project management Archives

To Err is Human! People often make mistakes in life and tend to learn from them. Life is never a bed of roses! Similarly, the entrepreneurial journey is full of trial and error which cannot be dodged. Making small mistakes in such a high cadre may cost one more than they might have imagined. But sometimes peers stop young entrepreneurs from making such mistakes which they realise sooner or later. Stated below are some of the mistakes pointed out by pioneers as these could be and should be avoided.

Trying to act too smart

Being an entrepreneur comes with great passion, consistency, stress and sincerity. Also, there is a small chance that entrepreneurs often tend to think, “only” they do the job well and others don’t contribute much towards the company. This is absolutely common but one shouldn’t act like they know everything and ignore others’ suggestions. This will never yield loyal and honest employees. Moreover, small businesses succeed only with teamwork so, one must always remember to include team members in any of their decisions. Being an entrepreneur, the person might know in and out about their product/service but one shouldn’t fail to split work between their group. So, if you are a young entrepreneur try to plan activities carefully well in advance and avoid these types of mistakes.

Entreprenuers waiting for customers to find them

“If we provide a quality product, customers will come” is a common belief among young and new entrepreneurs. Competition among businesses has gotten stronger but not the reverse, with the influence of social media and the internet. So waiting for customers to reach a business just by word of mouth is mere foolishness. Poor marketing and not spotting the target audience are some of the common mistakes that need to be avoided. Additionally, a business executive must try to contribute funds towards growing their customer base and conduct interesting campaigns by making use of digital platforms. One must not solely focus on digital, but broaden their business by concentrating also on the traditional marketing methods. Hence, one must assign a strong marketing team to find the right mix of target and passive audiences for a business.

Choosing of wrong partners/investors

Investing at the right time is as important as not investing with the wrong team. Entrepreneurs must make sure that they never choose investors or partners who aim just at profits. Small business involves both downfall and success, a partner must be ready to stand with the firm in any of these circumstances. Moreover, young entrepreneurs must make a business plan and strategize their methods of income before relying only on their idea. If you are interested check out our blog on Funding. Also, one must calculate the actual funds required and the excess funds that they plan to have before involving the first set of investors. After all this process, one must be able to interact with the investors and find the best one who focuses both on growth and sustainability.

Focussing on growth only

Aiming at the goal is good but at times, an entrepreneur must try to jump into the shoes of their customers and have a look at their business. Firstly, One must consider their needs and alter their possibilities accordingly because the market functions in a customer-centric approach. Secondly, on aiming at growth, one must try not to experiment with things hastily without proper and sufficient research. Finally, young businesspeople must remember that small business stands strong on the foundation of various factors like customer base, marketing, pricing, customer relationship management, etc.

Financial mismanagement in business

Managing one’s funds is equally important as one’s idea. Firstly, wasting money by investing too much in setup and workspace at the beginning leads to debts and failures. An entrepreneur must think twice before spending their money. So, one must keep an account of their expenditure and tax filings. Hence, bookkeeping, financial statements, projections and financing are the building blocks for a successful business. You can also refer to some books like The richest man in Babylon for more ideas.

Secondly, one must not allow everyone to handle their money. Thus business executives must allot trustworthy employees to keep an account of all these accounts because being stable is more important than growing exponentially. Finally, remember that there are many more real-time problems one might encounter but mustn’t give up due to a failure!

Mistakes are common and can be avoided easily with professional guidance and by concentrating on minute things. But, the role of an entrepreneur in the economic development of a country is crucial. Also, one must never be afraid of their failure, every mistake is a path to success. In conclusion, each person must try to learn from yesterday to create a brighter tomorrow. Also, young entrepreneurs must step up with their ideas to contribute to Make in India and a better future. For more such blogs stay tuned with us!

As a management professional, we consume a lot of time by sticking to traditional management mechanisms. This can affect productivity and can be resolved by introducing some strategic process improvement methods. While general process improvement techniques deal with milestone-based process enablement, strategic process improvement looks into the bigger picture. It might be a small difference from a lower level, but it can change a lot in cost or productivity. Strategic process improvement addresses inefficiencies, waste, cost, asset conditions, and culture within the process and stakeholders.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.
– Micheal Porter

Improving the process in an ongoing project helps you and your team achieve small gains that make a big difference. The following are the points to consider while re-structuring the process:

Describe and measure the process

In most organizations, processes are not described or maybe the described process will be explained over a document with 1000 pages that nobody wants to spend time on understanding. A standard operating procedure with minimal documentation can be a way to eliminate inefficiency. Also, most firms don’t measure the cost and effect. Activities that we cannot measure, cannot be managed.

