Implementation Of Lead Project Management

Question

Task: The Board of Directors has chosen you to be in charge of implementing the LPM approach. This assessment, therefore, is to be done INDIVIDUALLY.
As the Director in charge, your task is to write a memo to all staff informing them about the decision and the proposed implementation process for LPM.
Your memo must:
1. Address the initial reason for implementing LPM
2. Describe the benefits that can be gained by the various stakeholders in a project from implementing LPM
3. Describe the Critical Success Factors (CSF) needed to be in place within the consultancy organisation to achieve successful implementation of LPM
4. Describe the steps by which you propose to ensure CSF are in place and how to achieve the LPM mindset within the consultancy staff
5. List and describe training requirements for individual staff
6. Describe your method to assess when the consultancy has sufficiently adopted the LPM approach to be able to tender for government work

Answer

Introduction
This Memo is being made by the researcher to inform all staff of the consultancy firm about the decision to implement Lead Project Management. Lead Project Management is the methodology by which the firm can reduce wastage, increase efficiency and utilised its resources better. Also, the different aspects of the LPM will be considered in this memo. Some of the aspects that will be considered in this memo are reasons for implementing it, the benefit of it to different stakeholders, identification of CSF, how the CSF should be implemented and many more aspects like these. The aims of the memo are is to increase the awareness of the consultancy firm regarding Lean Project Management and its different aspects of the implemented LPM in the organisation.

Initial reasons for implementing LPM
According to Sunder, (2016), the main reason for implementing Lead Project Management is that it will streamline the company processes. This applies to project management consultancy company because the company has a high amount which can be minimised by the streamlining the company process by increasing the efficiency of the business. Also, this will increase the speed at which the business finish its every project, and this will increase the capacity of the business to take more project, which will ultimately lead to more profit of the business.

A second reason to implement LPM is to reduce the wastage in the different processes of the consultancy firm. This reason applies to the consultancy firm because as in the current scenario, the business is having a lot of wastage due to inefficiency in the business processes and these inefficiencies can be removed by the Lead Project Management (Agile and Lean Project Management: What You Need to Know | LeanKit, 2019).

A third reason to implement LPM is to build team commitment (The Complete Guide to Lead Project Management | Smartsheet, 2019). This applies to the consultancy as the success of this business depend on the performance and commitment of the employee in the organisation and all these could be bettered by the help of team commitment which the Lead Project Management can build.

The fourth reason to implement to implement Lean Project Mangement in a business organisation is to build an efficient system which always looking for improvement (Sohi et al., 2016). This applies to this consultancy firm as the company as the consultancy business industry is a competitive industry and the companies in it should always look to improve themselves to be more competitive with its other competitors in the market.

Finally, the decision to implement LPM has been taken because the consultancy firm wants to apply for the government work for which it is compulsory for the consultancy to show the lean Project Mangement is applied to the business processes and projects successfully. All these are the reasons for which it is important to implement LPM in the organisation.

Benefits to stakeholders
The government: The government will benefit from the organisation's implementation of LPM in the following ways:-

The first benefit that the government will get by the implementation of LPM in the consultancy firm is the high quality of work from the project that the government gave to the consultancy firm (Orzen & Bell, 2016).
The second benefit that the government will get by the implementation of LPM is that the work that the government gave to the firm will be finished in time or before time. Therefore, this will increase the value of the work of government work.

The employees: The employees will benefit from the organisation's implementation of LPM in the following ways:-

The first benefit that the employees of the consultancy firm will get from the implementation of LPM is the better performance of them at work (Nicholas & Steyn, 2017).
The second benefit that the employees will get from this implementation is better coordination with the other team member working in the project with them.

The Management of the consultancy firm
The management of the consultancy firm will benefit from the organisation's implementation of Lead Project Management in the following ways:-

The first benefit that the management of the consultancy firm will get from the implementation of LPM is the low cost of the different project that the consultancy firm has undertaken, and this will lead to better performance of the management as the overall profit of the business will increase.
The second benefit for the management of the consultancy firm is the better coordination and communication between all the processes of the business or the project. This will lead to a higher efficiency of the consultancy firm.
The third benefit of the implementation of Lead Project Management is the better achievement of the targets set by the management for its different activities and project. This lead to the superior overall performance of the business as the consultancy firm in the different processes of the business.

