Kim Swanson: 0:03

Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A. We're taking time to discuss construction materials, testing and inspection with people in the know. From exploring testing problems and solutions to laboratory best practices and quality management, we're covering topics important to you.

Brian Johnson: 0:18

Welcome to AASHTO Resource Q&A. I'm Brian Johnson.

Kim Swanson: 0:22

I'm Kim Swanson and welcome to Season 5, episode 2. We have a very special guest today Brian.

Brian Johnson: 0:30

Yes, it is Robert Lutz, my boss and yours.

Kim Swanson: 0:34

Welcome Bob.

Bob Lutz: 0:36

Good morning, happy to be here.

Kim Swanson: 0:39

So Bob is the director of AASHTO Resource, and we have him on today to talk about something we teased in episode one of season five. But why don't you tell me a little bit more about it, Brian? Because you were part of this whole process too, so do you want to give some brief background, Brian?

Brian Johnson: 0:56

That's right. First of all, if you are seeing this on video, yes, we are wearing the same exact clothes that we were wearing in episode one. Because this is the same exact clothes that we were wearing in episode one, because this is the same day, but we did.

Brian Johnson: 1:08

We did talk and give a little introduction to this episode. We're going to talk about the roadmap resources roadmap, which is a strategic plan, but we're not going to call it that officially because there is a in a pre-existing condition that we're dealing with, called the strategic plan. Uh, that already has been established. So this is kind of a, an offshoot, uh, of the strategic plan that is specifically tailored to AASHTO resource, but it is called a roadmap, so it's not to confuse people.

Kim Swanson: 1:53

Yes, so AASHTO has a general strategic plan. I believe those dates for the is 2024, or is it 2023? What's the 2021. One to 2026. Six Yep, and then this roadmap is 2024 to 2027. And it is just for AASHTO Resource. So, bob, let's dig into it. Why now for this?

Bob Lutz: 2:23

I thought you were going to ask why not? I think part of it has to do with the fact that AASHTO does have a strategic plan that we've talked about for the last couple of years and in looking at it I've really learned a lot of things from it. I've seen that it's been used pretty effectively, but it's, in my opinion, one of the better written ones that I have seen. So I had a conversation with Brian and also Malusky and Sonya Puterbaugh, and we started batting around the idea of whether we should do something similar. For us.

Bob Lutz: 3:02

We've never officially had our own strategic plan or roadmap and I'm sure you're going to ask some questions about the details and why and what we're trying to accomplish. But you know we've had some successes and we've had some failures and I think this is a good time. Anytime is a good time to have a strategic plan, but we're really trying to build on what AASHTO as an association has done just in the last couple of years. Their strategic plan really got me thinking about the need and necessity and the value of a strategic plan.

Kim Swanson: 3:43

Thank you for some of the background. Let's kind of dive into some of this. What are some of the things that you've considered while you were creating this? Because I know Bob and Brian, you guys were part of it. So, bob, do you want to shed any light onto some of that process and how it kind of formed?

Bob Lutz: 4:06

Sure, absolutely Well, when we made the decision that we were going to go down this road, one of the things I started looking at was how to do one. We've been through a process years ago where we talked about the traditional approach to strategic plans, which kind of revolves around strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat a SWOT analysis. But I came across a different approach in an article that really appealed to me. That was a little bit different than I thought it would better fit what we were trying to do and what we were thinking about. So, instead of that approach, it really started with identifying who are your key stakeholders, and that led us down in this interesting path. And then we kind of got hung up on, well, what's a stakeholder or what's a key stakeholder? So we started looking at our KPIs or key performance indicators and that. So we really took a step back. But it was very useful in the discussion. And the other interesting approach to this was there were to identify a key stakeholder. There were five questions that we had to answer and if you didn't to qualify as a stakeholder, you had to identify for each question a yes or a no, and that was an interesting process. So you would think that identifying your key stakeholders would be relatively easy and simple and quick, and it wasn't, but it really forced us into some really good discussions.

Bob Lutz: 5:57

We also talked about who are our target customers. You know, for us it's not just labs or materials, testing and inspection labs. It goes beyond that. Certainly all of those governmental and regulatory agencies that require accreditation are also another set of customers. So we had some good conversations around that. But then we started asking what do we want from each of those key stakeholder groups and what do we think that they want from us? And again, we had some really interesting discussions revolving those groups. We really learned a lot, I think, about each of those groups, what we want from them and how are we going to go about getting what we want from each group. Once we got to that point, the last and final step was really dividing excuse me deciding on and developing our vision and our mission. And again, I know you have some questions about that, but the process to develop the vision was really critical in developing everything else that came after that.

