Crom Burgos

Transcript

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  00:45

So let’s start with who is Crom Burgos or Cromwell Burgos?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  00:53

Yeah, it depends on who you ask that. So I am very curious, I love to experiment and at the same time, I love doing, so it’s a good combination, but it would actually overwhelm me sometimes. So, you test something like a process, and then whatever it is, and then you start improving, you start creating mistakes and failures, and you start over again, and I think that’s just my life story. From a graduate, as an engineer, did really get the hang of it. Civil engineering in like, this is not for me. And so when the construction management, started as a project engineer , every time I learned something like that, you start thinking systems and expanding. And then next thing I know, I’m in pre-construction, and then now I’m in manufacturing, at the same time construction. So I think if you look back, it’s sometimes you’re lucky and then you see the relationships between what you do. So I think if I have to describe myself, I’m a doer and very curious.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  02:24

So then continuously inspecting, and adapting, it looks like.

Speaker: Crom Burgos  02:29

Right, it’s a game that never ends. So you start, just like our conversation about “hey the video”, and there’s one person that is like, “oh, dislike”. That really is like I want to understand, what is that we can improve based on that simple dislike”? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  02:54

And just to maybe add some context to the listeners, we’re talking about Crom did maybe a year ago, or a couple years ago, I did a talk for one of the communities that I support, on agility in construction. And we’re talking about how people are watching, there’s a lot of views, and webinars or whatever you want to call it, and there’s one dislike, or one person that doesn’t like what we are talking about, you know, it’d be nice to know what that is? Can there be agility in construction? Maybe we can start with that. Maybe give us some background on how is agility and lean and some of these agile approaches adopted in construction. You work for one of the biggest construction companies in California. And you’ve been applying this stuff for years, so how do you apply, or in what ways do you apply these methods, as well as the cultural mindset side in construction?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  04:07

Right, the movement started way back. My time, I was probably still in school, late 90s, mid 90s. And it really started based on the Toyota Production System. So I think Berkeley was involved and now there’s lean construction Institute, right? So I’m trying to give you a little background. Now, it started to really take traction, when I say now, like after COVID, before COVID, a year like 2018-2019,  it really started to just in that it exploded, because it works. So is there room for agility in construction? So agility is a mindset; and it’s almost like you need, if Lean is the umbrella, and agility is in that umbrella, that is something that I think you have to take that medicine and know that construction, its nature is not agile, meaning we’re bound by code. We have a lot of constraints in, especially when you’re building, once you’re building, you start putting things together, you start losing agility. So now you’re thinking of where is agility? Agility is now in the front end, right? How can you have agility during design? So that as you’re managing your budget, you’re managing schedule, you can switch and make sound decisions. And in trying to focus on planning, replanning, looking at what is the right design as you’re designing? 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  06:13

So it is about learning, right? The whole idea of prototyping and validating things early on, is to learn, right?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  06:23

That is correct. Yeah. And then so it’s funny, you mentioned that because one of the things that we do in design, we actually prototype; there’s two ways to prototype, you either prototype physical rooms, right, or any, what we call markups, or you can prototype before you draw as a piece of paper, you use as prototype. So if you’re familiar with A3 thinking, I always look at A3 thinking as a prototype. So you get everybody together, cross functional team, hey, here’s a problem to solve. Right? How do we distribute air, right, across the building, and then you work with the people that are involved in disciplines; mechanical, electrical, plumbing, your architect, everybody as a cross functional team, you use A3s as a mock up before you draw. The problem is we draw right away. And so what is it we are drawing? You draw the rooms, you draw like you’re making decisions that are still uninformed, right, it’s based on your experience, rather than open it up, and then do prototypes. So either you prototype using A3s, or if you really want to prototype the rooms and how it feels you can use Styrofoam, right. So one project that I was part with, it was in Canada, we work with the Ministry of Health, and the nurses have the doctors actually build the rooms using Styrofoam. And there’s carpenter helping them with how to make the Styrofoam stand, and all that. But they push in real beds. And I remember one point where the initial design was about an 800 or 900 square feet operating room, and once they put that in, they put the walls in, the doctor actually said ‘this is a little too big”. So they start pulling the walls in. I think it ended up to be 600. But that right there, it goes back to agility, right? Involve the customer. So when you’re making a decision involve the customer. And it got to a point where there were five families and patients, patient families actually invited to get in the room, the patient room, and it’s all Styrofoam. And then hey, here’s the window, here’s where you sleep when you’re with your kid, right, nurses looking at outlets with light because there’s  an argument between old outlets need to be right-hand, like the orientation of the room. And so they have to test it. So I guess, prototype first before drawing, rather than draw and then prototype.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  09:30

