Blogs Archive

Embrace the Power of Takt Time to Improve Data Center Construction Productivity

Time is money in any construction project, and this is especially true for data center construction. A single delay can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, construction productivity has declined since the 1970s due in part to an adherence to command-and-control planning that creates silos between the general contractor and different trade partners.

On the surface, holding trades responsible for finishing on time sounds logical, but finishing on time doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve finished at the right time. What good is it for one trade to finish work when the next one isn’t ready for the handoff? When teams lack a structured cadence to complete activities and allocate resources, the project slows and costly delays ensue.

What’s needed is a new way of planning that focuses on flow, or as the Lean Construction Institute defines it, “a process that includes smooth, unimpeded handoffs between and among project team members from one crew to the next.”

An often underutilized methodology for achieving flow is Takt planning, which creates a rhythm for each phase of work to finish and ensures handoffs occur at the same pace. To make Takt work, you need a construction production management platform to visualize the components necessary to achieve flow.

Where did Takt time originate?

Takt is a German word meaning rhythm, cadence or cycle, and it was originally used to reference timekeeping in music. The implementation of Takt time as a manufacturing concept first appeared in the 1920s with Germany’s Junkers Aircraft Works, which created sub-assembly lines that fed into main assembly lines at predetermined intervals to create consistency and predictability.

By the late 1940s, Toyota had adopted the Takt philosophy for auto manufacturing and based its famous Toyota Production System on Takt time. The methodology eventually found widespread adoption throughout the manufacturing world, and its waste-reduction benefits were popularized in lean manufacturing.

Increasing construction flow with Takt time

While manufacturing accepts Takt time as a standard for production, its popularity within the construction industry hasn’t caught on as it should. As we’ve pointed out, command-and-control is often the go-to philosophy for construction projects, but Takt time makes more sense for data construction projects. Takt time drastically reduces confusion and offers the predictability necessary to ensure on-time project completion.

Takt requires greater collaboration between trades, breaks down traditional silos and prioritizes setting a shared pace for every operation in a sequence. Potential productivity issues are addressed with a visual plan that allows tasks to finish concurrently and encourages easy handoffs between trades for sequential tasks.

Here are some important components of a Takt construction plan:

Takt phase: Work to be done that is separated into logical groupings based on specific milestones or achievements.
Takt zone: Geographical areas within the phase where work is scheduled on a rhythm. Trades will move through these zones at the same pace.
Takt wagon: Grouping of one or more Takt packages or scopes of work.
Takt package: Manageable units of work within a Takt wagon that can be assigned to a trade for execution within a designated Takt time.
Takt train: A series of wagons that will move through the zone.

In a data center construction project, zones may be split up like this:

Zone 1: Data Hall
Zone 2: Generator Yard
Zone 3: Substation
Zone 4: Central Utility Buildings (CUB)

Within each of the zones, it’s critical to identify similar scopes of work that allow for consistent pacing. For example, in a data center construction project, there may be multiple sectors of the Data Hall that are equal to the entirety of another zone. So, the work within those sectors may be broken down to create a consistent amount of work in these predefined areas to ensure consistent pacing.

Once a work cadence is established, trades can work rhythmically through each zone with intentional buffers to allow each team to adjust to unforeseen circumstances and complete work within the Takt time. This level of predictability is critical in data center planning, as it sets expectations early on and creates an environment where productivity is consistent and repeatable, increasing the possibility of on-time completion.

Construction production management software enables better Takt planning

When coupled with the right technology, a Takt data center construction plan can make flow more easily achievable. Let’s look at ways a platform like Touchplan can enhance a solid Takt plan.

Breaking down trade silos

Construction production management software can help bring trades together and encourage collaboration via a platform that visualizes real-time updates. When this data is current, trades have the insight necessary for accurate decisioning and projections. The end result? Takt packages finish in rhythm, and handoffs flow as expected.

Minimizing bottlenecks

Bottlenecks are unavoidable in data center construction, but construction production management software can help you manage them. The right platform visualizes where bottlenecks exist early on and allows decision-makers to address them and keep work moving at the prescribed pace.

Allocating resources accurately

When utilization is at capacity, production, and flow are impeded. As variations within the project increase — fluctuating crew sizes, changes in work, start times, material availability — delays emerge. Construction production management software creates flow and avoids delays by allowing you to visually plan which tasks can be completed concurrently while facilitating seamless handoffs between trades for sequential tasks.

