way but the budget only right. It's the Gallup poll that surveys people on engagement at the workplace. And we know that engagement is sub 70% across almost all industries worldwide.

Miljan Bajic  43:44  
But it's sad, you know,

Felipe Engineer  43:48  
I just I just got my last little nerd out, and then I'll let you go. But for people that don't know, like researchers have tried to pin down in construction, like, how much is value add versus waste. And it's hard depending on what study read, but the consensus is somewhere between 50% to 80% of all actions taken in designing construction does not produce value.

Cromwel Burgos  44:15  
More than that,

Felipe Engineer  44:16  
it's a range and crumbles rain. We know that it's higher when you're in. It's a waste is more. Yeah, the waste is more. But research they argue on what it is. And when you introduce the design part, the numbers skew more, but as somewhere between half of what we do, right to more than three quarters of what we do probably 80% does not produce value. If the customer had a choice to pay for what you were doing or forced to do. They would say no way. Don't do it. Like eight out of eight out of 10 things that you do, they would not want you to do. And in the value stream people down the stream from you that receive your work same for them. We do a lot of things that the doesn't okay now I'm gonna get off my soapbox. Which are like,

Miljan Bajic  45:04  
passionate about. Yeah, no, it's really late. 

Cromwel Burgos  45:10  
He says waste and he gets angry.

Felipe Engineer  45:12  
Oh my god, it's every it's like, I see waste everywhere.

Miljan Bajic  45:17  
I felt like small amounts of waste they think. Like, it's like, it's and I see this in government I see this everywhere. It's like, you know how if we're just like, I feel like if we just adopted some of these simple principles like visualizing like understanding end to end like flow delivery organize this is another thing that I definitely want to talk about but like organizational structure, right, organizing by product and like minimizing the handoffs, minimizing the you know, how, like, lack of understanding of you know, what value is and how we deliver it. And I agree with you, it's, it's, it's demoralizing to see how much is just non value added stuff. And

Felipe Engineer  46:09  
The only reason I get so mad and chromo knows He's stayed up with me many late night. And we've had many late night conversations talking about this. Because time is limited, like the time that we have every day to do things is absolutely at some point, I have to go to sleep. At some point, I have to recharge my battery. And it's not unique to me, it's everybody. And so many people have their time wasted every day on just things. And it's not nefarious reasons why their time is wasted. It's just how the system is set up. And well, you just, you just hit on me, Liana talking about organizational structure, you know, the everyday person listening to the show, doesn't have enough awareness of, you know, a systems approach. And I heard I heard Dave Snowden on your podcast, just root systems apart, which I thought how he talked about how most people get wrong, and they do they do get it wrong. But I think, you know, what are some things that people listening to the show? Where can we let's bring it home to the people listening? What can they do? What, what from lien? What from agile? Could they bring into their, to their work tomorrow, or today, if it's, if they're driving and listening to the show, hey, if you're driving and listening to the show, listening, and don't be afraid to hit a like, you know, it's not gonna kill you, when you're safe, not while you're driving, when you're gonna say, hit the like button, and share the show with the friend. Thank you so much.

Cromwel Burgos  47:35  
I think you got to keep it simple, right? So for those that are listening, I think you have to start where you are, right? Meaning if you're a project engineer, start within your influence. And if you're a vice president, start within your influence. And just again, start with simple things. Like probably the number one thing is just exposing thinking and exposing work. And, and from there, you can now rally around the problem, right? So you can organize around the product. So that's what we do, right? We prioritize razor product. In your case, if you want to start something, starting where you are means start organizing around problems. So let's say if you're a project engineer, and you're struggling with something, look for the people that are affected by the problem and then start exposing the problem. Alan Mulally would say you cannot manage a secret, right? It's hard to manage a secret. So expose the secret use use this lemon look for it here. Posted melts, right, if you don't have anything exposed it. And from there, you craft an agree on the problem statement. My experience in construction, we're very good at proposing solutions, right? So that's not the problem. The solutions that are the problem is a lot of their problem is when you when you don't know where to start. And you're you're not as a team, agree agreeing on the problem you're trying to solve? And that's when agility would come in, when you start proposing all these things. Because you may have five different proposals and you don't know which one to start, and you just all agree let's start one and then let's just adjust right? And then suddenly, you now know how to work with each other. And then yeah, I think that's the simplest, probably the first step right start where you are.