How do you introduce Lean and Agile concepts to teams and organizations? In construction, in context of construction?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  09:39

Good question. So really, if you’re passionate about it, if there’s no program, right in your company, start with yourself, start where you can influence right. So it’s always about starting where you are. So if you’re a project engineer, start where you are as a project engineer, and who you can influence. It may be your trade partners, it may be your superintendent. And then if you’re a project executive, start where you’re at. Now, what that means is now the responsibility is on you. So the current company I’m working with, we’re a manufacturer at the same time in construction, and our president would always tell me, “Crom, you’re introducing something that is new to some people, it is your burden, that wis what he tells me,  it is your burden to actually explain it better, and then give examples, right”. So the point is, if you want to try it, if you’re curious, that’s good, but it is really your burden. So don’t make it too big, make it just for the people around. I’ll tell you a story here, so I started this company two years ago, and you’re always looking for an opportunity, right? And so okay, you start with yourself, you’re new, you’re new to the company, so they have different experiences than you, they see things differently, mindset’s different, so you’re always looking for opportunity. And it’s always about, again, if there’s a problem. So a problem is a very good time to start lean and agility because it’s very, I am going to use the word easy, right, because all you need to do is expose the problem. And before COVID, we use post it notes, so when would you talk to somebody and they start saying, “hey, this and that”, you start writing it down, you just throw it on the wall, right. And now, the person is not looking at the poster. And then suddenly, they start drawing , I think my point is, the next thing is, expose the problem or expose the work.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  12:19

And one of the ways to do that is through visualizing work, then you have something that you know, people can focus on. 

Speaker: Crom Burgos  12:27

That is where I’m going, right? So you expose the work. And what does that mean? Then you start thinking about works, and you start thinking about who’s responsible for it, then suddenly you’re, I know your audience are very advanced, so suddenly, you’re using a Kanban system. And then from there, you can see the relationship and then the amazing part is when it clicks, right? When you start with, “hey, who’s going on vacation?” Because now you’re starting to manage your capacity. And people don’t notice, is that write it on the poster, vacation, put it on the day or days. And then suddenly, people say, “hey, there’s no capacity there”. Right? Because if a person is a swim lane, and the days are capacity, you just block out your capacity. And then people started to, and I always see this, how can I help you? Once that starts like “how can I help you?” because you’re on vacation, then suddenly the team dynamics is starting to slide.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  13:33

And that is self-management, self-organization seems like a naturally emerges because nobody’s going to tell us we were figuring this out by ourselves.

Speaker: Crom Burgos  13:43

Yeah, because you can see it, you can see the work. Right. So yeah. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  13:50

You talked about, last time we spoke, you talked about three C’s; clarification, correction, confusion, and trying to eliminate. Could you elaborate on those, if you remember?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  14:01

So, in Lean, even in Agile, we start to talk about quality. And in quality, you’re not talking about levels of quality, I’m talking about quality in terms of defective work, and rework, right? So in, I think the context was don’t accept defect, or don’t accept defective work. So let’s say you’re estimating or you’re designing, or you’re working in the line, right? You’re always waiting for somebody to give you something. And if that work, and we call it percent, complete and accurate, so if that work is 90% complete, then if I accept it, then I have to finish the work. So now, it’s either it’s confusion, you need to clarify, and also the other thing to clarify, correct, or being confused, right? That’s my determination that waste has been created, if those three things will happen, right? If somebody is confused with the work you’re giving them, somebody has to make the correction, somebody has to make a clarification, you’re creating waste. And so now you’re working on that, don’t pass rework, don’t pass defect. So don’t accept defect, don’t create defect, and then don’t pass defect. I think that’s the, if you see those three C’s happening, that means rework, defect, waste has been created.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  15:53

