Many companies say they want innovation, but their structure says otherwise. If decisions only flow from the top down, the best ideas never make it to the surface. As Steve Jobs put it: “You have to be run by ideas, not hierarchy. The best ideas have to win.” Watch this clip where Steve Jobs explains why great companies prioritize ideas…
Team Building
BIM sits at an interesting crossroads. It demands accuracy, structure, and process, but it also thrives on innovation and problem-solving. The industry leans heavily on outcome-driven people—those who can follow workflows, meet deadlines, and deliver predictable results. But here’s the problem, without creative minds, BIM stagnates. Watch this discussion on how businesses need creative minds but often push them aside…
Think success at work is about experience, resources, or raw talent? Think again. The biggest predictor of team success is psychological safety—the ability to speak up, admit mistakes, and share ideas without fear of embarrassment, punishment, or exclusion. Watch this Instagram reel on why psychological safety matters more than anything else for high-performing teams. Why Psychological Safety Matters Better Performance,…
I’ve watched the engineering industry glorify speed over sense for years. We praise people who respond to emails at midnight. We celebrate those who jump from meeting to meeting without breaks. We reward constant availability over actual output. Let’s call this what it is. Broken. I recently came across an article on Nature.com that introduced me to slow productivity. This…
Recent articles claim people are less productive when working from home. From my experience, this is far from true. But it’s not just my observations. Stanford University found a 5% productivity increase during remote work, and the University of Sydney reported similar findings. Another benefit of working from home is that the average worker saves four hours weekly by not…
The Australian construction industry faces a significant challenge: a shortage of skilled workers. This issue is driven by an ageing workforce and the ongoing struggle to attract and retain talent. To address this problem, companies, governments, and educational institutions must work together. Effective Planning, Development and Partnerships Aligning HR with business strategy is important for identifying and attracting skilled workers….
In my previous posts, we explored the challenges faced by engineering teams working with offshore design support offices and how lean principles can help streamline workflows. This week, we’ll look at specific lean solutions we implemented that can transform engineering workflows and achieve better outcomes. Streamlining Information Flow One major issue identified was the disorganised flow of information, leading to…
In my recent post “Lean Management in Design and Construction“, I provided an overview of how lean principles, originating from the Toyota Production System, can drive significant efficiency and performance improvements in the workplace. This week, I want to look into a specific application – optimising workflows between a local engineering team and their offshore design support office. The team…
The first subject I studied as part of my Masters was lean management. I had only ever heard about lean management in a negative context, whenever I had heard people speak about it, they were talking about companies cutting staff to the point teams had to work steady overtime to keep up. So I was quite curious as to what…
Have you ever wondered why projects consistently take longer than originally planned? I touched on the topic in my Master’s dissertation and found that the answer may lie in a cognitive bias known as the planning fallacy, and I recently stumbled upon a fantastic article by Dave Stewart, “The work is never just ‘the work’” where he discusses his personal…