Felipe Engineer  49:38  
Beautiful. How about you, Miljan?

Miljan Bajic  49:41  
So maybe I've been thinking in the sense of, you know, what is the biggest issue like over the last 20 years and this is maybe not the for the listener, but maybe just for for their bosses and their bosses. On my podcast, and just in general, I've been asking people like what is the percentage of These agile adoptions, you know, people going back to like, this is why we're doing this. And then you know, what's the sex success rate? And it's close to zero, right? For a lot of these. And the follow up question I asked is, well, what's needed for the organizational change, organization to become responsive or agile, whatever it is. And it really has to do with the executives and leadership all the way up. So if you don't have leaders that are thinking systemically, that are willing to take a look at everything, and say, like, we have to change the structure, we have to, you know, help them develop people we have to, it really, is difficult to do just bottom up, right. And a lot of times, you know, what I'm seeing, and it's probably seen in construction, where like, this is something that teams do. So unless the leadership buys in from the top and understands how to create an ecosystem, you're going to be stuck. And this is where, you know, for the last 10 years, most companies, you know, agile, don't confuse being popular with successfully. And I think, you know, companies that adopt these agile approaches, they don't go back to waterfall do, but they also don't like you know, going back to waste, there's still so much waste, even though they've improved and minimize what it was, you know, before. They're still planning. So I think, get your leadership, if you can influence and Cromwel alluded to, like leadership is not just, you know, people that have bigger checks than you. It's really at all levels. And my message would be like, try to, like organize communities of practice. Get leaders, you know, a lot of times I recently worked with a leader, just like 10 minutes, finding those people that get it, and then having them influence their peers can do a magical things in a sense of influencing across organizations. So everything that Crom said, but in addition, I think the a lot of times what's forgetting is that unless you have that enablement and ecosystem for things, everything becomes 10 times harder.

Cromwel Burgos  52:23  
It's my favorite, right? Yeah, let's just do it. I'm gonna support you. Right. So I think in addition, right, so now you got to start where you are, get the leaders really educated, right? If they want change, they have to be educated, right? It was W Deming, know what to do. And then do your best right? Leaders, when they say I support you, you're just being tolerated. You're just being violated. But if they don't know how to support you, so we'll add that that's a great...

Felipe Engineer  52:56  
Together powerful, it's, and you said before, too, I don't know which one of you I can't remember. He said to make things visible. So make, make the problems visible. goes, grab that, grab the boss, because Crom, you don't want to say leader. So like, well use millions language, grab the boss, go and see the problem together. And then start where you are together. Don't do you don't have to go by yourself. Don't do it by yourself. It's a team, team sport. Have fun with teams. I love that. I love that. So now I want to go, let's, let's turn. Let's turn it up a little bit and go a little bit harder now. So now we're gonna go all the way to 11. But those of you still old enough to know what that refers. I'm sure the Gen Z is got it down on the mean game, they know what it means to turn it up to 11. So it will go back to systems for a second, you know, organizational structure we talked about a little bit. And there definitely are policies that hold people back. What what's an example of that so that people might not be aware that they're operating inside of a policy that's preventing them from having throughput and flow?

Miljan Bajic  54:03  
Oh, example would be any anytime you have a handoff Right? Like if you I don't know what would be example, I can give you a software development, some other industries.

Felipe Engineer  54:14  
It was one I will tell you the core one itself.