And how do you get people to understand that because like that comes, you know, more from lean than anything else that you know, eliminating that unnecessary waste? And one of the challenges is like, how do you get others to understand these things? So in construction, how do you help people understand the need for, you know, if we need to clarify things, if we need to correct things, if there’s confusion, that these are wastes, how do you get these teams and individuals to think about these? So what happens  in real life, when people run against these, like, what have you seen? Like, how do people respond to minimizing clarification, correction, and confusion?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  16:39

So it’s every day. So you deal with this every day. In fact, I just deal with this before this meeting, right? Quality of documents. So it’s over communication, and really understanding if you focus on, so these are all tied, right. This is an answer that is a systems. When you ask that question, I start thinking about back to your first question, How do you start to expose the work? And when you expose the work, once you see the work, you now see where people are overburdened. Because all these starts with people being overburdened, and so shortcuts are made. Right? So it’s almost like you have to go to the source of the error, and the source of the error is when people are overburdened, when people are disrespected, right? When you don’t ask like, “are you busy? Like, can you do this? Will you please do this for me?” So, the source of the error if it’s overburdening, you expose the work, you can see that people are overburdened, and you start leveling that work. So meaning, let’s not overproduce, because it’s not needed right now. So where the conversation of defect, it’ll slowly just go away. That is because once you don’t over produce, and then you talk to your customer, hey, and the customer is always defined as in our case, in this conversation, the next step, right. You can have external customer, but in working together as a team, let’s say you have teams of five, and then there’s like 25 teams, you always want to be explicit in asking the customer. And that’s why when you expose the work through, again, Kanban system, then the work is defined to the amount that the customer needs it, naturally eliminates overburden, it eliminates the clarification, it eliminates the confusion, because it’s the conversation rather than the process of the tools. Right. And so, I don’t know if that answered your question, but…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  19:02

It does, and yeah, it’s brought up another question as far as the customer what you just said, which is that if I understood you correctly, that the customer since you still have in construction, handoffs and those gates like that, your customer is whoever is handling the next phase of the work. Is that correct?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  19:25

That is correct. So whoever is waiting for you, that’s your customer. Yeah, in the chain, right? Well, you have an overall customer, which is let’s say your client, and you have to engage the client, especially when you start getting overburden, you have to show it to the client, like “hey, can you help us here?” Because if you don’t engage your customer, you’re making assumptions and assumptions are, if you’re really good, it’s probably 70/30 or 80/20, right, so you still have that, again, as leaders, if you make two errors out of 10 instruction, and you say, hey 80%, that’s a good batting average, think of the people in your downstream waiting for that instruction, right? That’s why you have to engage your customer, eliminate assumptions, and then again, expose the work and then focus on quality of work.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  20:27

So how would like just to give maybe an example, how would architects and designers when they’re designing, who is their customer and how do they engage with them?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  20:39

So we always look at the architect as the, depending on the phase, as the Pace Setter, right? So the customer, let’s say, are the stakeholders, the client, right? So they have a program, and they talk about the program, and from the program, they create the drawings, the rooms, and all that, and then they need something from, let’s say, as a general contractor, they probably need something from us as far as “hey how is this going to work?”, as far as maintenance, as far as all those things, and then we have our trade partners, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, drywall, all that. So I guess to answer your question is, you have to look at the drawings differently, you have to look at the drawings as products. And then as product, you have to organize around the product as a cross functional team, with a clear owner of the product. And so it depends on the phase of the design. Again, the architect sets the vision for, “hey this is the client’s vision, and this is how we’re going to execute it”. And so you align to that. And so the architect is our lead, we call them lead horse, right, they set the pace, because if they’re slow, we can’t really go as fast. And so you have to do things together in the beginning, all the time. If they want to say something, you have to create it right away, like, I’m give you a specific example, in our case, if they want to see how this looks, you have to bend a rebar right away, that’s how it looks. And they can draw, right. But that is really hard to do in construction, because there’s a lot of, again, there’s a lot of traditional superstitious things that people would do. So that, again, like some people would say, “collaboration, that takes time, that’s a waste”, like, what’s waste in when you go down a path and it’s wrong, and we’re all going to do rework. And so I don’t know if that helps you out with understanding that role of the architect, because there…

