Lean Product Development : Evaluation of a project with focus on project management

Abstract: Conducting Development Projects as fast as possible is very important for gaining as much profit from your product as possible. One method for conducting Development Projects is Lean. Lean is a way of working which focuses on getting rid of time consuming tasks that doesn’t bring in any value for the final product such as long meetings, searching for information, waiting for decisions etc. Habia Cable uses Lean thinking in their development method but still has problems with projects being delayed. The task of this project is to investigate one of their development projects to see how well it followed the plan and budget set up at the beginning. The goal is to develop the Lean method used and make it more adjusted to the workings at Habia Cable. The investigation was made by interviewing all project participants and some experienced Project Managers as well as looking thru documentation from the project. The conclusions from the investigation were that all the goals for the project except one have been met. The one that haven’t been met jet is the one that they are still working on. The goals need to become more open to cope with the changes in the market. The Synchronization Plan for the project was too detailed and took too much time to set up. The Risk Plan was good and had realistic actions but requires more follow up. The budget for the project was lacking estimations for production costs and for all consultants. More time should be spent on creating the budget and it also requires more follow-up and updating when new investments are required. The new project method developed was based on the idea that conditions for the project keeps changing. The method has the same tools but with some changes. The Goal Picture is allowed to be changed and it is evaluated regularly. The Synchronization Plan has is built of larger blocks, which are broken down into smaller tasks, as each block is started. A time line has also been added although it is also rough. The risks are divided into two groups, single tasks risks and ongoing risks. The single task risks are given an action and responsible person. The ongoing risks are graded and the top tem risks are given a set of action and a person responsible for handling it. The budget has more people involved in its creation and is based on a pre-defined list of categories.