Challenges for the PMP’s- Project Management Professionals – and an Adaptive perspective

by / Wednesday, 17 December 2014 / Published in Uncategorized

The Three Adjustment Knobs

Addressing the Project Management of NJ (PMINJ) monthly meeting recently, the problem to be dealt with was essentially “How can Lean Six Sigma help me out as a Project Manager?” .   Project Managers these days are challenged as never before. The pressure is on to deliver what was expected, on time and under budget, if possible.

Project Managers have some adjustment knobs to turn. They are typically macro level factors. It’s a management of tradeoffs between scope, delivery dates and costs. Conventional wisdom is that you can’t just turn up all three knobs at the same time. You are limited by tradeoffs.

The Project Manager: Customer or Victim

I think the basic challenge may be whether the Project Manager is treated with the respect due a Customer, or will it be the Victim role – the one who is on the hook to deliver the Project to the ultimate Customer? Talk about being in the middle!

Well, you have to decide, do you want to play the Victim – at the mercy of the unknowns that those Functional Department Reps who are “dotted line” to your project either don’t understand themselves or are afraid to actually discuss? Or do you want to pursue a more active and intelligent role?

Enlightened Investors and Enlightened Customers

Think of the example from a GE Capital ad that is currently running. The message is when you deal with GE Capital you don’t just get money, you get access to process improvement expertise. GE Capital invests more than cash, if the commercial is to be believed, they invest their expertise in helping you see where the process problems are and work side-by-side with you to get them solved. GE Capital is interested in reducing risk by sharing expertise, providing the expertise that is beyond what exists at those places they are sending their cash to. Instead of worrying about becoming disappointed Investors, they act as Enlightened Investors.

Much the same has been true of Toyota with its own Toyota Production System (TPS). As Toyota developed and refined its production system over the past 60 years and focused more and more on Just in Time production, they were taking on risks that no other Car company would remotely consider. They put their success in the hands of their Suppliers like never before. But, like GE Capital, they were willing to mitigate this risk by sharing their internal Just in Time expertise with their Suppliers. They began sending their best “Sensei” to work side by side with the people in those supplying organizations. Instead of worrying about becoming disappointed Customers, they acted as Enlightened Customers instead.

Project Manager: Find the Mental constraints

As a Project Manager you have the opportunity to become the Enlightened Partner to those “dotted line” resources that are going to determine your success or failure. In order to do so, you have to step out of some of the mindset that comes along with thinking like a conventional Project Manager. It’s those mental constraints that are in the way.

Here’s a basic one.   The definition of “Project” automatically put you in to a “one time only” kind of thinking. Your job is to get that unique results of your project accomplished. It’s a one of a kind adventure. You just get that project delivered and it’s on to the next project, another one of a kind adventure.

With that mental approach, you can easily just put up with a lot of the recurring waste and non-sense that goes on. Since you are only making this particular trip once, why bother with fixing all the potholes in the road?

Once upon a time, the same thinking limited auto production. The original versions of the automobile were also one of-a-kind-projects.   Those tinkering around in the garage were just worried about getting one vehicle to work. It wasn’t till later that they began to switch the thinking to producing dozens, hundreds and then thousands of them. Then Henry Ford got us all thinking about making repetitive work actually FLOW like a river.

 

Find the Bottlenecks:

The reality is, every project has some combination of the unique and the repetitive. Unique problems are discussed and solved over the course of many repetitive meetings. People join a project and need to have a basic orientation, most of which can be repeated over and over. Unique prototypes are developed using a series of repetitive steps. Etc., etc. , etc.

Bottlenecks develop where there are repetitive events. Chances are, you’re project will be delayed and possibly, derailed by getting stuck in the gridlock that happens at some of your Functional suppliers. Getting an early warning of where those Bottlenecks are developing gives you the chance to be an Enlightened Customer and get the focus on eliminating them and then avoiding their recurrence.

Bottlenecks develop according to the laws of physics. They can be dealt with by facing the same basic realities that happen at every Bottleneck. If the rate of arrivals of demand is higher than the rate of completion, the line starts to form. Either you reduce the rate of arrivals or increase the rate of completion or you will be stuck in gridlock.

 

Learn the Tools you need:

Much of what you need to prevent gridlock is based on Visual methods. Make queues painfully visible, as soon as they start to form. Examine closely the incoming demand. Often, some significant percentage of that demand are just items getting into the wrong line. They don’t belong there but it takes time away from doing the value added work just to find that out. Also, make the completion rate painfully visible. Then take time to examine the non-Value added tasks and get rid of them. Of course, it may be necessary, as the reality becomes more clear, that you just need to add more resources.

 

Keep those Checkout Lines short:

Many well-run grocery stores know how to prevent gridlock. As soon as there are more than two customers in line at a register, they take action to move people over and get more registers open. If this simple reality applies to groceries, do you think knowledge work is any different? And while you are opening those additional work stations, notice whether you could speed up the value added work of your skilled people by providing some temporary “baggers” to handle the unskilled work.

 

Enlightened Adaptive Project Management

Don’t limit yourself to what you learned becoming a PMP. Don’t wait for your “dotted line” Suppliers to get smarter on their own. Probe for where bottlenecking gridlock is the risk and then get out there to get the ball rolling on preventing an avoidable disaster.

That’s what I think, anyway, let me know what you think!

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