Brian Johnson: 7:20

All right, so let's talk about that vision. I'm going to read it for everybody.

Kim Swanson: 7:25

Yes, thank you.

Brian Johnson: 7:27

Our vision is leading a quality management revolution within the construction materials, testing and inspection industry. That sounds pretty bold Leading a quality revolution, quality management revolution. Couldn't even get it right myself after a second of having read it, but yes, quality management revolution. So, bob, what does that mean to?

Bob Lutz: 7:51

you and talks about quality and the way that they are, the way that they live it, the way they are committed to it.

Bob Lutz: 8:09

And I'll give you an example.

Bob Lutz: 8:10

You know, about seven years ago we came up with this idea for the technical exchange and we weren't sure how that was going to go and really that kind of that seed was planted back then for the new vision.

Bob Lutz: 8:28

What we realized through the technical exchange was that there are a lot of people who care about quality, who want to get together and talk about quality, and our vision really is trying to create an entire industry, not just a small group within that industry, of people who have these conversations, who care about all of the concepts that we talk about at things like the technical exchange, ultimately to raise the level of quality within our industry. And our goal or our role really is leading it. That doesn't mean that we are the experts. It means that we're going to be the conduit, we're going to be the mechanism for bringing people together, for having these conversations, from learning from each other and really what we want to do. We want to lead the way, but we want to create a community of people who are the messenger. So it's not just us. It involves some of our key stakeholders, as we talked about a minute ago.

Brian Johnson: 9:48

I'm going to talk about the vision. It is a little unusual in that it is an action instead of a destination or some sort of grand concept. I think that kind of speaks to where we're going with this as well. Um, but, bob, can you, can you talk about how we got there and and why didn't we end up with just uh, explaining what this, uh, massive, grand outcome would be and, went with it, what we would be doing as the vision?

Bob Lutz: 10:31

well, I do think of it as a destination not to to intentionally disagree with you, brian, but I do see it as a destination. It is meant to be kind of your north star, your your guiding light, and it's supposed to be bold and actionable, yes, but bold. So I do see it as our destination. That's where we're heading, that's where we want to get to in the future, and one of the analogies that I've made is in my mind, anyhow, and that helps me understand it is that the vision is our destination. If you think of yourself planning a trip, where are you going? That's our destination. How are you going to get there? What's the route that you're going to follow? That's our mission. Our mission is going to help us get to our destination or our vision. But, like with any trip, our destination or our vision, but like with any trip, sometimes you run into construction, you run into detours.

Kim Swanson: 11:36

It's not always a straight line from where you are to your vision, and you have to be able to adapt. Speaking of mission, I will read that for everybody as well. So our mission is collaborating with our key stakeholders to provide services that ensure the integrity of the materials in our nation's infrastructure. So what does that mission really mean to you, bob, and how do you see that fitting into us leading a revolution?

Bob Lutz: 12:01

I think I mentioned this a minute ago. One of the key points that we identified is that, yes, we want to be the leaders, but that doesn't mean that we're the only ones involved in these discussions. So the first part of that mission is collaborating with our key stakeholders. Example. So not in the beginning, but over the past few years, one of the things that we've learned is that there are key stakeholders within our industry and there are some outside of our industry.

Bob Lutz: 12:36

We've had some guest speakers at TechX who do not come from within our own industry, but they are experts in quality. They may have some of them have background in the automotive industry, for example. Quality is a concept that is not limited to our industry and quality management systems are not limited to our industry. So one of the lessons that we've learned through TechX again is that, hey, you know what? There are some people outside of our industry that can help us develop and spread this message and in fact, they've been some of the best presenters. Best received presenters at TechX, best received presenters at TechX have generated a lot of interest and have caused, I think, all of us to look at quality as it applies to our industry a little bit differently. So again, we're trying to build this community, but that community doesn't have to come in from within just the construction materials industry, but we also have this focus on materials as it relates to infrastructure.

Bob Lutz: 13:53

Ultimately, we exist, ashley Resource exists to help the industry improve materials testing and materials inspection. Literally, materials are the foundation of our nation's infrastructure. So one can make the argument that materials testing is, could be, the most important piece of building and developing our nation's infrastructure. So we want to remain true to that mission as well. So we have our existing services, which we've had for a number of years, but our mission also is asking and requiring of us to think about what are other ways, what are other services that we can provide to get to that vision a little bit faster yeah, so the mission, the mission as it was being developed, I think it it came together pretty nicely for us because of the structure of the way we developed this.

