Scrum Elevating Construction with Jason Schroeder

Jason Schroeder  0:00  
Let's see if that sounds okay. 

Felipe Engineer  0:03  
Oh man 1000 times better. Okay, good. I'm recording this the whole time. So if ever in the future I don't want to do a beat. I got footage for the b-roll.

Jason Schroeder  0:10  
Well, I tell you, I'm gonna say like 15 little prayers in my head that that doesn't happen again. So we're ready. You're pretty popular. You know, I think I know what it is. You're just such a good guy. Like you have this. You have a good energy about you that people just want to connect with. I'm more like off putting where somebody is like, I don't want to deal with that guy. You're the you're the real deal.

Felipe Engineer  0:34  
Welcome to the EBFC Show, the easier better for construction podcast. I'm your host Felipe. This show is all about the business of construction. Today's episode is sponsored by Construction Accelerator.

Sponsors  0:48  
The design and construction industries come up with and build great things. But we also build in waste in how we do those things, in our interactions in our contracts in our logistics. So what does this do for our bottom line, or our next project, the best firms maximize their value by removing that waste, and only doing what's essential to the work what makes them money. Construction accelerator will train you to see the waste and give your teams the lean tools and experience to remove it immediately. All online. Construction accelerator is made up of three to nine minute videos that can be watched again and again, in the field, at the office, and at home. All broken down by topic. need to learn goal planning, we have videos on the process, how to set up a room, and how to kick off a team need to set up a target value delivery project, we discuss all the aspects of TVD especially cost. Or maybe you just need to brush up on five as well. We have videos on that as well. You can download and print reference materials to use on site to immediately translate watching into doing subscribe today at tri ca now.com. Let's build an industry, not just a project.

Felipe Engineer  2:01  
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. Well, I always tell people like I come at it. I've been hurt so bad in my past in the industry. So that's where I come from with like real empathy for people that I work with. And luckily, it does come across.

Jason Schroeder  2:35  
Does that go back to like the difference between sympathy and empathy? Where like sympathy is, while you're that's a tough, tough time and empathy is I'll go there with you. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, in fact, the podcast episode on my end, I'm gonna title it everyone loves Felipe.

Felipe Engineer  2:54  
That's awesome. Jason. I like that. I don't know about Jason. But I would love to have more comments to react to. So come on, bring it. Yeah.

Jason Schroeder  3:01  
I agree with that. I get most of my comments, either LinkedIn direct messaging or email. And it Yeah, it's, you know, and somebody said, You know, I listened to the podcast, I'm sure this happens to you, but but when you say share it or comment that doesn't register, you know? Yeah. And so I did a little part in the podcast the other day about how the LinkedIn algorithms work. You know, at the end of the day, it's not about popularity, it's about sharing, but I totally agree. Otherwise, it's just us yammering on when we could be answering questions, right?

Felipe Engineer  3:34  
Absolutely. Like we're here to serve. I think that's something that you and I definitely have in common. I saw that early in the videos that you were doing. I was like, oh, Jason, isn't I think LinkedIn actually served you my way because we have some similarities in what you're doing. And I mean, we're both in construction. But there's 11 million people in construction in the United States. So that wasn't the only thing. Welcome to the show. Jason Schroeder. Jason, his longtime LinkedIn friend, we met on social media. Thanks to the pandemic. It's brought us closer together. So we've become fast friends over the last year. super happy to have you here. Jason, thank you for taking time out of your busy day. And I'm robbing you from your family right now to be with me, selfishly, to share with the industry. What's going on Jason? Please say hello and tell everybody a little bit about who is Jason Schroeder.

Jason Schroeder  4:24  
Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for having me on. I know that sounds kind of cliche, but really thank you for having me on. And so the bait the most important thing about me is I'm Felipe's number one fan, like just just 100%. So, I so I'm a husband and a father of 11. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona, I just started elevate construction. I'm passionate about changing the industry. That's not you know, I hear I hear that a lot. You know, I want to change the industry. I think people are sincere about it. But literally, I'm absolutely disgusted at the way we treat workers in this industry. And I feel like the progress will come from trained leaders in that families will be more balanced and healthy because of it. And so my vision is to work with people like you. That's why I said, I'm your number one fan, to work with people like you to change this industry from coast to coast. And that's why the podcast is called elevate construction. I want people to have a fun, wonderful experience. And and I'm on this Facebook group, I think is what you call it. Construction superintendents, construction superintendents. And, and somebody said in the in the chat there in San posted a message. I'm a new superintendent construction, what advice would you give me? And, you know, post after post after post was get out? Don't do it? Don't you know, you don't ruin your life become a project manager? And I'm like, No, no, construction can be fun. We know how to do it. Right. Let's get it done. Right. So that's, that's a little bit about me.

Felipe Engineer  5:59  
That's amazing. And, yeah, for those of you that don't know, we'll put links to Jason's podcast in the show notes to make sure you check that out. I'm subscribed on iTunes, and I'm sure you can get it on many, many places, right, Jason?

Jason Schroeder  6:09  
You can get it on Spotify and, and SoundCloud, and apple and all those all those podcast platforms. In fact, I stole two of them from you. So I had my producer add those to see and get anywhere you want.

Felipe Engineer  6:22  
Yeah, Castbox for those in the United States that don't know is the number one podcast platform outside of the United States. What brought me to asking you to come on to the show, and I definitely asked you and you said yes without hesitation. I appreciate that is that you are working to change the industry and it happens with increasing awareness. For those of you that don't know, I'm going to have Jason's link for his LinkedIn profile down below as well. You should follow Jason Schroeder, though content that he puts out on LinkedIn is game changing. Like it's number one and elevates my day. Like I see the videos that you have, and you put them out and you can't put out enough for me. I'm always when I see them hit, I get the notification. I'm like, I gotta check out this next video from Jason. The one recently and I remember that I really like laughing out loud, was the one about porta potties? And could you tell people what was the inspiration for that?

Jason Schroeder  7:17  
Well, I was... kick me on the heals if I go to talking too long, but I flew to Florida, and was doing some consulting with a group in Florida. And I was walking a big $360 million project with this really high profile, General superintendent. And he was showing me where they were excavating for spot footings. And they had done their control and they had this big, you know, just all everything about the job and really impressed he showed me his trailers. And then a worker walked up and said, Hey, you know, just kind of took him on the arm. This was before COVID-19 and said, Hey, just so you know, none of these bathrooms have toilet paper. And he took he looked over? No, no, sorry. He looked at the worker. And he was like, Okay, I'll get somebody on that, like really kind of, you know, Curt and rude. And he looked back at me, and he's like, he started telling me about the building. And I'm like, Well, hold on, hold on. We need to go cut up our shirts or go to Walmart? Or do we need to do something we cannot do this. And, and I just feel like I keep saying we have a problem in construction, our productivity is not getting better. And people argue, well, it's not that bad. It's not this. And then my point is, and this is this is answering your question. Okay, I can prove to you that we don't have respect to construction, and that we still aren't making progress. And I can tell you one word, bathrooms. And then, and then, like it a light bulb goes on. And people associate this concept. And they realize, Oh, yeah, like, we treat our workers like animals. And really, when you think about it, like, it's no different than if you're, you know, we go look at, it's different. Don't let me be dramatic. But like, if we go look at slave labor, and, you know, in like the Middle East, or in a third world country or something, and we look at their conditions, it's not too long of a stretch from a mental, you know, treatment standpoint with some of the conditions that we put our workers in, not able to wash hands, no, no clean bathrooms, not even a place to eat lunch, disrespectful conditions, dirt, dirtiness, everywhere. And that's why to me, lien is heaven. And our current condition is, you might have to bleep this out. But it's like hell, like the place I'm not cussing, but like, so where are we here? We have these two opposite ends of the spectrum. And my proof of concept that there's a gap there is bathrooms. I think that post exploded.

