Case Study: Architecture - Back to: 50% Productivity Increase with Better Quality?
The guiding principle of my firm’s priorities is enabling the fastest completion time possible for a given project with the highest level of quality for our clients. We used methods from Toyota’s Lean Management with advice from the Lean Software Institute to restructure our business priorities in the following client focused way:
1. We have found that the most important productivity boost has been to listen more carefully and more frequently to our Clients. In the past, a delay in asking for and getting client feedback would lead to wasted effort on designs no longer considered relevant by our clients. A client’s decision can radically alter the entire workflow of a project. Understanding and acting immediately on client feedback is now our top priority.
2a. In order to start construction, permits are needed by various regulating government agencies. Without these permits, we cannot build and/or construction can be stopped: Permitting is our second priority.
2b. The most expensive and critical part of a project is the Construction process. A request for information, a change order, or an application for payment as well as other issues during construction, when not acted on immediately, can have devastating impacts on project delivery and construction costs. Construction issues are also our second priority.
3. As architects, we have to integrate our design with the many complex systems that make up a modern building. If we create details and specifications for a part of a building prior to knowing the final engineering design, we will waste the time we’ve spent in that area and delay the project because of the additional time needed to redesign the area. A day delay in getting information from our Engineering consultants equates to a day delay in completing the project as a whole. Coordinating with our engineering consultants is our third priority.
4. What we architects usually love to do most is design and produce drawings. But because our work can be turned upside down by a functional change request by our clients, by a regulatory change by the authorities, by an unknown issue during construction,or by a change in the engineering design, Architecture is our fourth priority.
We automate these client-focused priorities by setting up the following Project template hierarchy in StreamFocus:
Generating Projects and SubProjects with Project Templates
Once the Project Template hierarchy is established, Projects and Subprojects are created that inherit both the characteristics of the template and the underlying priority. The following is a simplified example of a Project hierarchy:
Setting Priorities Between Projects
Priorities are automatically set between projects based on the priorities established in the Project Template. If two Workflows have available actions in separate projects, and one of them is in a higher priority subproject, that Workflow will be the higher priority. If the two Workflows are in subprojects of the same priority, the Project with an earlier deadline will take priority. Additionally, within a priority level in a set of subprojects, each subproject can be assigned a priority so that an Workflow, all other priorities being equal, will then use the subproject priority.
Next: Constrained ActionStreams Prevent Costly Rework
©2007 Organon Technologies LLC
February 15, 2008 at 8:31 pm
[...] Project Templates establish Project priorities and organization [...]
June 11, 2008 at 1:27 am
what is the differance between project structure and project co-ordination structre?
June 11, 2008 at 9:20 pm
This blog post is a bit out of date: StreamFocus uses the idea of the critical path as the key organizing and prioritizing method. Links are made between workflows that establish which workflow must happen before one can move on to the next workflow. This establishes a particular workflow or workflows that have to be completed before any other work can be done, and within this critical path workflow, the active actions or pending actions are treated as the top priority work for that project. The activities in the critical path are focused on.
To answer your question Lee, normally separate projects don’t have a critical path link to other projects in that one has to happen before the other, but there are exceptions. So coordinate structure is possible and is treated in the same way as structure within a project using critical path links. It is not uncommon for me to have subprojects that have their own critical path structure within a larger project.