Avoiding or addressing rework

Removing installed work is an immediate flow disruptor. Solutions like Touchplan can assist by integrating the master schedule with the actual workflow and avoiding corrective rework via issues like inaccurate design fulfillment. When unavoidable design changes occur, teams can track rework in real time and incorporate updates into ongoing production to avoid delays.

There’s simply too much at stake in data center construction projects to operate in a manner that inherently limits productivity. With Takt planning and the proper construction production management software, predictability becomes a natural component of the planning process. Watch this webinar to learn how Touchplan can enhance Takt planning initiatives.

Introducing Management Analytics — The New Standard for Analyzing Construction Planning Data

The Need for Data-Driven Construction Planning Software

Touchplan recently announced the availability of Management Analytics — a new and significant enhancement to the analytics capability of its collaborative construction planning platform. Management Analytics provides a top-to-bottom alignment of customers’ analytics dashboards, putting all vital analytical elements into three easy-to-use dashboards.

Whether you’re rolling out a collaborative planning/Lean construction process for a project, a business unit, or across your entire organization, analytics are paramount in monitoring the effectiveness and continuous improvement of your planning processes.

Management Analytics sets a new standard for construction planning by providing aggregated trend, KPI, and roadblock analytics at both the project level and for your entire company and its business units. The enhancement results from a decade of capturing more than 22 terabytes of data for over 6,000 construction projects, 33,000 construction plans, 7 million tickets, and 85,000 Touchplan users.

Construction Planning Data Through Three Lenses

Management Analytics provides actionable construction planning views of past trends, the present state of your projects, and future resource needs that can impact your plans. It delivers insights appropriate for executives, managers, and field-level leadership, enabling data-driven, collaborative decisioning via three critical lenses: Project Analytics, Portfolio Analytics, and Company Analytics:

Project Analytics provides superintendents and project managers with site-level intelligence they need to rapidly anticipate, identify, and get ahead of leading indicators, trends, and blockers — and formulate the best strategies to address them. Additionally, Project Analytics reinforces a standardized way of planning that makes processes repeatable and performance measurable.
Portfolio Analytics gives regional and division managers the cumulative construction project data they need to analyze groups of projects in detail and take corrective action for projects not meeting their KPIs. Portfolio Analytics also enables easy comparisons between projects using data such as PPC, variance reasons, and constraint usage for more informed decision-making.
Company Analytics gives corporate managers and executives the insights they need to understand the status of the enterprise project landscape. That data will help them form and implement strategies and best practices to ensure optimum performance for existing projects and enable the rapid and standard setup of new projects.

The Value of Accessible Construction Planning Data

Projects are the data engine that drives company-wide success. They require consistency across data sets, analysis, and comparisons. Without a standardized process to track large amounts of information, individual successes can become isolated victories, as opposed to repeatable best practices across the organization. The opportunity to continuously improve processes is lost.

Management Analytics provides the ability to:

View condensed construction project data at the company and business unit level
Define your performance standard
Identify and improve your best practices
Identify who needs additional support to meet the organizational standard

All stakeholders in an organization can navigate the detailed dashboards to analyze teams’ week-to-week execution, Constraint Performance, and Milestone Performance or simply look at a blended Performance Index score that identifies trends over time.

If you’re ready for top-to-bottom alignment of company-wide project data, contact us for a first look at Management Analytics.

Data Center Construction with the Last Planner System®

There are three truths about the current state of data center construction projects: business is booming, a lot of money is riding on them, and deadlines are fast and furious.

While this is exciting news for owners and contractors, the expectations — and pressure — have never been higher. Delays in data center construction can cost owners millions, which creates a narrower margin of error for contractors.

One of the best ways to ensure data center construction projects run as smoothly as possible is by implementing the Last Planner System® (LPS). Let’s look at LPS and its application to data center construction projects.

Last Planner System: An Overview

When you consider the many collaborators in a data center construction project, it’s easy to see how schedule and time misalignment can emerge without a proven method for project planning.

Since its initial development in the 1990s, LPS has given contractors of large projects a roadmap that, as the Lean Construction Institute states, “promotes the creation of a predictable workflow among various parties so that it achieves reliable results.”

