5th Annual Last Planner System® Conference

The Last Planner System (LPS®) is a collaborative project management approach developed in the 1990s by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell. LPS focuses on improving workflow reliability and reducing waste through collaborative planning and continuous improvement. In this session, Tom will present the principles and mechanics of LPS. He’ll also describe each of the five key LPS elements and how they work together as a complete system.

The Last Planner System, a revolutionary approach to managing work during delivery of a project, has a rich and intriguing history that extends beyond its formal development in the 1990s. In this session, James will go into depth about the history and important early development of LPS. He will expand upon concepts from LPS that practitioners often do wrong or misunderstand.

Respecting people in lean construction goes beyond mere politeness or avoiding conflict. It's a fundamental principle that recognizes the inherent value and potential of every individual. In this session, Sean will discuss how respect for people involves creating an environment where open communication is encouraged, ideas are freely shared, and also means constructive feedback and challenging team members to improve and foster a culture of continuous learning.

The Lean Champions Panel brings together experienced practitioners who have successfully led and implemented Lean initiatives and the Last Planner System across their organization. These champions will share their insights on driving cultural transformation, overcoming challenges, and achieving sustainable results through Lean methodologies. Panelists will discuss their roles in selecting and mentoring project teams, facilitating continuous improvement, and aligning Lean efforts with overall business objectives.

San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has adopted Progressive Design-Build (PDB) with Lean principles to enhance project delivery & efficiency. This approach integrates design and construction phases, fostering collaboration between all parties from the project's start. In this session, Paulo and Geoffrey will discuss how SFO implements key Lean tools like Pull-Planning workshops and co-locates core team members throughout the project delivery, and how the airport's successful implementation of PDB with Lean is demonstrated in projects like the Terminal 1 Harvey Milk, resulting in more efficient and cost-effective developments at SFO.

Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Progressive Design-Build (PDB) are gaining traction in construction, emphasizing collaboration and efficiency. IPD aligns stakeholders under a single contract, promoting shared risks and rewards, while PDB is growing rapidly, especially in the western U.S. and sectors like aviation and water. Both methods involve early participation of key players and leverage technologies like BIM to enhance decision-making. In this session, Dick will discuss the current state of PDB and IPD, trends that owners and project teams should be aware of, and give guidance to what the next 5 years may look like.

Validation and contract negotiation are crucial in Integrated Project Delivery. The validation phase aligns all parties on key assumptions and project feasibility before design completion, eliminating conventional change orders. Contract negotiation focuses on creating a single, multiparty agreement that includes the owner, designer, and builder. This structure aligns interests, promotes shared risks and rewards, and typically includes a guaranteed cost with liability waivers. In this session, James will discuss the best practices for validation and contract negotiation, with examples for how to avoid costly mistakes when setting up IPD.

Good hand-offs from one performer to the next have always been an important part of LPS. LPS features a rigorous process and metrics for making reliable commitments, such as the Percent Plan Complete (PPC), that helps reduce waste and frustration in weekly planning meetings. Reliable commitments and PPC, however, focus primarily on the upstream side of the hand-off: What are we committing to do? What about commitments on the other side of the handoff: Who is committing to use what was produced and how quickly will they do so?

Glenn will provide an overview and status report on the initiatives to cause a Lean transformation of the Global Construction Industry. In particular, the initiatives aim to: Provide a coaching service for students that want to do research on Lean Construction, connect Lean Construction researchers with practitioners, educate consultants, provide Lean Construction research papers to practitioners in plain language, get Lean Construction teaching materials into university curricula, and create Lean Construction Institutes in more countries.

Virtual Design and Construction (VDC) is revolutionizing the construction industry. In this session, Atul will delve into the latest advancements in VDC technologies and methodologies, showcasing their transformative impact on project outcomes. Attendees will gain insights into enhancing collaboration through Common Data Environments, leveraging BIM and 4D modeling for improved decision-making, and implementing reality capture for precise project monitoring. Atul will also share examples on how combining VDC with industrialized construction improves project outcomes.

Creating and maintaining flow in design and construction is crucial for project efficiency and success. This process begins with a clear understanding of value & value stream to identify and eliminate waste. In this session, Charlie will explore how implementing pull systems, where downstream activities signal upstream ones, helps maintain a steady workflow and how standardization of processes and the use of visual management tools can significantly enhance flow. He will also share how balancing workloads and using techniques like Takt planning can help create a rhythmic flow in construction activities and foster a collaborative culture.

Choosing by Advantages (CBA) is a powerful decision-making system that can significantly enhance project decision-making processes. Developed by Jim Suhr in 1986, CBA focuses on the importance of advantages among alternatives, providing a structured and transparent approach to complex decisions. In this session, Anette, Randi and Paz will share how CBA improves project outcomes by fostering collaboration, reducing bias, and creating an auditable decision trail, and also how this approach has proven effective in various project scenarios, from selecting building materials to choosing contractors

The owner's panel will provides valuable insights into the benefits and challenges of implementing the Last Planner System from the client's perspective. The panel will feature owners who have successfully integrated LPS into their projects, sharing their experiences and the positive outcomes achieved. Panelists will discuss how LPS has improved project predictability, reduced costs, and enhanced overall project quality. They will also highlight the importance of owner involvement in fostering a culture of continuous improvement and open communication among all project stakeholders.

Target Value Delivery (TVD) has emerged as a powerful approach in construction management, yielding significant cost savings while maintaining project quality. This methodology, which sets cost as a design constraint rather than an outcome, has demonstrated remarkable results in recent years. By integrating client goals, budget constraints, and collaborative planning from project inception, TVD has enabled teams to achieve substantial savings. In this session, the HGA and Hensel Phelps team from UCSF BRAB project team will share how they set up the TVD process in order to save more than 100M in 24 months.

Language Action theory, when applied to project management, emphasizes the transformative power of effective communication in shaping project outcomes. This approach recognizes that conversations are not merely exchanges of information, but actions that create commitments, align expectations, and drive progress. In this session Jason will discuss how Language Action, in the context of better project delivery, focuses on structured dialogues that can lead to clearer goals, more reliable promises, and improved coordination among team members. He will also share how this method emphasizes the importance of making and managing commitments through specific conversational protocols and also how it promotes trust-building & encourages open, honest, and purposeful interactions.

Lean Construction has developed more than 50 operations improvement tools - everything from the LPS to 5S, CBA, etc. All these tools require cross-discipline collaboration and teamwork. But traditional leadership training still treats “leadership” as the job of upper management who give directives. Lean teamwork requires skilled leadership at every level, from the work crew or design team to top management. In this session, Victor will present a new paradigm for collaborative leadership, introduce a leadership “tool box” to match the lean best practices tool box and discuss what it takes to become a high-performance leader in the new world of lean construction.

Lean is a transformative practice. When understood deeply, it can be a force for driving positive change within the world as well as within our own psyche. As we gain greater clarity of the current state and potential of our processes, we can similarly gain greater awareness of our own habituated patterns of behavior and potential. As we develop more intentional and skilled means of engaging with work processes, we can simultaneously become more skilled and intentional about how we show up in any situation. As we enable greater impact through integrating diverse perspectives toward a common goal, we may also integrate the different aspects of ourselves so that we bring more of ourselves to whatever we do. In this session, Andreas will discuss how merging lean practice with individual and organizational psychology can enable far greater transformation.

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