Felipe Engineer  9:37  
And if I could have liked to 10,000 times on LinkedIn, I would.

Jason Schroeder  9:40  
Well I appreciate that. 

Felipe Engineer  9:41  
I've definitely Jason, I've seen that. It's so true. It's that little thing that shows people's real belief about the workplace. And I remember people, you know, indirect labor, and I've been in the construction industry myself for over 20 years. And just most of the time working for general contractors that had offices On site so only once I worked for a little bit where we were remote and not right on the site, so I had to use porta Johns my entire career. I know exactly we're talking about and, and we didn't it's not like the general contractor had special porta Johns for us. I mean, sometimes they did. But typically, we had the same exact porta Johns that the workers hadn't, you know, it's 30 degrees below zero, and we're trying to make something happen. In these types of conditions, it's insane what we're doing to ourselves and then, and in the US take the time to even listen to the vendors that sell that type of stuff. They'll tell you like, we have these like run of the mill. And then we have there's levels of bathrooms that are have been available. Since portable bathrooms have been around. I agree. And people just don't take advantage of it. Or even think like, what message Am I sending to my employees? What message Am I sending to this crew? That's something that is so small, it's so big. 

Jason Schroeder  10:55  
I agree. 

Felipe Engineer  10:56  
And I think Kevin's the right term, like, I'm right there with you, man. Like, if we're out of paper everywhere, I'm ready to cut my shirt off too, because nothing is worse than trying to work, especially in hard conditions. And you can't take care of like number one or number two, I agree and puns intended.

Jason Schroeder  11:13  
You know, and I when you did the Lean blog presentation about five s, I really appreciated it because of the enthusiasm and the participation, the total participation of your workers, those kinds of environments, I just feel like they're just fantastic. And if I can tell you a quick story.

Felipe Engineer  11:34  
Yea, please do tell me a long story.

Jason Schroeder  11:36  
So I was on a project with some with a fantastic team. And at the end of the project, we ended up winning awards and DNR for it because of safety. At the beginning it didn't start out like that. The restroom, you know, graffiti everywhere, not well taken care of 40 things a day, you know, hey, put on your safety glasses. Hey, please do this. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, not really, just bad attitudes people not bought in. And I mentally and I think that's where we go in construction. If I was to speak for, you know, just the general population, I was like, You we really got to fix this. You know what I mean? Like, wait, I'm gonna station somebody out there. I'm gonna hire a guard or I'm gonna get the half porta potti. So we can just all kinds of punitive stuff. And then I feel like it was inspiration. Honestly, I feel like, you know, God was helping me with this. And I had started reading to second lien. So maybe the inspiration came from Lean. But I thought we might...

Felipe Engineer  12:33  
We might give Paul will give, Paul a little bit of credit for it. Yeah.

Jason Schroeder  12:37  
Yeah, that's a whole other podcast. But the thought came to me, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's make a deal with these, these wonderful workers, these these, these skilled craftsmen and women. So literally, this is exactly how it happened. I came and talked to the general superintendent. I was over the interiors and site work and a number of other things on that big project. And I said, Let's Make a Deal with it. Let's build bathrooms on level one and level three. And let's trick them out, running water, nice lunch room. Let's get him you know, clean professionally every day. Let's start huddling the workers every day and let's make a deal. And so he was like, Okay, well, let's you try that. Jason. He's, this guy's fantastic. In fact, I did a podcast about him the other day. He's like, Yeah, let's do it. So we gathered all 210 workers, I said, Let's make a deal. We're not treating each other with respect, right now. We're going to build bathrooms, we're going to have extra toilet paper, we're gonna have running water, wash your hands, nice lunch area, I'm even going to put signs up on the walls on how to change these things out. We're gonna have you guys huddle on on a daily basis. We're already huddling with our lean systems, our morning huddle, and we are going to go over and above and take care of you guys. And what I want from you is I want remarkable safety. I want you to clean up your areas clean as you go. And I want you to really respect things and no more graffiti. Now whoever doesn't agree with this deal, raise your hand, and nobody raised their hand. And immediately, immediately, that job switched overnight. Because we respected them. In fact, there's this you know, ages a protected class, I have to be careful. But there was this really, really, you know, seasoned old electrical foreman that came up and grabbed me by my shirt, actually a buddy of mine, Jake sweetly. And I he grabbed us by the shirt and said, in 40 years, I've never seen anything like this, it proves that we don't have to be treated like animals. And that was the moment that was, you know, like one of those connection moments that you were talking to me about. And, you know, it almost brought me to tears, honestly. And from that moment on, I've just seen it differently than if we were and you talk about this a lot is if we respect them, they're gonna give us 10 times not that that's the point but they're going to give us 10 times back in respect what we gave them and it was remarkable.

Felipe Engineer  14:55  
At least, I remember earlier in my career talking to a carpenter foreman The way that he was talking and I was just a young 20 something year old, you know, no at all punk kid, and, you know, stupid engineering degree, what did I know, this Carpenter foreman was like, he's been around the block, and then some, they could do things that, you know, I still can't do around the house. And I remember just the way he was talking Jason and he kept saying, like them, them. And we were, we were talking, I was doing overhead punch list. This was like, super early in my career. You know, it's, it's, you know, thankless work, having to create a punch list, you're finding all the flaws, for those of you who don't know what it is, like, there's ways to have a building turnover without a punch list. I know that now. But I didn't know that 20 years ago. And the carpenter foreman just kept talking about them. And finally, I said, Who's them? That's like, I'm brand new, who's them, he's like, management them people in the trailer. And I was like, wow, cuz I had just been listening. As I was going around, we're trying to clear items off the list. And there was like, a lot of anger in his voice. And I just remember being that young, like, ooh, don't ever get on this guy's Yeah, side because it could be rough. And, and I remember, I used to hang out, because I was doing this punch list, I was in the field, Jason, you know, 10 hours a day. So I'd be out there with the trains all day long as I'm walking around, and people would be friendly and talk to you if you're friendly back and you start to hear these stories and and I'd see like, you know, breaks or lunch, there'd be like a separation between the people running work. And the people doing the work. Even among the the trades themselves. It wasn't always cohesive teams, and you wouldn't see trades would not even together, be together. There'd be like, you know, plumbers over here, or drywallers over here. And even I was talking today, the some mechanical contractors, and there were still, like us versus them, like us versus the other trades type thing. And like, who sets all that up? Yeah, them, them management. It's up to us. And that's why I really love what the work that you're doing and taking that approach, and it started, you know, you had the Epiphany yourself, and you went and did something about it, and you got the benefits. And like everybody else, I think you gave them hope for how can things be, and hopefully they can go to the next job and, and communicate that to the next team and, and duplicate it again, and have it again, have a great experience every time.

