Envision, right now, for the next four minutes, a previous 11 months of planning, scoping, decisions, scheduling, capital spends, more decisions, design, negotiations, still more decisions, equipment validations, yep, decide and finally, construction over [insert national holiday] by your team–and imagine today is the day.
Maybe last night you experienced a restless attempt at sleep, due to either the energetic anticipation of a perfectly coordinated successful day or the lingering drone of angst filled nightmares highlighting potential outcomes of late freight or incorrect height fright. Or for others, it’s simply just another day at the office, working, on a company paid holiday. But, ready or not–today is the day for starting-up your brand spanking new multi-million dollar packaging line.
What could possibly go wrong?
As the project manager, up to this point in your preparation, you’ve appropriately engaged the 4Ms to the maximum threshold possible throughout your planning. You’ve figured out what Manpower is necessary, which Machinery was required, what the incoming Materials need to be, and the Method of both project execution and systems operations.
Backing up for a second, these 4Ms operating together, is just one (among several) set of tools used by Lean Manufacturing practitioners. Born from Toyota’s management ranks in the 1950s, lean manufacturing is a branch (among others) of the evolving quality management philosophy in use today.
Luckily, the robustness of “The Toyota Way” makes the principles adaptable to other functional areas as well. Applying the 4Ms for the purpose of incrementally and continuously improving production line efficiencies is a common example. Ask the questions of the system. Got it.
However, the principles work equally well for discrete activities that have a beginning, middle and an end, like your project. As you would of the system, ask the questions of the project, then also listen.
Do you, as the PM, have the correct manpower, sub-contractors, supplies, equipment, supporting services and also robust project management procedures to make it to the finish line? Stepping through the 4Ms can favorably affect the time, cost and quality elements of not only the system you are designing, but also the overall project management process.
You’re on it, having applied to the situation at hand the equivalent of the (4Ms)2. What, then, is left to go wrong?
Maintaining control of your system design process, design parameters and project progress by continually asking the questions of the 4Ms is an effective method for planning your way to success, as long as you don’t forget 5 and 6.
1. Manpower
2. Machine
3. Materials
4. Method
5. Measurement- “You can’t control what you can’t measure.”
6. Murphy’s Law– “If anything can go wrong, it will”
How will you know if your project is marching towards the goal if you do not know the definition of success?
Measurement: What is the goal? How and when do you know you have reached it?
Management Level
- How and when will you know if you are successful? What is the definition of success?
- What is the project budget, end date and product ship date?
- What is the investment return threshold and at what point could it be at risk?
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Systems Level Quality
- What are quality attributes of the product?
- How will they be measured?
- For each attribute, what testing programs and lab equipment should to be included?
- What are the ranges for success?
Systems Level Performance
- What are quality attributes of the system?
- How will they be measured?
- What design for robustness parameters are to be included in the systems?
Murphy’s Law: “Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts.” – A. Einstein.
Management Level
- What happens if ________?
- What are the key risks for project completion?
- What are the risk mitigation strategies?
Systems Level
- What are the key design parameters that have the most impact on performance?
- How and to what extent do you mitigate performance risk?
Incorporating management level success criteria, system level quality metrics and contingency planning complete The Toyota Way principles, and perpetuates continuous improvement for both systems level and management level activities.
Applying Measurement and Murphy’s Law to your project planning and execution actually serves as validation for your Manpower, Machinery, Materials and Methods decisions. And at start-up, the difference between incorporating these additional 2Ms or not could mean the difference between jumping out of bed in glowing anticipation for triumph of all systems go, or calling in sick.
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