Sue Klawans
Co-Founder Design and Construction Excellence Exchange
Sue Klawans combines a broad and deep background in planning, design and construction with proven experience and business results as a senior executive and Lean changemaker. She has worked as a CM/GC in the field and as a multi-project executive. She has managed planning, design and construction as an owner’s project manager. Sue is a Lean process improvement strategist and tactician.
Seminars
- Practicing how to run a mock pull plan by assigning trade roles, mapping activities, and working backwards from key milestones
- Comparing different pull planning approaches, from traditional sticky notes to more detailed activity-based and digital workflows
- Improving trade partner engagement by creating more collaborative planning conversations that expose handoffs, constraints, and sequencing issues earlier
Practical Takeaway: Leave with a clearer structure for running pull planning sessions that are more engaging, better aligned with the schedule, and easier for field teams and trade partners to act on
- Breaking down how PXs, PMs, superintendents, schedulers, trade partners, and leadership each contribute to schedule success, using a problem-solving format to clarify responsibilities and decision points
- Simulating a cross-functional pre-schedule meeting where small groups work through a mock project scenario, identify role-based disconnects, and align around the actions needed to protect the project’s success
- Practicing how to surface early schedule risk, escalate warning signs, and drive shared accountability before issues become delays, claims, or field execution breakdowns
Practical Takeaway: Leave with a repeatable meeting structure for clarifying project team roles, aligning GC, trade partner, scheduler, PM, superintendent, and leadership decisions, and turning early schedule risk into clear action before delays escalate
- Questioning whether current scheduling approaches are keeping pace with project complexity, delivery speed, and field execution needs
- Exploring how different planning philosophies can help teams think differently about sequence, flow, reliability, and control
- Discussing how schedulers can choose the right approach for the project rather than relying on one default way of planning
Practical Takeaway: Leave with a clearer understanding of how different scheduling philosophies can be applied, challenged, or combined to improve planning decisions across different project environments