Jason Schroeder  17:27  
I really agree with that. And, and you know this, I appreciate you having me on the podcast. I'm not here to advertise or anything. But when we talk about like, our niche in the market, what we're doing, you know, how is what Felipe is doing. And Jason what what I'm doing tying together, you hit it spot on, I want to and I'm gonna use bold words, this is just who I am. That's why I said, you know, you're so much better at the connection than I am. But the I want to be, and I am right now in whatever sphere, I'm able to. I'm the guy that says do better. Expect more. Let's go for workers. I I want to filter workers and foremen and field engineers and superintendents into all of the lean systems that you and LCI in the lean blog. And all of you wonderful professionals are advocating and into the scrum systems that that I've been learning more about with your influence. And I, I want workers and foremen to not feel that learned hopelessness. And if I can just, I'll tell you a long story here. But in a book, I can't remember which one it was, I can't remember if it was the Power of Habit or, or the culture code in one of those recent books that I read about culture. They talked about an experiment they do with German Shepherds, where, and this is cruel, I would never advocate this, but since they did this study might as well learn from it. They had one case where they would just shock the German Shepherds, the dogs, they had another one were split half and half, where they would shock one side, and they would shock the second side, or they would not shock the second side. So shock, no shock. And then the other one where it was there was no shock. And then they put all three of those cages into the shock, no shock cages, and the ones where they just received an electric shock. None of the dogs moved from the shock from the shock side to the non shock side. Same with the mixed cage. But the one the German shepherds were their original cage, where there was no electric shock as soon as they got into the second cage. They all moved from the shock side to the non shock side and what they what they hypothesize what they felt like their findings were the that animals and human beings can get this learned hopelessness, and I want to invite and encourage and love and mentor and call and podcast people out of the Learn hopelessness into it. No, no, no, no, we know we know today, we know today how to run a perfectly clean, safe, organized, quality, lean project with total participation using collaborative agile systems for short interval scheduling, that are remarkable like, please do not learn this hopelessness, that's what I do. And so you'll know the the lean definition better than I will. But my definition after hearing 50 of them, mine is respect for people, stable environments, and then continuous improvement because to me, at least we workers form and field engineers and supers and VMs. We can't continuously improve unless we have stable environments, stability and some standardization. And then we can't standardize unless we respect people and improve our conditions. And so that I totally agree with you, I'm so passionate about it. And at the end of the day, I want to have large groups of people in in remarkable trainings, immersive trainings, pulling them out of their comfort zone, so they expect more and go into the systems that you teach about.

Felipe Engineer  21:04  
I love that there's a good I'm gonna definitely take that and put it on my, my, my page of praise, how Fantastic, thank you. Love you is your definition of lean, you've have, you've got the perfect sandwich of the two things. I always tell people, like, if you forget everything I say, just remember one thing, respect yourself more. It'll be contagious to how you interact with other people. And then if you want to go deeper, then you can throw on continuous improvement or seeking perfection. And what told me one more time which are middle one was....

Jason Schroeder  21:35  
Stable environments, stability.

Felipe Engineer  21:37  
Stable environments, stability. Yeah, that's where the Agile is, to me is like, bring the chaos will adapt.

Jason Schroeder  21:44  
Well, and I might need to...

Felipe Engineer  21:46  
We'll have a process for that, though.

Jason Schroeder  21:48  
No, I totally agree. And I'm gonna ask you lots of questions about that. Maybe my definition is, is wrong? I'm not talking about stabilize? Well, let me let me give you a pushback here. Not on what your concept but that maybe maybe I need to redefine it. Because when I say respect for people, that's global, right. But stable environments to me is, you know, five s, cleanliness, organization, stability around the trailer, visual Wayfinding, signage, things like that, so that we can, so that we can employ agile scheduling systems. So so my stability, maybe he needs to be more focused on the environment.

Felipe Engineer  22:26  
Here. There's this famous saying of people that develop these systems long before us, Jason that if you try to improve, where there's no standard in place, you're just creating more chaos. Yeah, so you're doing you're doing really well. I think that's a good mindset. And you touched off on like, three out of the 14 Toyota Production System principles, but I'm not going to call them up. So good for you. I mean, they are timeless, and they do absolutely help. And yes, everybody in construction, you can learn from manufacturing, I tell people to and you know, the same, like you talked about studying Charles duhigg, who wrote the Power of Habit, and then the culture book, those are two things that were not made for people in designing construction. And yet, here we are, we have those in common. We're learning from other industries to bring to our industry. So that a we can be more aggressive, and then be, we can inspire people to want to try and learn more things.

Jason Schroeder  23:22  
I agree. I agree. And I feel like you and I have and I don't mean this to be bragging but like what our perspective comes from my field is being able to pull from manufacturing, and Paul and Patrick lencioni, and all these people and pull them into our world of construction. It cuz that's really what it comes down to is people will read, you know, they'll go to the AGC link course, or read to second lien or read the Toyota way or the, you know, lean thinking or whatever. And they're like, I'm not sure how that applies. But it's so applicable. And if we can make it even a little bit easier on folks, I think that's fantastic, right?

Felipe Engineer  23:58  
I mean, we have that hard job of meeting people exactly where they are. And then journeying with them. Like, come on, come with me. Let's go together. You don't have to be by yourself. If you want to be by yourself, and trailblaze Go for it. I'll follow you for a little while to learn something. I'm down 100%. Yeah, no, I love it. I wanted to ask you to like, you know, the, the pace that you keep up on LinkedIn, I've definitely stolen some ideas from you for sure. Like it's been. It's been great. I've started thinking more about, you know, that engagement with folks. And I was telling, I was talking to a guy at our office here in California. And he works in visualization. So it's I mean, who would think you know, 10 years ago that a construction company, you can have somebody that's dedicated 100% full time to creating visualizations, but we haven't we haven't today. And his name is Andy and Andy is like really good at what he does. And he and I were talking about, you know why we do what we do, and we both agreed, like if we just had one person Paying attention to us and getting some benefit, that'd be enough for us to keep 100%.

And I see you the same way. And, and for those of you who are keeping score, Jason is kicking my LinkedIn, he is far ahead of me. and rightfully so he deserves the people that that benefit from what you do and the engagement. I mean, you definitely leave us Jason better than we were. And like I said, that bathroom posts that you've had other posts to where you, you make me think every time the videos that you share, which is not like by default, because sometimes I'm not thinking, like I'll say right now, like, I'm not thinking all the time. And it's good because you see people engaging with the content. And then you know that they're taking a background.

You mentioned on that five s thing that I did for the link construction blog, Danny and Manny were the two farming that I got to hang out with as well as I think it was Robert, who was our safety coordinator on that project, in addition to the project manager, the concrete superintendent, some other folks but but the two people that were leading the trades, I mean, the the takeaways, I still hold the near and dear right here. And I can remember, it was man, he told me, he said, I've been doing this for over two decades, myself, and he's aging way better than and he said, He's like, no one's ever asked me what do I and I told him was like, I put my hand on the shoulder. This was before COVID also. And I said, I'm so sorry that it's taken this long for somebody to ask you what you think. Because the whole time, the best ideas for how we can do what you're doing are going to come from you and the people doing it. Like, occasionally we'll get the spark from being disconnected. But more often than not like, who's going to tell them better than they know.

Jason Schroeder  26:42  
I totally agree. I totally agree. And And to your point. You know, what gave me and I hope it's not a big deal to mention a couple of really good companies, you know, I love I don't name anybody. I love McCarthy, I worked for DPR for four years. I love DPR. I love their culture of lean. And we're the one thing that got me to see what you're seeing about scaling, and making it worthwhile and being able to connect, you know, even if it's just one person I had taken, and I hate to do all these stories about me. But that's all I know. But, uh...

Felipe Engineer  27:17  
Hey, this is your show, Jason, I'm interviewing.

Jason Schroeder  27:22  
The DPR had a had a training called pspp planning, scheduling and production planning. I did the lean core eight week course the facilitated course, the AGC certification, and then read a ton of books. And there was something else I can't remember. But it all came together. And I said, we're gonna just go try this on a job. And we did everything. And I was, you know, in our roles where we're bouncing around, we don't get to do much of that. But that was a job where I was there. 20 not 24 I was there every day. I was there every day we were able to implement it was great. And people would fly in to check it out much like they do with you when you're you know, you're touring people around. And then they took an idea let me give it to you. Which which is not new, you know, we have roof kidding. And room kidding. And all these kidding, you know, procedures that we have in construction. We did room kidding, where we coordinated everything in wall in this laboratory. And like literally everything and we printed that lift drawing it had a Revit background and then it had all of the bluebeam markups from the trades in the lab consultant and the designers had reviewed so we laminated these and screwed them up on the wall. We didn't screw it up. We screwed them up on the wall.

