Not all projects make this pull planning mistake. Those that do are falling victim to a common mystique about pull planning that inflates its value to the effective delivery of a project.
Here's the mistake: Believing that pull planning alone is all that is necessary for the successful scheduling of a project, and that it is unnecessary to learn weekly and daily planning and coordination skills.
Many project leaders have been conditioned to understand a good plan as a good schedule. Believing they have a good schedule; the expectation is that every player on a project team will be able to follow the schedule and the project will progress as planned. This can work on a slow-paced project in which the natural variability in productivity has little impact.
If a project team is engaged in pull planning, they are probably not working on a slow-paced project, and are seeking to complete the project very quickly. The natural variability in productivity becomes an important part of coordinating work between different disciplines. Plans, rather than becoming schedules, must be actively managed and refined throughout the course of a project.
One method for the management and refinement of project plans is the Last Planner System® developed for the design and construction of building and infrastructure projects. Here is where common misunderstandings begin. The Last Planner System is a comprehensive and collaborative planning system for coordinating multidisciplinary work. Many people confuse the Last Planner System with pull planning when the pull planning of project phases is only one part of the system.
From a project planning skills development perspective pull planning is a minor part of leading collaborative project work. I have identified twelve fundamental practice skillsets project teams need for collaborative work. Three of those skillsets relate to a daily huddle practice. Only one skillset relates to the facilitation of phase pull planning, and that work is done infrequently enough that obtaining facilitation from a person outside the project is practical.
Weekly and daily work is required to professionally execute the plan a project team pulled. Without developing the specific skills designed to support that weekly and daily work even the best phase pull plans are subject to failure.
Here are important points regarding the term "pull planning."
- It is clearer to refer to the plan that is pulled for a phase of work as a "rough-in phase plan" and not a "pull plan," as pulling is about the means of planning and not about the purpose of the plan. Using the term "pull plan" is like using the term "steering wheel car," as that tells us steering wheels are how most cars are steered but nothing about the purpose of the car, such as whether it is a "racing car," "luxury car," or "economy car."
- Pull planning sessions are conducted prior to the beginning of a phase of work. The focus of the planning is identifying and coordinating the work that supports the completion of that phase as defined by a clear milestone. Pull planning is not conducted for an arbitrary period, such as for six weeks every six weeks.
- Simply placing sticky notes on a wall is not pull planning, or even good planning. Pull planning is a deliberate conversation that begins at a completion milestone and builds a sequence of work toward the beginning of a phase through a series of requests and promises.
- Resist any urge to label everything associated with the Last Planner System as pull planning. For example, the weekly coordination meeting is not a "pull planning meeting."
The mystique of pull planning is understandable. Well-led planning sessions can feel like a party, multiple colors of sticky notes on a wall look cool, and the sense of accomplishment is real.
The reality of pull planning, is that when done well all it produces is a good plan. Much like sports teams starting with a solid game plan, that plan is only a start. Once the game starts it is the ability to draw upon the team coordination skills that is the difference between winning and losing.
Tom’s coaching as a member of RisingTerrain LLC equips enterprise and project teams to magnify their impact through higher levels of performance. His focus is on helping team members connect personal aspirations with team purpose, cultivate a shared leadership culture, and build new capabilities for peak results; all aligned with an aspirational impact meaningful to the team. This alignment is fundamental to cultivating the mood of ambition necessary to maintain the rigor lean practices require.