Brian Johnson: 15:01

So, when we were having all of our meetings, talking about key performance indicators and, uh, who are um, um, stakeholders? Are it really kind of brought together this idea of the collaborative approach that we take and have taken and have found to be most successful? Uh, with the way we do our work? Uh, so it, the mission, came together, I think, a little easier than the vision did, if I remember that correctly. Vision is always a tough one, um, but let's get into the how part of how we get about getting to our mission and vision and get into the next phase. Uh, well, I I almost jumped ahead of our, our core values. So that that's another area.

Brian Johnson: 15:55

You know, I talked about already had a strategic plan, and part of that strategic plan was the list of core values and for a while, resource dabbled in creation of our own values, but it didn't really they. They mostly overlapped with . So it really didn't make a lot of sense for us to continue to maintain multiple versions of these values when they are shared values, of these values when they are shared values at their core. So what we've done is just adopted them. So those values are safety, trust and integrity, transparency, collaboration and diversity, equity and inclusion, and those are ones that we feel are as equally important as AASHTO or the parent or the larger organization felt that they were, and we continue to carry those forward with our AASHTO resource roadmap. Anything you want to add to that, bob?

Bob Lutz: 17:05

Just one thing, going back to my analogy, that you know we're going on a trip and our vision is our destination, our mission is our path to get there, and our values are the things that we care about. So those are the things that we pack and take with us, because we do care with them. So the things that you take on a trip, typically when you're going on a trip, are the things that you care about and the things that you need, and we look at the values as things that we care about and things that we need, and they truly have been more than just words on a piece of paper. They are words that we talk about regularly at meetings, we talk about them and ask about them in employee surveys, and they do mean a lot to us. So I'll add that, brian.

Brian Johnson: 18:02

All right, Thank you. How easy is this to edit by?

Brian Johnson: 18:04

the way Kim with the video We'll see. Okay, so I have another analogy that I thought about as we were talking about the mission and vision and maybe you can correct me if this makes no sense, Maybe it'll get deleted because it just is terrible but I was thinking about how we operate and the analogy with us being the leaders of the quality management revolution and I feel like and up to this point, it was kind of like, and maybe not up to this point, but a couple years ago we were kind of developing this new persona that we have developed as being this collaborative, communicative organization that we have become sounding alarms for people, suspending those who need to be suspended, or saying, hey, there's something wrong here, but not actually doing anything about it. So I would say we have gone from being like the Paul Revere to the George Washington of the American Revolution and going from just sounding the alarms actually trying to lead the revolution. How is that for an analogy? Is that fair?

Bob Lutz: 19:21

I'd like your analogy very much yeah.

Brian Johnson: 19:24

Okay, good.

Kim Swanson: 19:25

I don't know if a lot of people outside of the US will understand that analogy, but for any of those vaguely familiar with US history, I think that's a good analogy.

Brian Johnson: 19:36

I would think so, and hopefully some people know something about the American Revolution at least. Maybe at least the George Washington name, I would hope, would ring a bell. Anyway, let's get into the nitty gritty details about how we carry out this mission. So one thing that we did and was this was, I will say, a little bit convoluted in the development phase, and this is on me for the convoluted nature of this, because that's kind of how my brain operates. Uh, and, bob, you can correct me on this one too with your recollection of this. But we we had, we had a little difficulty organizing our thoughts, uh, but I feel really good about where we ended up. But that may be because my brain operates in a in a convoluted way, as I mentioned.

Brian Johnson: 20:25

Uh, but we came up with a strategic theme of leading by example, because that leading by example is the best way to lead and it is the most effective, effective way to lead, as I can. In my experience that has been, that has been the case. So, in order to effectively carry out this road map or go down this road, we are going to report to lead by example, and we do that through different key objectives. These key objectives are earn the trust of our key stakeholders, embrace processes which foster continual improvement, demonstrate our commitment to quality that's the leading by example part again and inspire others to adopt a quality culture. So if we are truly leading by example, we should inspire others.

Bob Lutz: 21:26

Therefore, leading this quality revolution, uh, bob, anything you want to add on that aspect of it your recollection is very, but I think the fact that we struggled with this and went round and round is a good thing, because it means we gave it a lot of thought. We really picked things apart, thought it through. If it had been easy and quick I don't think we would have felt good about it. But you know, we met weekly for a long time and then, to finish this up, we went downtown Frederick and put ourselves in a conference room for the better part of a day and this is what we came up with. But we did go round and round. But I, like you, I feel really good about it.

Kim Swanson: 22:19

So what does this all mean for our customers? Internally? We've talked a little bit about what that means for our staff, but what does all this mean for our customers and our external stakeholders? Bob?

