One Board, and Nobody Has to Call You

The problem in one breath

It's four in the afternoon and the phone has gone off eleven times: a foreman asking where he's at in the morning, the office asking if Thursday is still Thursday, a homeowner somebody told "next week." You are the schedule, and nobody else can read it.

Why it happens

Nobody decided it would work this way. The schedule started as three jobs you could hold in your head, and it never got written down — you always knew the answer. Then it grew. Now every question comes to you, because you're the only place the answer lives, and a text answer is buried twenty minutes later. That isn't a memory problem. It's a missing board.

The play

Call it the ten-day board. One board, one place, ten days out, one hand that writes on it.

1. Hang it where the whole shop can see it. Crews down the side, the next ten days across the top, big enough to read standing up. Now your office manager can answer a homeowner, and a foreman can answer himself. That's the point: the board answers them, not you.
2. Ten days out. Not the season. Past ten days you're guessing at weather, at material, and at how the job ahead goes. That's a plan, not a schedule, and it belongs on the booked-out sheet (Module 14, Play 5). A board drawn three months out is wrong inside a week, and men who catch it lying quit trusting the near days too.
3. One hand writes on it. One name owns the board and is the only one who changes it; everybody else asks that name. Put it on the authority sheet (Module 1, Play 5) with what that person can move without asking you — start with anything inside two days. Two hands writing is the same as no board. It's the first piece of the job a man who runs the schedule takes over (Module 1, Play 10).
4. Every job on the board carries five things. Address, crew, start day, the days it takes, and what it's waiting on: nothing, material, approval, or weather. Four codes, no others. One look tells you which jobs are real and when each crew comes free. A job isn't ready because somebody feels good about it; it's ready when the roll list clears it (Module 14, Play 2).
5. Set tomorrow at four-thirty every afternoon, then send the picture. Never move the hour. It's late enough that the day told you the truth, early enough to fix it, and half an hour behind the roll list, so what failed at four is already moved. The one hand sets tomorrow, shoots it, sends it to every foreman, and the night-before message is built off that photo.
6. The huddle reads the board. It doesn't build it. (Module 5, Play 1) Decide tomorrow at the huddle and you've moved the argument to the worst hour of the day — trucks loaded, six men standing, a homeowner waiting.
7. When something moves, move the board first, then the people. Change the wall, then call the foreman, then the homeowner. Backwards and you've got two schedules — the live one in your head, the dead one on the wall — and everybody goes back to texting you. The move you'll make most is the job that won't finish: the crew stays, its box grows a day, tomorrow's slides. All of it on the wall by four-thirty, then the office calls the homeowner whose start just went.

Do this this week

Clear a whiteboard, draw the grid, and fill in the next ten days off your phone. Send the crews a photo of it at four-thirty today. Half an hour, and the calls start dropping tomorrow.

The tool

The printable ten-day board is for the truck, the second yard, and the man without a wall. The real answer is still a whiteboard on the office wall — nothing beats something the whole shop can see and change. One sheet is one board with the wall flipped: crews across the top, ten days down the side, so it fits a page. Each box takes the address and one waiting-on code; a three-day job fills three boxes down. Print a fresh sheet when the days roll; the rules sit at the bottom where the one hand has to read them.

THE TEN-DAY BOARD — ten days out, one hand writes, one photo a day

The one hand (only this name writes on the board): _________________
Photo goes to every foreman at this hour, daily: ______

WAITING ON:   OK = nothing      MAT = material
              APP = approval    WX  = weather

WEEK OF __/__ | CREW: ____________ | CREW: ____________ | CREW: ___________ |
Mon  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Tue  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Wed  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Thu  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Fri  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |

WEEK OF __/__ | CREW: ____________ | CREW: ____________ | CREW: ___________ |
Mon  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Tue  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Wed  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Thu  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |
Fri  __/__    |                    |                    |                   |

Four crews? Print two sheets and hang them side by side — it's still
one board. Running a Saturday? Add the row under Friday.

In every box: house number and street only, then the waiting-on code
(1428 Ridgemont MAT). A job that eats more than a day fills one box a
day — run a line down through them, and the last box is where that
crew comes free.

THE RULES OF THE BOARD
  1. Every job carries five things: address, crew, start day, the days
     it takes, and what it's waiting on.
  2. One hand writes on it. Everybody else asks that name.
  3. Ten days, not the season. Past day ten it's the booked-out sheet.
  4. No job is ready until the roll list clears it.
  5. When it moves: the board first, then the people. In that order.

If your crew is 1099

A sub crew goes on the board as a company and a job, not as men whose day you plan. Write the company, the address, the start day and the days he says it takes. What you hand that company is a date and a scope; who shows up and how his day runs is his call, and it stays his call. Get the day into the job ticket (Module 12, Play 2), so it's a date you both agreed to, not one you posted on your wall.