Felipe Engineer  28:36  
Yeah, non English speakers fastened to the wall with adhesive like...

Jason Schroeder  28:42  
Not, well, they actually use screws, but we put them up we put these coordinated drawings on the wall and, and the inspectors and everyone roughed in from that because, you know, we all know whether it's medical or lab, there's equipment, architectural, electrical, and everything shows different heights, right? It's It's a mess. So we did that and we made people and it was made and I'd love to talk about talk to you about that that sentence in another time. But we made people at the beginning until it was voluntary. And we made them pre cut and and prefabricate most of everything and then somebody toured the job. And then all the way across the country I see a video that comes out where they took that and then they brought everything out in a little blue box like the little Tupperware and they had all the content wrapped up all the back boxes, the the potty pads, everything just right there and it had this little bill of materials and they brought the box in and then it pre kitted in because they didn't yet have the time to bring in pods, right prefabricated rooms. Yeah. And it was all there. And they had a barcode system. They had a supply chain management system for these little blue boxes and I'm like, Oh my gosh, if we if somebody can just tour the Job Philippe's job McCarthy's job GPR is Jason's job. And then they'll go scale it and sprinkle these on two or three jobs, there is hope that we're going to change this thing. And so that was a long story. But I really do feel like if we can get people to see and feel and touch and taste some of the things we're experiencing, you can scale. So I totally agree with you.

Felipe Engineer  30:20  
That comes right from what I learned when I studied Scrum, which is a management framework for pulling work. Like last planner, system production control is very similar. They come out and save time. And one of the the underlying things that make Scrum work is this belief that Jeff Sutherland and with Ken swaybar, that every human being learns, empirically, they have this empirical philosophy that you're going to learn and experience the world through your senses. And that that little subtle thing, like you know what, that is starkly different from a lot of other management systems and paradigms out there. Like, we've got to get people exposed, so they can have these experiences and have these experimentations. And, and, you know, get go see something and experience that and talk to the people that did it. And listen for people that said, I was totally skeptical, no way is this gonna work. Right. And then they become, you know, people that are sharing and proud to share the cool stuff that we're doing. I love that when people are proud of the work that they do. I agree. That's another another cool thing that we have in our industry, like, everyone that's ever grown up in the construction industry has a parent and uncle and aunt, a mother or father who's driven you can't drive around the city, and they don't point out to the places that they had.

Jason Schroeder  31:31  
I totally agree.

Felipe Engineer  31:33  
Yeah, that's something that's really cool. 

Jason Schroeder  31:35  
Well, and you know, I'd like to, I'd like to have a discussion about that with you. You know, we've you and I've read to second lien probably multiple times, and I was honored. I was on a podcast interview the other day. And I had mentioned that and I kind of, I'm not being a victim or too sensitive here, but I kind of got attacked a little bit. He was like, Oh, I do I do not like Paul Akers. He's so arrogant. He thinks he knows. And I'm like, wait a minute, what, what just happened here. And he advocated Scrum. So I'm not gonna tie Scrum to him. But he, he started me down this path. So thankfully, I got diverted down a wonderful path. But I thought to myself, the reason I like Paul and some people, he's not for everybody. But I don't think he's arrogant. I've done a podcast interview with him. He's a very nice guy. He doesn't like to waste time, right? So he was pushing me to not waste his time. But what he is trying to do with all his heart might mind and strength is just share videos, and share this heaven that you and I experience, you know, lean makes life worth living, right in my mind. Yeah, and mixed. And I've never found a better way to scale than to take before and after videos, and to tour people through the project site and get them addicted to showing that off. And so I'd love to hear what your thoughts are there because I love his systems. I didn't know if there was an industry theme in construction about the the pro and anti Paul Akers side of things. I don't know. 

Felipe Engineer  33:03  
But if anyone listening has been in a large corporation, and been part of a rollout, you know what those things typically tend to go. So some of the people were like, why I have a full time job. Why is the company mandating that I read this book about a casework manufacturer, who also makes like specialty niche things in the case workspace? You know, based out of Washington, and people just couldn't get past it's not construction. Now, if you've studied culture, or change management for even five seconds, you know that everybody, and every construction project is a unique snowflake. They're all different and special. And I always tell people like, Yes, your project is special. And yes, you are unique, as am I. But the conditions that make us are well known. Yes. Like, I know what it takes to make ice and snow. I know what it takes for a snowflake, I need certain conditions. And that environmental thing is something that we can control. Now. Let's also agree that we don't know everything right now today that we told you for tomorrow. Right? But some people don't think that Jason and they don't want to make the jump because you do mentally have to use creativity and imagination to read something like what Paul's doing and translate that into your your space. So part of that initiative, I was tapped in a job that I was doing a heart bid job design bid, build traditional. And we had to organize, you know, using my my talents to get people to sit down and read this book with me. And I had to read it out loud to people play Paul's videos, because people weren't reading it on their own. And everybody didn't participate and that's okay. But you know what, almost everybody did the vast majority. And it was transformative for people like we had a super clean trailer all of a sudden, we had people, one of the we had a concrete foreman. He came into the office one day and he said I've been on the His job for a year. And all of a sudden, he's like, this trailer is different. I can't figure out what it is. But I like it. And things were like cleaner and organized. That was the difference. And we had, we had been inspired by what Paul wrote his book. And I think there's always going to be people. And Jeff talks about this in Scrum and the red book, you know, twice the work. And half the time, we'll talk more about that. But a lot of people think that, that's all about software. In a reality, Scrum was born in hardware, and it's got its roots in the military, and Jeff's experiences as a fighter pilot. And people don't know that because they have a day job, they don't necessarily have time to read. And they might be, you know, above, there might be at capacity. So a lot of a lot of the people and this is the the heartbeat of Paul's book, is fix what bugs you is that's his main message. Like, we could disagree with Paul on politics, and religion and all kinds of things. And any human being you can, you're not gonna agree on everything, like just, that's not gonna happen. Like my wife, and I don't agree on everything. And somehow we're still magically been married for a long, long time. That's okay, differences are interesting. It makes experiences interesting. So I think, you know, for for people that are anti that some of it's just transferring that domain knowledge of something specific to their everyday world. And that takes like a good night's rest, creativity, space to be able to make that some people need permission to experiment, some jobs are so under so much pressure, Jason, that they can't take time to not do anything that they need to do every day. Because of what's happening on the job. The stress that the people are facing out there is intense.

Jason Schroeder  36:46  
I think that's a really good point. And I know we have to get to another podcast here soon. So I'd like to just build on on what you're saying there. You know, I'm a huge fan always have been attacked. And, and also modified versions of last planner, where it works throughout. And when Scrum came along, I You're right, there are people that need permission. There are people that are busy, they're all also people that need time, right? I'm pretty quick. I like to move quick and break things, right. And I think I think to reality, so that's in our strengthsfinder. Right? So I do...

Felipe Engineer  37:24  
Those, those who started this podcast, he said, We almost broke this podcasting recording system, like four times just...

Jason Schroeder  37:32  
So, that's who we are. And I appreciate your advice, saying, hey, some people need time, at the end of the day. And nobody asked me for my opinion, but I'll give it...

Felipe Engineer  37:43  
What's your opinion.

