Process Improvement
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A good project management process will not guarantee that your project fulfills its specifications and
comes in under budget and on schedule
.
But, a poor project management process will guarantee that it fails!
Process design and implementation
It is a truism that an hour spent planning is worth more than several hours working without a plan.
During the last decades of the last century, literally billions of dollars were spent by government agencies,
universities, and businesses to discover better ways to organize, plan, and manage complex projects.
NASA’s Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership (APPEL) Carnegie-Melon’s Capability
Maturity Model (CMMI), Motorola’s 6sigma, are only a few examples of the many successful results. Each
describes a highly disciplined, thorough (and expensive) approach to the problem of planning complex
projects effectively.
Most of our member consultants have extensive experience in one or more of these and other process planning
disciplines. Our approach to your project planning and management processes will include features from a
wide range of such disciplines to fit your project, organization and your goals.
Process analysis and evaluation
To analyze and evaluate your project processes Just Consulting group will normally send two or more of
our partner to your location. We will interview both management and employees about your project, using
standardized questionnaires. Analysis of the responses will tell us the degree to which both management
and employees have bought in to the project, the degree of agreement on the strengths and weaknesses
of the project, and other key issues. We then develop a preliminary report on our findings for management
review. If your management agrees that something must be done, we develop a plan (specification,
schedule, and budget) for a full assessment of your project plan and processes and report to your
management. Our proposal is then negotiated into a contract. Any change in the specified requirements
will require a re-negotiation of schedule and budget.
Process measurement and quality control
Just Consulting Group will provide tools to document, track, measure and report on success in following
the defined process. The ability to follow and document the process does more to improve and control
quality than testing for errors after the fact. Following and tracking a well-defined process produces a higher
quality product in less time and at smaller cost. Money spent up front on improved processes reaps large
rewards in the end.
Process re-design and project turn-around
Many projects run several months, or even years, only to discover themselves to have lost control of the
requirements, or be over budget, or behind schedule, or all three. Managers who find themselves to be
responsible for such failing projects normally have only two choices: stop the project immediately, or re-
design and restart the program.
This situation requires an up-front analysis as described above for new projects. Just Consulting Group
partners are familiar with failing projects and the kind of effort it takes to re-design and restart them. Most
projects can be saved if there is commitment to the project by both management and employees. Broken
programs can be saved if there is commitment, but where there is no will to succeed there is little hope for
the project. Therefore, the first step in salvaging a wrecked program is to resell the idea to those who will
be needed to accomplish it.
| The Just Consulting Group is all about project management and process improvement |