Set KPIs for each associated activities

It is advised to keep three to five Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to cost, efficiency, and the effects you want to achieve. Project Management KPIs related to Project Schedule, Estimate to Project completion, Resource allocation, etc. are the right choice to track. KPIs to measure the deviation of the planned budget helps in tracking down waste and inefficiency. Understanding which activity took more or less time using deviation in planned hours can help build a meaningful incentive and reward program. It will also help in better allocation planning. A cost variance KPI will help the team in understanding which set of resources or processes are most efficient. It also gives a bigger picture of deciding whether the project was worth the investment, and whether to initiate similar projects.

Improve, Automate, or Eliminate the Process

There might be a process that is time-consuming but could be improvised with certain tweaks. Identify such a process and improve them using standardized procedures. Most organizations prefer looking into Automation and RPAs in their repeating processes, this is a major way where companies cut the cost of the process or project. Some processes can be eliminated too, which will not be affecting the overall output of the project. For instance, in manufacturing, Quality checks can be eliminated after each stage, and instead, a final quality check at the assembly line could save a lot of time. Quality checks that cannot be eliminated at each stage can be automated which helps in cost-cutting.

Develop mechanisms to prevent going back to old Procedure/Habits

Even after introducing a new process, some may not be able to adapt quickly from the traditional procedure existing for a long time. It is fair to keep training and awareness programs to make resources to net fall back to the old traditional procedure. Use of tools or mechanisms such as mistake-proofing (poka-yoke), routines, checklists, etc so that the resource might not go back to the old habits.

Standard Methods in Process Improvement

Few process improvement methods that are effective for any organization are as follow –

Lean Manufacturing

It is a methodology that focuses on minimizing waste within manufacturing systems while maximizing productivity. Waste can be defined as anything that does not add value to the customer or is not willing to pay for it. Lean Manufacturing was developed by Toyota as TPS (Toyota’s Production System)in 1930. However, there were issues existing from the TPS which was responded by the development of Kaizen. TPS was renamed as Lean in 1988 by John Krafcik in his article “Triumph of the Lean Production System”.

Theory of Constraints

Similar to Lean Manufacturing, in Theory of Constraints, the focus is on identifying and eliminating the important limiting factor. This can be any limiting factor that stands in the way to achieve the goal and then systematically improving that constraint until it is no longer a constrain. TOC consists of 5 steps:
1. Identify the System’s constraint(s)
2. Decide how to exploit the system’s constraint(s)
3. Subordinate everything else to the above decisions
4. Alleviate the system’s constraint(s)
5. If a constraint has been broken in the previous step, go back to step 1.

Critical Chain

In a project plan, the critical chain is the sequence of both precedence and resource-dependent that takes prevent a project from being completed in a shorter time with limited resources. The critical chain is similar to critical path analysis. Critical Chain is a traditional method derived from ‘critical path’ and ‘PERT’ algorithms, which emphasize task order and rigid scheduling. Critical chain project management uses buffer management instead of earned value management to assess the performance of a project.

6-Sigma

6-Sigma is a process improvement strategic approach developed by Bill Smith, an American engineer while working in Motorola in 1986 which was later adopted by Jack Welch to General Electric in 1995. Lean Manufacturing and six sigma share similar methodologies and tools. However, Lean focuses on eliminating waste using a set of proven standardized tools and methods which are in line with organizational efficiency and implementing a performance improvement system utilized by anyone. In Six Sigma, the focus is on eliminating defects and reducing variation. Six Sigma is more dependent on accurate data than Lean Manufacturing methodology. Six Sigma consists of two methodologies: DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control)and DMADV/DESS (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify)

SIPOC

SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Input, Process Output, and Customers. SIPOC, also known as COPIS, is a tool that summarizes all the input and output processes in table form. This tool is used to explain a business process throughout the entire business lifecycle. This tool can be used to identify all relevant elements of a process improvement project before it is started. It helps in defining a complex process that might not be well scoped, and typically implemented at the measure phase of Six Sigma DMAIC methodology. It is similar to process mapping and ‘in/out of scope’ tools.

Tag project management

5 mistakes that young entrepreneurs must avoid