Reserch has shown that on average projects only about half the assignments made to teams at the beginning of a week are completed when planned.
Conversely, by utilizing the Last Planner System to establish reliable Flow of Work based on reliable Commitments, it has been shown that programs can drive Percent Promises Kept towards 80 to 90% on a weekly basis.
The Integrated Delivery Agreement acknowledges that the ability to establish reliable Flow of Work is dependent on the making and keeping of reliable promises.
A key compondent of keeping commitments is to ensure that there is clarity regarding what is to be done and the Conditions of Satisfaction, as well as a clear and unobstructed path towards success.
When there is a lack of clarity, this often generates Requests For Information (RFIs) that can be time distracting and consuming to resolve.
One of the #BigIdeas of Integrated Delivery is the intentional reduction or elimination of RFIs.
Given the deep level of collaboration required throughout the Integrated Delivery Process, if the IPD Team has maximized this opportunity, there should be little or no need for information or clarifications during the implementation phase.
To the extent that the need for clarification does arise, the party seeking clarification should first raise the issue either in a face-to-face conversation or via video call in accordance with the Program Communication Protocols. The initial conversation should 1) clearly identify and describe the issue, 2) identify the area of work affected, and 3) request the clarification needed. If the parties to that conversation are able to resolve the issue in the course of that conversation, they shall also agree on how the clarification shall be documented and reported to the Core Group of the project. If the parties to that conversation are not able to resolve the issue in the course of that conversation, they shall agree on how the issue will be resolved (Who Will Do What By When), and shall agree which of them will notify the Core Group concerning the issue and how they plan to resolve it. It is the parties’ goal that RFI’s will only be issued to document solutions, rather than raise questions that have not previously been the subject of a conversation. To the extent that resolution of the issue may affect progress of the Work, the issue shall be included in the Planning System.
The Planning System should be based on collaborative Pull Planning using the Last Planner System or better.
At a minimum, the Planning System should include a milestone-based schedule, collaboratively identified phase plans, 4 to 6 week look-ahead plans, weekly work plans, and a method for measuring, recording, and improving planning reliability.
Fundamental to the success of Lean Integrated Delivery is the willingness and ability of all Participants to make and secure reliable promises as the basis for planning and executing the Program.
In order for a Commitment to be reliable, the following elements must be present:
It is the recommendation of the Receiver that to the greatest extent possible, Commitments be made and kept between IPD Teams rather than Individuals.
This will have five major benefits:
First, it will force Individuals to engage in the hard work of federating and forming teams. Once formed, functional teams are much more effective than individuals operating in isolation.
Second, it will ensure that there are no single points of failure in the System.
Third, it will dramatically increase Transparency and Accountability.
Fourth, it will ensure that no Individual is burdened with the weight of the world, which literally lies upon the Critical Chain that we will forge.
Fifth, it was dramatically simplify the number of commitments that must be tracked in the network, by allowing minor Handoff Points between individuals to occur within functonal IPD Teams according to their own internal processes and tracking, while focusing the Program level processes and tracking on the Handoff Points between IPD Teams.
The Planning System must include a process for identifying and removing constraints and blockers. This sub-process should cycle at least weekly, and include a process for making and securing new Commitments that relieve the constraints before the issues become critical or cause Commitments to be missed.
The Program Manager should establish as part of the Planning System a a minimum viable system for tracking commitments made and kept as early on in the Program as practical.
As noted, initially, and perhaps perpetually, this system should be simplified by focusing on the Handoff Points and Commitments between teams.
The Planning System must capture planning reliability, in the form of Percent Promises Kept or similar, as well as the Root Causes for Variance.