Who better understands how to make a part or build a product than the guy who spend 8-10 hours a day doing the job. The assembler on the floor or admin in the office spends the majority of their day dealing with an established process. They have lots of time to recognize the intricacies of the process including the weaknesses and have often brainstormed potential solutions.
A basic tenant of LEAN is to have decisions made at the lowest level possible in the company. The issue is to drive improvements by letting people be responsible for the processes they touch. This was used very effectively at the Saturn automobile plant. The lowest assembly line person had the right to literally stop production to correct a problem. The result was a better product with faster resolution of problems.
Good project managers will recognize the importance of the lower level employees. Rarely do upper management types truly understand the problems faced by the rank and file due to poorly conceived processes. Project management can be used to help identify the problems and get action to correct deficiencies within the business.
Well, the usual rule #4 is stated as pulling from demand. Let the marketplace decide how much of what is needed. Even the best marketing departments can’t determine the exact level of demand for a product. Although forecasting demand and sales is not necessarily bad, the fact is that the results are far from idea. The reason for this lack of perfection is that forecasting the future is still a very difficult thing to do! :^)
A good project management strategy therefore would be to reduce the dependence on forecasts by reducing response time of the business to the market. The idea is to respond to market changes instead of trying to predict the future. This is easier to do with a contantly changing product line such as that seen in high technology products. In less volatile businesses, this is much more of a challenge but usually there are indicators that allow for the response time to be estimated with some degree of accuracy.
All in all, the focus of this rule is to encourage a business to be more responsive to the market. This requires a commitment to moving the business away from being driven by sales forecasts and to a closer relationship with the market and their customers.
Project management is one of the most demanding careers if done properly. It requires not only a high level of confidence in yourself but also finely honed communication and facilitation skills. The vision thing doesn’t hurt either. The vision thing was quoted awhile ago as a disparage people who had a vision of a business strategy that wasn’t understood by the majority of people. Project managers need vision to move a company from where they are in the present to prepare them for the vision of the future. That vision could be changes in the marketplace, more efficient operations or even new products to be developed.
Vision allows the project manager to see and understand the consequences of cause and effect. If I do something, I can reasonable expect others, who have been impacted to react a certain way. For example: If I tell everyone in my group that no one would be laid off, then proceed to RIF (reduction in force or layoff) some people, what could I expect would be the reaction of the employees that still have a job. Well, I could expect that my personal credibility would be non existent, that they would no longer trust what I say, my leadership of that group would be greatly impacted and the employees would be much more careful so as not to be the next person RIF’d. Cause-Effect Action-Reaction.
Good project managers have the ability to understand the details of a project and how those issues will effect the various groups within the business. Negative or positive, if you can’t see the impact, it can derail even the most beneficial project. Project management is a great way to stay focused on reality and could be considered an exercise in understanding the human situation