Are process excellence projects really getting more complex?
PEX Network’s recent Future of PEX research (2013) found that the average length of a process improvement project has been declining in recent years, with a marked increase in the number of projects taking 3 months or less over 2011 and 2005 figures. At the same time, anecdotal evidence suggests that the complexities and interconnections between projects is growing, requiring a different set of skills and approaches.
"I remember a time when you did a project and then you started off another project. You might have had some working in parallel, but they probably weren’t operating in the same space, so that you had some distinction between the things that you were trying to change," observed Estelle Clark, Business Assurance Director at Lloyd’s Register, in a PEX Network leadership panel discussion.
"Now, I don’t know of any organization that’s not having a transformation portfolio and many of the things that are happening are operating in ways where the project or changes are interrelated. You need to be able to have people managing this who understand those interrelationships, because we can’t afford the time to run everything serially, so we have to learn how to do it in parallel."
PEX Network is currently undertaking research, in conjunction with PowerSteering, to find out how effective organizations manage the growing complexities of process excellence project management and the types of methods and approaches they value in order to track and deliver project value. How does your organization stack?
Results of the survey will be released later this fall and as a thank you survey respondents will receive a copy of the results.