Make-Ready Planning and Constraint Logs

Make-ready planning is the work of getting tasks ready to start before their start date arrives. The constraint log is where you keep track of it. Together they're the least glamorous part of lean planning and the part that does the most good: most weekly plan failures trace back to a constraint someone could have seen coming. This post covers how to screen for constraints, what a usable constraint log looks like, and how to keep it alive past week three.

What a constraint is

A constraint is anything, other than the crew's own work, that has to be true before a task can start and finish as planned. The usual suspects:

• Information. RFI answered, submittal approved, shop drawings released, design change issued.
• Materials. Ordered, fabricated, delivered, accepted, staged where the crew needs it.
• Prerequisite work. The previous trade finished, the area cleaned, the inspection passed.
• Labor. The right crew size, with the right certifications, available that week.
• Equipment. Crane, hoist, lifts, scaffold, or specialty tools booked.
• Space. The area is accessible and not occupied by another trade or stored material.
• Approvals and external parties. Permits, utility shutdowns, owner decisions, AHJ or third-party inspections, neighbor notifications.
• Safety. Required plans, permits, or protection in place: hot work permits, fall protection, excavation shoring, crane lift plans.

Note the difference from a schedule constraint in the CPM sense (a "start no earlier than" date). A lean constraint is a condition, not a date imposed on the logic. If you're looking for the CPM kind, see schedule constraints.

Screening the lookahead

Each week, take every task in the three-week lookahead that isn't yet marked ready, and ask the responsible foreman: what has to happen before you can start this? Go through the categories above out loud. People forget equipment and space; they rarely forget materials.

For each constraint found, record it in the log with an owner and a date it needs to be cleared by. The "need-by" date is the task's planned start minus whatever lead time the constraint needs.

A short worked example. A curtain wall installer is planned to start unitized panels on the north elevation in week 9.

Task: Install curtain wall units, north elevation L2-L4
Planned start: Monday, week 9

Constraint                          Lead time      Need-by
Embed survey complete, accepted     1 week         Monday, week 8
Units delivered and staged          2 weeks fab    Ship by end of week 8
                                    confirmation   Fab release confirmed week 6
Crane or hoist time booked          1 week notice  Book by Monday, week 8
North sidewalk closure permit       10 workdays    Apply by Monday, week 7
Swing stage or lift on site         3 days         Order by mid week 8
Anchor clip submittal approved      Already done   Cleared

If you first screen this task when it enters the three-week window in week 6, the fabrication confirmation is due that same week and the permit application the next. Leave either one for a week and the start date is gone. That's how most surprises happen. A three-week lookahead isn't long enough to catch everything. Keep a short list of long-lead constraints from the master schedule and scan it every week, separate from the three-week screen.

The constraint log

The log is a list, one row per constraint, kept current every week. Keep it simple enough that the people who own constraints will look at it.

The fields that matter most:

• Owner. One person, by name. Not a company, not "design team." If the constraint sits with the architect, the owner on the log is whoever on your team is chasing the architect.
• Need-by. The date it has to be cleared to protect the task's start. Not the date someone hopes to get to it.
• Status. Open, in progress, cleared. Some teams add "at risk" for anything within a week of its need-by and still open.

Things to leave out: long narrative histories, multiple owners, and status colors that nobody agrees on. Notes should be one line.

Running the log every week

The constraint review fits into the weekly coordination meeting, right after the lookahead review. A workable rhythm:

1. Go through every open constraint with a need-by date in the next two weeks. Owner reports: cleared, on track, or at risk.
2. For anything at risk, decide now: escalate, resequence the task, or accept that it moves. Don't leave it at "we'll see."
3. Add new constraints found while screening the lookahead.
4. Close cleared constraints. Mark the affected task ready if all its constraints are clear.

Only tasks with every constraint cleared should go into the weekly work plan as commitments. That's the link between make-ready and reliability: if foremen only commit to ready work, Percent Plan Complete goes up because the plan stops promising work that was never possible.

Escalation

Some constraints can't be cleared by the person who owns them. An owner decision on a finish selection, a utility company's shutdown date, an architect who isn't answering an RFI. The log should make those visible to the people who can push.

A simple rule: any constraint that's open, at risk, and on a critical or near-critical task gets raised at the PM level that same week. If it affects a contract milestone, it may also need to go in writing to the owner. Check your contract's notice requirements; delay notices covers what to include. Contracts vary, so read yours.

Keeping it alive

Constraint logs die in a predictable way. They start strong, accumulate rows, nobody closes the cleared ones, and by week six the log is 200 lines long and nobody opens it. To avoid that:

• Close things. A cleared constraint should be marked cleared in the meeting, not later.
• Review only the near term in the meeting. Look at the next two to three weeks of need-by dates. Leave the rest for the owners to manage.
• One log. Not one per trade, not one per meeting. Everyone looks at the same list.
• Tie rows to tasks. Every constraint should name the task it blocks. A constraint that blocks nothing is a to-do item and belongs somewhere else.
• Use it to find patterns. If half the open constraints are submittals from one sub, that's a conversation with that sub.

Whatever you keep the log in, it helps when constraints attach directly to activities, so a blocked task is visibly blocked in the lookahead. schedule.construction's lookahead and activity comments can carry this, but a well-run spreadsheet is fine.

Key takeaways

• A constraint is any condition outside the crew's own work that has to be true for the task to start. Screen for all categories, not just materials.
• Record each constraint with one named owner and a need-by date: task start minus lead time.
• Long-lead constraints won't show up in a three-week screen. Keep a separate list and check it weekly.
• Only commit to work whose constraints are all cleared. That's what makes weekly plans reliable.
• Close cleared items in the meeting, review only the near term, and keep one shared log.