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capacity of the organization and the portfolio of work. Lean would mean taking on the right quantity of projects, based on the organization’s capacity to do work (within a window of time), with the correct content, as quickly as possible to meet each project’s needed commitment date. For those projects that are agreed to be taken on by the portfolio, Lean would mean accomplishing the right tasks, in the right sequence, with the correct quality, as quickly as possible to deliver exactly what the customer wants, when the customer needs it. From there, Lean as applied to the task priorities would translate as having the right tasks assigned, in the right sequence, utilizing the correct resources. Next, Lean Task Management would mean ensuring that the right tasks are executed, at the right time, delivering the correct content with the correct quality, as quickly as possible (Fig. 6-6).

FIGURE 6-6 Aligning the systems in a project environment. ©1991–2010 Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute, LP. All rights reserved.

Addressing the Disconnects in Lean Techniques for Project Environments

As stated earlier, there are obstacles in applying LSS to the project environment. We have already addressed the issue of the system of systems nature of the project environment. It is now time to turn our focus to those disconnects with applying definitions and techniques derived from a manufacturing environment and applying them directly to a project environment. In particular, we will look at what is needed to improve productivity, focus, and value, and to eliminate waste and variation.

What is productivity in a project environment? One might be tempted to look at the percent load on the various resources versus their availability in deciding if the project environment is more or less productive—after all, this is where the project organization’s costs and investments are. However, this would be taking the traditional efficiency concept from the manufacturing floor and directly applying it to the project resources. The organization would only be measuring how active their resources were rather than how productive they were. Consider this: working out on a treadmill generates a lot of sweat and does provide a cardiovascular workout. Yet, if your goal is to go from Point A to Point B, nothing has been accomplished—there is activity, but one is not productive in getting to Point B. If our goal is to go from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible, then running faster from Point A to Point B is more productive than running slower or stopping periodically to go shopping, eat, or do email. A project’s throughput is only achieved when it is complete. How quickly an organization can sequence in that project to achieve throughput is based on the organization’s capacity in a window of time and is driven by how much work the resources can accomplish. It would follow that speed of execution of the right tasks accomplished with the correct content and quality drives speed of execution of each project and our capacity for the pipeline of work. Productivity must be viewed from the task perspective—the speed to accomplish the task.

Are we driving the productivity of tasks? Are the metrics within the project environment driving in productivity or do they actually drive in waste? In some organizations, some key metrics are items such as hours charged out per person, resource utilization, and earned hours. These metrics have little or no relationship to whether the hours worked were on the right tasks. In looking at an example from Earned Value (EV), we have two environments (Fig. 6-7).

FIGURE 6-7 Activity versus productivity. ©1991–2010 Avraham Y. Goldratt Institute, LP. All rights reserved.

The top one shows the case when we earn hours on the longest pathway. The second shows that the same number of hours has been earned, but the tasks that drive the project schedule have not been touched. The metric of earned hours and subsequent indicators of cost and schedule performance (SPI [Schedule Performance Indicator] and CPI [Cost Performance Indicator])