Lean Project Management: Implementation, Benefits, and Critical Success Factors

Lean Project Management is an application that helps optimize project outcomes and minimize waste. This article explores the implementation, benefits, and critical success factors of Lean Project Management.

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SUBJECT: IMPLEMENTATION of LEAN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Lean Project Management is an application which is structured for delivering project
outcomes with more values and minimal waste. Lean Project Management helps to optimize
the values and wastes occurred or created during the lifecycle of the project. The initial
reason for implementing lean project management may help to achieve number of goals in
business process mapping (Orzen and Bell 2016). The advantages of early implementation of
LPM are as follows:
Eliminating wastes: The concept 3MU’s are the central idea for eliminating waste; Muri,
Muda and Mura. Muri refers to the unreasonableness and it is a process, system or facility
designed beyond the physical capabilities of employee’s or equipments (Borikar, Purohit and
Hulle 2018). Muda refers to the usefulness. It is an activity within a process that does not add
value, from the perspective of the customer. Mura refers to the unevenness; it shifts in
demand or delivery that leads to a service or support process being speed up slowed down.
Improves the quality of final product: The quality of the final project is improved as the
implementation of LMP reduces or eliminates the wastes from the project work. During the
work flow as a result more reliable product is obtained without any defective outcomes which
lead to customer satisfaction as well as integrate the reputation of the company.
Reduces the time of project completion: The project is observed at every phase which helps
the project team to perform the work on time as the waste and other negative factor are
eliminated which smooth the work flow without any interruption.
The project is completed on the basis of budget: The final products are based on the
budget efficient factors of the project. The organization has implemented the lean project
management at an initial stage; observes the project at every phase and the expenditure made
on the requirements only.
Meeting the requirements for project performance: The project performance meets the
requirements because of the early initialization of the implementation. This is because of the

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organization gets enough time to research on the project before proceeding with it. The
research outcome helps to identify the basic requirements and early measures can be taken at
an early stage.
Reduces the effective cost: The effective cost of the product is inversely proportional to the
waste elimination (Cooper 2017). The final price of the project becomes much more efficient
and value for the money.
Adds values on the project: The product is based on the early market research. The research
is done on the customer requirement and fields of requirement with effective competition
from the similar product from other brands (Taurianien et al. 2016). The final product meets
the customer satisfaction which reflects on the values of the project.
The people who have vested interest and stake over a project are the stake holders of
that particular project. Stakeholders have the ability to affect the project by directing the
outcomes of the project (Gualandris et al. 2015). The management team of an organization
not only improves the reputation of the organization for social responsibilities by engaging
the stakeholders but also benefits the stakeholders in decision making by including them. A
project may have several stakeholders. In several organizations the stakeholders are provided
with the authority in decision making over the entire project or some part of the project.
The initial involvement of stakeholders in lean project management can be beneficial
for them in many ways. The different types of stakeholders associated with Lean Project
management are internal, connected and external stakeholders. The internal stakeholders are
the directors and managers who are involved in the decision making of the project. The
directors and manager look for the share option, job satisfaction and bonus perks, bonuses
and maximizing the process. As the initial implementation of lean project management
eliminates waste, it reflects on the estimated budget. Minimizing the wastes means more
budgets can be saved with less investment by the internal stakeholders. However, the
reduction in the time of completion also helps to proceed with fresh and new project before
time. The connected stakeholders are employees of the organization who look for the high
pay, job security, good working condition and fringe benefits. They can avail the benefits like
performing less work with efficient time management as the waste has been eliminated. The
external stakeholders are the customers and the suppliers. The customer looks for low price
and value for the products and the suppliers look for the large size and valued contract,
frequent and regular orders. They can avail the benefits like early access of the deals. The

