Operational improvement projects identified and planned in a one-day workshop.

Challenge
A very successful IT consulting group found itself in constant overload which was starting to wear on the efficiency and esprit de corps of their team. Due to current project imperatives, they were rarely able to launch meaningful operational improvement projects. Their Managing Director believed that the overall team would benefit from improved project management skills and asked SkeensMcDonell to design a Workshop to address the need.

Action
SkeensMcDonell designed and delivered our “An Executive’s Guide to Jumpstarting Improvement” Workshop whereby we:

• Did pre-workshop work with the leadership team to understand team operations and key issues
• Facilitated a one-day workshop in which we presented a summary of the Project Management Key Competencies and our view of the related characteristics of best in class firms
• Had the team use an anonymous polling app to self-assess their collective strength for each Key Competency.
• Brainstormed improvement candidates for the most “needy” Key Competencies which were, in turn, analyzed using an Impact vs. Feasibility matrix.
• Developed start up plans for the most promising candidates.

Results
The leadership team was very pleased with the results of the workshop (5 improvement projects with preliminary start-up plans) and the feedback from one of the participants captured the essence of what the Workshop was intended to accomplish:

I was very impressed at how, in a one-day workshop, we were able to select and launch improvement initiatives which will really improve our effectiveness. At other companies where I have worked, I’ve seen a similar process take weeks or even months.”