LPS brings all relevant stakeholders together during five different components of the construction process: master scheduling, phase scheduling, look-ahead planning, commitment planning, and learning. Through the LPS method, decisions go from broad and long-term to more immediate and granular as the project progresses, with applied learnings throughout.

The key to success is ensuring all stakeholders are sharing relevant data in real-time and all others are keeping up with those inputs to inform the next steps.

For more context, we’ll explore those five LPS components and how they apply to data center construction projects.

Perfecting Data Center Construction Scheduling

Master scheduling and phase scheduling are in the “things we should do” category of LPS, representing everything stakeholders hope to accomplish during the project.

Master Scheduling

A running joke about master schedules is that it’s wrong the second you send it. Numerous constraints throw even the best data center construction project off track, but a master schedule isn’t intended to be a crystal ball. Instead, the 30,000-foot view of the project sets the tone by identifying the high-level milestones and goals that will define future phases of work and potential overlaps, which can delay completion.

Communication among all the invested parties is paramount when creating a master schedule. Gather stakeholders — owners, designers, general contractors, and MEP contractors — to share their project visions as soon as it’s practical. Then, work together to determine the best combination of those visions.

The final master schedule will require a great deal of compromise, but LPS is based on the foundation of continuous communication. Working collaboratively throughout the project becomes second nature when a culture of dialogue is established early.

Phase Scheduling

Once milestones have been established, phase scheduling can begin. This period is highlighted by sequencing out 6-12 week periods via pull planning: collaboratively defining and sequencing the tasks by working backward from milestones established in the master schedule.

This is also where those responsible for doing the work are brought into the discussion, and the goal of the planning sessions is to identify all of the tasks necessary to complete each milestone. It’s also critical in phase scheduling to establish the conditions of satisfaction for the handoffs between the tasks.

In data center projects, for example, phase scheduling helps prevent crew stacking and ensures general contractors and MEPs have the space they need to do their jobs safely and efficiently.

This is also the time when decision-makers need to address procurement of supplies and equipment. Given the unique nature of data center infrastructure components, e.g., power, cooling, etc., putting in extra legwork in phase scheduling can help reduce the risk of supply chain instability once work begins.

Last Planner System Addresses Tactical Needs

After master and phase scheduling conclude, the “boots-on-the-ground” portion of the project begins. Look-ahead planning and commitment planning focus specifically on plans of action and addressing variances.

Look-Ahead Planning

This is where last planners enter the “things we can do” phase of the project — what can be accomplished based on the information at hand. Last planners are no longer dealing with theoreticals, but instead focusing on identifying constraints that could impact deadlines over the next 4-6 weeks of work.

Typically, a weekly meeting is held to review work and review variance reports to identify any emerging constraints that can be addressed before they disrupt deadlines. Each constraint is assigned to a team member who will lead the charge in finding solutions to the constraint or initiating a workaround.

For example, if the shipment of a power system component is delayed, the last planners determine how to address the delay and what work can be done instead of installing that component. With this new direction, they’ll have to determine how to procure teams to do the newly scheduled work and determine the ripple effect of that change.

Adhering to look-ahead planning principles gives last planners the one advantage they need most: the time to course correct and prevent minor delays from becoming costly stoppages.

Commitment Planning

As the project moves further down the timeline, last planners identify “things we will do.” Commitment planning (also referred to as weekly work planning) is hyper-focused on making good on promises. With a commitment to collaboration and accurate data sharing in the first three phases, commitment planning becomes much easier to manage.

This is also when last planners send requests for information (RFI) to owners and other parties to weigh in on emerging issues. While owners are more than willing to invest a lot of money into a data center construction project, they’re less enthusiastic about delays that impede the return on that investment. As such, commitment planning is necessary to ensure stated deadlines are met, and progress is communicated to owners on a timely basis.

Typically, project teams have commitment planning meetings once weekly to go through the week’s work and implement minor adjustments as necessary. This is a good opportunity to address any safety concerns, crew allocation, and any other topic that could prevent teams from meeting commitments. The end result is a vast reduction of last-minute surprises. This is followed by daily huddle sessions to ensure the week’s plan remains on track.

Acquiring and Applying Historical Knowledge

Learning

Every project has a learning curve, and last planners are responsible for gleaning what went well and what went wrong, and applying that insight to future iterations. This is the “things we did” phase, where last planners rely on percent plan complete (PPC) reports to identify the percentage of weekly promises met and variance reason reports (VRR) that identify the reasons they fell short of commitments. Analyzing those variances are an integral part of mitigation plans and keeping operations on track.

