What is Project Flow (in <300 words)?
? Richard Jenkinson
Business Transformation | Future-proofed Operational Excellence | End-to-End Process Simplification | Faster Time-to-Value for technology deployments | Cost Take Out
Simpler Projects:
Lean Principles applied to non-recurring work.
Lean methodology seeks to enable flow in processes, thereby reducing time, cost and the opportunity for error. In recurring processes, e.g. manufacturing, it’s easy to observe a ‘product’ flowing down the production line, and see if processes are aligned to provide what is needed ‘just-in-time’.
For projects (e.g. new product / service development, innovation) it's not as clear...
So, what ‘flows’ in projects? Information, Risk and Decisions.
What impedes flow? Missing Information, unquantifiable risk and delayed decisions.
Why is information missing? Un-asked questions, un-engaged knowledge-owners, no central repository.
Why is risk hard to quantify? Lack of information and/or method to assess.
Why are decisions delayed? Lack of empowerment, inappropriate escalation process, unquantifiable risk, missing information.
Too often, teams lack both the accountability and empowerment to make decisions, meaning decisions are delayed until the risk profile has grown to the point where it forces escalation to a supervisory board who is authorised to make the decision. This frequently leads to delays, and means the decision is made further away from the ‘Gemba’ (place where the work is done), thereby forcing reliance on relayed (and potentially old) information, which actually increases risk.
Frequently, execution of projects commences before there is a good understanding of what is required. Many costs are 'defined' long before they are 'incurred'. We promote a ‘go slow to go fast’ approach, investing time up-front to learn from previous experience, seek-out answers to open questions and make decisions in the right order.
Project Flow execution is about truly collaborative working (making team decisions one-by-one in the right order, escalating only when needed), engaging stakeholders beyond the 'usual' functions (suppliers, customers, regulatory bodies...), designing-for-build/use, and incorporating standard models (adopt and adapt, rather than design ‘from scratch’ each time) to reduce development time, lower total (life) cost and risk, increase the customers' perception of value.
Business Transformation | Future-proofed Operational Excellence | End-to-End Process Simplification | Faster Time-to-Value for technology deployments | Cost Take Out
4 年Thanks for the like, Pedro - you’ve seen the impact first-hand!
Cleveres Arbeitsdesign: Leistung, Spielfreude, Wohlbefinden
4 年Thanks for sharing ? Richard Jenkinson. I've gotten into a good habit of insisting on diligently using risk analysis and decision matrix with teams to help smooth things over. Question: How do you ensure information flows and knowledge is shared in cross-functional projects without everyone writing reports every week or sitting in update meetings 50% of their time?