Bob Lutz: 22:30

I think it means that they're going to see some changes not immediate, but hopefully over the next three and a half years they are going to notice some changes. To use Brian's analogy, instead of merely sounding alarms, we're going to be working collaboratively with them and going alongside them on this journey instead of sounding alarms. So we've talked about how do we not only you know, for example, in a lab assessment sure, we need to identify areas where the standards are not being met and identify non-conformities, but let's change the way we think about that a little bit as well and let's also point out things that the lab is doing well. What are their, what are their strengths? Let's give them some pats on the back as well. Let's provide more opportunities for tech X, like content through webinars. Maybe we have talked about and I guess I'll stick my neck out here and go go public and say next fall, fall of 2025, we're going to have a virtual tech X, not to replace but to supplement our existing. Yeah, I know, I know I said it because we understand that not everybody can travel. It's a big time commitment. It's a money commitment as well. So we're going to do some things virtually as well.

Bob Lutz: 24:10

I I expect that we're going to reach out, as we talked about building this community of messengers. We're going to reach out. As we talked about building this community of messengers, we're going to reach out to more people and begin building that community as well. There are a number of things specifically that we've talked about. One other one is you know, I've challenged John John Molesky to find ways that we can take this enormous population of proficiency testing data and do something in addition to what we're doing with it now. What are some meaningful ways, information, graphs that we can give to the customers, to the labs that will help them, in addition to what we already give them? So, brian, what would you like to add to this part of the conversation?

Brian Johnson: 25:07

Did you know I was thinking about adding something by the expression on my face? Okay, so I was thinking about a couple of things. One is just the value of the strategic plan in general. You know, we're trying to galvanize our staff to think about things the way that meshes with the strategic plan roadmap, with the roadmap, and it also is a declaration to our customers and those stakeholders that we mean business about this and we intend to uh serve their needs the way we have defined in this roadmap. And one way that these things are going to result in a bit of a change for people, or or an expectation change maybe, uh, of what we're, of what we're delivering, is that we're thinking about their needs and we are intending to collaborate with them. We are intending to get away from this idea of, oh, we're here to check boxes, because there's always that expectation for some of our customers. Oh, you're just going to be in here to check boxes, you know, because there's always that expectation for some of our customers. Oh, you're just going to be in here to check boxes and say, oh, this lab is in conformance or this lab is not in conformance. But really, what we intend to do is a little bit more than that and even with the assessment part of it, we really want to shift our focus a little bit more towards just the continual improvement of quality, as opposed to the okay, we checked this box, we found out, and we didn't check this box, so there was nonconformity and then we want to make sure we get to the point where we can check it ultimately, and then we move on. Let's think about it a little bit more, let's get strategic, let's work on quality, how it doesn't mean that we're going to just ignore a ton of things and that we're only going to.

Brian Johnson: 27:07

You know, some people will say, oh well, you didn't use common sense. That always drives me crazy, by the way. Uh, because there's no such thing. There's one thing I've learned in my role is there's no such thing. There's one thing I've learned in my role Is there's no such thing as common sense Out there, because everybody has a different idea About what that means, and for some people, it means that you just let them do whatever they want. And that is not what it's going to mean. Where we shift towards quality and away from some of the nitpicky things. There will be times that we still have to focus on the nitpicky things. There will be times that we still have to focus on some of the what one might consider to be nitpicky items or minutiae we will still have to worry about in some cases, but we really do want to focus on continual improvement and collaboration with our customers.

Kim Swanson: 27:52

Well, I think we have a good overview of what's happening here. Is there anything else that you want to make sure that our customers know, or our staff? Hopefully they'll be listening to this too. But about this new roadmap and what it looks like, you know in the next year versus the next, you know in three years from now.

Bob Lutz: 28:14

Well, I want to add that, look, we're really really excited about this.

Bob Lutz: 28:19

We put a lot of thought and effort into it and we really considered what we want out of our key stakeholders but, even more importantly, what they want from us, and our intent is to follow through and deliver. As Brian mentioned a minute ago, point one, or our first objective is to earn the trust of our key stakeholders. That's going to be critical, and to earn the trust of our key stakeholders, we're going to have to produce, we're going to have to follow through on this roadmap. So that means that every one of us at Ash2Resource is going to have to step up and be part of this journey.

Brian Johnson: 28:57

I did want to before we close this out. I know we've been going on for a while and this episode's getting a bit long, but I did want to just touch base on some of the actionable items. So I mentioned those objectives. There are what we've called strategies under each one of those objectives, and if you look at our um roadmap online on our website, which will be posted uh at the time that this is out, you'll be able to see what some of those commitments are Uh, and the first one is actually honor our commitments, uh, which is which is good that we started out strong there.