Miljan Bajic  54:17  
Might have some, but like the idea of like, customer doesn't like I don't care. If you're like saying you're done with the software or feature let's just say payment system. I asked you I want to now be able to pay with cryptocurrency, when can you make it? You know, when can I start using it because as soon as I start offering that I can start making more money. So as a customer, I don't care if you tell me Well, it's 99% done, but now live which tested but in this environment, that environment. And a lot of times what we have in software development of these handoffs, you have somebody that's responsible for requirements that somebody will design or develop, then testing there's like a bunch of different testing and then we don't trust these people to release it. So you have like a Release department that's making sure that nobody messes up things. So when we look at it, now, at least in more mature software development companies, we look at it end to end, how can we create and have dedicated team that can deploy that request as quickly as possible to production. So another example would be recently I mentioned with the client working, like, if you have somebody that comes to you and says, I need a specific robot for this specific thing in my warehouse, right, your client doesn't care if you have to wait three weeks for apart from China, whatever, they're trying to solve their problems. So if we look at how we organize in our company, by product, so in some ways, you know, however, that we can get what customer wants, and a lot of times they don't know what they want, so you might have to deliver. And they're gonna say, yep, that's what I asked for. But now, I need to squeak. Right. So it's that idea of how do we understand end to end? And how are we actually talking to the customer? To help them solve their problem? So that will be maybe my example. Crom? Probably,

Cromwel Burgos  56:09  
Yeah. So very related related thing. So it's really the the system's usually have an architecture, right? The system is designed to produce something, right? And you usually get, you'll usually get that, right. So if you look at the hierarchy, right, a hierarchy has some advantages. Because the the, the, your career path is clear, right? Here. It everything is you don't have to think, right. I mean, it's, it's, you know, how it works like a report to somebody that somebody reports to somebody, right? But then really, the hierarchy is very slow, right? And this is where it's not agile, right? It's like the Pyramid of Giza. Right? It's rigid, it's robust, right? But when, God forbid, right, there's gonna be an act of terror, it doesn't matter what if it's 35,000 years, right, it's gonna be destroyed. So I think, looking at your systems, and people talk about this is just so hard to implement, right? is creating network amongst your teams, right. And maybe that becomes a policy that that's the secondary operating system. So you have your primary hierarchy that you need for efficiency. But that's no longer enough, right? It has to be organizing around what Miljan's alluding to is, don't organize around your departments, right? organize around the value stream. And because the value stream is where networks are created, you can see the loops, right. So if you think of a Value Stream Map, it only starts from a customer goes to a production system. And now talking manufacturing, and then from, from the production system, it, it goes into the the steps and how you create value, right. But you can see that there's different loops that you go through right from from the customer and the delivery, and where you pull from that, that what we call the Pace Setter in your in your in your value stream. So I think looking at your hierarchy, and then creating a secondary operating system of a team of teams, as a network is something that can be done and

Miljan Bajic  58:45  
I think the idea of systems is so broad that like, you know, in a sense, like, you know, where do you start, but it's really like that there are a lot of interrelated parts, and that the building itself, right might be pretty stable, and like, you know, once it's built, but the process of actually making that building into that stable structure is a very complex endeavor, and how you would the system to deliver that needs to be the, I guess, you know, design in a way that you can solve the problem. And, you know, one major part is that you have to start the project, with the assumption that it's unpredictable, or that there's some aspect of unpredictability.

Cromwel Burgos  59:37  
So I know the face.

Miljan Bajic  59:38  
Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly. So

Cromwel Burgos  59:40  
Environment, depending on the environment, not now. We're going back to Snowden. Right. What is the environment? Right?

Miljan Bajic  59:46  
Exactly. So maybe, like, you know, just to conclude is that a lot of times and you know, remind me Crom is like, you know, contextualizing you know, it's not just, you know, one approach with the other but actually understanding what type of system are we working? What are we trying to do? And then contextualizing our tools in a way, like if we're in a desert, we probably need different tools than with wind forest. And it seems like in most industries, it's one toolbox for everything.

Cromwel Burgos  1:00:16  
Right? But it's really like, I don't know, you guys play golf, right? It's like playing golf, you have 14 clubs in every situation. It's a different club. At the same time, it's different. The process of using the club is different, right? If you're under a tree, which we're always you have that slice

Felipe Engineer  1:00:34  
Yeah, you're playing with me Crom, we will be happy.