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  23:03

It does, I’m just trying to better understand the customer and the handoffs, and how, for instance, you know, in software development, it’s almost like, let’s just say if you are an analyst, your customers would be maybe testers and developers in traditional sense, is that correct?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  23:24

Yeah, very close.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  23:27

So in a sense, you’re working with them, you’re working on your chunk of work, or the piece of the work and the bigger puzzle, and then you’re collaborating with them and making sure that they’re involved in your process, or at least there’s transparency, and you’re looking and visualizing work across the whole system. So in this instance, you would see developers, you would see testers, and they will be able to look at your work and you guys are discussing and getting each other involved. Even though you’re working in your own silo.

Speaker: Crom Burgos  24:01

And if I may add to that, right, so the other thing as you’re working together, so architects are very creative, right, they just like it’s fun to work with architects. They just have a different way of solving a problem. So once they understand what you’re offering, so meaning you have to really let them understand what your products can do. You have to unlock value, right? So we have a product and this product can do this and that and this is how you work around the product. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  24:44

Could you maybe give an example even like with you know, you guys have worked with Apple and then you spaceship, your product or was the product like one of the modules or like, could you maybe… [crosstalk 24:56]

Speaker: Crom Burgos  24:56

… floor and the ceiling as one right and then heating is in there. But a really good example is, let’s say you have, we have an exterior product. So an exterior facade product, so we do a complete exterior system. And our guys really spent time in trying to work with the architect from the very beginning, you have to pull it from the very beginning, pre-manufacturing is a strategy from the very beginning, you cannot conceive, once you’re in the middle of design, and you go back, everybody’s going to get frustrated. Once they know how to work around your product, so it’s like a car, right, you have a chassis, and our product has a chassis where you can put anything on top of the chassis, once they understand that, architects are very creative in organizing five different types of, let’s say, five different types of panels and it would look like 30 different types of panels. You know what I’m saying, once they understand the connections, because it’s really just the connections between the product. So I think where I’m going with this is, again, to your point, work with the architect, but give them knowledge and then educate everybody what you’re offering, because sometimes they don’t know what we can do. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  26:27

I think something that you’ve said, and maybe this is to just focus on that too, like focusing on the outcome that the customer wants, even some of your contracts are based on, “hey, what are you trying to do? What problem are you trying to solve? How much money do you have?”, and then you kind of brainstorm and figure out how to achieve that goal or outcome based on what the problem is or what the customer is trying to do. And to me, that was very interesting, because that includes everything that they need. It’s like, we’re going to help you solve your problem within the constraints that you have.

Speaker: Crom Burgos  27:06

Right. So, that’s always very dependent on the culture of the client, right? Because there are clients that would say, “I have 100 million, I’m going to draw this, I’m going to send it out, everybody bids on it is going to come back 80 million”, right? Because you’re capitalizing on mistakes, right? And so if you have 30-40 different trades, and each of the trade, you will send it out to bid eight, nine, whatever, different trades, somehow somewhere, there’s always a low bid. And that total of the low bid like 70-80 million, they will say, I still have 20 million, right? But the problem there is now you’re going to disco, you’re going instead of what we call Value Engineering, it’s now devalued engineering, and you’re spending your money on things that doesn’t add value, because now the project schedule stretch, you’re now paying for escalation, which doesn’t  add value, right? Other owners, like I’m going to give an example. I’m going to give a prop here for Sutter Health. So that’s where I learned, I started my Lean journey. So those type of clients would say, “hey, I have a problem and this is the purpose of the project. And based on my benchmarking, I have 100 million dollars for this”.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  28:45

So, how do you set priorities, you have a concept of product ownership in the work that you do, so could you maybe elaborate on the concept of product ownership, product management, and prioritization?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  29:05