To be clear, learning should occur throughout the project: the master plan, phase schedule look-ahead planning and commitment planning.

To continuously improve, teams must regularly take inventory of what went well (plusses) and what didn’t (deltas) with the previous week’s plan. We often see the most dramatic impact in learning is from the construction of one building to the next in a large data center campus project.

The PPC baseline is often at 50-60% in the first building construction. By the second, the plan will be refined. After that, the plan should resemble a template, with adjustments for constraints in later stages.

As data center construction projects become larger and more complex, contractors understand the need to run the tightest ship possible. The Last Planner System can provide the organization, communication, and collaboration infrastructure necessary to keep projects moving forward.

Learn how Touchplan helps to support the Last Planner System and gives decision-makers the accurate insight they need to keep data center construction plans on time and under budget.

2023 Feature Release Recap

As 2023 comes to an end, Touchplan is excited to reflect on another successful year of providing property owners, general contractors, and specialty contractors with instant insights to track progress, prevent schedule and budget slippage, and ensure jobsite safety on their construction projects.

Here is a look at some of the key product enhancements we released this year:

Ticket Export

Users can start building their Master Schedule out in Touchplan and transfer that data directly into P6 without having to re-enter those activities. With Ticket Export, you can save time by exporting data from Touchplan directly into P6 as often as needed. The entire project in Touchplan can now be exported and used to update P6. Users can also export pieces of the Touchplan schedule into P6 to continue to build upon the Master Schedule.

Ticket Export reduces time spent aggregating, analyzing, and reporting on updated plans and provides a more seamless process.

Hover Over

Users can now see the critical details of their tickets without the need to click on the ticket or zoom in and out. You only need to move the cursor over the ticket to see the information. Also, Hover Over allows users to customize what fields will appear in the feature to help them focus on the things that are important to them and reduce visual clutter. This can help users hold huddles/meetings more effectively to review their tickets and keep them in the context of the overall construction plan.

Constraint Insights Dashboard added to Project Insights

When you log in to Touchplan today, go into Ticket Insights, you will notice a new drill-down called “Constraint Insights.” This dashboard allows admin users to closely track and analyze the project constraints and their performance all in one place. Admins can track a constraint, and their dependent tickets, as well if constraints are completed on time so the project schedule can stay on track.

Below is a glossary for the Constraint Insights Dashboard:

Constraint Promises Kept: When the Need by Date is less than or equal to the Present Date AND the constraint is closed.
Constraint Promises Made: The total number of accepted constraints where the Need by Date is less than the Present Date
Constraint Log: A list of all constraints within the project and their information including Assigned To, Requested By, Planned Finish Date, and more
Constraint Risk: Constraints with logic ties to other tickets
Overdue Constraints: Constraints that have not been marked as completed as well as the number of days that constraint is overdue
Constraint Impacts: A list of tickets that with variance reasons that have a logic tie with a constraint ticket
Need By Date Filter: Use the Need by Date filter to expand how far back the dashboard looks

SSO

Companies that want additional security and control over user access to Touchplan can now enable Single Sign On (SSO) for their account. When SSO is enabled, users only have to sign in once for all SSO-enabled platforms. For teams that are interested in turning on SSO for their projects, please reach out to the Customer Success team who can activate this feature.

Swimlanes Filter

Users can now filter information by swimlanes. Swimlane filters allow users to group reports and filter by swimlanes in a selected construction plan. Some additional highlights of our new swimlane filter include:

Greater reporting flexibility enabling more detailed planning
The ability to replicate visual planning spaces into reports and share those with members of the construction project team
Supports additional levels of hierarchy within Touchplan to more closely align with the master schedule
Swimlanes can be used for anything. They can cater to a multitude of different use cases and project types and product reports for your team

We are excited and gearing up for a busy 2024. Our best wishes for a happy holiday and a flourishing new year!

Streamlining Data Center Construction with Touchplan

Data center construction is a complex process that demands precision, efficiency, and effective collaboration among various stakeholders. In this guide, we will explore the intricacies of data center construction and how Touchplan, the number one construction planning platform, can be your guide throughout this journey.

