Introduction:

In 1790, a speaker before Parliament predicted a 100-fold increase in the output per worker was possible. Following his declaration, the debate focused on whether he was crazy or possessed—or both. He was of course wrong. The real increase in 70 years was closer to 200 times. We now call that the “Industrial Revolution”because it changed the way things were designed and made.

Today, we are in the midst of a second revolution in the way things are designed and made. Coupled with advances in computers and the web, this one will also result in tremendous change particularly in the way work is managed in design and construction.

It is time to reform project management. Current practice does not deliver on complex uncertain and quick projects because it rests on a simplistic conceptualization of work and a deficient definition of control. Project controls based on this definition are unable to cause predictable outcomes and are themselves not in control. Worse, they hide the waste they create.

The combined effect of this faulty understanding and deficient approach to control is over-reliance on central authority and project schedules to manage resources and coordinate work. This form of management injects uncertainty into the project causing variations in the flow of work, i.e., the material and information that move between the interdependent specialists in design, supply, and construction. There is always some price to pay for variation in workflow. The price in construction is longer projects, lower productivity, adversarial relations, and facilities that deliver less than they could.

Projects get done—the Work Break Down Structure more or less assures all the pieces will be there. But getting a project done does not assure value is delivered or waste avoided. I define –

• “Value”as “Meeting the purposes of the client and producers,”
• “Waste”as “Anything not required to deliver value,”and the
• “Client”as “The one there at the completion of the project.”

So while projects are completed, they are wasteful and too often they fail to support the purposes of the client left standing with the keys.