Brian Johnson: 29:35

But we talk about practicing consistency, acting on feedback um, investing time and improvement opportunities. I was just working on that the other day. In fact, when we have an internal audit, we're often left with improvement opportunities from our internal auditors and, uh, I will sometimes organically take care of those things because they get on my to-do list, uh, but I actually took it out, uh, took out the report and went down the list on improvement opportunities, something I have never done before and I don't know that I would have done had we not just gone through this uh, because there's always so much else to do uh that you don't always have time to to take care of those improvement opportunities, uh, specifically the way that they were written. Um, we also talked about, uh, investing in training that supports our vision. So, thinking about the vision as we're analyzing our training opportunities, so the way that works in practice is somebody on my team, for example, may say, hey, I want to go and take this training.

Brian Johnson: 30:49

Well, now I say, oh well, how does that fit into our vision? Does that? Is that, you know, not just is it relevant to your job duties, but is it relevant to the vision that we've laid out here, and I think that is going to be useful. Something that was in the inspire others to adopt a culture of quality. Kim, this is for you. Maximize the use of educational material. That is number one on the list. So you and our trading manager, kate, we working together to try to get some of those items communicated. So there's a ton of good stuff on there. Uh, please check it out if you have a chance. And, uh, if we aren't fulfilling any of those strategies in your opinion, let us know about it.

Kim Swanson: 31:41

Oh for sure, Definitely hold us accountable. That is why we are announcing this to everybody. So if you have feedback for us, don't wait for us to solicit that. You can email Bob directly.

Bob Lutz: 31:57

Thanks for that, don't wait for us to solicit that.

Kim Swanson: 32:00

You can email Bob directly. Thanks for that, no problem.

Brian Johnson: 32:06

No problem, bob, and that's rlutz at astrarisourceorg. Yeah, it's funny you use that term accountability. That was actually a big discussion that we had as we were putting together the strategic plan, because accountability honoring commitments is is all about accountability. There's other elements of accountability in there, but accountability often has a negative tone with staff. So we were like, how can we say accountability without specifically saying accountability in here? Uh and, and I feel that, feel that we've done that effectively and we plan to hold ourselves accountable, but that's just one of those nuances.

Kim Swanson: 32:43

Does accountability have a negative?

Brian Johnson: 32:44

connotation To some.

Kim Swanson: 32:49

All right, learn something new.

Brian Johnson: 32:51

And to some customers too. I think that was probably a bigger aspect, because that that sounds like suspension to me if I'm a customer, I don't know, I mean, I guess I guess I've never had. Usually when I talk about accountability it's not a real crowd pleaser.

Bob Lutz: 33:06

I think when you use the word accountability or accountable in a sentence like we're going to hold you accountable, then it sounds.

Kim Swanson: 33:21

Yeah, I'm always looking for accountability. So I don't know, maybe I just have a different mindset around that, because to me there is no negative connotation about being accountable, but not everyone has, you know, not if you have a quality mindset you have a growth mindset.

Brian Johnson: 33:33

That does not scare me. Yes, that's a big part. Yes, that's a big part of it. That's a big part of it. That's also why you are also leading the quality revolution, kim.

Kim Swanson: 33:43

I am leading it, I am a general in the revolution.

Brian Johnson: 33:47

That's right.

Kim Swanson: 33:47

Maybe I'm just a lieutenant, probably not a general, but I'll take it.

Bob Lutz: 33:50

Like General Washington.

Kim Swanson: 33:53

Yes, I think I'll be Lieutenant or Private. I think let's not put me up as General yet. I think that's above my pay grade.

Bob Lutz: 34:03

Sergeant.

Kim Swanson: 34:03

Swanson, I'll take it. I'll take it, but thank you, yeah, thanks for your time today, bob, talking about this, I hope it was helpful to our listeners and again for our listeners. If you have questions about this or we don't feel like, if you don't feel that we are making changes for the better, let us know what you think.

Bob Lutz: 34:29

Absolutely.

Brian Johnson: 34:30

All right. Thanks for joining us, Bob.

Bob Lutz: 34:33

I really enjoyed talking about it, brian, thanks for your help. Kim, thanks for the great questions, and I hope, maybe in a year or so we can do an update and revisit this topic.

Kim Swanson: 34:43

For sure. Thanks for listening to AASHTO Resource Q&A. If you'd like to be a guest or just submit a question, send us an email at podcast@A ASHTOresource. org, or call Brian at 240-436-4820. For other news and related content, check out AASHTO Resources social media accounts or go to aashtoresource. org.