Jason Schroeder  37:43  
Thank you. I'm gonna give you my opinion. I feel like sometimes we stopped doing a PDA PDCA cycle on our own lean tools and processes. For instance, and I have no, I take last planner, and I with no shame. I modify it to my circumstances. And like, that's what I do. Like I most people do morning, huddles, I do afternoon format huddles, and then I spend the time with the workers in a worker huddle The next morning, I modify those systems, I focus more on roadblocks than I do PPC, I, without shame modify that. But I've been criticized so much for that. And they'll say no, you have to do it the standard way, you have to do the standard way. And I'm like, wait a minute, isn't this a lean system? Like, aren't we supposed to do a PDCA. And my, my main example is this. And some people will just say, Jason, you just don't know what you're what you're doing and find like, fine. But if you go to every job that I go to, that's a huge hospital or a large laboratory or mega project. The last planner system in its in its designed detail starts to break down in the interiors of the building, because the scopes get so much. There's so much so many activities and things like that. And I'm not saying that process doesn't work. I'm saying, hey, let's modify this. In some instances. Let's also merge this with some tax planning, and do some of those things. And there's a way to put all of our standard areas kind of on a rhythm. And then let's focus on our troublesome areas which which Scrum tells it tells you to do right? elevator elevators balancing stairwells, you know, this change over over here, let's manage with last planner or Scrum these these areas, and keep everything else on this floor, right. And people will like literally yell at me and I'm like, we in the lean world can't you know just like Christianity adopted paganism. We can't have, you know, lean adopt our old fangled fashioned ideas of just do it this way. And without modification, I'm like, No, no time. We need to modify we need to be a little bit more adaptable, agile to use your words right? And so my my concept would be like, I would love if the lean community would practice is more PDCA and be more nimble and adaptable on the way we implement some of our tools because we have fantastic tools. And, and you know, we don't want to burn people out on the word lean, or last planner or pull planning by saying you have to use the template, don't do anything else use the template, and then they're like, Ah, I'm trashing the whole system, when we can adapt it. So anyway, I'd love your thoughts on that.

Felipe Engineer  40:22  
This would be one of those times where I gotta smash that like button 1000 times, like I have to we, we started when I when I went into last planner system, and like, you know, we're talking the beginning. I'm huge on context, I went back all the way back to Glenn Ballard's original thesis paper, and read the almost 100 page paper where he's codifying it for the first time. And I'm like, wow, I can really tell that this was written for academia. This was never meant for me to read. That's funny. And then I remember like, Who is this Glen Ballard person. And I started like talking to people in my network. And I finally got connected with Glenn, some years later, and I actually got to see him speak at a conference. And he said some stuff. And we've actually become friends over time. But it started with a massive disagreement. And I told Glenn, like he even had, he has a committee or group of people that are working on an update, and I spent a good year volunteering inside of that space, bringing some of these agile practices to last planner. And this is true for all lean tools. We need to iterate on them. Yes, we have a standard. And you might have like textbook, like people say I've even had people on my show, telling me that the way that we do last planner in our company is not textbook or standard. And I'm like, What are the results on those projects? Are you on schedule or late? Well, no, you guys are ahead of schedule, then what's the problem.

Jason Schroeder  41:48  
Can't argue results. What's the problem? 

Felipe Engineer  41:50  
Like, you cannot forget why we do these things in the first place.

Jason Schroeder  41:54  
You're speaking my love language.

Felipe Engineer  41:57  
Yeah. It's like, why are we doing it, we're not doing it because we're gonna get some lash planner award, no such award exists. It doesn't exist well, so don't try to do it. Don't do it for that sake. But do go back to what you said. Like, I look back at the lean construction Institute's Standard Work on less planner, it's 35 pages. As we went through, I got a team together 40 people, and we read through it all. And we boiled it down to based on our experiences with people like our combined effort, I talked to lcis, Director of Education, Kristen Hill, who helped put that together with a bunch of other people that probably I think are remember, Kristen told me like 300 years combined, of last planet experience. But like that thing has a date when it was published. Fast forward, 10 years later, here we are, I bring I brought 40 people together inside of my company, where we had a combined probably only 100 years of total last planning experience, so not as much. And we got it down to just two pages. And we got it down to the way that we onboard our people. We're like, you know, the, the the magical facilitator of this knows how to do it has done it before. But we don't always have that. So we had to create a champion, and a way to create a facilitator. And there's roles for the two. And I said, I tell people when we onboard them in our company, Jason that my goal is that you will eventually be both you will be the facilitator and the champion. And in construction, most often it's the superintendent but not always. And then design it can most it's most often a director or a design manager, design director, or sometimes even an executive depending on how big the job is. And somebody like myself might be the facilitator for a while. We can even be a project manager or sometimes it's been engineers. I've had many times project engineers that have good people skills that can talk well and communicate. They've been amazing facilitators for last planner. And so like I say, like, here's the five Connect conversations. And this is what it's based on, I give them the whole comp more complex than they probably want. It was we were like, just tell them how to make it work. And I say like, okay, in the guide, you'll notice Jason the way we if I had a picture of my guide, and it's published, it's online somewhere. There's a ton of whitespace. And I tell people that whitespace is intentional. It's not because we forgot to write stuff, that whitespace is for you to pick up the writing utensil of your choice. And write down how you will modify the system to suit your project needs. And then if you look at our guide, it's got a version on it. I tell people, the only reason I tracked that version, so that I make sure I blow the dust off of it. And we keep changing it based on what we learned. And I've given that guy to people, Jason and I said, You and your company, some of them trade partners, some of them architects, and even somebody a TPR and some other general contractors. And I said you guys have been doing this for a long time. What would you add or change to this? And I'm still waiting to get back somebody to say you should do this. differently. And I always tell people like and the people that promise me all the time are typically schedulers that say, they've got ideas for how to change it. And I say, bring it. And I said, this is the way we change the guide. You do an experiment based on what you think after trying the standard. Experiment with what you think, tell me how the results are. And let's try it, we'll try it together, and experiment as like, and if it works, we'll change it. And then I'll be responsible to go back to all the people that we've disseminated the guy to, and tell them here's so but it's super easy. I was like, anybody can change it, anybody I've got, I've got three promising people right now, that are very likely going to give me a change. And I'm just waiting for the change to come like, I can't wait. I can't wait. And so far with our approach, Jason, every time that we've done it, we've improved the schedule, by as little as two weeks, or we've maintained the schedule and added as much as $25 million worth of added scope, and still delivered on the contract originally schedule. I love it. So listen, ladies and gentlemen, a multi year project schedule, finishing on the same day, with $25 million of added scope. That means we had to have gained time in order to do that much extra work. The system works, it has to be adapted with the team you have. And I tell people like there's five conversations to have. If we don't start on day one tracking PPC. That's okay. As long as the people are talking to each other, and we're still learning in some way, shape, or form will iterate to PPC and various tracking if it helps the team. Yeah, I agree. And don't get me started on weekly work plans, Jason, because I can I can talk for five hours on just that.

Jason Schroeder  46:41  
Well, I think we had to just keep this show going and talk I'm gonna talk to you about two other things. And I'll just use the last half if that's okay with you. 

Felipe Engineer  46:51  
I know you want to talk to me about this right here. So well, let's not this one. This is what you want to talk to me about.

Jason Schroeder  46:56  
Yeah, well, let me let me first off, say something that's gonna make everyone mad. See, we're not going to get where we need to go by just using CPM and three week looking at print outs. We, I just want to be on record for saying that. And I do want to say that I'm not the grumpy old Superintendent that doesn't know how to use it. You know, I've done the training, I'm trained, I've built many, many schedules. I've used it. I know how to do it in and out. I know how to use accurate I know how to use all of it. And we're not going to fix this industry. Just by doing CPM. a three week look ahead schedule. It's not gonna happen. So I'm going to Did you present script? Did you present Scrum in 2017 at the LCI Congress in in Anaheim, or Southern California? Did you present there?

Felipe Engineer  47:45  
I do. Okay, standing room only. That's where I first started.

Jason Schroeder  47:49  
So I went to your observed you doing that. And so all I took out from that. I didn't pay attention to it. I was presenting on some other stuff. But I didn't pay attention to it. Like I said, so. First of all, I apologize. But But I saw, I saw the to do in progress and completed with the stickies. 

