Peter HalasiPM Consultant| Enabling ExcellenceBonstetten, Schweiz, Switzerland
What would be your preferred approach, if you are asked to identify opportunities/wastes in project managers'' daily work in global and fairly large(1000 ) PM organization. The exercise is to spot and quantify non value added tasks that are part of PMs processes (e.g. non necessary reports, meetings, etc.). Is a time and motion study imaginable at all, are there alternatives that provide solid fact based assessment? Any experiences you have so far on such a field? Saving Changes...
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saurabh mahajanPMP, ITIL, PRINCE2| vodafonePune, Maharashtra, India
Lean management can one such approach to remove waste.
But this can become time consuming at times as it might require job shadowing. Saving Changes...
Sounds a good project. I''d involve the organisation''s project managers initially to gather their views, as well a other stakeholders. An organisation of that size must have a PPM solution in place, I''d start by analysis of data from that to identify variations of project performance as well as benefits management outcomes. Time & motion study would be difficult, but there are many other process improvement techniques nowadays. I expect that many of the opportunities that will arise would arise from improving the level of admin support, rarely is there enough. Saving Changes...
fosco frongiaSenior project manager| ENTE PATRIMONIALE CHIESA GESU' CRISTO SUGFino Mornasco, Como, Italy
I suggest to apply the lean six sigma "method" it is structured and very useful for applying in services surround Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
In my own experience, there are two things a PM should strive for.
First, do not put yourself on the critical path. This seems obvious, especially in the project execution phase. (You do know not to give yourself product deliverables, right?). This is less obvious in the project planning and project closure phases.
Second, you don''t want to be fully allocated on projects. You might have one or multiple projects: all of them together should not take 100% o your time. By creating availability, it allows you to respond quicker and fulfill requests promptly. There is usually many other things you can do to fill the remaining time: training, non-project requests, etc. Saving Changes...
Peter HalasiPM Consultant| Enabling ExcellenceBonstetten, Schweiz, Switzerland
Hi, thanks for all your valuable comments. Stephane, great experience, we will be factoring it into the assessment. And as Tim mentioned firstly we need to understand our stakeholders and form some hypothesis.
Good news, yes we are running a lean type of analysis, with the objective: where do PMs spent there time. And with a typical lean question: are they performing the right activities - for what the organization is paying them - and are the doing it right at the first time. As this is less SOP type tasks, to create a fairly objective assessment is a global set up is fairly challenging. Do we do time tracking, do we do observations and /or interviews? Are you aware of such proven techniques? Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Peter, you can improve productivity by either increasing the output per unit of input (usually, time), or you can reduce the required input per unit of output (PM artefacts?).
Either approach requires that you define and track all input and output, not just PM-related. Some of the "non-PM" time and output can actually be desired indirect or overhead work. (A PM, for example, might attend an industry conference to promote her project.) Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Trying to add something to good comments above based in my experience the first thing to do is to clarify what does means productivity to you and mainly to your organization. What you mention in your statement is not productivity for most of the people, some definitions and most of the organizations. Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
I agree with Sergio.
It is important to understand the differences between productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. If you are interested in exploring these distinctions, vote below. If I see more than 10 votes, I will write an article on performance measurement and these indicators. Of course, it will be written for a project management audience. Saving Changes...
