23 January 2009

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How Continuous Improvement Can Help Your Project

Bob Tarne, PMP, CSM, CSSBB

This article was developed in response to a suggestion from a PMI member and PMP® credential holder from the Asia Pacific region.

While the examples provided refer to IT projects, this technique will work for all types of projects.

How often do you consider how well your project is going — not from the perspective of being on time or budget, but from the perspective of how your project approach is working? Typically, you capture lessons learned to improve the execution of future projects, but if you are in the middle of a project, how do you improve the performance?

The Japanese term kaizen, which means continuous improvement, is popular in process improvement circles such as Six Sigma and Lean. Kaizen is used to eliminate waste and make small, incremental improvements that accumulate into significant results.

So how does Kaizen work in a project setting? The first step is to know the process.

Do you have a process diagram of your current process, often referred to as the “As-Is” process? If not, start by diagramming the process. Here’s a simple example of an As-Is process diagram.

Click to enlarge

There are sophisticated techniques that use Business Process Management (BPM) Notation, but you need not go to this extreme. A simple approach is to use sticky notes and a long piece of craft paper.

The key is to identify the process steps, decision points, and roles.

Now, look at the process carefully. Are there steps in the process that do not add value to the end product?

A good example is when a wait queue occurs somewhere in the process. For example, requirements may be written and held in queue for weeks or months until developers become available. During this period, the stakeholder’s needs may have changed, but the process does not accommodate that possibility. (In a Lean manufacturing environment, all queues are removed.)

What other steps in your process are not adding value, or have not added value in the past? Are you creating documentation that is put on a shelf and never used? Are features added to the product that are never used?

Any step that does not add value should be eliminated. 

So now that you have detected areas for improvement, do you have to fix everything at once? In the spirit of kaizen, focus on one improvement, the one causing the most pain now.

Develop a “To-Be” process map and implement the change. The To-Be map shown below expresses a scenario in which the amount of re-work can be significantly reduced. 

Click to enlarge

After you have time to evaluate how effective this change has been, you can repeat the process and identify the next improvement.

This kaizen inspired approach works well with an incremental development cycle, such as you would find in an agile project management approach. And while kaizen may not be as easily applied in a waterfall approach, the key is to look at those activities that are repeated throughout the process — such as weekly meetings, status reports, or customer reviews — and find small, incremental improvements. Think of evolution, not revolution and you’ll be on your way to continuous improvement.

PMI thanks Bob Tarne, PMP, CSM, CSSBB for contributing this article. Mr. Tarne is senior program manager with Lombardi Software, where he implements Business Process Management software and leads process improvement initiatives following agile project management techniques.  He produced the process diagrams for this article in Lombardi Blueprint. Mr. Tarne has advised clients across the globe, and worked previously at PM Solutions, Sprint, and for the United States Navy where he was a cryptologist. He has been an instructor in project management at Boston University and is a past chair of the PMI IT & Telecommunications Specific Interest Group (IT & T SIG). You can see his blog on zen-pm.blogspot.com and can contact him at btarne@yahoo.com.