Category Archives: Uncategorized

It was 20 years ago today……

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Anyone old enough will remember the day, twenty years ago today, that Nelson Mandela walked to freedom, blinking in the sunshine, after 27 years in jail, much of that time on Robben Island.

Following his release Mandela exhibited exemplary leadership leading his people to a relatively peaceful future in a democratic South Africa.

It was an incredible achievement given the depth of hostility which existed between black and white.

We should also acknowledge the role played by F.W de Klerk who paved the way for democracy and mitigated the hostility and understandable fears of the Afrikaans resistance.

Both Leaders demonstrated that when we sit down to negotiate a peace we do so with our enemies not our friends but that it is possible to achieve peace against seemingly impossible odds.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

The car in front is…..$%#*$ !!!

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priusThe news today that Toyota plans on recalling several hundred Prius due to brake problems follows hot on the heels of rumours last week that 19 people had died due to faulty accellerator pedals on Toyota vehicles in the U.S.A alone.

What is going on ?  Toyota has always had a terrific and well deserved reputation for product quality and anyone involved in product design knows that quality has to be built in at the design stage where the product should be rigorously tested and key parameter should exceed a certain capability. This approach guarantees a high degree of reliability and integrity with product failures measured in a handful per million.

The enormity of the problems at Toyota indicate a much, much higher level of failure which is incompatible with a quality product.

Toyota are already discovering the high price of possible shoddy design procedures with sales down around 16% last month.

Sadly their reputation may never recover.

Quality is built in at the design stage.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

Project Managers don’t do the work – SHOCK!

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ProjectMgmntGirlProject Managers don’t do the work of the project; that is the function of the team members. That doesn’t mean that Project Managers don’t work !

The Project Managers role is to Manage and Deliver the Project. So why do we need Project Managers ?

Anyone who has ever tried to manage a project will understand that, whatever its nature, a project never delivers itself.

Without effective leadership, control and monitoring any project will tend to meander and stray off path. As Parkinson stated “the work will expand to fill the time available”

The most effective Project Management is often underappreciated if the Project is delivered on time, on cost and on quality as the assumption is made that this would have happened anyway regardless of the effectiveness of the Project Manager.

Most Project Managers are a modest bunch and take this in their stride; they get their satsfaction from a job well done.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

Stop working & attend that meeting……

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Office5When working with teams it is essential to take time out on a regular basis to review project progress. This meeting should be scheduled on a weekly or bi-weekly basis and should involve all members of the team so that everyone feels included. There should be a regular agenda and the meeting should take no longer than one hour. The meeting will be chaired by the PM and suitable items for discussion will be:-
a) Progress against plan – are there any delays and if so what is the cause and what can be done to bring things back on track.

b) Review of Risks – are there any new ones and have any old ones changed in severity.

c) Project cost – summarize expenditure to date and highlight any anomalies.

d) Quality – any issues with product or project quality ?

e) Any other issues which the wider team may be able to help with ?

Holding regular Project review meetings keeps the Team informed of project progress and builds cohesion and team spirit.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

Greedy greedy Cadbury, greedy Cadbury..

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chocolateThat was the chant that went up around the U.K following the decision by the Cadbury board to recommend the latest offer from the American company Kraft for the U.K confectionary manufacturer.

Surely, however, the Cadbury board was only acting in its shareholders best interests – and what’s wrong with that ?

Perhaps objectors could answer the following simple questions:-

If you sold your house would you a) get the maximum price you could or b) sell it to the nicest person for a much lower figure ?

If your boss offered you a 20% pay rise would you decline in the better interests of the Company which employs you ?

Thought so.

Why are people who consistently act in their own material interests find objection when others do the same ?

There are genuine concerns that the Kraft takeover will have a negative impact on Cadbury workers jobs, but those workers do not own Cadbury’s they are employed by them and as a result receive generous financial reward; if they are not happy with the results of the takeover they are free to sell their skills and abilities elsewhere.

It may also be the case that Kraft should not be too surprised if their workforce seek and pursue a substantial pay claim, if neccessary employing industrial action to force their claim.

Maybe if we all acknowledged our own material instincts we could be more understanding of the actions of others.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

ap4

The end of mass production….

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Henry Ford famously said of his model T – “you can have any color you want, as long as it’s black” –  a few decades on and that philosophy just doesn’t wash.

Now we want it blue with green dots on, we want to choose the seat fabric and colour, we want an I-pod deck, we don’t want a GPS, we want metallic paint, we want a sunroof, we don’t want a roof rack, we want bi-directional head lights, like a screaming toddler we want this and we don’t want that.

