 Identifying and prioritizing projects are two of the most important components of running a successful organization. A focused, detailed plan of action will help you identify and prioritize the right projects to stay on track to achieve your goals. In this article, we will give some tips for identifying and prioritizing projects.
Solicit Input from the People Doing the Work While it’s tempting to assign one person to go identify projects, it’s really better to get the input of the entire team. Workers on the frontline often know where the bottlenecks and pain points exist - thus, look to them for input when identifying potential projects. Sync up to a Priority One of the most important ingredients for success in being in step with your organization’s top priorities so that the project gets the attention it deserves to be successful. If you select a project that is not aligned with your organization’s priorities, it may easily be overlooked in favor of those efforts that align with your top priorities. Always Keep the End Goal in Mind Knowing what result you want out of the project before you start prioritizing project ideas will allow your team to think about what will help you achieve the end goal. Investing in projects that don’t directly contribute to your goal will end up wasting time, money, and resources. Planning and scheduling for a Lean Six Sigma Project requires a keen attention to detail and a dedication to Six Sigma principles. Here at Adonis, we provide project management services and Lean Six Sigma training that will ensure that you and your employees are meeting your project goals.  As a project manager, one of the most important aspects of your job is to engage with stakeholders; in order to do that, you must conduct a stakeholder analysis. Stakeholders are anyone who has interest in a project or venture that your business is undertaking. In this article, we will go over three critical components of stakeholder analysis and engagement
Map Stakeholders The goal of stakeholder analysis is to prioritize and identify certain stakeholders before the project begins. Stakeholder mapping involves listing all stakeholders involved in the project, identifying the roles and expectations of those shareholders, and prioritizing them by their importance to the project. Once you have them identified, figure out where they are today and where you want them to be by the end of your project. Create a Stakeholder Engagement Plan Once you know who they are, an engagement plan are the tactics to get them to where you want them to be. It’s one of the most important tools in your project plan. It pulls together information about your stakeholders and records all of your intended means of communications concerning strategy, actions and outcomes. This plan serves an important role in establishing engagement and aligning messages to your stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement plans help make sure to use the right means of communication for the right audience given the type of message you need to share. Execute the Engagement Plan Communication is a key component in building trust between you and stakeholders. The stakeholder engagement plan is not just a check-the-box exercise - it must be utilized regularly as part of your project. Make sure to schedule communication frequently throughout the duration of your project by giving stakeholders project updates or showing how stakeholder feedback is being considered or implemented. There are several different techniques that can be used to map and analyze stakeholders. Some of them may work better depending on the duration of the project and the number of stakeholders involved. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding your project, Adonis is equipped to provide you with project management services that will help you and your team create value. Most everyone has heard the old adage that you can’t really understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. This is so very true when it comes to working with people to influence change and to create better outcomes for your customers - both internal & external. A key aspect to keep in mind is that what you might envision as a successful outcome is not necessarily what your customer envisions. In this article, we will explore how you can gain better insights to more holistically understand your customer’s experience.
Collect Feedback In order to know what is working well and where there are opportunities for improvement, it’s really essential to collect feedback. Without clarity on what’s important to your customer, you could try to solve a variety of challenges that really don’t matter much in the grand scheme while overlooking the top concern your customer might have about you, your team, your product, or your service. Observe Interactions In Lean, we always talk about “going to gemba” - gemba being a Japanese term for “the real place” - or where work gets done. This is an incredibly important concept and essential to seeing opportunities for improvement. The US show “Undercover Boss” exemplifies the concept of observation quite well as it affords company owners to experience what it is like to be a customer or employee of their own company. What better way could there be than to go and experience firsthand how your team interacts with their customers? Use an Empathy Map This is a useful tool for helping analyze the experience for your customers as it pushes you to look at the engagement from 4 lenses: What do they SAY, what do they DO, what do they THINK, and what do they FEEL. By empathizing with your customer through this analysis, it truly improves the relationship as it helps us focus on what matters most to them. By listening to your customer, observing their experiences, and empathizing with them, you’ll start to embark on a journey of continuous improvement that will result in more positive outcomes built on solid relationships. Here at Adonis, we do our best to live by this philosophy as we aim to continuously improve in all of our customer interactions and we’re happy to share this perspective with you.  Supply chain optimization is all about getting the product into the customer’s hands when they want it while spending as little money as possible. Since supply chains involve so many organizations and processes to get the product to the customer, it can be easy to overlook possible ways to optimize and save money. In this article, we will provide you with three ways you can save money through supply chain optimization.
