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Victor R. Ortiz
Victor R. Ortiz is an organization development professional with over 35 years of professional consulting experience. Vic has worked with LCI co-founders Ballard and Howell since 1985 and he co-facilitated many of the early development meetings of LCI. Vic currently works as an independent Lean/IPD Coach.
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The Concept of Waste and Value in Lean
A common definition of “Lean”-anything (construction, manufacturing, operations, etc.) is that “Lean” is an operations strategy to increase value and eliminate waste. Simple, right? This is the first installment of a multi-post explanation of how Lean defines and addresses “waste”.
Understanding the 7… No, 8… No, 10 Forms of Wastes
This second installment of a three-post series explains how Lean defines and addresses “waste”. This post examines the Japanese concepts of “Muda, Mura and Muri”, attributed originally to the brilliance of Taiichi Ohno and the Toyota Production System (TPS).
Waste Walk : How to Identify Waste
How do we develop our ability to identify waste, ascertain its causes and implement a lasting correction? In order to identify waste in our operations, we need to See what we are looking at differently using a new set of Lean lenses.
How to Realize Value from Conducting a Plus/Delta Evaluation
No competent builder would choose to use a hammer to drive a screw. We all know that success depends on choosing the right tool for the right purpose, applied with an adequate amount of skill.
“Lean Operations Strategy” – Unpacked
This is Part 1 of a two-part post. Part 1 explains the background, context and definitions of “Lean as Operations Strategy. Part 2 will review the Original Five Principles of Lean.
The “Original Five Principles” of Lean as Operations Strategy
This post is the second of the two-part blog post that addresses “Lean Operations Strategy”. Part 1 explains the background, context and definitions of “Lean as Operations Strategy, and should be reviewed prior to reading this concluding post.
Thoughts on Lean Design - The 12 Fundamentals
The application of Lean in the design and engineering of capital projects lags behind Lean applications maturing in both construction fabrication and site assembly processes.
Seeing Through Lean Lenses
It is often said that, “Once you begin to understand Lean, the world will never look the same!” Is that true for you? Has it happened to you yet?
Resistance to Lean & Integrated Project Delivery Part I: Three Root Causes
In my role as an “Integrated Lean Project Delivery (ILPD) Coach”, I struggle everyday to understand and address resistance to positive change in the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) Industry.
Resistance to Lean & Integrated Project Delivery Part II: Develop “Profound Knowledge” to Address the Root Causes of Resistance
In the first post of this series I argued that when stakeholders do not agree on the problem, they probably will not agree on the solution.
Lean Meetings: A Collaboration Fundamental
Lean Construction requires a dramatic increase in collaboration – defined literally as “co-laboring”, working together. For better or worse, working together happens in meetings. As important as collaboration is to Lean Construction, one of the most common laments is, “There are too many meetings!"
Owner Criteria for Lean Provider Selection
A popularly quoted and important concept is that "Lean Transformation is a journey, not a destination". At the 2016 International Congress on Lean Construction, people at all stages of the journey were on display: beginners, in-progress implementers, advanced practitioners, etc.
Fundamental Strategies for Lean Design
The application of Lean in the design and engineering of capital projects lags behind Lean applications maturing in both construction fabrication and site assembly processes. There is still much that we can learn from the world consumer product development.
Lean Does Not Apply To The Construction Industry?
I have been reading and responding to a recent spate of posts on LC Blog and other sites in which professional construction schedulers extol the virtues of P6 and MS Project schedules, and assert that the Last Planner System® is a fake process.
High-Performance Leadership #1 - Why We Need to Re-Think Leadership and Get New Skills
Most of us immediately think of someone in a top position, an organization leader, project leader, team leader, political leader, worship leader, etc. “Leader” is a title.
High-Performance Leadership #2 - High-Performance Teams Need High-performance Leadership
If you were leading a Formula One pit crew, what characteristics would that crew need to epitomize to be a high-performance team?
High-Performance Leadership #3 - The Missing Puzzle Piece
High Performance Leadership looks at the various systems of human interaction in our projects and our companies through a different, and equally eye-opening set of lenses.
High-Performance Leadership #4 - Facilitation Strategies and Tools to Transform Your Meetings
Just as every problem people identify about meetings is rooted in a lack of skill in leading human interactions, then at a higher level, every problem that drives our projects off course is driven by process blindness and skill deficits in project production.
High-Performance Leadership #5 - Facilitation Strategies and Tools to Transform Your Meetings
When one develops a standard process agenda such as this, team members quickly adopt a new rhythm, and it is easy to tweak the process steps or timing as needed to match the individual meeting.
High-Performance Leadership #6 - Stakeholder Engagement
Even great facilitation skills are not enough if you can’t get the right people together to address the right issues at the right time. We need sound agreements that drive action.
High-Performance Leadership #7 - The Structure of Stakeholder Engagement
The traditional project management approach assumes that decisions should be made by top managers in each of the various trade and technical/managerial disciplines. When decisions affect others we assume that senior leaders will use their expertise to sell others on their ideas.
High-Performance Leadership #8 - Win/Win Decision-Making
People help to implement decisions they helped to make. A key tactic in complex situations is to get as many agreements as you can along the way and use them as building blocks to a final agreement. You are building a cultural norm about meaningful engagement.
High-Performance Leadership #9 - Collaborative Problem Solving
In this post #9 we'll discuss how to lead problem-solving efforts. Big agreements at the end of a problem-solving process are generated by a series of smaller agreements. Put another way, if you don't agree on the problem, you probably won't agree on the solution.