We want to watch what we want when we want, we want 900 channels of digitized infotainment. We want to watch “Ice Road Truckers” followed by yesterdays “East Enders” with “Bloomberg” in between.

toshiba_tvWe dont want to eat meat and two veg, we want a spicy Samosa and a glass of Japanese Beer followed by real Italian Ice Cream.

We don’t want to holiday in Blackpool, we’d much rather go backpacking in Patagonia or cruise the Black Sea.

We live in a completely different world compared to 70 years ago when most people probably didn’t travel much further than the next village and walked to the same place of work for 50 years.

We have diverse tastes now and the’s no going back. We want to gorge on the multitude of lifes flavours and experiences and why not. WHY NOT !

And who are “we” – we are all consumers and customers and if you don’t give us what we want we will simply go elsewhere to get it.

So stick that up the exhaust of your Model T.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

ap4

The act of innovating; introduction of new things or methods.

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manuprocessRecent statistics show that manufacturing in the UK is now as low as 11% of GDP and employment in manufacturing has fallen by a massive 9% since Sept 2008.

Staggering figures – so what’s the solution, if in fact one is needed.

As manufacturing jobs are generally well paid compared to the rest of the economy and as each manufacturing role supports a number of others in the supply chain it would seem logical that an increase in the number of manufacturing jobs will lead to a more diversified and robust economy.

So, how do we go about generating more manufacturing jobs. Do we introduce tariffs on Chinese goods ?  Impose extra duties on imports ? – we could do this but in the end we may do more damage to British business than good.

Many companies have survived by outsourcing activities to China, the Far East and elsewhere and whereas some would argue this has cost British jobs the counter argument is, that without outsourcing, these companies would have gone bust and cost even more jobs.

Capitalism is a dynamic competitive environment and, like its biological counterpart, the most able to adapt will survive.

Wherever a company or organization exists, in order to compete, survive and thrive it needs to Innovate.

It needs to develop new products and services and bring them to market.

In the current climate this is even more critical.

Innovation enables the most able to adapt to survive.

ap4

Dissapointing your customers…..

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projectsSometimes, despite best efforts at Risk Management, we drift off plan. In the worst case this means we won’t be able to meet our customer commitments.

So what do we do:-

a) Wait until the last minute, hoping for a miracle, then tell the customer they are going to be dissapointed – this is probably the worst thing you could do; no one likes to be let down at the last moment, particularly customers, it also offers them no options and could be extremely costly if they have prepared an expensive advertising campaign to launch their product.

b) Tell the customer as soon as you are aware of the problem – probably better than a) but this will still cause a lot of consternation to the customer and doesn’t offer them any solutions; in effect it puts the responsibility back on the customer which is what they are paying you for !

c) Explore all the possibilities to get the plan back on track; get the whole team involved and seek advice from Senior Mangement once you have explored all the possibilities.

Develop a contingency plan. Find out what you could deliver on time and what you could deliver at a later date. Come up with 3 or 4 alternatives.

Arrange a face to face meeting with the customer, apologise profusely and present them with the contingency plan.

You should have absolute confidence in your contingency as you want to make sure you do not let the customer down again.

Most customers are realistic and pragmatic and the contingency approach will generally maintain your reputation as an effective project manager.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk

ap4

would you let your team visit the customer ?

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customersAs Project Manager you will have primary contact with the customer but should you take team members with you on customer visits ?

Here are some good reasons why you should:-

a) The customer will appreciate the opportunity to meet the team, especially if it allows technical experts from both sides to meet and discuss hot issues. It is often the case that engineers can take up polar positions with their customer counterparts and a face to face meeting is the very best way to minimize possibilities of stand offs regarding technical issues.

b) Your team members will really appreciate the opportunity to discuss issues direct with the customer making them feel valued and appreciated.

c) The PM will benefit from effectively delegating responsibility to the appropriate team member. The team member will take more ownership having being directly involved in the decision making process.

d) Involving team members in early customer visits will generate rapid agreement and clarification of project objectives and product specs.

If you can think of some more reasons for involving team members in customer visits, or even reasons against, we would like to hear them.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk






Minimize costs at the design stage…………….

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design01

Once the product spec is agreed with the customer the product design stage can begin.

This is the key stage for minimizing product cost. At every point the design engineer should reference the product spec in deciding what components to use and what tolerances are required. The design should take into account component and material cost and every effort should be made to minimize cost.

If the spec can be exceeded without impacting on cost then this should be done but not if there is a negative impact on cost.
The design should be maximised for efficiency and manufacturability and costs minimized before moving on to the prototype stage.
Every cent saved at the design stage will be a saving throughout the product life cycle whereas every additional cent lost in design will require an expensive redesign in order to be recovered.
The design stage is the key stage to minimize product cost.

chris@projectsguru.co.uk

www.projectsguru.co.uk