Right, so we’re starting to unofficially call our people names. So we started with, especially on this project I’m working with it, we started with, okay, Product Owner scrum master role, right, and then working together. So trying to split the what and the how, because it’s too much to manage. So how does priorities work? Everything is priority, right?  So, what you’re doing is really just looking at the order of the priorities. So you’re synchronizing the priorities, and again, we go back to our first conversation, expose the work. So once you expose the work, and that work is always based on a vision, right? So it’s a cascading vision. So let’s say the project has a vision and the vision is to provide, again, back to this project I’m working on, one of the vision is to provide affordable housing, like to solve that problem with student housing. And so from there, you can now see the cascading vision because the architect based on that would have the vision as well, right? So based on that vision, these are the programs that we’re going to target, and then based on that program, these are that design that how we’re going to attack that, right. And so suddenly, you can see the priority, right, and then you synchronize on a weekly basis. And it’s always the rule, right? There’s one person that’s going to set the priority for that certain, what we call product, so we always product guys, we’re trying to stay out of projects, as a company, so we’re looking at a market. And so since we are looking at the market, you’re dealing with products.

So, a bathroom modular part is a product. And so there is a person, a product owner that has the vision, and understands the customer so that somebody is always, remember our first conversation on engage the customer, but that’s not always possible, right? So you get to have somebody, speak for the customer within your group. So that that person becomes what we call the voice of the customer and always reminds everybody, “hey”, you always start with, “Hey, this is the vision for this product, modular parts”. The customer’s here, and this, this, and that. And like, it’s a big thing for us, right now in this modular pod, there’s three bedrooms, and there’s a bathroom and a shower. And when people are working, they’re always going back to when they’re students, and saying, “Oh, that’s not going to work because when I was a student, when I got home, and I just have like, spent all night out with the guys drinking, that drain would get stuck” right. And then we start playing around with the simple things like playing around with the drains like, this cover’s not going to work, because you’re always thinking about the customer and the stakeholders. So, the priority is set by the product owner, and there’s a lot of product owners, and they synchronize. And there’s always like a Chief Product Owner, the person that is part of that vertical, as we call it, because we have to split the work, I wish I can show you pictures, but we split the project into a side, central plant, ground floor, residential, and then upper floor amenities. And each one has a product owner, and all the priorities go to that product owner. So there’s five product owners that are synchronizing based on one Chief Product Owner, right? So it’s the cascading priority.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  33:20

In also like the whole modular kind of aspect of construction, there’s couple of different aspects of it. One is cost, right, it’s probably a lot more cost effective if you build it somewhere else, and then you deliver the module rather than, so there’s the economic side of that, but it’s also like, you know, in what ways is construction becoming more and more modular? And even with the apples, you know, spaceship building, most of that was modular, right?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  33:55

Right. Yeah, especially that project, and I wasn’t really part of the project, but from in depth sense, right, you cannot build that on site, because you won’t get the, because Apple is very specific to the level of quality and how that’s finished, even the curves, the curvature of the stair is based on the Apple corner of the phone, right? Because that’s not really a radius, right? It’s what they call a VCA, where it’s a moving radius. So you can’t really build that on site. And so, in that part, pre-manufacturing really is superior in that sense, because we can control the tolerances, we can control the finish. Now modularization on the other hand, where you have a platform and then in the platform you put as much as you can as much system as you can, the goal is, again, to eliminate labor on site because it’s safer, right? You have lesser people on site, it’s safer, and it’s a better product. Now, if you look at modularization as a project, cost might not be effective, right? So that’s why you have to look at these kind of things as a market, and then you look at the needs of the market, in our case, student housing, and how we solve that student housing. Because modularization is not always the answer.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  35:40

So context, like if it’s…

Speaker: Crom Burgos  35:43

Yeah, sometimes panelization, sometimes it’s just stick building is the answer. So it really depends on the politics [unclear word 35:54] but as you’re getting better at modularization, you’re going to return that savings, you’re going to get that savings. Again, plan, do study adjust on the product, product becomes lighter, the product becomes, right, you’re looking at why are we still using nail studs framing drywall? That thing has been like, what, 100 years? We’ve been using that for 100 years. Is there another type of wall we can use? It’s lighter.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  36:22

So it’s almost like continuous improvement side of things, from lean and edge. What are the things I mean, like that people would find interesting, like, what have you in construction, or maybe not just your company, but what’s been adopted in construction industry that really comes from Lean and Agile? Like, could you give some examples maybe? 