The suppliers
The supplier will benefit from the organisation's implementation of LPM in the following ways:-

The first benefit that the supplier will get from the implementation of Lead Project Management of consultancy firm is the better coordination with the consultancy firm. This increased coordination will lead to better communication about the requirements of the consultancy firm from the suppliers (Elias, 2016).
The second benefit that the supplier will get from the implementation of Lead Project Management in the consultancy firm is the better sustainable relationship between the suppliers and the consultancy firm.

All these above mentioned are the different benefits that the consultancy firm’s different stakeholders will get from the implementation of LPM in the organisation.

Description of the Critical Success Factors (CSF)
There are seven Critical Success Factors that needed to be in place within the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of LPM, and these Critical Success Factors has been listed below.

Commitment – The First Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the LPM is the commitment to the Lead Project Management from all level of management of the organisation to achieve successful implementation of LPM (Oakland & Marosszeky, 2017). This CSF includes the communication between the employee and the increasing the awareness about the lean programs and how its implementation can be improved.
Effective training of the workers – The second Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the LPM is the effective training of the workers or the employees to use different lean methods and tools effectively.
Effective planning– The third Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the Lead Project Management is the effective planning about how LPM should be implemented in the different project of the consultancy firm.
Follow up about its implementation of the LPM – The fourth Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the LPM is the assessment of how successful the implementation of the lean management. It should be done through regular follow-up about how successful the implementation of the LPM has been in the organisation. This follows up could be done through different methods like conducting regular staff meetings, taking employee feedback through a survey, and many other ways like these (5 critical success factors for implementing lean programs, 2019).
Effective allocation of resources – The fifth Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the LPM is the effective and adequate allocation of resources to the implementation of LPM is necessary for its success as LPM sometimes fails to lack of adequate resources (Rivera & Kashiwagi, 2016).
Fair distribution of the gains – The sixth Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the Lead Project Management is the fair distribution of the gain from the implementation of LPM to the employee of the consultancy firm. This is one of the CSF as the employees are ones who actually responsible for implementing LPM in the organisation successfully (Badiru & Osisanya, 2016). Therefore, it is important to give the employee an adequate incentive to give their full effort in its implementation.
Effective use of the lean methods and tools – The seventh Critical Success Factor that needs to be in place in the consultancy firm to achieve successful implementation of the Lead Project Management is the effective use of the lean methods and tools. There are different lean methods and tools that the consultancy firm can use. Therefore, they should assess and decide which lean methods and tools will be most effective for the consultancy firm.

Descriptions of the steps by which it is proposed to ensure CSF are in place and how to achieve the LPM mindset within the consultancy staff
There are some steps that the consultancy firm should ensure that the CSF is in place in the organisation and align the mindset of the consultancy staffs with Lead Project Management are listed below.

Inclusion of LPM implementation in the objective – The first step that should be taken by the organisation is the inclusion of the LPM implementation as one of the objectives of the consultancy firm, and this will increase the commitment of the management toward its implementation in the organisation.
Planning – The second step is giving adequate time and attention to the planning of the LPM implementation in the organisation by a collaboration of the upper management and the employee of the organisation (Fosse & Ballard, 2016).
Development of a successful feedback system – The third step is the development of the successful feedback system to ensure that LPM is successfully implemented in the organisation and also to find out a way to improve LPM of the organisation.
Development of HR policies – The fourth step that should be taken to ensure that the CSF is in place in the organisation is the development of the human resources policies by the HR department of the consultancy firm to ensure that Lead Project Management is implemented in the organisation. Some of the HR policies regarding CSF of the LPM are proper training programs of the employee regarding the LPM tools and methods. Also, there should include the development of proper incentive scheme regarding LPM implementation performance by the HR department of the consultancy firm.
Assessment of the different lean methods and tools – The fifth step that should be taken by the organisation to ensure that CSF is in place in the consultancy firm is the assessment of the lean methods and tools to evaluate which methods and tools will be most effective for the business processes.
Conducting awareness program – The sixth step that should be taken by the consultancy firm to ensure that staff of the consultancy firm is aligned with Lead Project Management mindset is conducting awareness program or other events which will educate the staff of the organisation about the benefits of LPM.

All these are the steps by which it is proposed to ensure CSF are in place and how to achieve the LPM mindset within the consultancy staffs.
Listing the description of the training requirements for individual staff
There are some requirements for the individual staffs for the training them under Lead Project Management, and these requirements are listed below.

