Toyota seems to be in the press everyday. One writer or expert after another describes why the American automotive industry just can't compete. This is not another one of those stories. In fact, Americans can and are competing using lean approaches. And there is much more work to do.

In 2004, Jeffrey Liker published the best-selling book The Toyota Way to show us all how and why Toyota is the success that they are at manufacturing and delivering their projects. As good as that book is, The Toyota Way doesn't offer much help on how to adopt a lean strategy for your business. Two years later, Jeffery Liker is back with The Toyota Way Fieldbook, co-authored with David Meier to fill the implementation gap. Read the rest of this entry ¶

I've been working with a number of architectural and engineering firms in the last six months. I've been surprised at how so few of them have the habit of conducting project kick-off meetings as their routine. Knowing that, I'm not surprised at the problems these firms encounter with project planning and schedules.

Why have a project kickoff meeting? One manager said, "Geez, there's only 200 hours in this project. I can't waste any of them on meetings." Sound familiar? Before I respond let's review my definition of a project.

A project is a single-purpose network of commitments undertaken by a temporary social system.

People come together on projects as strangers.

I've been challenged in an AE firm when I refer to the project organization as a temporary social system. People say that the "team" consists of employees who know each other. While that might be true, it is also likely that the group is not a team at all. Rather, the people are working on more than one project. The other projects are being done with other people. They get their assignments as work orders. These are not project teams. This is more like sandlot baseball than a well-practiced team.

Face it. Projects are temporary organizations. People come together on projects as strangers. We're not likely to change that. What we can do is make sure people share a context, have intentions that are aligned, and have a relationship that allows them to successfully coordinate action together. I know of no better way than by starting every project with a kickoff meeting.

What would you do in those meetings? Here's my proposal for an agenda.

Read the rest of this entry ¶

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Projects @ Work ¹ just finished a three-part series on People, Process, and Tools written by Alan S Koch. (You need a no-charge subscription to read the articles.) While Koch writes from the perspective of information technology projects his points apply equally well to other projects. These three articles offer a context for building your project organization including the systems you'll use on your project.

• The People Premium
• Processes for People
• The Role of Tools

Koch says what all good project managers know but too often forget,

"People are indispensable, but not perfect…Effective processes enable our most precious resource — our people — to work their magic…Tools are the key to making our people more efficient and effective at executing the processes that support them"

One of my favorite lines from the third article is,

"We do not need a tool for every job."

Koch could have said the same for process. What we do need is to select people, process, and tools that match the challenges of our projects. We certainly don't want more processes or tools than our capable people need. And if you are going to err on having more or fewer people than the project needs, then err on the side of more. Why? You can't improve anything without some slack capacity. Whether or not you plan to do your projects on a lean basis, you'll need enough extra capacity for people to respond to the inevitable surprises and to participate in continuous improvement activities.

Have a look at the articles then take a look at your current project. Do you have the people, process, and tools you need to succeed? If not, then make changes.

1. Hal is on the Editorial Board of ProjectsAtWork. [ ⇑ back ]

I've been doing quite a bit of writing lately about lean and kaizen. I'm taking a break today from sharing my own writing to remind you of a wonderful weblog at Fast Company, FC Now. Doug Sundheim posted today on the value of being naïve when approaching problems.

"In the grand scheme of things, you don't know that much. In and of itself, this isn't a bad thing - it's human. No one knows that much. However, you get into trouble when you pretend to know more than you do - when you try to look sophisticated. You never really fool anyone. You just look phony. How boring. Embrace your ignorance. Have more fun. Learn more."

He goes on to offer a concise description of using the 5 Why approach as a way of embracing not knowing. I use the same approach with my clients, although Doug does a better job than I have ever done explaining it in so few words. Have a look.

Last Friday I had the pleasure of having lunch with Jim Womack and his editor, Tom Ehrenfeld. It was a time to catch up on what each of us are doing — our projects — our curiosities — and how we came to this wonderful lean journey. As we were saying our good byes, Jim made two requests. First, he asked me to take a good look at a book he published, The Gold Mine, by Freddy and Michael Ballé. I'm in the midst of reading the book. I'll give my report in a few weeks. Second, Jim asked me to watch my email for his regular email update on the state of affairs with lean. I've been watching. Today, I was pleased to find his essay on the automotive industry. It's brilliant! It's so good that I'm reprinting it here so you can enjoy it too. But don't just read this essay. Pay very close attention to what Jim has to say. We are in a crisis. The long-standing approach to business isn't producing the desired results anymore. We must change. NOW!

