I wanted to share some reflections on a really interesting discussion I had with a colleague in the construction industry. We talked about some fascinating ideas, especially around the platform he’s building called Sitesched which he hopes to launch in 2025. (see www.sitesched.com)
What stood out to me was that we’re both addressing similar or related problems, but we’re coming at them from completely different angles. My focus with Buttress I’ve been working towards has always been on decentralisation and employee empowerment, taking a pragmatic approach to getting things done and moving in the right direction. I’ve been trying to learn lessons from Toyota and lean management principles that empower workers to make decisions and improve the system. It’s this idea that a manager’s role is to facilitate and empower their team, rather than direct every little detail.
My colleague - in building Sitesched - on the other hand, has a different approach. His take is that, particularly in the building industry, people want to be given very clear, specific tasks - precision driven program management and improved scheduling tools might be the solution. His argument is that people in construction want to know exactly what to do and when to do it - they want certainty and it’s the lack of organisation that is the problem. In his view the way that workers can be empowered is if they know exactly what they're doing, are given clear instruction and helped to be organised. He advocates a structured approach, which to me initially feels a bit like micro-management, though I can appreciate that people do like to know what’s happening and where.
I’m not saying for a minute that Sitesched’s approach is wrong and mine is right - it’s just different from my hypothesis in creating Buttress which is based on what I’ve read and what I’ve seen in companies like Google, where management is all about running continuous experiments to improve things. The idea there is to give employees the freedom to innovate and improve processes on their own. But google is a world away from a typical construction site in Sydney so there is no way to know that the lessons from Google are even remotely applicable.
This difference in thinking is really fascinating to me. On the one hand it’s about precision, planning, and structure which leads to empowerment, while the other is about empowerment and flexibility first and putting everyone in control of their tasks. I always believed that unless the people on your site are empowered to make decisions and solve problems on the go, you’re always going to run into roadblocks. If you try to over-plan and over prescribe, you’ll end up getting stuck, no matter how well you plan.
What I love is that we’re in a similar space - we both worked for very similar businesses in the past but we’ve come up with completely different approaches - almost diametrically opposite, it gives us both an opportunity to rethink the mental models we’ve both built over a long time.
I’m really interested in exploring this space more, especially in the context of the construction industry. It’s one of the least productive industries and in fact going backward in terms of productivity for a while now.
So, if you’re someone working in program management, construction scheduling, or if you’re at the cutting edge of construction programming, I’d love to chat. I’m launching a podcast soon—The Buttress Podcast—where we’ll be diving into these kinds of topics, particularly pitched at small to medium builders but the topics should still resonate with anyone in the industry. I’m really curious to unpack whether the building industry is so different and so special when compared to other industries - or do the same fundamentals apply to all humans?
If you’re keen to join the conversation or know someone who would be, please reach out. I’m always up for a good chat about how we can make construction more efficient and productive!
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