Peer Coaching Groups for Construction Field Professionals
Peer Coaching Groups are made up of four to twelve people who meet online monthly to learn and hone their leadership skills. RisingTerrain offers Peer Coaching Groups to construction field professionals, providing them with a working understanding lean construction practices, and how to coach those practices to others on their project sites.
The Groups provide a way for superintendents, foremen, project managers, and project engineers to learn lean construction skills when they are unable to bring outside lean coaching onsite. Group members learn from an experienced lean coach and from each other during and between the monthly calls. They reinforce this learning by coaching lean skills to people on their project teams.
How It Works
The Groups of four to twelve people meet monthly, along with an experienced coach, for 90 minutes. Between work sessions each Group Member works to develop a specific skill addressing an area of concern on their project.
- After a Group check-in, Members receive a brief presentation related to a lean construction skill. The specific skill is based on the interests of the Members. After the presentation members break into small groups of two to three to discuss how that skill can be applied on their project.
- Next, each Member discusses a concern on their project they wish to address. This may be a problem challenging the team, or an improvement the Member wants to make. Back in small groups Members dive deeper into their concerns. In the small group Members make commitments to check in with each other on progress at least twice between monthly Group sessions.
- At the end of the monthly session each person reviews the concern they are addressing and the steps they are taking to test how to best tackle that concern. Members use a structured coaching practice for this work.
- Between meetings Members are encouraged to coach skills to people working on their project. They will have access to the RisingTerrain coach throughout the month to support their progress.
How to Decide if a Peer Coaching Group is For You
Participation in a lean construction peer coaching group represents a low-cost way to bring lean construction capabilities into a construction company. Most clients budget that investment as a portion of the project size. For projects, we see clients allocate 0.1% to 0.5% of project value for lean coaching. Where they fall in this range depends upon their existing level of lean skill proficiency and the size of the project. For this reason, companies specializing in smaller projects are unable to afford traditional project-based lean construction coaching. Joining a peer coaching group is an approach that allows one or more field professionals to bring lean construction practices onto their project.
Other considerations for joining a lean construction peer learning circle.
- Is there a positive return on the investment? Returns are both financial and in terms of the quality of the completed building. In addition to the quality of the coach, the commitment of the people joining the coaching group to integrating what they learn into their work is an important assessment to make.
- Are members of the peer coaching group able to pull the content of the lean learning from the group coaches? There are many lean practices that support excellent work, and they cannot all be adopted at once. Appropriately advised, members can take ownership of their development and focus on those specific topics that will be most beneficial.
- Will members of the peer coaching group be willing to coach each other? Members should be willing to support and be supported by one or two other members of the group. Peer coaching is an excellent way to build lean capabilities and promote a continuous improvement mindset.
- Does the peer coaching group focus on both the social and technical skill aspects of lean and collaborative work? Lean skills are fundamentally social constructs for communicating information for the purpose of coordinating efficient workflow. These skills are both social and technical in nature. The work of the group needs to reflect this reality rather than focus solely on technical capabilities.
When PC Construction began our Lean journey one of our first steps was to find a Lean coach. Tom Richert quickly became our primary coach. Tom did an extraordinary job working with our executive management, bringing a deeper level of understanding of Lean principles, and helping us develop our Lean strategy. Since then Tom has provided coaching services to implement the Last Planner System on a number of projects. One project in particular became a shining example of how Lean and the Last Planner System can improve project outcomes and create a truly collaborative, lower stress, team environment. The project manager and superintendent from that project became PC’s first internal Lean coaches.Tom helped take PC Construction from ground zero with Lean to standing on our own two feet as we continue our Lean journey. I highly recommend him.
Chris Moran
Manager of Lean Construction PC Construction
Peer Coaching Group Membership Fees
Annual Commitment: Dues paid annually are $2,400 ($200 per month). People working for contractors with annual revenue below $20 million receive a free enterprise subscription to RefinemySite, a lean construction collaboration application. Existing RefinemySite customers pay $1,920 ($160 per month).
Six Month Commitment: Dues paid twice annually are $1,500 ($250 per month). Existing RefinemySite customers pay $1,200 ($200 per month).