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customers do not have to wait much for the product; in fact they can get the product before
deadline. The suppliers can increase stocks and reduce the supply pressure because of the
early access and can promote the product on the basis of its value.
The Critical Success Factors (CSF) is the action and programs or the critical factors
that can be can be developed for the requirements to ensure the success of the business. The
Critical success factors have been used significantly by many organizations to identify the
key factors to improve the organization stability and to focus on to be successful. The
importance of identifying CSF is necessary as it allows the organizations to focus on the
efforts to build their capabilities. To enable the implementation of lean project management
successfully the critical success factors need to be in place (Netland 2016). The Critical
Success Factors are:
Commitment to the lean program: The administrative commitment is one of the most
significant key and success factor irrespective of the location, plant size, firm and other
factors (Bortolotti et al. 2016). The executive and company official must participate on the
shop floor and outlets as this cannot be done by just lead from the office. The management
must interact with the employees to listen to their suggestion and questions, involvement in
the ongoing communication and should explain them the need of lean management for the
betterment of the project.
Training the workforce: Training the workforce is the second most important factor for
understanding the lean management and provide them with the proper knowledge regarding
the lean project management (Tezel et al. 2015). The management team and executive are the
first one who needs to undergo the training process. The implementation of lean project
management at an early stage help to build the needed knowledge by the internal corporate
resources or the external consultancy firm. The knowledge can be gained in a quick way by
bench marking another organization who has already implemented the lean project
management. However, accumulation of the local knowledge is much more considered than
that of gathering knowledge from a consultant.
Have a proper plan to follow: The third most important critical success factor is to have an
appropriate plan to follow and execute it (Martin et al. 2019). The vision is to have suitable
lean program to place the organization in good position. The plan should be simplified and
classified into several steps. The performance based target should be set at an early stage and
should be monitored at every phase with the project movement. Meetings must be held at

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regular interval of time to follow the implementation of LPM for a particular project. The
management must integrate the lean project management at everyday business in spite of
running it as a separate. Temporary projects should be kept at the side of operation.
Sharing gains by allocating the resources: The necessary resources should be allocated by
assisting the implementation and proceed forward to share the gains with all the employees
leads to critical success of the organization. It is tough for the organization to implement and
turn lean without the collaboration of the local supporting lean team or distributed task force
team from the organization. A dedicated budget is also essential for the change. The gains
earned through the improvement should also be shared among the work force resources.
Reward and recognition can play an important role in the early stage of the lean program
which motivates the employees to perform better (Özçelik 2015). However, the management
should design the reward and recognition system in such a way so that does not affect the
cultural traits in a sensitive manner.
Use lean tools and method: At the final lean tools and method are utilized in an organized
manner. The most frequently utilized lean tool as mentioned in the survey were the
visualization, waste elimination, continuous improvement, team concept, problem solving,
value stream mapping, daily management and 5s methodology (Jiménez et al. 2015). These
are the well recognized methods regarding lean production viewpoint. Tools and methods are
the effective and essential requirements for the success regarding the execution of lean
project management in an organization. However, these are sufficient enough; the other four
success factor must set off the lean tools and methods.
The keys steps for determining the Critical Success Factor are in place are as follows:
Step1: The team should be pulled together that will be working with the CSFs: It is critical
to pull the team together that will be working together on the critical success factor for the
business. This should be initiated from the higher level of the organization as it is necessary
to have senior level buy-in. Several organizations appoints consultant to initiate the process
but the discussion can be performed internally as well.
Step2: Submission of ideas and feedback from the employees: The employees around the
organization should provide their individual feedback while determining the 10-15 level
CSFs (Stieglitz and Hassannia 2016). Moreover, this step should be implanted at step three
depending upon the preferences. This feedback process based on either among the feedback

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from other departments or some smaller groups can be made in order to organize an
interoffice feedback. However, the ideas from the acting board should be taken into
consideration regardless of the method of choosing it.
Step3: Using multiple key factors to inspect the elements of long standing goals: The goals
are based on three key factors to determine the success critical factor of the business. The key
factors are:
OAS statement: OAS is the acronym for “Objective, Advantage and Scope”. This method
provides the strategies to be implemented with confidence and to execute these strategies it
acts as a initial point to drill down the critical factors.
SWOT analysis: SWOT is the acronym of “Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats
(Phadermrod, Crowder and Wills 2019). This can assist to optimize the performance,
maximize potential, manage competition and minimize risk factors.
Strategic plan: This step helps to provide a clear idea about the understandable strategic
plans. The strategic plans helps to pursue with perfection in the project.
Change Agenda: These steps involve changes needed to be made within the organization in
order to achieve the goals.
Step4: Determining the key factor for achieving organization plans: To avail greater
success for the organization to move fluently, the above criteria like SWOT analysis, Change
Agenda, OAS statement and Strategic plan should be gathered up together.
Step5: Implementing Company’s wide strategic plan: Just by identifying the critical success
factors and grouping those together under a perspective will not only help to succeed the
company. A framework should be constructed to accomplish critical success factors in a more
successful way. The scorecard system should be introduce to record the success factors which
help to measure the whether the organization is really achieving it or not. Certain initiatives
allow the organization to understand whether they are taking the right decision to achieve it.
The techniques which built motivation to implement Lean Management are:
Recognition of individual ability: This recognition is based on the individual to best show
their performance while working on a team. However, the overall team performance also