Speaker: Crom Burgos  36:43

Yeah, so the biggest thing is the limiting work in progress as far as how things get done, right. So that is what we have, again, Berkeley started his whole movement, lean construction Institute, and it’s called the last planner system. So that really started the concept of, “hey, you don’t have to be busy all the time. Limit your work in progress by  instituting a pool system”. Right? So you go to a supermarket, people are throwing things in your cart, right? You have to pull it from and then you put it in your cart as you need it. And so that’s, I think that’s a big revolution in the thinking of, “hey, Amazon, I’m going to bring 20 guy, I’m going to go and blow for one week”, and you just ruined it for everybody. Right? Instead of, “hey just bring five guys and do it for four weeks. And then we can all work together in small chunks”. Now that’s the key to agility. Right? Smaller chunks

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  37:55

Yeah, exactly. What else? What else do you…?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  38:00

That’s one, and then technology starting to get there, but I think the biggest shift in construction is really the focus on the well-being of the people. And I think that’s a bigger shift that lean actually brought, right. So we always say respect for people. And I think that’s the biggest, if you have to really look back at the end here, like if 10 years from now you look back, it’s really focusing on people’s well-being, rather than focusing on tools. Because construction, we love to be busy all the time. You won’t believe it, we just go in there, it’s like we work right away. Like, plan-do, plan-do, plan-do, right? So fires are burning everywhere. It’s like plan-do, but there’s no going back and learning. So people actually drive that learning.  So if you start with people, and you start with that concept of “hey, how do we make sure everything’s easy and better?” And easier and better is safer. Right? I think that’s the biggest thing that Lean brought.

And the next thing is, I think process, right? That’s pool system. And then now we’re into creating flow, right? Creating a, instead of a pool planning schedule, or a pool planning strategy, it’s now a flow strategy, right? We’re now talking about leveling work. That’s a big shift the last five years, we’re talking about what is the need, and then dividing your time with the need, and then you create flow, right? So, you create the heartbeat pack. So I think that’s one biggest thing and then, again, technology is there, but as far as lean, I think it’s respect for people is probably what.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  40:04

Yeah. What about Scrum and Agile? Like, you know, if you kind of look at the roots of lean, and then maybe, you know, you mentioned roles, but is there anything else from Scrum or agile specifically? Some of the stuff that you mentioned, you know,…

Speaker: Crom Burgos  40:20

Right. So if you look at scrums, scrum is, you know, everything goes back to Theodore, right? It’s always like, “Hey, I got this thing. You chase it. And boom, Prius”, right? And so, just like Scrum, In 1986, they found out, okay it’s a different way of working. And so, you develop a system, you give it a name, and with Scrum, here is what you appreciate with Scrum, right? It’s the role definition and there’s a specific theory behind it. Right. So you adapt, you inspect, and then you adaptation, transparency, adaptation, inspection, those three things, right. Which to me, in the beginning, right, so I keep talking about a how do you start, start with yourself, start where you are, expose thinking, but really expose thinking, that’s transparency.

So that’s really it goes back to the scrum guide, right? It’s like, okay, fine. And then check in daily. So this is where the, again, I appreciate agility, agile in the scrum framework, because it really is focused on that daily check in where you know what people are doing and where they’re struggling. And if you really put all that together, right, you’re transparent with the work every day, you’re inspecting, “Hey, are you done? Are you not done? We’re going to help you”, instead of sticking with the plan, in construction, we love to stick with the plan. We love to stick with a plan, like “create the plan, work the plan”. No, plans are good, but the check on the plan every week, every day, and then suddenly, you’re agile. Right? So by doing daily, it’s almost like “hey, what’s the silver bullet of agility?” Like daily check it.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  42:36

Transparency and quick feedback loops, right?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  42:39