Felipe Engineer  48:10  
You saw something something like this, right? Something like this?

Jason Schroeder  48:13  
And so ignorantly, I just said, Oh, my gosh, you know what that would work great for that would work great for, you know, power upgrades, installing an MRI, a complex area that you have to finish. And so without even knowing Scrum, and I, I miss branded it by calling it Scrum. But I would just get these big boards, and we had these specific areas and start filling out stickies, and we would just meet on it and that and your presentation. got me started that much on it. And and I've been using that ignorant version for years now. But here's my question. I love the book, I read it. I read it starts...

Felipe Engineer  48:54  
The book that the Jason's talking about is this book right here. My favorite book by one of my mentors.

Jason Schroeder  49:01  
I loved and I also like the little pokes about CPM that he gives. So it's like, as long as we have I get that we need milestones. But But anyway, here here, I've been thinking about how to do this with functional areas, what we would typically consider our clusters in an integrated environment, you know, when we take it to the field, and let's say $170 million project, we have our functional areas, we'll split up that 100 $70 million dollar job into three real projects, right? My mind has been on fire of how do we implement Scrum in with the process to your point with people that want to do it, right not shoving it down their throat, but I want to know your thoughts on the ideal application of Scrum in construction. There you go.

Felipe Engineer  49:49  
Bam. So let me Let's show a picture so the people can see, this is the entire framework here on screen. So I'm showing, you've got a backlog and I teach the deconstruction's to code developed a class with one of my friends Claire, who works in McCarthy and Stephanie, who works at Rosa electric, with Kristen hills, blessing help and participation. And we scrubbed Jason, we use Scrum to make the class. Oh, wow. We Scrum the class and I got pictures of it. It's in the, it's in the presentation. It's a two hour, very fun, highly charged animated hands on. And in that presentation I show here's the scrum framework, you can see all the parts of it. The only thing I need to add to this drawing is the goal. The goal happens right above the product owners had. So in to put it in last planner terms, I'm going to demystify it for free. That's off backlog. backlog are all the things that we know we need to do in order to accomplish the project. Those are called milestones. In last planner system, Sprint Planning are the things we're going to do now this next phase of work, that's a phase pool. And we prioritize it to get the best sequence possible. Now the difference in Scrum is we don't calendar eyes it and create that weekly work plan or look at schedule. But the sprint time box is when the team is pulling things off of that sprint planning or phase pool for those of you that speak last planner, and they're pulling it into one thing doing at a time not multitasking. Now they can work together multiple people working on the same thing. And the daily Scrum is exactly like the daily huddle, except that it is 15 minutes or less. And you answer three standard questions. Now I'm not gonna even say what they are right now the second in the review, you look at what the team actually got accomplished with the stakeholders. So that means in construction speak, it's done done. All the way done. No taxis taxis, no punch list. It's completely done installed right. are designed, right fully coordinated. So the next design team can use it. And it's coordinated. Done means coordinated ready for use. next person in line can use it. In the retrospective there we have that learning conversation, like we do in last planner, you see all five conversations should can will did learn happening on this drawing. And in that class, I put the LPS parts right on there so people can see exactly where they are. Here. This is what happened when they were developing LPs l make over a lot of people know who hell is he sent Kristen Hill to get trained as a scrum master. And then she brought that back as they were starting to make last planner system something that can be taught out for the general public, you know, taking what Glen and Greg did Greg Hall, the two co creators of last planner and make it a pull system. Like it was always meant to be the two are very similar. And I've had conversations with with Jeff Sutherland as well. And I said, we have something very much like Scrum in the design and construction through that also came out in 1990s, magical time, the 1990s all kinds of cool stuff was going out. And like a good boy in construction. I didn't realize that it was there until 20 years later.

That's how long it takes. So first up to get to us almost. Right. So that's that's the full system. Now to go to answering your question like, how would a team pick this up? The way that I understand last planar system, I had this told to me by a superintendent. I was on a project where the reason I was there was to do a last planner facilitation. And we do a little bit of onboarding. Now the project team knows Philippe's a scrum master, we want to learn Scrum too. So we're gonna do like a one hour what is Scrum? So I covered all the stuff that's here. And I told the team to like this is a good book, if you want more information, you know, pick up this book. But I'm going to cover here quickly in an hour. And there's even videos on YouTube that tells you the entire Scrum framework in two minutes. Yep. So that at the heart of it, it's a it's a pool system designed to let you deliver value very fast. Yeah, exponentially faster. Because it's got feedback loops built in. There's all kinds of good stuff and I do a better justice. If anybody wants to get deeper on Scrum hit me up in the comments or message me We'll talk more and I can point you to more resources even than just Jeff's red book. But teams could pick this up and use it with LPs and the way so the superintendent to go back here. We had done those the second time we were doing last planner facilitation with this particular superinten his name was Dan and on his team we were doing we did Scrum in the morning and I was like you know animated excited. This is before COVID so we're all together in the same big room. And I'm like making noises and yelling and I'm you know talking smack on critical path schedule. So he comes out and he sits down and he participates and then we go through like we get done. We take a short break we do the last planner session with the trades. We pull six weeks out of the schedule like magic and just give it back to the superintendent his his float. You know for the whole project team, not just his but you know he can claim it. You can have So we brought we pulled the schedule in six weeks faster. That job finished two months ahead of schedule later. But that day, the superintendent said to me, he's like, I understood last planner system I thought I did. But when I saw what you showed in Scrum with the pool system, and then going through the facilitation with last planner, I really understood last planner better because of the scrum training you gave me this morning. And I said, wow!

Jason Schroeder  55:27  
No, I think you're spot on there. And I, I don't have all the terminology memorized off the top of my head like you do, but the point system for the activity for the tasks basically, oh, yeah. That says to me, let's not just keep the time, but let's gain time. collaboratively together. It's almost like, good. Yeah. Well, I guess my point.

Felipe Engineer  55:51  
 I'll say like the velocity. Go ahead, Jason.

Jason Schroeder  55:54  
I was just gonna say...

Felipe Engineer  55:56  
I'm gonna let you take it.

Jason Schroeder  55:57  
I know. I think you're spot on. Because last planner, right. I think we just like with Christianity and paganism. That's just an example. I'm not getting political, religious. But, you know, you absorb this old system. I think last planner absorbs the old Gantt chart CPM system of you know, not thinking about can we can we optimize this right? Are we doing the most important things? Do we have total participation? And and so last planner just ends up being like a modified version of the same old thinking that we've had versus like you said, or the superintendent said, If you come from a scrum background, or or, you know, understanding, then I think last planner becomes a, we can gain on this schedule, we can still gain and have a flow it, are we doing the most important things? And are we huddling together in proximity? I think that's such a good point. I hope everyone gets that. I mean, fantastic.

Felipe Engineer  56:53  
I remember I want to share something that Greg and Glen told me, we know when I was interviewing them. And we were arguing about the last plan or in the early days when I still didn't know it as well as I do now. And they said they invented last planner system in response to critical path method schedules, like we know today, Gantt charts. And they said they wanted the problem they were trying to solve when they first did it. And there's a, I think there's a great talk on YouTube that Greg does, where he talks about this, the problem they're trying to solve is they're trying to make it easier for people to update and use CPM schedule. Yes, they weren't didn't set out to eliminate CPM schedules originally. Now later, you can completely build a job without a CPM schedule. And I've talked to one of my friends, like the project production Institute. And there's a whole army of people that know that you can build a project, a complex project, a billion dollar plus a $10 billion job. Without a CPM schedule. It can be done and people have done it. People have done it. Yeah, shout out to you, Gary, if you're listening to my show, and Gary knows what I'm talking about.