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motivates the morale of the members. This will encourage the members to contribute more to
their respective group.
Sense of achievement: The management must create an environment for the employees to
achieve something both collectively and individually. The recognition must be based on both
individual and group achievements. The management must make sure the employees must be
motivated to achieve the goals and the new innovation that have been implemented to
improve the project culture and management.
Growth by learning: The growth and learning is a never ending process in an organization.
This does not even end with the master skill gained by an individual regarding their job
(Padhy 2017). The management must educate and provide training to their employees to learn
more and achieve the knowledge growth. These initiatives will motivate the workers to adopt
Lean Project Management skills.
Responsibility and empowerment: The employees must be given certain responsibilities
individually as well as a group member which will reflects on their work performance and
empower them to carry out their responsibilities.
Promotion: A higher designation with promotion along with the higher pay scale is one of
the higher motivational factors among the workers. The employees will work more efficiently
to perform well in order to avail a higher post in the organization, which lead to the
development in work structure for the team as well.
The training of lean project management is based on six sections. The section are as
follows:
Regular employee assessment: The employees should be assessed at regular interval of time
on the basis of their performance (Rizvi 2017). The most successful as well as valuable
employee should be selected every month and rewarded to keep other employees to focus on
their work. This would increase excitement of the workers to perform well.
Strategy education sessions: The frequent and sessions interaction with the employees by
the higher management of the organization give them a brief idea about the organization
overview (Bahm and O'Keefe 2018). The education provides motivational interviewing to the
workers.

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Clear communication: The management of the organization should communicate with the
employees at a regular interval of time (Rivera and Kashiwagi 2016). The employees should
have the ideas about the future plans and other goals of the organization.
Alignment of team goals with company goals: However different team pursues with
different goals with an organization but they have to attain the overall terms and objective of
the organization at every instant of time. To perform this every team has to structure their
goals with respect to the company goals.
Adding real value: The employees of the organization always kept motivated to perform
better and add more value to the company. They have to be encouraged by pay rise, providing
incentives by reaching the benchmarks, promotion on the basis of the employee’s
performance and providing other opportunities to empower their knowledge.
Scope to Improve: The company should provide adequate guidance and scope for the
employees who are about to fall over the line with company goals. The company should
organize regular training programs to improve the qualities and skill of the employees.
To six sigma strategies can be assessed by the consultancy to work efficiently. The
organization have to become efficient enough by bringing more certified employees to
maintain and achieve the profitable contracts because the government organizations are using
the metric system for reviewing the vendors (Price, Pepper and Stewart 2018). Six sigma
aims to reduces the manufacturing errors. The organizations will become efficient enough to
adopt the lean project management approach to fulfill the requirements for the government
works by masterminding the six sigma strategies.
Method to assess when the consultancy has sufficiently adopted the LPM approach to be able
to tender for government work
Practicality of the method
The sucessful adoption of the LPM principes must be measured in an organized
manner with the help of the performance matrics and the KPI. It can also be said that the
application of the lean tools such as the Five S and the Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).
The measurement principles can also be very much important to measure th effectiveness of

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the implementation of the LPM principles. The loopholes of the implememtation should be
monitored so that the usability of the LPM principles can be achived.
Adequate linkage to adoption of LPM
The complexities of the government projects shuld be aligned with the
implementation of the LPM principles. The performance management system can be very
much important to understand the effectiveness of the LPM principles so that the government
project can be done in an organized manner. Both the technological resources as well as the
human resources are managed in an organized manner using the LPM principles.

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