Adequate skills of the managers – The managers should have adequate skills and knowledge about the Lead Project Management to monitor and train other individual staffs of the consultancy firm about Lean Project Management.
Coaching and training – The second training requirement for the individual staff is the coaching and training of the individual staffs by the managers or any other individual appointedfor this role.
Setting benchmarks – The fourth requirement for training of the individual staff is the setting proper benchmark for rating the success of Lead Project Management set in the consultancy firm from different aspects (Furterer, 2016).
Accessibility to the lean tools – The fifth requirement for training of the individual staff is the free accessibility of the lean tools or technology to the employee to ensure that they can practice using them.
Training Program – The sixth requirement for training of the individual staff is conducting proper training programs regarding LPM in a systematic manner in the organisation.

All these above mentioned are the training requirements for the individual staff regarding LPM.

Description of the method to assess whether the consultancy has sufficiently adopted the LPM approach to be able to tender for government work
There are some methods that can be implemented to assess whether the consultancy firm has sufficiently adopted the LPM approach to be able to tender for the government work, but the method chosen by the firm is using Lead Time and Cycle Time as the metric. To check the success of the implemented LPM in the organisation the lead time and cycle time of the different process given in the benchmark of the implemented LPM with the actual lead time and cycle time taken to complete the different processes of the organisation.

Lead time is the assessment of the total time taken by the organisation to complete all process that is required to achieve to give adequate and high quality of service to the customers (Çebi & Otay, 2016). The cycle time is the assessment of the total time taken to reach from one point of the value-adding process of the firm to another point of value-adding point of the firm in the process of giving service to the customers (Özda?o?lu & Rebi?, 2016). These two factors are chosen as the metric by which success of the implementation of the Lead Project Management will be measured because the firm is involved in the consultancy business in which the performance of the LPM depend mainly on the factor how much time taken by the employees to complete different processes of the project or the business. Therefore, these two metric has been selected to assess the increase in the efficiency of the performance of the different business processes under Lean Project Management.

Conclusion
The decision to implement Lead Project Management has been made because primary to be eligible for applying for some government work, but there are some other reasons for LPM implementation. Some of the other reasons for which it is being implemented in the organisation are for getting better efficiency, higher quality of service, better team commitment and many other reasons like these. As a result of this implementation, government, management, supplier and employee will benefit through better value given to the government, a better relationship with the supplier, better performance of the employees and many other benefits like these. There are seven critical success factors that have been implemented to achieve success in the implementation of the LPM. Some of these Critical Success Factors are a commitment, planning, follow-up, allocation of resources and much other CSF like these. Then, some of the steps have been identified, which will help in the implementation of the CSF and alignment of the Lead Project Management mindset with the consultancy staff mindset. Some of these steps are setting the proper benchmark, development of proper HR policies and many other reasons like these. The training requirement for the individual staffs regarding LPM has been discussed. At last, in this memo, the method by which the success of Lead Project Management will be assessed is identified to be the lead time and cycle time of the business processes. All these factors have been included in the prepared Memo.

Yours sincerely,

The Researcher

References
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Agile and Lean Project Management: What You Need to Know | LeanKit. (2019). Lead Project Management Retrieved from https://leankit.com/learn/lean/agile-and-lean-project-management/

Badiru, A. B., & Osisanya, S. O. (2016). Project management for the oil and gas industry: a world system approach. CRC Press.

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Fosse, R., & Ballard, G. (2016). Lean design management in practice with the Last Planner System. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, Boston, EE. UU.

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Nicholas, J. M., & Steyn, H. (2017). Project management for engineering, business and technology. Routledge.

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Orzen, M. A., & Bell, S. C. (2016). Lean IT: Enabling and sustaining your lean transformation. Lead Project Management Productivity Press.

Özda?o?lu, A., & Rebi?, S. (2016). Applications of Kaizen and Cycle Time Reduction as Lean Production Techniques in a Semi-Flexible Pvc Film Producer. Uluslararas? Yönetim ?ktisat ve ??letme Dergisi, 12(28), 25-37.

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Sohi, A. J., Hertogh, M., Bosch-Rekveldt, M., & Blom, R. (2016). Does lean & agile project management help coping with project complexity?. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 226, 252-259.

Sunder M, V. (2016). Lean Six Sigma project management–a stakeholder management perspective. The TQM Journal, 28(1), 132-150.

The Complete Guide to Lead Project Management | Smartsheet. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.smartsheet.com/guide-to-lean-project-management

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