The 5 Core Principles of Lean Project Management | iCert Global

With the automation tools and the knowledge we have at our disposal today, we should get projects involved with Lean methodology, which aids in waste reduction and increased value. And if we want to make a profit as businesses, why add the complexity? This is where Lean Project Management comes into play. Lean Project Management is about constructing outcomes from waste to usable value to customers.

In this article, we will discuss the principles of Lean Project Management, advantages, how software can assist, and the means necessary to execute the new process or methodology.

Lean Project Management Advantages

Lean Project Management is applicable to multiple industries and disciplines, with various advantages, such as:

• Increased customer satisfaction
• Added visibility of the process
• Increased control and empowerment of teams
• Facilitated quality decisions   Increased team morale and productivity
• Alternative methods of product delivery
• Increased speed to project completion
• Increased profit by reducing waste

If you work for an organization that implements Lean Project Management, you will have these advantages to allow better use of resources, to then ultimately funnel into tools, labor, and equipment.

5 Principles of Lean Project Management

The Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) published five principles in 1997 for the purposes of Lean Project Management. The purpose of these principles are to assist with the minimization or elimination of waste, while delivering customer satisfaction.

1.  Identify Value

The value is determined by what is important to your customer. The value can be defined by quality, price, or timelines.

2.  Map the Value Stream

Once you understand value, you can map all the steps in your production process.

3.  Create Continuous Flow

Be sure there are no impediments in the flow of the production process.

4.  Establish Pull

In this method, the customer pulls the product from the project once it is ready.

5.  Seek Perfection

Lean is an ongoing process; you should always be trying to improve. This principle can be developed in much the same manner as the silver medal improvements in the previous section continuous improvement. This also helps to spread the mindset of continuous improvement across the team.

What is Lean Program Management?

For many organizations, there are a number of projects happening simultaneously. Lean principles can also be applied to a program management level, dealing with several interrelated projects. You can use Lean methods to try and identify waste across projects and identify how to ensure all projects run as smoothly as possible.

How does Project Management Software Assist Lean Project Management?

While you can hand write the value stream, software structures will allow you to locate, eliminate and manage waste processes. Cloud-based project management tools which manage project processes will allow real time data to be available to prove effectiveness as well as bring teams together to make better decisions.

• Developing Project Plans: Managers can easily look at all the tasks in one place so that they can determine what is critical and what tasks aren't. Managers can also use tools like Gantt charts to visually map tasks, which will prevent delays.

• Flexible Workflows: Kanban boards and other scheduling tools allow teams to manage their works with greater ease. Teams can analyze their tasks, leave comments, and receive each other’s updates in real-time, which will create a better workflow.

• Manage Your Team’s Workload : Project management software will tell you how much work every team member has.

• Efficiency: with Dashboards Project management software is useful because it allows you to determine how well the team is doing. Project management software has dashboards that compile important information in real-time.

Lean Project Management Tools

The tools discussed below will be helpful in creating a project process to better project through continuous improvement:

• Deming Cycle (PDCA) In the 1950's Dr. W. Edwards Deming introduced the Deming Cycle. The Deming Cycle is also commonly referred to as the PDCA cycle which stands for:
• Plan: Review your workflow to identify potential problems to be corrected.
• Do: Work with your team to provide solutions based upon data analyses.
• Check: Review whether your solutions are working and if further changes are required.
• Act: Implement the revised solutions

Lean Six Sigma Project Management (DMEDI)

Lean Six Sigma is a methodology to discover and correct problems in a workflow process. The steps to Lean Six Sigma are DMEDI process:

• Define: The goal is set, and a definition of what problem your project will fix is considered.
• Measure: Determine how you will measure the success of your project.
• Explore: Explore new ways to improve the project process.
• Develop: Develop a plan to help the process flow smoothly.
• Implement: Implement the plan.

Why Lean Management is Important ?

Lean project management improves products through processes. Here is why lean project management is important to the world we live in today:

• Increased innovation: Lean project management has encouraged creative ideas that made the project better.

• Less waste:  Lean management reduces not only physical waste but time between production steps and redundancies.

• Customer service improvement: Lean project management concentrates on serving the customer what they need and nothing more, or less.

• Higher quality products: Lean project management encourages reducing mistakes by doing quality checks throughout the delivery process.

• More efficient project teams: Lean thinking promotes an easier way to work, and strengthens the project team implementation.

How to obtain Lean certification? 

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Conclusion

Lean project management improves efficiency, therefore eliminating bottlenecks and streamlining processes to get the project completed faster in other ways. Get certified with iCert Global.

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