Cromwel Burgos  1:00:37  
So what my point is, my point is, the processes and tools are really are, are there but that's not going to give you agility, right, what gives you agility is how you use the how use the process tools in the context of the situation, right? Because once you're like in our manufacturing, once we start manufacturing, that's becomes a simple environment, right? Where we can apply our best practices. But before that, before that, all the prototyping and everything we do, there's we're going to be in a complicated environment where we just adapt our good practices. But during design, design is a is a complex environment. Right? Not only not only it was designed with boom, you're dealing with people. And we're having a bad day. Right Is this design is is in that in a complex or chaotic environment. So I think understanding those things, as you're trying to change your system.

Felipe Engineer  1:01:38  
I think both of you are you're hitting on it from coming in at different angles, I like it, you know, for the listener, what they're describing this with this network, or this team, the team's approach for the systems, have some conversations with people you work with, or inside and reach out to the two of these individuals as well. And I always encourage everybody reach out to me with questions. If you want to learn more about this, or you know where to get started with this there are there are better and less good entry points depending on where you're at. But there are probably people that you work with that would be willing to network with you, and start to play in these different areas. And that's now where we're starting to talk about culture, and how organizational culture could look. And we've talked about agility quite a bit. We've talked about lean, and I love that Cromwells said, what problem are you trying to solve? I'll let Pete know that I owe him 20. Because I lost the bet, because he brought it up before I could go to bed. But I want to get back into something a little more technical. I think this came from you kromm Where you talked about possibly, you know, having four different lenses to look at what we do, or is that from De Leon?

Miljan Bajic  1:02:47  
It's from the book down, right. And essentially, it's based on this concept of like, the whole organization could be looked at, from these four lenses. And really think about is as being part the mindset and culture. So if we have mindset and culture is really how do we adopt the values principle, how we think, how do we behave? And then the other right side, if you think about is for a window with four parts. So on the left side, you have mindset and culture. On the other one, you have practices, behavior and systems, which is the organizational structure. So to give you an example, if you have a leader that has a mindset that is willing to restructure the company, more to product based structure, right? Then they'll try to look at their hierarchy and the silos, and they're gonna say, Well, what are the products? Let's organize by products? Right? Well, once you organized by products, there are certain practices that align with those products, like how are we going to if we have three teams working together on the same product, what type of practices how they're going to synchronize? Right? So between the system's mindset and practices, those are the three kind of lenses that I described as influencing the culture.

Cromwel Burgos  1:04:12  
This is where we get off each other right? Visit, I'm gonna have to look for the picture, because I think it took a photo. So I mean, I decided about this and start drawing because I was focused more on practices and mindset. And we'll have a little ahead of this kind of thing. So So I remember the iceberg analogy that I draw like a there's things that you see, and there's things you don't see. Right and then your your your values and shared values and invisible norms, and beliefs and thinking you don't see, right. That's, that's I think that's where the culture is, right? You don't see it. But you can see systems and architecture, but there's things you don't see that are more more dangerous, right? because if you don't share the same values, that's everything will fall apart. Right? So anyway, I think.

Miljan Bajic  1:05:07  
It's a very, it's a very, I guess it's a very complex topic that to look at the whole organization and see how do we, we can just focus on changing the practices, we have to look at the culture, mindset of people, and also organizational structure. So there's really I know, we're pretty close to finishing, there's not really a quick way, or at least what I don't have a quick way to explain decides what I did earlier. But you just have..

Felipe Engineer  1:05:34  
Your way. Don't do it, do it the slow, the slow, predictable way. Trust yourself, go for it.

