Today’s Overview
Two numbers that have bothered me for four years
A message from a reader that I've never been able to put down
Introducing Atomic Building Group, and the mission to eradicate construction poverty.
☢️ The problem I couldn't stop thinking about
Filed under: Construction, Project Management
Four years ago I started writing this newsletter on a Sunday night with no plan and no audience. The first issue went to a few dozen people, most of them friends who felt obligated to open it.
Today it goes to more than 8,800 of you.
I still don't fully understand how that happened, and I've never stopped being grateful for it. Today I want to tell you what it turned into.
Two numbers I can't get past
98% of megaprojects finish over budget or behind schedule.
Our industry wastes $1.6 trillion every year.
Concrete doesn’t overrun a budget. Steel doesn’t miss a milestone. Schedules slip because the work gets planned by people who aren’t doing it, and because nobody removes the constraints sitting in front of the crew.
I have a name for what that produces. Construction poverty.
It’s the epidemic of failed projects, wasted resources, and underneath both, it’s the human cost:
The 65-hour weeks that everybody treats as normal
The PM who looks at 4 hours of work starting at 4PM
The sharp 30-year-old who leaves the industry entirely, because nobody ever handed him a system, only more responsibility
We're supposed to double the world's building floor area by 2060. We're going to do that with the people we have right now. And right now we're burning them.
A message from a reader
A while back, a reader wrote me this:
“The company I work for lacks in training and procedures. Your work is helping me become a better PM and bridge the gap that I am missing due to the lack of formal training.”
I’ve read that email more times than I want to admit, and I’ve read a dozen more just like it.
This is from someone who works hard. He got handed responsibility without a system to carry it with. That’s the whole thing in three sentences, and he isn’t the exception.
Most of us learned this job by watching someone slightly less lost than we were. Then we got the title, and the phone started ringing at 6am, and we called that leadership.
I did exactly that for years. I was a project witness with a good attitude and a full calendar.
What four years of writing taught me
I started this newsletter in 2022 with one rule: give away the best ideas free.
180 issues later, roughly 327,000 words, and that rule hasn't changed.
But something kept happening in my inbox. Someone reads the piece on the Last Planner System. They love it. They tell me it’s the clearest explanation they’ve found anywhere.
Six weeks later, nothing is on the wall.
The idea landed. The implementation didn’t. And I finally accepted that a great essay on Tuesday morning has a ceiling, because reading about a system and running one are separated by about forty hours of work that nobody has time to figure out alone.
Closing that gap is the reason for everything below.
Introducing Atomic Building Group
Today I’m putting everything I’ve built under one roof at atomicbuildinggroup.com, the media, training, and software company creating positive ripple effects across every sector of the built environment.
An atom is the smallest unit you can't break down any further, and the bonds holding it together carry enormous energy. Small, fast, precise, and capable of a reaction far bigger than its size. That's how the best construction teams I've ever worked with operate. An atom is also a building block, which makes it a fitting name for a Building Group.
One mission: eradicate construction poverty.
Six principles of ABG
Agility. Adapt fast by betting on people, constant learning, and small steps. Fast feedback beats a rigid plan the moment conditions shift.
Discipline. We plan the work and we work the plan. One important task at a time, no context switching, no drifting off the system when the day gets loud.
Leverage. More output, less effort, through tools, process, and software. Same leg power, lower gear, steeper hill.
Production. Lean, the Last Planner System, and Project Production Management baked into the tools and the people. Flow over schedule, throughput over busyness, and a plan the crews actually believe.
Leadership. Service to others. Respect people. As AI absorbs the admin, judgment and character become the whole edge.
Profitable. Plan well, build fast, waste nothing. Every system here aims at the same end: optimal time, maximum profit.
01. Free resources
The Influential Project Manager. Where you already are. One project leadership idea, every week, read by 8,800+ builders including operators at Turner, DPR, Gilbane, JE Dunn, AECOM, and Mortenson. Free, and staying that way. → Read the archive
The Atomic Toolbox. For when you’re evaluating software and every vendor page reads the same. 32 tools across 9 categories, the ones I actually use, with what each is genuinely good for. Free. → Open the Toolbox
The Antifragility Assessment. For when you know you have a weak spot and can’t quite name it. 35 questions scored across the 7 Archetypes, with a reading path for your lowest score. Takes 5 minutes. Free. → Take the assessment
02. Programs and courses
Each course runs one lesson a day, about 10 minutes to read and 30 to apply and practice on-the-job. That structure is by design. A course you binge on a Saturday gets admired. A bite-sized lesson a day gets implemented.
Every one includes monthly group office hours with me.
1. Last Planner System® Jumpstart
For when your CPM schedule says the wall goes up next week, and your foreman knows three things have to happen first.