Please, don't take me as an alarmist. I'm not. Having said that, we must rethink what we are doing. We've put up with late projects, projects that are over budget, and projects that just miss their mark. All along, our companies have put up with us! We must change that.

As you read Jim's letter, ask yourself, "What will I do to bring about a change." If I've learned anything, then I've learned this:

If not me, then who?

You won't find a more compelling opinion than the one you are about to read. Get ready to take action.

Enjoy!

Read the rest of this entry ¶

The planning system is likely to become more reliable just because you are giving your attention to reliability; it follows the axiom: what gets measured gets done. However, without deliberate systematic attention to the design of the system planning system performance will settle on a plateau.

Planning (un)reliability is a function of (at least) five factors: dependence, variation, uncertainty, system design, and competence. The processes of making work ready, promising publicly, and reporting complete by announcing when you are done are usually sufficient for building competence for operating as last planners within the system. The acts of promising, re-promising, and estimating times to perform build the capability for doing those actions more competently through time. Using the Project Meeting Protocols (mentioned in previous postings) improves performance. But there is generally more to improve beyond what individuals responsibilities.

At least once every three weeks conduct a meeting with the project team to review the accumulated reasons for plan failure.

One significant impact on group performance is the design of the project. For instance, if work has been fractionalized by specialty, then the effects of dependence (you can't start 'til I finish) are increased. One of the usual (greatest) reasons for planning failure is the prior work of others wasn't completed. Often times work can be structured in a way that decouples one person's work from another. That, in turn, increases the reliability of the project. Another common reason is a constraint was uncovered once the task was started. This would point to a failure of the make-ready process of look-ahead planning.

What can you do? Read the rest of this entry ¶

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I took a radical step today to shutdown delivery of Reforming Project Management via Bloglet. The Bloglet service has been quite unreliable. In its place I'm using FEEDblitz. I've been testing it for about a month. I'm very satisfied with the results. I hope you are too. You'll notice two big changes.

First, you'll start receiving the whole posting. I've had many complaints from my email subscribers about the shortened Bloglet messages. The other change is cosmetic. For now, you'll see the FEEDblitz orange in the emails. That may change when I investigate their additional services.

Some of you may need to update your spam blocking so these messages get through.

Industry Week (IW) begins a year-long series today Rebuilding U.S. Manufacturing with four articles on Toyota. John Teresko starts with a comprehensive article Learning from Toyota — Again. This article recaps the highlights of how Toyota has come to dominate the automotive industry and earn the reputation as the best manufacturer in the world. Everyone in business needs to understand the lessons from Toyota. Sooner or later you will face competitors who use lean approaches in their business and their projects. You owe it to yourself to get there first.

IW has three more articles in this series in today's issue. In TPS' Guiding Principles, Teresko explains what gives Toyota long-term staying power. They've systematically encouraged all employees to improve operational effectiveness through kaizen. In another article, Partnership Pays Off, Teresko tells the story of how Toyota came to the U.S. in the partnership with GM at the notorious Freemont, CA plant. IW also offers a listing of Toyota's 14 Principles from Jeffrey Liker's book The Toyota Way.

Make the time this week to read these articles. John Teresko has done an outstanding job introducing the background and lessons of Toyota's success. It's a simple story, really. It's the execution of those lessons that has eluded so many firms.

I'm pleased to see editors and writers at Industry Week (IW) blogging. John Brandt, former publisher and editor of IW, and Patricia Panchak, Editor-in-Chief, write great columns. Their initial weblog posts meet their high journalistic standards. If only it was easy to read their postings.

In spite of the great writing, IW needs to go back to the drawing board. This is not a weblog. Fast Company has a group weblog FC Now. Business Week has twelve group weblogs: Tech Beat, Nussbaum on Design, Hot Property, etc.. Business 2.0 has a great weblog B2Day. Industry Week is using a forum/bulletin board. There's no RSS feed. (They do have feeds for their columns.) There's no way to subscribe via email. You'll have to bookmark the site (and remember to visit it). Way too much trouble for me.

Read What Makes a Weblog a Weblog, by Dave Winer. Try again Industry Week. Please!