Miljan Bajic  1:05:42  
Yeah, well, just the it goes back to that. Depending on the leadership, if we if you have leadership that craves control, right, they gonna tend to generally create structures that are more, you know, I don't know how it is in your, but like, a lot of people that are ego driven, and, you know, most organizations will want to be head of a department or used to be like, you know, depending on how many people report to me, that's, you know, how my paycheck is determined, or how my influences that. So if you have leaders that won't change their mindset to change the structure, because like, a lot of this has to go with letting go of their, you know, influence or their ego, then that's going to reinforce the culture of silos and functions, right? So there's this mindset, if you have leaders that are willing to restructure the organization by products and flatten the organization, then you're going to get a structure that's more like what Crom said, like more of a network, and less a more focused on delivering, right. So those I think, maybe if I had to, those are the two things that go back to the leaders. The behavior, right, like, a lot of times, if you have leaders are not walking the walk, like for instance, I expect you to lead me to visualize your work, but we won't visualize our work, you know, you do Agile with these approaches, but you know, it's not for us, right? So that's the behavioral part. So those three between the mindset, mindset and structure and behaviors, that's gonna kind of influence what type of culture you have, and what kind of, you know, norms and shared beliefs you have. So I have to work on this in the sense that I don't have a very succinct way to explain it, as I'm learning more and more about it. But maybe as the biggest takeaway is just look at your organization holistically, don't just look at the practices, but look at the, you know, how people think about solving problems, what type of behavior, so support that thinking, and then how does the flow in organization? Where are the handles? where are the bottlenecks? That will be?

Cromwel Burgos  1:08:08  
I think, Miljan and you hit the nail in the head. So most organization they have they're like, what are our values? Right? That's why it's forced abundance, right? So like, in our case, we have three values. And some companies have three values, right? Some have five, and we're trying to rally around those values, right? Because values would would be a rallying point. And then that's, again, it, it's the collective thinking, right, of the organization. And I think that's, that's culture that's in the end, if you can see it. So I think that's where the challenge is.

Miljan Bajic  1:08:46  
I do this, I do this fun exercise in training, essentially, where like, I walk people through these four values, four lenses, and essentially, they pick what they do in each of these lenses, like, you know, what, that the leadership that we have what that was structures, right. And, essentially, at the end of this exercise, you know, the general feedback is, now I know why my organization is so fucked up. I don't know if we can swear here, but that's really like,

Felipe Engineer  1:09:20  
This is an adult, this podcast, it's like, that's really

Miljan Bajic  1:09:23  
Like what and I remember, you know, one of the guys specifically saying recently, like, now that now things make sense, right? Like now I know. So, so I don't know, maybe you can provide I have written about this. I'm actually doing a short video on these four lenses. And I'm writing a book on it. So hopefully, by the end of this shoot, they'll be out too, but it's a holistic way to look at the organizational change through these four.

Felipe Engineer  1:09:52  
lines. Thank you both so much for spending your time with me on your own at your own time. I want to give each one of you the last words before I play the music. But thank you so much for being on the show. It has been my it's been an absolute treat, having the two of you on together talking about one of my most favorite topics of the whole world agility.

Miljan Bajic  1:10:17  
Thank you for having us. This has been fun. I feel like we you know what stuff with these podcasts is like, you know, there are a time box. And there's a lot that we could be talking about. But thank you for having us on is the last word. Relentless improvement. I think, you know, a lot of times people talk about improvement. But what I've seen the team to succeed and really good is they relentlessly look at how they can improve. So don't just talk about improvement relentlessly, you know, focus on improvement all the time.

Cromwel Burgos  1:10:52  
Now delivery. Thank you for having us, Milan, we have any this is this is a, I enjoy talking about this kind of thing. So I told him, don't worry about content, we have five days of content, right? I think for me, it's really just expose the work, expose what you think, and write it down. And let everybody see what you're thinking. And from there, let's let's talk about where we want to go together. So show the problem. This is our problem, right? That we are the only ones that can solve it collectively. If you expose things, there's this, it opens up a lot of possibilities.

Miljan Bajic  1:11:30  
Maybe just lost that maybe invitation to the listeners and others like we're trying to create a platform we're organizing conference criminaI through this agility and construction organization. We're trying to be more awareness and bridge more of people for construction and other industries. Because I think if we just reflect back of how much like Deming and like what came out of the Euro with Toyota Production System influenced other industries and agile was born out of that, that we can learn from each other. And there's a lot that we've learned in software development over the last 20 years. So connect with us connect with other professionals. There's a lot that we can learn from each other and help each other. So that's my invitation.

Felipe Engineer  1:12:14  
Very special thanks to my guest. I'm Felipe Engineer Manriquez. The EBFC Show is created by Felipe and produced by passion to build easier and better. Thanks for listening. Stay safe everybody. Let's go build!