Delivering More For Less

The chances are that you currently have to deliver your projects with less budget and less people, but with an increased expectation from your management team or shareholders. You’re not alone - the project world is currently beset by a need to deliver the same or more in less time and at less cost.


So what do you do?

1. Focus on what is essential - identify the specific deliverables within your project workstreams that will deliver what you want (i.e. what your sponsors want). These have to remain relevant and visible throughout the course of the project
2. Align what you are doing - identify the actions that you need to take to deliver what is essential and eliminate all other activity. There is often a long list of deliverables that can be taken out of the project without affecting the end result
3. Show demonstrable progress - make individuals accountable for each action and ensure that progress is clearly visible to everyone

Better resource at a reduced cost

These guidelines can also be applied to project resourcing to reduce cost whilst delivering better results. It’s likely that by identifying what must be delivered in order to meet expectations that you will be able to rationalize – for example removing expensive consultancy resource in favour of in-house skills or independent contractor expertise.

The open market can deliver a high level of skill and capability if you access it in the right way. By developing a strong relationship of trust with a knowledgeable recruiter you are likely to be able to access a higher level of skill and capacity than you are receiving from large consultancies (or in many cases in-house resource).


Resource that does what YOU want

Furthermore the workload of independent contractor expertise can be directly aligned to the actions you have identified by

a) implementing project milestones, and,
b) inserting deliverable and retention clauses into your contracts with these individuals - ensuring collective responsibility for the end goal and a higher level of engagement

This is not revolutionary as many organisations are now approaching their projects in this way - but it does require a certain amount of courage. You may initially be going against the grain to use resource in this way, but you can make the transition more easily with the right support structure and partnerships in place.

What does this mean for lean?
By applying lean principles it is possible to use the current “budget cut” climate as an opportunity to reinforce the objectives of a project and to eliminate wasteful or non-aligned activity. Projects always suffer a degree of scope creep, and over-governance - over time and they tend to gain sub-projects and multiple objectives. Now is the time to lighten the burden, slim down to a simpler set of actions, review your resourcing arrangements in favour of more cost effective skills, and get back on track.

“Delivery” Image source: Flickr Creative Commons (kamshots)