3 . Kanban…in architecture?

I was visiting Florence with my family and my parents, taking them for a few days away from the busy life of Rome. It was an opportunity to enjoy time together, bond, and share stories.

While we were up on the dome, my parents waited downstairs, in the comfort of a small open-air table outside of a coffee shop. When we finally came back to base, everyone was hungry. So we ventured in the small side streets of the city, and found a small restaurant that reminded us of the comfort smells of good pasta and red meat. And after a few appetizers and a glass of red wine, I asked my dad “How is work?”

My father runs an architecture firm in Rome. He and my Mom co-founded it more than thirty years ago and, over the years, grew it to one of the most respected in Rome. He employs several people, including my younger brother, who over time has taken more and more responsibilities to manage the company and the day-to-day execution of the work. With growth came the headaches of managing complexity and losing visibility into everything that goes on.

You see, my father is not one to easily complain about problems or gossip about other people. He has a positive attitude towards life, looking for the good in everyone and in every situation. So when he replied “Not so well. I’m really struggling to keep up with everything that’s going on”, I knew that the red wine had won over his natural resistance to be completely honest, and what he was about to share came from a pain point.

Projects in architecture have a long-life cycle. Customer desires, ideas, and requirements get transformed into preliminary designs, and then into detailed blueprints. Permits must be acquired before any work can begin. And depending on the location and the specific construction, there may be additional constraints that require multiple requests to other institutions responsible for preserving the environment and the artistic heritage, or ensuring compliance with safety laws.

For large projects, approvals may be requested in phases, and often blueprints get updated between phases as changes and new ideas surface from the work already underway. Whenever a blueprint is updated, requests for permits need to start over. And any delay in permits may create stress and strains with the construction company or with the customers.

Managing the workflow for a project is already a complex job. But when the firm works on multiple projects at the same time – which is normal for a firm this size – keeping up with everything that’s going on, where each project is, and what needs to be done next, is daunting. That’s what my father was explaining to me over lunch that day in Florence.

“And, above all that, with multiple people managing their own piece of the work, I am really struggling to see the big picture, to know the status of each project, and to know who is doing what. I get really frustrated, ending up working more than I should, or picking up on your brother even if it’s not his fault.” – he concluded. We drank a sip of wine to let the thoughts sink.

I told him, “Dad, I think I can help. We should create a Kanban board to generate transparency on all your projects, and on the flow of work.”

He had no idea what Kanban was, but he has always been curious to learn more about new things. After a brief explanation, he said, “OK, let’s try it when we get back to the office.”

Setting up the Kanban

Back in Rome, my father and my brother asked me to explain Kanban in greater detail. We were meeting in their office, in a small conference room typically used for management meetings. I only had a couple of days remaining in my vacation in Italy before returning to the US, and wanted at least to help them understand how to get started.

“Kanban is used to visualize and manage the flow of work. It allows you to know where each project is at each moment in time, and how many projects or tasks you have open. It also provides you actionable information to decide where to focus your efforts so that you can move a specific project forward. It starts with visualizing your workflow.” – I explained

“How do we do this?” – my father asked

“Let’s start with visualizing the steps it takes for work to be completed. Let’s take a few blank cards and see if we can start putting something together quickly. You may need to revisit and expand this later, but it’s good to start from something practical.”

During the next fifteen minutes we jotted down on cards the steps of a typical project. From meeting with the customer to defining the initial requirements, to creating an initial draft of the design, getting the contract signed, designing the blueprints, getting the permits, and the various stages of construction.

When we listed all the steps, we realized that there were at least fifteen steps and possibly more. Each step had a different timeline, for example the initial meeting with the customer could be done within a few days, whereas some of the more complex permits required months.

I continued, “I want to create a list of all possible steps a project may go through. It doesn’t mean that all projects go through all the steps – in fact, some may skip a few when the steps don’t apply to them. We can even add some description to each step to know what type of projects belong to each step.”

We also spoke about policies, “How do you know when the work in any given step is completed? For example, how do you know when the contract phase is completed?” – I asked

“Well, that’s easy: it’s when the customer signs the contract!” – replied my brother with a chuckle

“Great. That’s a clear policy. For each project that is in that phase, we can check for the contract signing and when that happens, we know the project can move forward to the next phase. What about the permit phase?”

“That’s more complex. It depends on what type of permit we are talking about. Some permits are straightforward. Not that they are fast – everything needs time. But all we need to do is present the blueprints, make the request, and then wait. At some point they get approved. For some kinds of projects, we may need other permits, and these may require going from one office to another, or even to different institutions. These are way more complicated, and sometimes they never get approved. After waiting months, we may need to go back to the drawing board, and start the process again.” – continued my brother.