It’s just talking every day. So I don’t even have to help you but I think the movement starting to, there are now people consultants, right. And they did try to bring the lessons from software into construction. I think it was in 2014/2015, I got it. So as you’re doing Lean, you just naturally get into Scrum, right. And the first thing I remember I did was just for myself to be doing them. And then the only reason I did that was to just show everybody what I’m working on so they don’t overburden me, but that was very selfish. And so if they say, “Hey, I did this, with the boards, like where do you want me to put it?”. That is very selfish. And then it became a suddenly turns into more understanding. And then again, you go back as okay. Oh, lean at the beginning, you say, “Oh, that’s all lean, agility”. But you can’t really make that quick conclusion, right? Because agility is really focused on the mindset and the change, right? How you do that, which is if you really dig down to lean, yes, the Yoda is that way. Right

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  44:03

It talks about, I mean to Yoda, yeah, I think, but the way the lean was kind of introduced in the West, kind of forgot about the mindset and culture and there was more of the. In what ways do you think, I mean, like as we kind of close, or close up here, what are some of the things that you see, in what ways will construction industry apply more and more of these Lean and Agile approaches? Like how do you think like COVID has  maybe pushed construction industry to change the old ways of working because there’s definitely need to innovate, there’s definitely need to inspect and adapt, what do you think we’re going to see in construction In the next maybe 5-10 years, that will be different than what we are used to?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  45:00

There is now a lot of talk about industry 4.0. And industry 4.0. is about automation. But then with COVID hit, it accelerated a lot of things. Because now you’re forced to use drones to look at your job site, right,  and then you start appreciating it. I never believed in working from home before, when COVID hit, I spent a year, almost a year and a half working from home. The problem is you end up working more than because everybody has to schedule a meeting with you. So a five minute conversation is always a 30 minute block in your calendar. And you end up talking about golf. Right? In the first five minutes or so. It’s, there’s a plus and minus, but it did accelerate. So it accelerated the need to be transparent. It accelerated the need, because the collaboration, we always think of collaboration, there is always value in in-person and we’re starting to learn that, hey, you can pick and choose right? There are times when you are together, there are times when it’s a Teams or Zoom call, but it did accelerate in that sense, because you’re forced to do it. So the companies that were already transparent, so we started doing that and we’re just lucky and we expose a lot of work, we have Teams exposing work. When COVID hit, it took us a day to just adjust, like what we did, we went to the office, take all the pictures, go back home, and then distribute the pictures, plan based on the pictures, and then started talking about how can we transfer it. So it’s very organic transition from paper to electronic. So I think that’s what COVID brought is that. But then now the question is the learning, right? Because the coaching and interaction and because we learn better if it’s real time. So yeah, so I don’t have not answered your question. But it did accelerate, because it’s a disrupter. There’s always that one disrupter. And it was, the disruption is you can keep producing work without going to where the work is.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  47:39

Which is, especially in construction, it’s an interesting concept. Because when you think about construction, you always think about people being on site, from everybody. And…

Speaker: Crom Burgos  47:52

And that’s where productizing makes sense when you start pre-manufacturing. Because you can control your manufacturing, right, there’s always a person for us during COVID. Because now we have to ask for exemption for essential work. And so, we assign people to clean areas all the time, right, during, so what I’m saying is, it’s easier to control your manufacturing, because you can always control the environment. And then so you take as much as, there are jobs that we take probably 70,000, Mondays, right? For one job, imagine that. Right. So that’s a safer job site. That is a job site that you can do social distancing. The funny part is I’m talking to one of the hospital clients, and one of the directors actually say, “wow, COVID actually, some of our work was faster, because we’re not putting trades on top of each other”. Because of social distancing, they’re forced to like, “hey, work in that room, and then jump to that room”. And the flow is like, amazing. Isn’t that mazing that COVID made that happen?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  49:09

