Swarm and Solve: Create a Culture of Continuous Improvement

When I talk with contractors and business owners, one of the biggest objections I hear is: “We don’t have time for training.” The jobs are stacked up, lead times are long, and crews are stretched thin.

But here’s the truth: training doesn’t always have to mean pulling people into a classroom. Some of the best learning happens right in the field, in the middle of real work. The key is knowing how to capture those moments and use them to make your whole team stronger. That’s where swarm and solve comes in.

Think of it like bees in a hive. When there’s a problem, they don’t wait for one expert bee to figure it out. They swarm, work together, and solve it as a group. The same approach works on jobsites when your team makes improvement part of the daily workflow.

Here’s how you can put it into practice:

1. Spot the Problem

Encourage everyone—from new hires to seasoned crew leads—to speak up when they see something that could be done better. A staging issue, a safety concern, or even wasted steps in the process. The goal is to make sure people know their ideas are welcome, no matter their role or experience.

Action step: At your next crew meeting, ask: “What’s one thing that slowed us down last week?” That question alone can spark the start of a swarm.

2. Swarm Around It

When a problem is spotted, pause the work briefly and bring the team together. Let each person add their perspective, share ideas, and weigh in. The point isn’t to debate for hours—it’s to quickly gather input from multiple angles.

Action step: Try a 5-minute huddle right on the jobsite. Keep it short, focused, and respectful of everyone’s time.

3. Solve Together

Pick the best solution, test it, and put it into practice right away. Don’t overthink it. Field-based improvements are about speed and practicality, not perfection.

Action step: Agree as a team on the change, and assign one person to test it in real time.

4. Capture the Win

This is where the real magic happens. Too many good ideas fade because they never get written down or shared. The moment you see a fix that works, capture it and make it standard.

Action step: Create a simple system—a whiteboard in the shop, a shared notebook, or a note in your project management tool—where “new best practices” are logged each week. At the end of the month, review the list and decide what becomes part of your company’s standard way of working.

5. Repeat It

Continuous improvement isn’t about one big change—it’s about lots of small changes that add up. The more often your team swarms and solves, the more natural it becomes. Over time, it turns into part of your culture.

Action step: Build a standing agenda item into weekly meetings: “What did we swarm and solve this week?”

Case in Point: Preventing Rework

During a walkthrough, I noticed a framing crew catching an issue with their layout before it turned into a tear-out. One carpenter spoke up, and instead of dismissing it, the foreman called everyone over. They sketched out a quick adjustment that solved the problem on the spot.

Ten minutes of swarm-and-solve saved them thousands in materials and labor—and the idea was captured as a new step in their pre-build checklist. What could have been an expensive setback turned into a permanent improvement.

The Payoff

• Shared responsibility for learning and problem-solving.

• Fewer bottlenecks and wasted steps.

• A stronger culture where continuous improvement becomes the norm.

Final Thought

You don’t need a classroom or a binder of handouts to build a learning culture. All you need is a crew willing to pause, swarm, and solve together—and a system to make sure those small wins become lasting best practices.

Start small. Ask the question. Capture the idea. Before you know it, you’ll have a team that doesn’t just get the work done—they make it better every day.