Outlining your improvement projects

We suggest beginning a project by an initial design and definition phase based on our project experience, methods and IT and management tools. After reviewing the current situation, expectations, aims and constraints, we help the customer through a pilot experiment to explore the approach being proposed and the tools available. After the various sessions and thanks to the resulting collaboration they create, the working group is then in a position to understand and detail the components and contribution of the solution to be implemented. After that, it is a question of defining the stages, resources and method of the project, as well as evaluating the costs involved, the benefits and the risks of failure.

Method

Management is a complex activity. It has to take into account a vast amount of information in a context of communication and various balances of power between human beings. The ideal management methods and tools for one company are not necessarily good for another. The classic method of drawing up an inventory of needs and establishing a set of specifications does not fit well with cases of IT management tools, because their implementation impacts on the way the parties (and managers in particular) go about their business, and it also brings changes and improvements to the processes that are difficult to previously think about.

Our suggestion is to start off from an actual process example, supported by real forms and data. By getting a pilot team to work together with the support of the consultant, this involves examining and analysing the components of the example in the tool and producing a sort of prototype. This collaborative process makes it possible to identify the potential improvements generated by the review of the process and to obtain the agreement of the people involved in the project from the outset.

Diagnosis

It is also a good thing to begin (see Assess your management processes) by diagnosing current management practices. This enables you to identify the gap in relation to the best practices recommended by the management methods that are applicable in the customer’s case, and to assess the benefits that can be gained from them.

Projects

Outlining the project makes it possible to solve numerous uncertainties: it enables you to take stock of the current situation in terms of formalising activities and information, as well as to define the point that you want to reach at the end of the project. It also enables you to put together a project team and establish a consensus on the way of achieving your objectives.

Projects outlined in this way may touch on the following areas:

Identifying the company’s main processes (the process map);
Describing and analysing the various operational, support or management processes;
Implementing a collaboration software platform such as SharePoint;
Monitoring events, analysing problems and implementing control dashboards;
Implementing document management, linked or not to process maps;
Implementing improvement or operational workflows;
Implementing regulation compliance and/or operational risk monitoring.

The projects may also involve tools over which we do not have direct control, but to which we can bring our expertise in specifying the needs and running of the project, in the form of assistance to the contracting party. This might include:

Implementing tools that are similar to the ones we are proposing if for some reason the customer makes a different choice (such as a different IT platform).
Implementing an SPC (Statistical Process Control) tool that enables production output to be improved in manufacturing companies, in particular the French tool ‘QUASAR’, which we represent in Belgium.
Selecting ERP or CRM tools, starting with a review and definition of the processes to be covered.