Understanding Data Center Construction

Data centers serve as the backbone of today’s digital landscape, housing the servers and infrastructure critical to the operation of businesses and organizations. The surging demand for data storage and processing has led to a significant spike in new data center construction where the average build time is 12 months or less and the U.S. total planned square footage is growing at 350,000 square feet per month. Building a data center involves meticulous planning, cutting-edge technology, and adherence to stringent standards to ensure reliability, security, and efficiency.

The Importance of Efficient Data Center Construction

Efficiency is paramount in data center construction. Delays or inefficiencies can lead to substantial financial losses and missed opportunities. With data centers being vital to the operations of so many modern businesses, ensuring they are constructed swiftly and accurately is crucial.

How Touchplan Can Support Your Data Center Journey

More than a third of the 50 largest data center owners and more than half of the 25 largest data center contractors have used the Touchplan to transform analog chaos into digital calm. Here’s some ways that Touchplan enhances your data center construction process:

Collaboration and Communication: Touchplan facilitates seamless collaboration among all project stakeholders, ensuring that everyone is on the same page.
Scheduling and Planning: Create and manage construction schedules efficiently, ensuring tasks are completed on time.
Visual Planning: Gain a clear visual overview of the entire project, allowing you to track progress and spot potential issues in advance.
Task Tracking: Keep a close eye on individual tasks to ensure they stay on schedule.
Risk Mitigation: Identify and address potential risk early, preventing costly delays or setbacks.
Resource Management: Optimize the allocation of resources to avoid bottlenecks and overruns.
Quality Assurance: Monitor and verify completed tasks to ensure high quality work.

Conclusion

Touchplan is a valuable asset to manage the fast-paced, costly, complex, and brutally competitive elements of data center construction. The platform’s real-time analytics and patented pull planning, supports (Owners, Contractors and MEP contractors every step of the way to ensure a project is on time and budget while ensuring safety.

Have You Used Touchplan’s Patented Active Line?

It’s no secret that as a construction plan progresses, there will need to be changes for various reasons. The challenge is keeping the project team aligned and accountable for the work needed to stay on schedule.

Touchplan’s patented Active Line makes it easy for teams to move from long-range planning to their look-ahead plan, which avoids the potential loss of data if teams were transferring between systems.

The Active Line also allows the construction team to manage accountability and see why tasks are not getting completed as promised, allowing for quick and flexible re-planning.

To get a complete understanding of the value of using the Active Line, watch the following video by clicking the button below.

For more information about the Active Line, please contact a member of our sales team.

CMMS: Unleashing the Potential of Your Maintenance Digital Backbone

By Dr. Anthony Kenneson-Adams, FIoL, Head of Learning & Knowledge Transfer, Project7 Consultancy

Introduction

In the bustling realm of modern manufacturing, where precision and efficiency reign supreme, the digital technology of Industry 4.0 plays a pivotal role. Among the myriad of tools and systems at a maintenance manager’s disposal is the Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). The CMMS can be the digital backbone for maintenance, providing streamlined planning and execution, parts management, and data-driven decisions, that importantly drive reduced downtime. Yet, for many manufacturing enterprises, the CMMS has earned a dubious reputation – as the place where data goes to die.

The Power of Data

We have learned the lesson that as engineering and maintenance managers we need data. We have spent thousands of Dollars/Euros/Pounds implementing great data-gathering CMMS. We have upgraded, added functionality, attached BOMs, and listened to the evangelists for critical asset care, management of storeroom parts, and data-driven iterative maintenance management.

However, maintenance defects can still account for more than 30% of all machine lost time, and machine availability in the OEE equation can frequently be less than 60%, maintenance departments still find time to fix the same problem twice, and reacting to machine breakdowns in some businesses can expend more than 40% of maintenance man-hours.

So what is going wrong? What I see across the gambit of industry is that data is put into the CMMS as a comfortable place to rest and ‘die’, and all too often the data which is costly to collect has little or no effect on building reliability, driving OEE or business profitability. The purpose of a CMMS is not as a repository but as a fuel tank to drive the engine of reliability.

Intelligent use of CMMS data is key to:

PM design and ongoing optimization.
Intelligent FRACAS.
Business altering FME(C)A.
Problem-solving that is done once and once only.
Driving machine availability.
Improving business impacting OEE.
Saving time across all the 8 wastes.

CMMS software is designed to capture and manage data to drive equipment reliability. However, a closer look at how CMMS data is used within manufacturing often reveals the stark reality that data underutilization is rife and that data is metaphorically buried never to be seen again. So the simple message to my fellow maintenance professionals is that when it comes to the CMMS don’t bury data, rather be a data miner.

