A forum for claims of rigidity

The planning process concerned which activities to execute in the subsequent week, is according to the LPS proposals to be based on soundness. This means that the activities that are sound according to the seven LPS prerequisites are to be planned and executed. In the construction project, the planning process though assumed a different identity, and the planning process became more of a forum of claiming rigidity than planning for sound activities. When proposals of which activities to execute in the following week were brought to the fore, they were seldom brought forward on the basis of the LPS propositions of soundness. Quite on the contrary they were brought to the fore on the basis of personal preferences. There were always multiple activities per trade on hand ready to be executed, and this situation had made the foremen prioritise activities that were most attractive to their own contracts. This often led to conflicts between the trades making the control of the production process difficult for the project managers:

Bricklayer: It is very important that as soon as the plumber has finished his activity you wire the rooms immediately thereafter.

Electrician: Well, I may not always do that.

135 Bricklayer: It is very important.

Electrician: But I cannot always promise that. Not if I am in the middle of installing a switchboard, for example.

Bricklayer: But why are we sitting here then?

Electrician: I don’t know, but I can’t jump from there if I am in the middle of a switchboard.

Daily project manager: Come on, it is a complete waste of time to have these meetings, if….

Electrian: Yes, yes, but it is not of any help when he is right behind me continually asking when he can take over. Then I would have to stand there wasting time waiting for him, when I instead could have installed a switchboard.

Daily project manager: No, you are not supposed to stand idle.

Electrician: No, that is what I mean. That is why I jump between activities all the time. I am not starting something up, in order to leave later because something is differently prioritised by others.

(file 34, p. 9)

The example demonstrated that the foremen prioritised according to calculations of time and resources and not by calculations of soundness. This method of prioritising became a battle of claiming rigidity. The trade that could bring the most powerful argument to the table concerning which activities to execute and when would achieve the most favourable position. A trade could optimize its own resources by arguing that the other trades’ activities had to be arranged flexibly in order to ease the execution of the trades own activities. Consequently claiming rigidity brought advantages. The trades who demonstrated the most powerful arguments that specifically their assignments had to order the hows and whens of the execution of the other trades’ assignments, could control the planning process without giving up priorities. The above excerpt demonstrated this point, and the point is further illustrated below:

Daily project manager: Then we have the apartment numbers 91, 93, 95, right?

Bricklayer: Those are ready to mount at 9/11.

Daily project manager: When is that?

136 Bricklayer: But that is today, isn’t it?

Daily project manager: Damn, yes it is. When do you take over then, plumber?

Plumber: We have taken up to number 89.

Bricklayer: It is more important that we can progress, so that we do not sit here and promise too much of anything else. If we can postpone mounting activities, you know J. (daily project manager red.), that would be better.

Electrician: No!

Bricklayer: Will you please read this note!

Electrician: Eight bathrooms a week – that is our agreement!

Daily project manager: Yes, we cannot do it like that, H. (bricklayer red.)…

Bricklayer: But we really have to work fast, everybody.

Daily project manager: Yes, we definitely do.

Bricklayer: What I mean is, if I can say something, can I?

Daily project manager: Yes, of course.

Bricklayer: Yes, we are sitting here planning stuff, and then I have noticed something, and correct me if I am wrong. When we mount, we are doing this and that, but it should not obstruct me in the repair I am doing afterwards. That is what we are to optimise somehow, right?

Daily project manager: Right.

Bricklayer: Well, that was all I was trying to say.

Daily project manager: Yes, but isn’t it how we agreed from the beginning how to do it. That two rooms were to be ready for the electrician and the plumber?

Bricklayer: Alright.

Daily project manager: But what is the situation at the moment?

Electrician: Well, I have two today.

Bricklayer: Can I add to this…

Daily project manager: We have to close it down now, before we start something new.

Bricklayer: Ok, I understand, otherwise it gets too confusing.

137 (file 41, p. 3)

In the above example, the battle for rigidity between the two trades ended to the advantage of the electrician. Episodes of claiming rigidity repeatedly returned throughout the weekly meetings that were held during the renovation project. Rigidity, the antithesis of flexibility proposed in the LPS, therefore came to dominate the planning process.

This novel feature of the weekly meeting (claiming rigidity) was an addition to its functionality of planning and control. The trades knew that they had to be present at the meetings in order to be able to claim rigidity, making presence at the meetings mandatory:

Interviewer: But do you actually think these weekly meetings are important?

Electrician: Yes, definitely.

Interviewer: Why?

Electrician: Well, it would be easy to continue one’s work without attending the meetings, this we have done in so many other projects. The problem about staying away from these meetings is that you will get passed over.

Interviewer: What do you mean?

Electrician: I mean that things get planned over your head. This damages your own flow.

(Electrician interview)

This identity strengthened the weekly LPS meetings as a recurring event in the renovation project.

Claims of rigidity made the LPS meetings almost mandatory to the participants. The identity of the LPS meetings to be a forum for claims of rigidity is argued to be an additional identity, since it is not discussed in literature as related to the LPS. It did, though form part of what the LPS meetings

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became in the construction project, and it strengthened the relevance of the LPS meetings to the participants in general. The addition of this identity affords a discussion of the fluid essence of the LPS. Only the mere existence of the weekly LPS meetings, a fractional part of the control system, was conditional for this identity to be played out. In the next sections, the argument that additional identities strengthened the existence of the LPS at the construction project will be supported by the illustration of three additional identities. Whereas the mere existence of LPS meetings became the essence of LPS in episodes a claiming rigidity, other elements in the LPS constituted additional identities in the LPS. Among these was the Look-Ahead Plan that came to represent skilled management. This is discussed in the following section.