[An overview of the characteristics of the JNA Fastrack construction management environment and how those impact the overall building program and thought processes of it]

If a company stands still while fresh and new ideas pass them by they are destined to finish second in the competitive race for market share and profitability...

Subcontractors and suppliers build our projects. It is with their knowledge and manpower that this is done. But how they do this is left up to us as production managers; or at a minimum, us as superintendents.

When you take the above and provide a mechanism or forum to these items, a wonderful new panorama is created. You know when you were a child and looked through a kaleidoscope and saw the colors of the rainbow configured around some interesting and ever evolving shapes? These colors changed each time you even slightly turned the cylinder. A kaleidoscope offered a new colorful panorama of sights for our young eyes to behold. It illuminated our imaginations and even gave us a slight tingle of childhood delight.

This metaphor isn't too far off. When a builder chooses to open up a new horizon it gently (or greatly) tingles him. For me it greatly impacted us. [See our e-Book Building Fast!] We like to experience new things. We like to be excited in a positive way not just in a moment of ongoing job site frustration. Subs that go slow or give us too many excuses tend to frustrate us and our schedule for completion.

A new idea for you is worth big money! It is! Just one new idea like I am presenting here is worth a lot of money if it is carried out and executed well. But having new ideas isn't any good if one doesn't put them to any worthwhile use. It takes action! Now I am not going to give you a pep talk and a lot of rah rah, but I am going to encourage you. Building faster is a good thing and you should avail yourself of its power.

When a clock ticks, another moment in time passes away. This ticking is silent. We don't really hear it or even notice its impact on what we are doing for the most part. People in general don't watch a clock tick unless you are in a dead end job and are bored out of your mind. That can make for a lousy work life. This clock carries with it an important message for you and me.

Time is a never-ending measure of things planned for, or not; or accomplished (or not) depending upon our specific actions.

Time drives a construction schedule. It will set a pace for us to follow or if left open-ended, which is what happens with our old yellow notepad type schedule, time can easily get totally away from us. Our projects get totally open ended. We say cavalierly that our project just got away from us. But we all know that this is just a cop-out. Time never gets away from us we let it get away.

Putting time to good use is the message of this article. We must put time to good use and schedule it wisely. Our projects that we build need our time management skills. Otherwise this beast gets away from us, and in the larger scheme of things, costs us or out owners, money if a project goes needlessly overtime.

WE ARE IN CHARGE OF OUR TIME AND AS A MANAGER OF CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS THE PROJECT'S TIME AND SCHEDULE.

What are you going to do with it? Remember, time is money!

Now let's look at another dimension of time. When we apply time to a building list of tasks that must be accomplished in order for the project which we are constructing to get done, not only is the task list linked with the timeline important, but it gives us something else: freedom of stress > or not.

When one thinks about building something faster than normal they might immediately think that -- oh boy, here we go -- with a whole lot of stress. But just the opposite is true. We have proven that a house CAN be built in just under 38 hours! We have proven that. When we PLANNED AND SCHEDULED this fast demonstration house out in the preceding days and weeks just prior to its commencement date, we did it in a very controlled environment. We simply sat and talked with our subs and suppliers. There was absolutely no stress during those planning and scheduling moments in time. None! So why do we think that we are going to assuredly (we think) be over-stressed?

The answer should be self evident. We only stress ourselves out when we FAIL TO PLAN AND SCHEDULE a fast project. It us just that simple!

I will be further exploring this and other topics in relationship to the topic of building something fast, in other places throughout this website. The how-to's are contained in our JNA Fastrack Courses and books contained on our products page on this website.

Remember, faster is better!

- Jack Nieporte

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