Reviving CMMS Best Practices

It’s time for maintainers to rethink their CMMS strategy and unlock its full potential. Here are three best practices to ensure that your CMMS becomes a valuable asset rather than a data graveyard:

Budget and Time

A major change that is needed in implementing CMMS optimization is provision of an ongoing budget to manage and train our people to interrogate and manipulate CMMS data. If our employees do not know how to add intelligence to the data to solve problems, then we can’t expect them to use that data to improve machine reliability. Plan time into the budget to train staff on FRACAS, 6 Sigma DMAIC, trend analysis, and other established statistical and Lean tools that will exploit your collected data. A well-informed team is more likely to use the system effectively and consistently.

Set Clear Expectations

There should be a business expectation that data is a source to drive business. When leaders set the expectation, lead by example, and remove the barriers, then data driven business becomes a source for driving revenue and increasing margin.

Regularly Review and Refine Processes

Continuously evaluate your CMMS data interrogation and mining processes and adapt them as needed. Solicit feedback from your team to identify areas for improvement. CMMS data interrogation should be your first point of contact for improving machine reliability and continuous improvement.

Conclusion

The CMMS, once relegated to the shadows as the place where data goes to die, can become a beacon of efficiency and intelligence in building your machine reliability. To achieve this transformation, we as maintenance professionals must recognize that the CMMS is not just a data repository but a powerful tool for optimizing machine reliability.

By investing in training, integrating with cutting-edge tools and technologies, setting data entry standards, prioritizing data use and fostering a culture of data interrogation and continuous improvement, maintenance leadership can breathe life into their CMMS. Only with use will your CMMS evolve from a stagnant data graveyard to a fuel tank to drive machine availability and operational excellence in the digital age.

Who Is Driving Your Leadership Career?

By Dr. Anthony Kenneson Adams, FIoL, Head of Learning and Knowledge Transfer – Project7 Consultancy

Introduction

So, you want to be a Leader!

Your leadership career is a journey, and just like any journey, it requires a driver. The question is, who is driving your leadership career? Is it you, or are you letting external forces take the wheel? Taking control of your career is essential for your personal and professional growth. In this article, I will explore the importance of taking control and offer some insights from my 45 years in the world of work that may help you steer your career in the right direction.

The Passenger vs. the Driver

Imagine your career as a car. Imagine you have just purchased your dream vehicle, the perfect size the perfect color, everything you have ever wanted, then you hand the keys to a stranger and get comfortable in the driving seat! Bizarre right? Yet the majority of people do just this when considering their leadership journey. When you’re the passenger, you’re simply along for the ride. You might have some input on the destination, but you have no control over the route, speed, or stops along the way. In this scenario, your career is at the mercy of others—your boss, colleagues, or the job market. You’re abdicating your potential into the hands of others, others who do not care as much as you do about your destination or success.

You deserve to be the driver of your career, to be in command. You decide where you want to go, how fast you want to get there, and the route you’ll take. Being the driver means taking responsibility for your career choices, setting goals, and making decisions that align with your aspirations. It’s a proactive and empowering approach that can lead to greater satisfaction and success, and what’s more, it’s fun!

Why You Should Be the Driver

Here are a few reasons why you need to settle into the driver’s seat.

Personal Fulfilment: Taking the driver’s seat allows you to pursue work that aligns with your passions and values. When I first joined the RAF…….
**Professional Growth**: Being proactive in your career can lead to opportunities for growth and advancement. You can seek out new challenges, acquire new skills, and position yourself for promotions or career changes. Having completed my HNC I was able to
**Adaptability**: In today’s fast-paced world, careers are constantly evolving. When you’re the driver, you can adapt to changes in your industry, embrace new technologies, and stay ahead of the curve. When I left the RAF …… paper
**Financial Independence**: Taking control of your career can lead to better financial outcomes. You can negotiate for higher salaries, seek out more lucrative opportunities, and plan for your financial future with confidence.