Jason Schroeder  57:55  
We have to get we have to go to coffee or something to talk more and more about it. I totally agree. When an owner tells me, I want to be six print out at level four level of detail. And then the SCR file. I'm like, Whoa, for the love of all things holy, like do I have to go through this again? And you know, what, day to day scheduling eight months from now, I'm like, we're professional guessers. Like, I guess that's all we're here to do. We and and and so I totally agree. And when I look at the system, I don't want to oversimplify it. But some of the because I feel like whether it's milestones and Scrum milestones, and last planner, and Scrum or whatever, or tax planning, I do believe and I know for a fact, we can run a job and they do it and you know, overseas and a lot of different places, they run out an entire project without CPM totally bought in. When I write a response to CPM for me, so that we avoided crash landings. The step one was to start with a tax plan. I'm not, I'm not preaching this or advocating, I'm just saying where my mind is. So you can help me with this grumpies. We've started with the tax plan to show realistically, what's it going to take what's the end date, like it's it's at least identify the end date and not have that 20% difference between what we can sell and what we can actually build. Let's just start there. And let's make sure CPM doesn't, you know, do a forward and backward pass and run your flow like this backwards and forwards and backwards. Let's make sure at least you have a realistic flow right. And then if there are areas that run nicely on tact, I usually leave them in those modified systems and then focus last planner or Scrum, whether you want to say from the critical path, or you want to not say it like that, but the most critical items. I see Scrum coming in, I could see a functional team saying here's the overall project following nicely this tax plan. But this the elevators, the MRI, the electrical upgrades. We've got three Scrum teams. I'm probably using the terminology But we got three Scrum teams working daily. Let's advance that into advance on that. Whereas the old critical path was like, Oh, that's my critical path. I'm not gonna do anything about it. But that's my critical path. I can see it. You know what I mean? I feel like Scrum is the answer. Scrum is the answer to how do you attack your most critical path? And so, I'd like I'd like you to coach me criticize me, am I off base on SP being able to use Scrum, to really focus and optimize on our most critical portions of the job? Is that off base?

Felipe Engineer  1:00:32  
That's the same question that people I have some friends now it's scrumming, the Jeff's consulting company. And, and we were on a call. We had 50 people on the call. And I got to ask that same question. And I said, so far, I've been using Scrum. For over half a decade, I have yet to find where it doesn't work. And I said, I'm trying. I said, I'm trying for you, Jeff to find where. But so far everywhere we've tried, it's worked. And it's helped people to deliver faster with less effort. The key is like, you need a person that really knows the process. And in the scrum framework, that's the scrum master. And it doesn't have to have that name. Like there's even Scrum for education and in the education system, in that adaptation. spearheaded by a guy named Willie white wagons out of he's in the book is in Jeff's Red Book. He's on that section about Scrum used elsewhere, where he transformed an entire school system. They today they call the scrum master team captain. So for those of you that just imagine a team captain does a team captain, for most sports actually plays whereas a coach doesn't play. So team captain plays in the game with the team, a good Scrum Master plays in the game with their team. I mean, there are some Scrum masters that full time do that. And they don't actually do what the team does that exists, that's out there, too. But in construction, the teams that we already have, and they are teams, you have a team that's doing just change order work, you have a team that's just doing ti, you have a specialty team that's energizing a building. And you might be it's more than just the electrician, there are other trades, believe it or not electricians that help you to energize a building, if you didn't have four walls, or you know, and it's something to stand on, you need a building to and like there's all kinds of good jokes about that, that I'm not doing justice to. But it can be used Jason 100%. It can I have not seen where it can't. And we see now with a lot of the the integrated project delivery teams that are doing target value delivery. Yeah, that's a mouthful, the IPD teams doing to the TVD. They use Scrum in their cluster groups, or what that some teams call project implementation teams. And they're just not they don't know that they're using Scrum. And they're not. They're using a lot of aspects and parts and pieces. It's only a couple more things to do Scrum, as by design is supposed to be the smallest amount of management bureaucracy possible to enable team workflow, so that you can deliver value. It only has 11 rules, that's it. And 11 steps, you can nail it, they don't even say 11 rolls, they say 3533 rolls, five artifacts. And one draw blank. That's what happens when you work. There. Let me let me find a friend. Here we go. So we have three roles, five events, and three artifacts. That's the 353 of Scrum. Y'all edit that to make, I've got to have this. three roles. And this is from my friends at Scrum Inc, three roles, five events, five events are just five meetings, five meetings, and three artifacts or three things that we can see, to help us. So a lot of teams that are doing TVD, you know, they might have everyone's got their own title. So the titles are all over the place. So they're on the team. Do they have these five meetings? Right, so the five meetings are right there? arguably, they have most of them? Yeah, a lot of teams don't look at new, they don't plan enough to see like what's coming down the pike. And that's where that backlog is so critical that helps teams propel forward. And then the retrospective is also special. Because I just did one today with an IPD team in Colorado, Jason, you would have been so proud I ran it just like a scrum retrospective is awesome. We ask people like, you know, what's working well, what's not working? And I said, in order for this not to be talk, we have to look at what experiments are we going to do to change the things that are working? And people were like, What do you mean, that's like, Don't worry, we'll do it together. So we identified like five things, and we end up having seven experiments. And I just got an email not even two hours ago from the team saying here are the seven experiments. This is the first one we're going to do. And I said, Oh man, it's working. That's awesome. They're going to learn together. And it was awesome. And like, they're getting that much closer to doing Scrum. And I've worked with teams in design construction doing Scrum over 10,000 individuals and teams and counting. But this is these are the things that you need and and Scrum is meant to be iterated on you Have to start on day one with the 353, your certified Scrum Master, you don't have to start that way. If you're not doing a daily huddle right now, start with a daily huddle. That's a super easy place to start. So if you're, because you're gonna ask me like, what do I expect somebody to do? Based on what I'm showing here, like, number one, let's create a flow. Make a simple backlog to do doing and done lists just like Jason did. When he's when he came to my presentation in 2017. Look at its 2020 Jason, we're still talking about Scrum, that stickiness means that works and works.

It's working. It's sticking it like you want to do it. When you do those. Jason, you saw with your teams going after hard work, they were able to let work flow, it enables flow. It's visual. Just like we learned, Jeff told me, he said one of the most important things for people to understand how Scrum works is eat understand lean. He said that just like two months ago, because I fleabay people need to understand lean better, so that they can have really good Scrum, you know, and so that, that's another book, I just want to plug, you know, this book, to authors here, this is lean. This really talks about in a meaningful, easy to understand way, how to improve flow on your projects, I highly recommend this book. And this book has been used in many industries, including healthcare because there's a lot of construction examples is written for construction. So check this book out. This is lean, you know, check out the red book if you want to learn more. And definitely subscribe to Jason's podcast, my podcast Hello. And Gino just in case, you're like, I always stay in touch with you, Philippe. Well, I want to make a visual just like we do on Scrum. You can get me here, you can get me here. Or you can subscribe to the podcast, it's on YouTube, too. If you liked this video, and you don't want to listen to it while you're driving. Check it out right there many ways to consume because we make a visual make it easy to get people engaged and have some great experiences. Right, Jason?

Jason Schroeder  1:06:54  
I totally agree. And in fact, this is lean, I've direct message on LinkedIn the author's two or three times asking them for permission to record an audio. So I can send it to people with no to no avail. But it's, it's it is fantastic. And, and I I'll give you some commitments, I will I'll take the scrum master training. After I read the book that you recommended. When we in pre construction, I'm using Scrum now. And it's going to be a mainstay in everything I do. It's fantastic. And so you've, you've changed a portion of my life to make it more remarkable and faster, relevant. And, and just thank you. You're welcome.

Felipe Engineer  1:07:36  
That's what, that's what I do. And like just like Jeff, and for those of you that don't know, Jeff gave the framework with Ken swaybar, the CO creator of Scrum, it's free, it's in the public domain. Like we'll put a link to the scrum guide in the show description. So if you want to read and there's even an audible version of the scrum guide, Jason, so you can listen to somebody read it. 