Thirty days, and you finish with a full rollout:
20 daily lessons plus 3 checkpoint days
20 worksheets, each ending in a written commitment
5 live Excel workbooks (look-ahead and make-ready, weekly work plan, constraint log, PPC and variance dashboard, trade partner prep kit)
1 Miro pull plan board template, with a worked example
8 AI prompts, including the constraint scrubber and the 5 Whys partner
A 5-piece rollout pack: team kickoff email, trade partner buy-in message, huddle script card, 30-day one-pager, and a go-live checklist
First pull plan board on the wall in week 1. Your first two PPC readings measured by day 30. → Enroll
2. Getting Started with Takt Planning
For when your three-week look-ahead has 40 activities on it and nobody can tell you which crew is standing where on Thursday.
14 daily lessons and 14 worksheets
1 Excel takt plan template, 5 tabs, with live takt math and a filled worked example
The AI Takt Planning Assistant, an installable tool that drafts your first plan in about 20 minutes on day 2
Day 2 you get a draft. Days 3 through 12 you rebuild every zone, wagon, and buffer by hand, so you own the math. Day 13 you prove it against your contract dates. Day 14 you sell it to the room. → Enroll
3. High-Impact Communication and Presentations
For when you sent the email, said it in the meeting, and two weeks later the owner asks the same question.
24 daily lessons across 6 modules, 24 worksheets, 6 knowledge checks
8 Excel workbooks, including the message structure builder, hard questions prep sheet, the 4-bullet update, and the DiSC style map
13 AI prompts, including the hard question war-game and the meeting minutes engine
5 rehearsal exercises and 4 meeting agendas
A scored assessment you take on day 1 and retake on day 24, side by side
You leave holding your own Communication Playbook. → Enroll
4. Time Management for Project Leaders
For when it’s 4pm and the work you were actually hired to do hasn’t started.
14 daily lessons and 14 worksheets
2 checkpoint reviews, end of week 1 and week 2
4 Excel tools (4D time tracking, time blocking, Eisenhower matrix, focus funnel)
5 AI prompts, including the time audit and the automation builder
By week 2 you have an hours-back ledger with a real number in it. → Enroll
5. Antifragile Project Management (application required)
For when you’re the bottleneck on every decision and you know it.
This is our flagship leadership program:
9 structured sprints, one system at a time, built around your live project
A coaching call with me every week, where I look at your ProjectOS, your board, and your actual challenges
ProjectOS included and deployed on your real job
Pre and post Antifragility Score
The Certified Antifragile Project Manager credential
Most members finish in 4 to 6 months. Application and an active project required, reviewed as they come in. → Apply Here
03. Software we build and ship
1. ProjectOS
For when your project lives across 11 spreadsheets, 3 email threads, and your own memory.
The Notion operating system that runs my portfolio. 13 connected systems in one workspace: the dashboard, vision organizer, accountability chart, planning pulse, project controls, scorecard, contract playbook and buyout log, people and leadership hub, risk and opportunity register, roadblock log, project review hub, core processes library, and SOP tracker.
Plus built-in AI agents for change order review, scope writing, meeting notes, and reporting. Unlimited projects, lifetime access, training Looms included. 113+ project managers are running it now. 30-day money-back guarantee. → Get ProjectOS
2. PaprTrail
For when a verbal directive on Level 3 turns into a $2M argument eleven months later, and nobody wrote it down.
PaprTrail reads the correspondence your team already writes, email, RFIs, minutes, daily reports, and flags the events that carry contractual weight. It maps each one to the notice provisions in your contract, counts down the clock, and drafts the notice for your review.
Claims get won on the record you built while the job was running. → Get access
🔨 Come build with us
Atomic Building Group is built to be an open platform. It’s a decentralized network of brands, tools, and people, each keeping its own name and its own leadership while drawing on the resources of the group. PaprTrail is the first of those. It won’t be the last.
If you're building something the industry needs, a tool, a course, software, a body of work, and it serves the mission, I want to hear about it. We can give you distribution to 8,800+ builders, the systems behind it, and people who will tell you the truth about your product.
The gate is the mission, not the size of what you’ve built.
Reach out: kylenitchen@gmail.com. Put “build with us” in the subject line and tell me what you’re working on.
I appreciate you.
Until next week,
Kyle Nitchen
P.S. My book No Bullsh*t Project is on Amazon. It’s the philosophy underneath everything above.
Ready to level up? Here are 4 ways I can help you:
Get ProjectOS. The AI-powered Notion project operating system running my $500M+ portfolio. Sprints, dashboards, roadblocks, meetings, and daily logs in one place. Install it in a weekend.
Install the Last Planner System in 30 days. Twenty lessons, one a day, run on your live job. Pull plan board on the wall in week 1. Your first two PPC readings measured by day 30.
Join Antifragile Project Management. Leadership development course and community built on the 7 Archetypes Framework. Transform from project witness to project leader. Earn promotions and reach senior leadership levels.
Promote Your Business. Get your brand in front of 8,800+ highly engaged construction leaders and decision-makers with a 51% open rate.