How to Be the Driver

**Set Clear Goals**: Define your career objectives. Where do you want to be in one year, five years, or ten years? Having clear goals gives you a roadmap to follow. What and when?
**Continuous Learning**: Invest in your skills and knowledge. Take courses, attend workshops, and stay informed about industry trends. The more you learn, the more valuable you become. How..
**Networking**: Build a strong professional network. Connect with colleagues, mentors, and industry peers. Networking can open doors to new opportunities and provide valuable guidance.
**Self-Advocacy**: Don’t be afraid to advocate for yourself. Ask for promotions, raises, or challenging assignments when you believe you’ve earned them. Speak up about your career aspirations.
**Embrace Change**: Be open to change and innovation. Don’t get stuck in a comfort zone. Be willing to pivot when necessary to stay relevant in your field.
**Work-Life Balance**: Remember that being the driver of your career doesn’t mean working yourself into burnout. Maintain a healthy work-life balance to ensure long-term success and well-being.

Conclusion

Your career is a journey, and it’s up to you to decide who is driving the car. By taking control and becoming the driver of your career, you empower yourself to make choices that lead to personal fulfillment, professional growth, and financial independence. Don’t leave your career to chance or the whims of others. Set clear goals, invest in yourself, and be proactive in pursuing the career you desire. Remember, your career is in your hands, so take the wheel and steer it in the direction of your dreams.

Guest Blog Post: Navigating the Business Leadership Training Landscape

By Dr. Anthony Kenneson-Adams FIoL, Head of Learning & Knowledge Transfer, Project7 Consultancy

In his book ‘Leadership in Organizations, Current Issues and Key Trends’ (2004), John Story begins his narrative by stating that an Amazon search in 2003 just using the word ‘Leadership’ “Netted an overwhelming 11,686 results.” Having completed that same search twenty years later, the Amazon counter reached its limit of “over 100,000 results” for this same single word leadership.

With so much written about leadership, you would think that by now leadership would be clearly understood and by extension, that leadership training would also be clearly understood, easily reproducible, sustainable, and proven to demonstrate success and value for money.

Yet we all know that this is far from reality.

The Business Leadership Training Industry.

It is somewhat incongruous then that business leadership training is now a huge industry, without clearly understanding what leadership training should be attempting to achieve particularly as we hurtle into the new frontier of leadership in the digital post-millennial Industrial Revolution, needing what is now being called ‘Leadership for Industry 4.0’.

So what is the way forward? Firstly, each business has to ask itself, “What leadership do we need; what are the traits, skills and behaviours that are missing today in our business? When they know that, they must ask what is it that we want our leadership with these traits, skills or behaviours to achieve?

Is it efficiency, or innovation?
Is it to build organizational culture?
Is it to grow customer satisfaction?
Is it for uniqueness or to manage the routine?
Is it to develop organisational strategies or maximise profit?
Is it to survive or to evolve?

I am not going to offer the usual cop-out that it is ‘all of the above’ as I believe businesses have to be far more focused on what they want from leadership training to meet immediate and long-term needs. Only once a business knows what it truly needs, can it start to understand what type of training will take them on the journey to achieve their business objectives. So, what does your business need in terms of leadership training and what do you need to do to fill the gap?

Here I think it is useful to look at the work of Clarke, Butcher, and Baily (2004) on the value of external or internal leadership training. Their research found that internal leadership development programmes are used twice as often as external leadership programmes, internal coaching nearly twice as often as external, and internal action-learning projects over three times as often as external ones. A comparison in their table below of the perceived advantages demonstrates the differential value.

Method	Respondents who rated the method of high value %	Respondents who rated the method as being frequently used %
Internal coaching/mentoring	69	45
External coaching/mentoring	71	25
Internal business projects	73	47
External business projects	46	13
Observation of business leaders	44	15
Business school development programme	57	27
In-company development programmes	53	45

This research showed that internal training with coaching and mentoring focused on real world internal business projects (with action learning) were not only more highly regarded by respondents but also were also rated as the most frequently used back in the day-to-day function of leadership when formal training had been completed.

Action Learning.

My personal experience over the last 45 years shows that leadership training that is not attached to real-world action projects is practically useless. Action Research (McNiff, 2017) is now an established technique where a researcher uses the Plan, Do, Observe Reflect cycle to lead action-learning research in the work environment. When this cycle is adapted as in the diagram above, (with the ‘researcher’ being the leadership trainee that has been trained in Participative Action Research in Teams (PART) (Kenneson-Adams, 2021) methodology, as a vehicle for learning to lead, then the leadership trainee learns by doing, and the team creates new knowledge in a formalised and sustainable way.

