If your team is using the Last Planner^® System fully you are familiar with the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. In addition to the periodic phase planning the team is engaging in make ready and work planning every week. Based on that planning the team launches into the doing of the work creating value for the project and themselves.

The daily check-in coordination meeting, referred to many as the daily huddle, is the check part of the cycle, identifying plan failures. During that meeting and afterward the team acts to make adjustments based on what plan failures, and successes, have taught them.

Is your team also periodically checking its progress in using the Last Planner System? It can take several years for people to learn how to get the most from Last Planner. And even after several years the learning won’t stop.

One method of checking a team’s progress in learning how to use the Last Planner is a regular maturity assessment. The maturity assessment is a team review of how well the team is executing the various parts of the system. For most assessments the team evaluates its performance by answering a series of questions for each part. Many assessments also provide an opportunity to evaluate the team’s performance against benchmarks. One set of benchmarks some teams use includes standards that range from Beginning to Best in Class.

The most crucial aspect of the maturity assessment is determining what actions the team will take based on what they learned from the exercise. It’s important to determine which skills people on the team need to develop to improve overall project performance. A Last Planner implementation, like everything else when in the Lean mode of thinking, is never complete. There is always more to do to get better, and make the work better for all involved.