For a long long time now I have said we need to think of our work and work planning in terms of “packages of tasks” or work packages. I don’t know exacly know how or where I formulated my thinking but I am pretty sure it comes from leaning about the organization and planning tools for Lean Thinking, The Toyota Production System (TPS) and the definition for work packages I got from the Wideman Comparative Glossary of Common Project Management Terms. In fact before I came up with the product name of 360 Difference for the estimating software I developed I called it “Package Estimating”.
So this morning I find myself reading the Construction Dive article: Shared outcomes: How preconstruction impacts projects from start to finish and I’ll quote from it:
“On almost every modern project we are working in packages, from site work and foundations to enclosures and interiors,” said Nathan Lingard, director of design phase at Minneapolis-based Mortenson Construction. “The staging of starts into packaging allows us to advance certain parts of the design even while others are lagging. We almost always overlap construction. Project teams are starting to build while we are finishing design.”
Alford calls package delivery part of an intentional and necessary blurring of the lines that helps preconstruction better reach its paramount goal of optimizing the delivery of project scope on time and on budget.
“The idea that ‘Here’s traditional pre-con, hard stop, now here’s construction’ is becoming antiquated,” he said. “It’s actually our goal to make it blurry so that you don’t know one side from the other. You just know a project team that works closely alongside the designers and owners delivered an exceptional outcome.”
What do you all think of the work package concept of organization?
Shared outcomes: How preconstruction impacts projects from start to finish
Beyond technology adoption, systemic changes to the building cycle have been spurred by behavioral and process swings.
