Lean project management: The answer to reducing waste and increasing efficiency

With sustainability a key value for many businesses, more organisations are looking to reduce wastage. For project professionals, one way to do this is to adopt a methodology with waste reduction and maximising value at the forefront, such as lean project management.

Is waste a problem in your projects?

Before diving into the world of lean project management, it is important to consider if waste is a concern in your project processes. Do you often invest in resources or activities not needed for project assets? Have you organised project meetings that do not add value or take up time that could be more well spent?

These are just a few examples of how waste may be present in your projects. With this in mind, is there room to reduce or eliminate waste in your project activities?

What is lean project management?

If you’ve identified waste in your projects, lean project management may help you to reduce this and improve efficiency.

Stemming from the principles of lean manufacturing, which originated in the Toyota Production System. Lean project management focuses on the core principles of maximising value, enhancing project efficiency, reducing project costs and waste, and improving customer satisfaction.

5 principles of lean project management

There are five main principles in lean project management. These are:

Defining value

This principle prioritises delivering products and services that meet customer expectations and deliver expected value. Understanding what value means to the customer here is crucial.

Value stream mapping

The following principle is to map out all the steps involved in the project process, making it easier to identify where value is added and where waste occurs. With this step, project managers can streamline their efforts by eliminating non-value-adding activities.

Create flow

This principle aims to reduce the friction between project phases and improve how activities move from one step to the next without delays, bottlenecks, or interruptions. For this, project managers may use a visual outline, such as a Kanban board, to create a seamless flow of activities.

Establish pull

Implementing a pull system involves focusing on what customers want and being driven by this, rather than pushing services. This means working only on activities when there is a demand, which can improve efficiency and reduce the risk of waste or excess work.

Continuous improvement

A key aspect of lean management is Kaizen, which is continuous improvement. It considers factors such as feedback loops, reviewing processes, and looking for incremental changes that improve the process and drive further value, efficiency, and improvement.

Why adopt a lean approach to project management?

A lean project management approach has many benefits, both for those running the projects and for the customers who benefit from enhanced deliveries. These include:

• Greater quality: The focus on the driving value goes hand in hand with improving quality. With the emphasis on Kaizen, continuous improvement helps to enhance quality throughout the project’s lifecycle
• Reducing cost: Another benefit of a lean approach is that it can help reduce expenditure. Projects can enjoy significant cost savings by better utilising resources and streamlining processes
• Enhanced efficiency: Lean project management offers enhanced efficiency by optimising resources and eliminating waste, leading to faster project delivery
• Customer satisfaction: By focusing on what customers are pushing for and perceive as the best value, teams can centre their efforts on these areas and reduce the time spent on non-value-adding activities
• Increased flexibility: The pull factor deployed in lean helps make projects more adaptive and responsive to changes. By prioritising customer value and only focusing on work when there is demand, it is easier to adapt to changing requirements, market conditions, and customer value

Deploying lean project management

Several lean techniques can help project managers prioritise adding value while reducing waste. The common lean methods include:

5S methodology

The methodology covers five steps:

• Sort
• Set (in order)
• Shine
• Standardise
• Sustain

This methodology helps to create and maintain an organised work environment, which increases efficiency, reduces waste, and improves productivity.

Kanban board

As mentioned, a Kanban board can be incredibly useful in visually mapping out the workflow to help understand timings, reduce wasted time and identify bottlenecks. A Kanban board can be ideal for project teams, offering greater visibility so they can easily see the status of tasks and identify areas for improvement.

PDCA cycle

The Plan-Do-Check-Act four-step model is a lean technique for systematically implementing change and continuous improvement. This strategy is helpful for testing improvement measures in a controlled way and on a smaller scale before making more comprehensive changes.

Lean project management in action

Healthcare

The NHS uses lean project management to improve patient outcomes by streamlining processes and improving communication across different departments. This can help reduce waiting times and adverse incidents.

Software development

BBC Worldwide deployed a lean project management approach to its software development process, reducing cycle time and delivering smaller, incremental deliverables, which helped lessen both technical and market risk.

Entertainment

Netflix adopts a lean project management methodology for its content production, leveraging data to ensure the pull factor aligns with customer demand and what they value. This helps drive their commissioning decisions and ensures their ability to adapt in real-time.

Reducing waste and increasing efficiency in your organisation

If you’re looking for a different approach to help streamline projects, reduce waste and eliminate unnecessary processes while also driving value and customer satisfaction, adopting a lean approach can offer multiple benefits and is easy to apply across almost every industry.

Get started with our e-learning Lean Management Online course to put the foundations in place. Then progress through the Lean Six Sigma Yellow, Green and Black Belt certifications to grow with your lean career.

Talk to our team to explore the ideal Lean training journey for you and your organisation’s needs.