Jason Schroeder  1:07:55  
I just want I just I'm gonna send you a flash drive and just ask you to download everything. You have time for one more question before we close out? Absolutely. So. So I want to touch briefly on the you did this in the lean blog, which I thought was fantastic. You repeated, which is appropriate. You know, Patrick lencioni says you have to repeat over and over and over for people to get you repeated probably 30 different times. You can't force you have to do it when people want it. And so here's what I'd like to share. Because I'm going to use the better latter half of this audio on my podcast, you can split that you can use the whole thing on yours or whatever. But I I really want to know I will I want to know you your thoughts on that. So we'd have a deeper understanding, it can learn from some of your pain points that you mentioned. Also, knowing that I'm kind of a bull in the china shop. I'm more of the you know, Dean grazioso. He says marketing is about roughly repelling people that that don't like your brand and attracting those that do the people that like me, are the ones that want to go fast rate things. They want to be pulled out of their comfort zone. I must and will and commit to having more connection like you do to everyone by focusing on when they're ready and asking for it. So would you talk a little bit about that before we close out?

Felipe Engineer  1:09:17  
Yeah, absolutely. So I learned that lesson the hard way. Jason. When I first got into this, I was, you know, working over 100 hours a week, seven days a week, I was on a classic trajectory to burnout. And there was a director had given a presentation. And he said he shared all these lean manufacturing things. And the people you know, back in those days, it was the, you know, late 2000s they just weren't interested because we were a successful company at the time. We're doing just fine. And here's this person trying to show us a different way to do things and people are like now we're gonna resist that. There's some good things there but he hit me just at the right time. He said at the end of the Talk he'd showed like these examples, he had some of the people from his projects talk. And the one thing that I saw in the people that were working on his jobs is that a, they were all happy. And I was like, and didn't and B, none of them look tired. And I was drinking at the time, like I lose track, I think it was like a cup 13 or 14 of coffee to stay awake after working, you know, the past seven days, and then coming in for an all day conference and sitting down. It's tough to work all day and put that kind of hours in and sit still. It's really tough. Like you see people in the construction industry. I've even heard this from people helping LCI with their annual Congress, the hotel people telling me, never in the history of any conference we've ever done, has anyone drunk as much coffee as people in the construction?

Jason Schroeder  1:10:45  
That's wrong? That's funny.

Felipe Engineer  1:10:48  
We work a lot of hours. So I went up to the gentleman, his name was Mike, after his talk. And I said, Mike, something is going on here. Like, I don't know what it is, I want in on it. And he said, Philippe, you have to read a book to we have a little we get together. And if you understand, if you're on understand what we're talking about, you have to read a book. And I said, No, I'm not going to read a book. I told him, No, I'm not reading it. And he said to me, he's like, okay, you don't have to. He's like, what, then you can join. Or you can join. He said, at any time, he's a really nice guy, he said, or you can join, but you just don't, you won't know what we're talking about. And he's like, I want you to join and be successful. And then and then he talked to me about, he's like, I've heard that you do good work. But it looks like you work a lot of hours. And he said, He's like, what does your family think about them? And I said, Okay, Mike, you got me, what's the name of the book, I got, I got the book, you know that that night, I went home and ordered it, I didn't have, you know, any kind of cool app on my phone at the time. So I had to go home and order it the old fashioned way. And the book was lean thinking by Womack, and Jones, which again, is not a construction book. It's an outside. In the first chapter of that book. Womack beautifully talks about three different things, value, non value, add a pure waste, and what those three concepts alone and talking to the people in this group, within two weeks, I gained 40 hours back in my life, I stopped working nights and weekends. And it only happened because he hit me at exactly the right time, with exactly the right question that would make me do something different. He interrupted my habits. So when I tell people and he wasn't enthusiastic, like he was not, he will not go down in history for being a great public speaker. Like he's not he doesn't have any TED Talks. And he's since doesn't even work at our company anymore. But I remember that. And I tried it the other way, Jason, where I tried saying, like, I've got the silver bullet, and people wouldn't said, Philippe, we know you have the silver bullets, you can kill the werewolf that's attacking this project. But I don't have the silver bullet, you have to meet people exactly where they are. I've learned it the hard way. I tried it once before I went to a job. And I thought I knew what they wanted. And I pushed something on them. And I was never invited back again. And it took me four years to repair the relationship with the project director so that we can start to work together again. Okay. So like, I always tell people, like I learned that lesson the hard way. And there is a time and a place, I'd say like, if you're about to get hit by a bus, please put your hand down and stop the person from, you know, getting murdered, you know, by a bus running down the highway. I was like, Well, most of what we do, isn't that serious? I totally agree. So instead, be curious, I bring a ton of enthusiasm as you know, what I'm on when I'm on sharing what we're doing. And I'm engaged with project teams, I am exactly like this with the people I work with every single day, whether it's the CEO, the CEO, the CFO, or somebody, you know, digging a ditch, I'm the same enthusiasm all the way up and down the chain. Because they're all part of the magic that makes buildings come to life, and the projects for the owners that that need these things to solve their business problems. So that's what I bring testing at. Sometimes you'd have to, like, you got to be quiet and just listen to people. But now it's not the time because you asked me so I'm gonna, I'm gonna just keep. And I was like, well, so I learned that and I start to get better. Like when you practice it, Jason because there is a sometimes and we talked about this, and I teach a three methodologies as well. And there's, there's times where you have to, like, dictate the standard to people to get them repetitions and experience. So we create what I say. We set up the environment so they can experiment, right and as like as the one controlling that we can stop the environment so that it's a safe, healthy place where they can actually experiment, make small failures, mistakes and learn. And then we very quickly say no more templates now iterate and make it your own. And these people have like, taken off like blown my mind, the amazing things that have happened. I've had many people because of this approach, Jason, have come to me and said, I was gonna leave the construction industry. And it's because of these engagements and what we've done that I'm staying in. And I love coming to work every day. And I was like, this facinates me.

Jason Schroeder  1:15:20  
That's why we do this. That's our why. 

Felipe Engineer  1:15:23  
Well, for me, it's a long answer for me.

Jason Schroeder  1:15:26  
It was fantastic. And I know we're out of time. But I'm glad we were able to, to cover that, that that's perfect. And just a little bit of quick feedback for you. It's might sound cheap, because I'm directly on a podcast, you know, interview. The work, you're doing Philippe's fantastic. Your approach is fantastic. The way you're able to connect, and have the humility and connection and expertise all together. And I just want you to know, wherever you are, if you ever get sad or whatever, just know that Jason's got his pom poms, like all the way over here in Phoenix rootin. For you. Thank you for everything you do. It's It's remarkable.

Felipe Engineer  1:16:03  
Yeah. And likewise for you, Jason, you make me think and see things differently. And I 100% respect your approach. And we need people like YouTube because you got to trailblaze it's something different. And you're going to interrupt and catch somebody in a certain way. And I'm going to interrupt and catch somebody. And we want the same thing. We want people to have fun doing what they do every day. And it's great work. Let's have more people come into our industry, and join in this great work that it is. I love it.

Jason Schroeder  1:16:30  
On we go!

Felipe Engineer  1:16:30  
Stuart. So with that, Jason, thank you so much for being on my show. It's been awesome to do this blended podcast.

Jason Schroeder  1:16:38  
I love it. Well, they won't see the exact same thing because I'll use the latter part. But thank you very much for your basement. Fantastic.

Felipe Engineer  1:16:45  
Very special thanks to my guest. I'm Felipe Engineer Manriquez. The EBFC shows created by Felipe and produced by passion to build easier and better. Thanks for listening. Stay safe, everybody. Let's go build!