Transcript: The 5-Minute Manpower Check That Saves Projects

BRUCE: Quick Detour — I'm Bruce Gagnon, this is Chaos to Clarity, and today I've got one framework for you. Five minutes. That's all it takes.

[00:01:30]

BRUCE: The 5-minute manpower check. Here's how it works. Every Monday morning — before your first meeting, before your first email — pull up two things: your labor plan for the week and your three-week lookahead. Put them side by side. Now ask three questions. One: are the trades on site this week the trades that should be on site this week per the lookahead? Two: do the headcounts match the production rates you need? Three: is there any work starting this week that wasn't on last week's lookahead?

[00:06:00]

BRUCE: Let me walk you through a real example. Mechanical sub, hospital project. Monday morning check — they've got 12 pipefitters on site. Lookahead says they need 18 for the overhead rough-in that's supposed to start Wednesday. That's a six-person gap with 48 hours to close it. Without the check, they don't catch that until Wednesday morning when the foreman calls in saying he doesn't have enough bodies. By then it's a fire drill.

[00:10:00]

BRUCE: Run this check every Monday. Five minutes. It catches 80% of the labor misalignment problems before they become schedule problems. That's the detour. Take the Chaos Audit at chaosaudit.com. See you next time.