Chapter Three: The B.S. Abolisher Process: How You Avoid Doing Pointless Work Efficiently

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all” Peter Drucker

Chapter Three: Troublemaker | The Anti CEO Playbook

The number one thing that a Troublemaker hates with a passion is B.S.

They will not comply and do something just because someone tells them…

“That’s the way we do things here.”

Troublemakers have to see the value in what they’re being asked to do, and there has to be a purpose for them doing it.

90% of the pushback and the “I’m not doing that B.S” you get from a Troublemaker is because they hate wasting time and effort on pointless exercises.

And a Troublemaker without a purpose very quickly becomes a high-maintenance menace.

Did you pick up on the fact that I said a ‘Troublemaker without a purpose’ above?

I used to say that you have to keep a Troublemaker busy, or they get themselves into the kind of trouble that you don’t want.

But busy is a dreadful word, and this quote from Tim Ferriss sums up why perfectly.

“Being busy is a form of laziness — lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” -Tim Ferriss

So I’ve swapped the word busy for the word purpose.

“Purpose: The reason for which something is done, or created, or for which something exists.” -Dictionary

In a bid to become more effective, the construction industry has become obsessed with three-letter KPIs.

I’m not knocking tracking data at all — I believe it’s crucial for a project’s success.

But the way it’s currently done in construction leaves a lot to be desired. It’s a huge opportunity for real ‘continuous improvement’ {The Mamba Mentality}.

You’ll remember this Kathy Kolbe quote from Chapter One.

“Smart people are terrible at predicting the future. That’s because they rely on past data to make their decisions.” -Kathy Kolbe

Project and construction managers love KPIs {Key Performance Indicators} because it’s the past data they rely on to make their decisions.

Troublemakers hate KPIs because they’re focused on the future and see no relevance in past data.

To them, it’s just more pointless, time-wasting B.S.

The truth lies somewhere in between these two opposing views.

The inherent flaw with KPIs:

The inherent flaw with KPIs is that they don’t accurately measure performance.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but here is how the majority of KPIs are created.

A result happens on a project — let’s say 100,000 hours, with 100% safety compliance, over 100 days. {notice I said 100% safety compliance, not incident-free? More on this later.}

So, someone sits down and looks for the measurable indicators that achieved this result.

Funnily enough, 99% of the time the measurable indicators are some sort of form that is mandatory to fill out.

Forms are easy to count and therefore easy to create data {KPIs} to input into a spreadsheet. It’ll pump out a graph to prove that if you do 1000 forms, you’ll achieve 100,000 hours with 100% safety compliance.

So it must be true, because you can see it in the graph I produced.

You’re picking up what I’m putting down here, right?

The problem is there is zero context around why the form actually worked.

Context like…

• During the 100 days, how many weather events affected the project?
• What was the supervisor-to-crew ratio?
• How many leading hands were there?
• What was the skill level of the crews?
• Had the crews worked together before?
• Had any of the supervision teams worked together before?
• How many hours were worked per shift?
• How often were RDO’s taken?
• Were the rates paid sufficient to attract a quality workforce?
• Was it project work or shutdown work?
• How much of the work was done under permit, or in a live plant?

The list goes on and on, and very little of it is taken into consideration when KPIs are set. They’re created by a project manager/director who spends zero time on the site to see what the real key performance indicators are.

“I was so angry that the CEO was far away, in a tower or somewhere, looking at the spreadsheets and closing the factory.

Spreadsheets are lazy.

They don’t tell you about people, they don’t tell you about communities.

But unfortunately, this is how too many business decisions are made today.” -Hamdi Ulukaya

The other issue the KPI creates is knocking “continuous improvement” {another catchphrase the industry loves but rarely achieves} on the head, because there are a fixed amount of forms that have to be completed to achieve a result.

The KPI/graph says so, remember?

What we should be looking for, but rarely ever do because it’s so much harder to track is…

What behaviours/habits do we need to consistently execute to produce results?

Enter the OKR | Objectives and Key Results.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that OKRs are the silver bullet miracle quick-fix.

No such thing {miracle quick-fix} exists in my opinion, but OKRs are a step in the right direction.

So what’s the difference?

First, you set an objective. We’ll use the KPI example from above to keep things simple.

The objective is to work 100,000 hours over 100 days.

The key results are…

• 100% safety compliance
• 100% Q/A compliance

So the question now becomes…

How are we going to achieve that?

What behaviours and habits do we need within our teams to achieve that result?

Instead of a project manager demanding that certain KPIs be met, the superintendents and supervisors can go out to their crews and say…

This is what we’re aiming to hit, how are we going to do it? {this is where planning poker comes into it.}

Instead of the usual…

You need to fill out ten forms per day because that’s what our KPIs on this spreadsheet say.

You may have already guessed, but as a Troublemaker myself I have an obsession with effectiveness over productivity and efficiency.

Here is why.

“Productivity means you do more.

Efficiency means you do more with less.

Effectiveness means you do more of what works.” — Ari Meisel

The B.S. eliminator process is something I ‘modified’ from the hierarchy of control that is specifically designed to do more of what works.

The main point of difference is that the hierarchy of control is predominantly focused on safety. The B.S. eliminator focus is how are we going to do this safely — and effectively.

Again, using the former scenario.

Elimination.

Do we really need to fill out 1000 forms to achieve our OKR? Or is there a smarter, more effective way to drive the behaviours and habits we need?

Automation.

What part of the form process can we automate, to avoid burning valuable hours on it?

Can we leverage….

• Voice to text
• Some sort of software?
• Artificial intelligence or machine learning, etc?

System.

What system are we using to ensure we get tasks from to-do to done?

The system I use of course is a scrum board, that’s because…

“Anyone can walk into the room, glance at the board, and know exactly what the team is doing.” — Scrum | Page 156

Process.

What are the processes operating inside the Scrum system that make it easy to achieve a consistent, reliable result?

• Can we use an app to reduce/remove paperwork and unnecessary tasks?

Who.

Who needs to follow the process and perform the work?

Can some of it be done by an off-site administrator, so that front-line supervision isn’t tied up with tasks that distract them from their real job of in the field of leadership?

We have covered a lot of ground in this chapter, and the point of this book isn’t just for me to preach and you to listen.

No real Troublemaker is going to do that!

So I want to hear your opinions, whatever they may be, and the best way to do that is via VOXER.