AuthorArvind Niranjan is the founder of Manas. He has spent nearly 20 years advising clients on supply chain strategy, operations and technology. ArchivesCategories |
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Portfolios That Perform3/26/2021 Over the past 12 years, we have helped multiple clients develop project portfolios within their Technology, Supply Chain and Operations teams, providing them with an actionable roadmap of initiatives that have helped them achieve their strategic objectives.
These are some of the key lessons learned that may help you build a portfolio that performs:
Portfolio planning and management is not a one-time activity, but should be a set of activities that become a part of the fabric of every organization. Portfolios should be a constant reminder of the destination and constantly evaluate the best way to reach it.
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Our Favorite Tools & Frameworks3/5/2021 The increasingly distributed and remote work environment has necessitated an increased reliance on and re-evaluation of tools and frameworks. As a consulting company, we have the unique perspective of observing multiple organizations and adapting how we work based on the characteristics of each company. In this article, we share some of our favorite tools and frameworks that have worked well for us in the current environment across multiple client environments.
Program/Project Management : While the best software tools for the job can depend on the type and size of the project, working style and project management maturity within an organization, the Project Management Institute (PMI) framework of the Initiate, Plan, Execute, Monitor & Control and Close process groups has worked well regardless of project type or industry, and even on projects that are more "agile". Using the sub-groups of Design>Build>Implement within the Execute process group helps better define the key phase in the project of building the solution and it works well in both a waterfall or iterative environment. The options for Project Management software are numerous. We have gravitated towards Asana and Trello on most of our projects in the last few years because they are SaaS solutions and have a rich user interface that encourages collaboration and enables interoperability with other apps, all without breaking the bank. By allowing all project team members to quickly and easily add updates to tasks improves the efficiency of project management and reduces the burden on the project managers, allowing them to focus on the results and benefits and also more projects. While these solutions work well for many small to mid-size projects, there is no denying the power of a tool like MS Project for more complex projects. To learn more about how we have used each of these tools contact us at info@manasconsulting.com. Process Improvement and Business Analysis: As a team that focuses on Operations Excellence and Supply Chain Management, we have used the Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques for thoroughly documenting, understanding and improving business processes. We have long been fans of the Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook and have used Fishbone Diagrams for root cause analyses, Affinity Charts for developing project portfolios, Value Stream Mapping and statistical analyses to improve critical business processes. Probably one of the more challenging aspects of working remotely and in a distributed environment is the inability to work on a whiteboard with project teams. Long before the pandemic, we had shifted to Lucidchart from Lucid for process mapping. More recently, we discovered Lucidspark, the white boarding tool from Lucid that enabled us to facilitate multiple strategy sessions, using templates for developing mind maps, fishbone diagrams, hindsights and affinity charts. As a result, we were able to develop comprehensive strategic plans and portfolios and achieve results far beyond our expectations considering the constraints. Strategic Planning There are many great frameworks for developing a portfolio of initiatives that creates value and allocates resources efficiently. We have preferred the Strategy Maps framework from Kaplan and Norton, which links the intangible assets to value and develops a Balanced Scorecard for initiatives. You can use the previously described tools from Lucid with this framework in powerful ways to facilitate strategic planning sessions. This is just a small set of tools and frameworks we use on our projects and hope it helps at least a few of you find new ways of working smarter and more efficiently. We will continue to share more and invite you to do the same.
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Outsourcing your warehousing, fulfillment and logistics operations is not an easy task. In this month's 5-minute read, we examine some of the tips and tricks for selecting your next Third-Party Logistics (3PL) provider based on our experience helping clients with this transformational change.
Ultimately, a transformative but disruptive change such as switching 3PLs will not be without its issues. However, by following the tips we have listed, we are confident you will begin to enjoy the benefits of the change much sooner. If you would like more details about our services or experience with 3PL transitions, please send an email to aniranjan@manasconsulting.com. |