However, even when real world action learning does take place and reaps initial real business results, that success is not sustained or replicated unless the training is supported by top-down cultural change, supported, and modelled by senior leadership.

Add to this the need for post-millennials to be part of collaborative and self-fulfilling work environments then it can be seen that there is no one-size fits all off-the-shelf leadership training for any organization.

Specifically-designed internal leadership training also has the advantages of organisational context, cultural alignment, relationship building, continuous development, cost efficiency and importantly succession planning. The value of the external leadership trainer then becomes that of train the trainer, particularly of the action-learning or PART methodology making the internal leader the driver of leadership excellence in the business.

Summary.

Firstly, for leadership training to be at its most effective it needs to be designed for the specific needs of the business and aligned with focused mentoring and coaching to enable business results through action-learning projects with measurable outcomes.

Secondly and essentially for sustained success, the leadership training program needs to be supported and modelled by senior leaders who will rightly be looking for auditable business results.

Lastly, to build an effective internal leadership training program, the role of the external consultant should be in teaching learning methodology such as action-learning and PART that enables student-centred learning with immediate business impact, rather than generic leadership theories.

Every Interaction is an Opportunity: Maximizing Business Potential

By Dr. Anthony Kenneson-Adams. DBA. MA. BSc(Hons.) FloL, Head of Learning & Knowledge Transfer, Project7 Consultancy

Introduction

Over the course of my five-year doctoral research project to develop a leadership model for Operational Excellence, a pivotal insight emerged – ‘Every Interaction is an Opportunity.’ While the significance in the research of common leadership behaviors and traits such as communication, respect, humility, and authenticity were expected and well represented, exploiting ‘interaction as an opportunity’ was new. In this context, I delve into the advantages of embracing this opportunity and how its application has empowered me to drive business success.

Unlocking Business Potential through Interactions:

Our People: Focused interactions with those on the shop floor or job site provide opportunities that reveal invaluable insights into our business that cannot be gained from the comfort of our office. Investing time in engaging with our workforce builds mutual understanding and fosters a cohesive work environment. Don’t rush across the shop floor or work site just to get to another meeting that will have little value. Stop and talk to your people, get to know them, and understand their issues which are actually your issues as the leader.
Our Customers: Taking a customer-centric approach, we understand that every interaction with customers is an opportunity to comprehend their needs, preferences, and pain points. Prioritizing genuine communication over rigid agendas establishes stronger relationships and fosters customer loyalty.

In my early career as a Quality Manager, my customer interaction was limited to reacting to formal complaints. Once I understood the opportunity for proactive and informal interactions, I was able to work with them on issues before they became formal problems. The opportunity for informal interaction gets ahead of formality. Using the opportunity for interaction builds positive relationships with customers and fosters loyalty, leading to repeat business and reduced customer churn. Loyal customers are more likely to recommend the business to others.

Our End-Users: Acknowledge the impact of every interaction with end-users on our brand reputation. We recognize that positive interactions create a favorable perception of our company, so find opportunities for those positive interactions: word-brand image.
Our Colleagues and Partners: Cultivating fruitful collaborations and partnerships is pivotal to expanding our business’s reach and seizing new opportunities. Engaging with fellow professionals, stakeholders, and our partners ensures that we harness their insights to drive innovation and build enduring relationships.

Transformative Outcomes:

Proactivity with Customers: Move beyond mere complaint resolution. Taking the opportunity for proactive and informal interactions will empower you to address issues before they escalate into formal complaints. Capitalizing on this opportunity creates a foundation of trust and customer loyalty.
Building Business Loyalty: Utilizing every interaction to build positive relationships not only results in repeat business but also earns us customer advocacy as loyal patrons recommend our services to others.
High-Performance Teams: Interaction builds relationships and relationships are the heart of high-performance teams. Those relationships build trust, and that trust will bring honesty which is essential as the foundation of high-performance teams and business excellence. It is always people plus process that equals performance.

Conclusion:

Embracing the opportunities brought about by planned positive interactions is a transformative approach that influences every aspect of our business. From enriching employee morale and strengthening brand reputation to fostering loyalty and driving overall business growth, but it is a strategy that must be prioritized. By consciously allocating time for targeted interactions, we seize the opportunities these engagements bring, unlocking the full potential of our business.

Take the first step today and carve out the time in your calendar to plan opportunities for interactions that will maximize the potential for your business.