Identify Reorder Points If you want to save money, it’s better to create a specific marker for when supplies need to be replenished. Ordering more than you need in advance with the expectation that you will eventually use the ordered supplies is not cost efficient. Determine reorder points so that you can save money and optimize your resources. Utilize data analysis Identify physical and information flows in your supply chain and use data analysis to help eliminate unnecessary steps in the production process. Data analysis can reveal the inner workings of your supply chain and determine which areas need to be improved to increase revenue and avoid errors and prevent waste. Be Flexible The Lean Six Sigma approach to optimizing the supply chain relies on quick responses to changes in supply and demand during times of crisis and business cycles. As a business, you need to ensure that you are being flexible with your supply chain so that you can respond to the satisfaction of your customers. Supply chain optimization is a critical aspect in reducing costs and increasing revenue, especially during the COVID-19 crisis. By providing Lean/ Six Sigma Coaching and performance insights and analytics, our expert consultants here at Adonis can help you grow and optimize your supply chain to its fullest. Most businesses and manufacturers provide services or products for people. However, just providing a product or a service is not enough to achieve great profits. It’s important to connect with the hearts of both employees and clients alike if you want to achieve a higher level of success. In this article, we go over some tips on how to connect with people through your business.
Be Personal While brand recognition is important, knowing the people behind that brand is even more so. Including an About Us or How We Got Started page on your website or in other promotional materials is one big way you can connect with people. If you can show prospective customers the passion behind the business, you might find people are more willing to purchase products or services from your company. Be Socially Responsible Another way to connect with people is by implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). CSR is a process where you incorporate social or environmental concerns into planning and operations. For instance, a company that decides to go cruelty free or rely on renewable energy resources appeals more to customers because they can have a positive impact on society and the environment. According to this report from Babson College, a strong CSR program can even increase market value by up to 6% and reduce staff turnover by as much as 50%. Be Purposeful If you want to achieve Continuous Improvement in your business, you need to remember your purpose. Regardless of the words you use or the goal itself, connecting with people’s hearts is the most important factor in achieving that mission. Don’t just post your values or principles in your office or on your website - rather, demonstrate how you live them through your actions. We at Adonis are also committed to creating value for your business by helping you better understand how your organization is performing and where it can improve - from an operational perspective as well as a cultural perspective.  As our world advances through the 4th Industrial Revolution, many companies are realizing that they can utilize technology to automate manual processes. With COVID-19 forcing all of us to do more with less, using technology such as robotic process automation (RPA) helps create opportunities to devote more time to value-added work. Let’s explore some of the ways in which RPA can help take the robot out of the human as it relates to financial processes.
Processing Invoices Many employees spend countless hours entering data from invoices into a system for additional processing. Further, errors in transcribing this data from paper to system may result in delayed or incorrect payments. In order to have a more seamless and accurate process, RPA can help by automating the input of data, preparing reconciliations, and even making certain decisions for processing the invoices. Your digital workforce will follow all the same rules any human would, but without any of the errors for the repetitive tasks - thereby allowing the human workforce time to focus on analyzing and managing your cash flow. Running Payroll Reconciling data is a critical component of a successful payroll run - and that’s a perfect application for RPA in that it avoids the painful efforts to compile and compare spreadsheets and reports. “Fat-finger” errors are also avoided as data can be easily validated and transferred between interfaces - automating as much as 65% of manual processes involved in payroll processing. Month-End Closing Any accountant will likely attest to the fact that the month-end close requires manual verification and reconciliation of account balances in order to generate financial statements. Further, these time-consuming tasks require diligent attention to detail at the same time that other work typically stops - resulting in stress and frustration. Using RPA to automate some of these repeatable tasks enables a shift towards more value-added analytical work. Nearly any rules-based process presents as a good candidate for applying RPA. As businesses look to become more efficient, RPA can help by freeing up time spent on repetitive tasks to work on value-added activities. Remember the old school Excel Macro? RPA is that - but it works across everything on your computer. |
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Operational excellence and innovation leadership, leveraging Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Guided improvement from concept to deployment under the direction of expert consultants.
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Adonis Partners has a global reach with consultants located in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
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