It is. I mean, it is definitely interesting. And you know, just being a little bit more in tuned into what’s going on in construction and how the construction industry is applying some of this stuff is really interesting, especially when I saw like some of the big names in Agile community are working with construction companies. There you see that there is some serious interest. But one of the things that I think you call it, you know, essentially thing that’s killing in the construction industry is that inspection at the end. And it’s like that definition of done and if we could get those permits and if we could, you know actually find a way to get stuff done, done, right, rather than waiting for that last thing to be inspected, so what do you think, you know, when it comes to public policy and some like inspection, like, you know, getting permits, do you think that requires change in policies and laws? As far as, you know, maybe giving you even more agility in construction of when can you call something done? And like, if you’ve finished that dorm for students, like, you can’t finish just first floor and then whatever, and then move people in, you have to get that permit, right, so do you think there are going to be changes? And is it really, you know, that last inspection that’s killing agility and lean in construction?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  50:44

So, you always have to go back, right? It’s your burden, right? Let’s say inspections are there for a reason, it’s always about life safety. And so the inspectors are doing their job, right. But they’re, I think what needs to change is the number of inspections. So there has to be clients or third party needs to be willing to have continuous inspections, rather than one big batch at the end. So it’s still on us, as general contractors to find a process that they can get involved so that we can just, I’m going to borrow the concept in manufacturing what we have, right, so in manufacturing, we have a code required third party inspections. And we also have our own quality inspections. And you have to build that inspection within that step. So meaning, even if there’s just one inspection, but you don’t accept defect, you don’t create defect, and you don’t pass a defect, you’re always going to pass inspections. Right? Now, that leads to the question of okay, you have to understand what the inspector is looking for. So I would change that first, I would say, “Hey, mister inspector, show us everything you’re looking for”. If we can change that, right, if the inspectors have a list, because if you’re an inspector, and I’m an inspector, we have two different interpretation of something.

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  52:30

So it’s almost like coming up with definition of done or some type of acceptance criteria, like what does it mean for this to be done, including inspection, to pass the inspection?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  52:43

Inspectors are your customer, right? Inspectors are your customers. So again, the burden is on us, involve the customer, involve the inspector, what are you looking for? Educate the people doing the work, meaning now we’re going into a different, it’s no longer QA, QC. It’s now, everybody is responsible for quality. And so with that in mind, you’re no longer “do it right the first time”, right? Because that is blaming somebody like, “Hey, do it right the first time”. It’s now right the first time, right? So your everything is right the first time. There’s a difference there, right. So this focus on quality will just lead to that, passing the inspection. Now, the thing about agility that we it’s hard to do in construction is getting occupancy. Because now you don’t really occupy your building until it’s done, and you can even bring in your furniture, right? There’s a certain approval before you bring in your furniture. And so you’re first, second, third floor, if you have 10 floors of building, sitting there just waiting. But you can now, there’s a workaround, right. You can do paint and improvement, meaning build your shell, do tenant improvement and then release a floor in time. So maybe that’s a strategy, right?

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  54:26

Yeah. And just thinking in those ways in pushing some of the policies and the ways they’ve been designed for previous context or what worked in the past or what needed to be done given would be interesting. 

Speaker: Crom Burgos  54:40

That is always like, it’s always life safety. So in California, there’s earthquake, and then when there’s earthquake, it usually cause fire. So now your fire marshal and your IORs that’s a burden, right? If somebody dies because they didn’t do their work, then it’s. So if you understand that, then then you don’t shortcut your work. I guess, again, know what the inspector wants, and then definition of Done inspection is part of definition of Done. 

Speaker: Miljan Bajic  55:20

Great. So maybe as a last thing, what would you like to leave us with the, you know, both for the people from the construction industry that are listening to this, but also from other industries, including software development that are listening? What message do you want to maybe share with them when it comes to agility?

Speaker: Crom Burgos  55:43

So, your background, agile to agility? That is really the point. So the point is not the process, the document, I’m saying like the point is agility. The point is adaptation. The point is, find a way so that your teams are comfortable to change up. And when your teams learn to plan, replan every week, then you start accelerating to produce work, right, to produce product, and it always goes back to our first conversation. How do people change and adapt and replan and plan? Always expose the work, right, always be transparent. And that transparency is like dancing. If you put your steps in the floor, and you number it, and you just follow it, right, 123 all the way to 30. And then somebody is calling “hey it’s 5678” and then you just jump 5678, right, because it’s transparent, you can see it. So I guess transparency is probably key to agility, other than inspection and adaptation but, make work visible, and then can people can self-manage, people can now adjust