Ancient Egyptians, Funeral Boats and Project Management

While visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City last month, I was struck by the small painted wooden models of Egyptian boats that were found in the Tomb of Meketre, in Thebes, in the year 1920. The artifacts date back 4000 years to 1981-1975 B.C. and are a remarkable example of model building, funerary traditions, boat building, and naval architecture. But as I looked at how one of the vessels is being paddled against the prevailing wind, it occurred to me that they also represent the challenges of Project Management in today's shipbuilding and manufacturing world.

Here's why...

I read that the model boats were representative of the voyage the Theban Official, Meketre, took to the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians placed a great deal of importance on the afterlife, and actually looked forward to the transition from present life on earth to the afterlife. I think we should place the same importance in our projects. As exciting and rewarding as current projects are, we should look forward to the afterlife: the next project.

Meketre, like most high-ranking Egyptians, took a variety of items with him in death so that he had them at his disposal in the afterlife. We should follow his example. As I consider our current projects, I ask myself what things I can take with me into the afterlife, or the next project. With special attention on how I want to continuously improve each new project, I created a small list:

• A list of project inputs – what we were given to start with and what we were provided with throughout the life of the project
• An analysis of the inputs – special attention to quality, problems, issues, timeliness
• Lessons learned - internal
• Best practices – internal developments and how they helped the project
• Metrics and historical data – how we performed, analyzed internally
• Detailed information about the stakeholders – in order to link the identity of stakeholders with success or risk
• Customer feedback – in order to get the most important opinion and analysis of all, which is an external evaluation of our performance.

Finally, how do we actually transition from the current project on to the next? Just like the ancient Egyptians, we celebrate!

Imagine…did Meketre ever conceive that he would have impact on the life of a small business 4000 years later? Makes you realize that you never know the extent of your actions on this earth…or the afterlife!

For more information about Ancient Egyptians, and this particular exhibit of model boats found in Meketre’s tomb, visit The Metropolitan Museum of Art website:

http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/100000431

Writing an Outstanding Proposal

An excellent half-day session on writing winning proposals for government.The session was facilitated by Michael Asner and was sponsored by NATI (Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Technology Industries). Walked away with some key points that can be applied to my responses to RFPs for both government and commercial ventures. In no particular order:
- Always include an executive summary. Consider the executive summary as the elevator pitch and the place where you set the theme. This is where one describes how they will respond to the RFP and why the client should chose your company over any other respondent. Be specific. The rest of the proposal should refer to and address each of the points covered in the executive summary.
- Always address risk and risk mitigation. Include a risk management plan. It might be the differentiator.
- Avoid technical language wherever possible.
- Top areas of interest for an RFP reviewer: risk, value and lastly money. If one can demonstrate how you will eliminate risk and increase value, then the reviewer will be more likely to champion the need to increase budget if necessary to pay for it.
- If you can't hide it...feature it. I will leave it to you to figure that one out. Call me if you want to discuss.
- Don't dis the competition. Use generic weaknesses or threats, then use the critical success factors you bring to the table to demonstrate how you will eliminate these threats.
- Proof of concept... offer it up!
- Don't regurgitate the RFP. It will get you thrown out of the review pile every time.
- And for the last point, which happens to be my point... go on-line to www.gitomer.com for some excellent additional advice and support. His sales philosophy is in line with all of the above.

I'm going try out the tips I learned right now... and to you, good luck on your next proposal!

National Lean Conference 2012 - Learning Points

It has been a couple of months since attending "Embracing Lean - CME National Lean Conference 2012" in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I have been reviewing my notes to see what new concepts I learned, and which concepts I have actually implemented, and what is left on my list. I  found that we have implemented one major item that deserves a blog entry all on its own - we found a use for Trello.

In this entry, I would like to talk about the CAP-DO cycle. I picked up on this very simple process from the first workshop of the conference entitled "Learning from the Masters" presented by Louis Schultz. The concept of CAP-DO is simply a 180 degree rotated PDCA...which makes perfect sense when you have an existing process or product, and wish to improve it. Isn't that what we all have?

We continually perform CAP-DO here at Genoa. With every engineering process we have developed for every value stream that we have mapped, we always start with CHECK. On a regular basis, we review each individual process or standard operating procedure to make sure it: #1 - still makes sense, #2 - it does not have any issues, #3 - it outlines the most efficient method of completing the work, #4 - it does not contain waste, #5 - any number of individuals can complete the work, and #6 - there are no other weaknesses present. Then we ACT. We develop the way to revise the process. Mind you...even our revision process is mapped (and therefore reviewed). Then we PLAN. We revise the work instruction, inform everyone of the change and train everybody on the change. Then we DO. We put the revised process in work and people start using the new process on live projects. While this is happening, we continue to track the process in the same way we have been tracking every process for years.

Then we start over again....

So I guess this conference learning point was a means of properly identifying our existing internal process. Learning from the Masters helped me to realize we already had a process, but it also helped me realize that the CAP-DO cycle is a tried and proven method of continual improvement. Ultimately I learned that we must never skip a step, otherwise we introduce risk....and I don't like risk.

The power of a visit.

Dropped in to visit a few customers last week, and realized that the power of an on-site visit extends beyond any contact in a trade show, email, phone call, fax, or any form of advertising. It also provides valuable information with respect to lean.

By dropping in to visit your customers, and being ready to talk about them, not your own company, you learn about what their needs are, what situations they are facing and what current activities are at the top of their minds, and you learn about their culture. This helps you identify how your service or product may fit a customer's needs. If you have regular visits, you can also start to identify trends and ongoing needs versus situation specific needs.

With respect to Lean, you can take the things you learned above, and start to identify what the true value to the customer may be. And after all, that is what Lean is all about: identify the value according to the customer, then strip everything that is not of value to them. All that other stuff...the stuff they are not willing to pay for... that is waste.