Leading Lean Project: Report on Project Management Strategies

This report delves into the application of lean project management principles for constructing a dream home, focusing on a budget of AUD$500,000 and a 12-month timeline. It outlines the project management process, including finalizing client requirements, ensuring effective stakeholder communication, and efficiently managing subcontractors and vendors. The report emphasizes the importance of project planning for defining project scope, controlling and validating communication, and ensuring agreement on project deliverables. Furthermore, it explores the implementation of lean management techniques to minimize waste and maximize project value, such as quickly finalizing client requirements, establishing lean communication with stakeholders, and avoiding scope creep. The document highlights strategies for efficient resource allocation and effective communication to ensure project success within the specified constraints. By integrating lean principles, the project aims to optimize value delivery and achieve timely completion within the set budget.

Running head: LEADING LEAN PROJECT
Leading Lean Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
1) Project Management Process for Building the Dream Home:....................................................2
1 a) Finalising the Client’s Requirement:....................................................................................2
1 b) Ensuring Communication with Stakeholders are Effective and Efficient:...........................3
1 c) Subcontractors and Vendors are effectively and efficiently managed:................................4
2) Explanation regarding Lean Project Management for Building the Home:................................5
2 a) Implementing Lean Management for Finalising Client’s Requirement:..............................5
2 b) Implementing Lean Management for ensuring Communication with Project Stakeholders:
.....................................................................................................................................................6
2 c) Implementing Lean Management for ensuring Subcontractors and Vendors are managed
effectively and efficiently:...........................................................................................................6
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................7
References:......................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction:
Project management is the exercise of various of important aspects which includes
planning, initiating, controlling, executing, and closing a work of a team so that some precise
goals can be achieved (Kerzner, 2017). Here, the project management also targets to achieve
some specific success criteria within some specific amount of time. The main challenge which is
related with project management is achieving goals of the project within the specified constrains.
Among practices of project management there is lean project management. The lean
project managements is actually considered as utilization of the lean concepts and it comprises
lean manufacturing, lean construction, lean thinking and lean manufacturing regarding the
project management (Sunder M, 2016). The lean project management aims to minimise the
overall waste while it aims to maximise the overall value of a project.
Here, lean project management will be utilized for constructing a dream home for a
client. As mentioned earlier, the lean project management can reduce the waste for a project and
can increase the value of a project, this can be helpful for building the dream home for the client.
Thus, the lean project management will be helping in this case for building the dream home
project.
1) Project Management Process for Building the Dream Home:
The current project is regarding building a dream home for the assigned client. In this
project the total budget of the client is AUD$ 500,000 and the timeline for building the home is
12 months. Thus, the budget of the client is limited and deadline for the project is also quite
short. Thus, implementation of the lean project management for building this home is quite
important. Also, it is crucial to select proper project management processes for this project.
Specifically, for this project some important tasks need to be executed and for them appropriate
project management processes is required (Perkins, Jugdev & Mathur, 2018). In the following
section, these project management processes are elaborated briefly.
1 a) Finalising the Client’s Requirement:
Before proceeding with the project it is crucial to finalise all the vital requirement of the
project for successful completion of the project. Thus, in the first stage of the project it is vital to

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finalize all the requirement regarding project for execution of the project in a specific direction
without any type of disruption. This will minimise the wastages in the project and will also
provide better value to the project. Thus, all the requirement of the project need to be prepared
and it need to be finalized. The project requirement should be rechecked with the client’s
requirement before finalising and proceeding with the project. Here, project management process
of project planning has been selected for finalization of the requirement of client. Here, finalizing
of the requirement of the project is actually defining the project scope (Shirazi, Kazemipoor &
Tavakkoli-Moghaddam, 2017). For defining the scope of the project, project planning process is
the most appropriate in this case and for this reason it has been selected in this context. The
project planning refers everything which is crucial to achieve the project success (Harris et al.,
2018). The project planning will explain the project scope and will help in successful execution
of the project. By utilization of project planning, resources can be allocated to the project
effectively as budget and allotted time of the project is already known. In this way by the use of
project management process of project planning, all the requirement of the client can be
finalized.
1 b) Ensuring Communication with Stakeholders are Effective and Efficient:
To ensure proper execution of the project, it is vital to confirm that communication with
the stakeholders is done in some efficient and effective manner. If the communication with
project stakeholder is collapsed then it is very much natural that the project will fail to achieve its
ultimate goal. Thus, it is crucial to ensure proper communication with the project stakeholders.
For ensuring effective and efficient communication with the project stakeholders it is important
to control and validate the communication of the project (Butt, Naaranoja & Savolainen, 2016).
Due to this fact, project management process of control and validation has been selected so that
the communication of this project can be controlled and validated. In this way, it can be ensured
that the communication with the stakeholders are efficient and effective. Here, communication
with the project stakeholders is controlled by adhering the initial protocol of project management
plan (Binder, 2016). Through, adhering the original project communication plan, effective and
efficient project communication plan is ensured. The validation is also important in this context
as it act as a supporting activity for the project (Moghiseh, Mousavi & Patoghi, 2019). Each of
the activity related with the project should be consisting an own validation criteria of it so that
successful completion of the project can be ensured. This is also the same for project

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communication. There should be a validation criteria for the project criteria through which it can
be ensured that the project communication is effective and efficient enough. In this way, by the
utilization of project management process of control and validation communication with the
stakeholders can be ensured in an efficient and effective manner.
1 c) Subcontractors and Vendors are effectively and efficiently managed:
For correct completion of this project it is crucial to manage the vendors and the
subcontractors in an effective and efficient manner (El-khalek, Aziz & Morgan, 2019). If the all
the vendors and the subcontractors associated with current project, managed improperly then it
can lead towards failure of the project. So, it is crucial to manage both the subcontractors and the
vendors. There are various of criteria which need to be fulfilled to ensure that both the vendors
and subcontractors are managed effectively and efficiently. In this case, one of the main criteria
to ensure that subcontractors and vendors are managed properly is ensuring that project
subcontractors and vendors are completely agree on the project deliverable (Jaber et al., 2018).
Also, for proper management of the project subcontractors and vendor it is also crucial to update
them regarding the status of the project. For this an effective communication process is required.
In this way both of the project stakeholders and the vendors can be managed in an efficient and
effective manner.
In this aspect, to ensure that the project subcontractors and the vendors are agreed upon
the deliverable of the project and to ensure that proper communication has been established with
them, again project management processes of project planning can be implemented (Marier-
Bienvenue, Pellerin & Cassivi, 2017). The project management deliverables are actually resides
within the scope of the project. Thus, to ensure that both of the vendors and the stakeholder are
agreed on the project deliverables, project management process of planning can be utilized. As
the project management process of project planning will be utilized, scope of the project can be
created in such a way that subcontractors and vendors agrees with it. Through this, by using
project management process of project planning the subcontractors and the vendors can be
managed effectively and efficiently.
Also, proper communication need to be established with the subcontractors and the
vendors so that both of them can be managed properly. Here, project management process of
control and validation can be utilized again. By the utilization of project management process of

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control and validation, the communication with vendors and subcontractors can be controlled
and managed effectively (De Waal & de Boer, 2017). Here, the communication will be
controlled and will be executed as per the communication plan. In this way, an effective and
efficient communication process will be achieved with the project vendors and project
subcontractors.
2) Explanation regarding Lean Project Management for Building the Home:
As discussed previously, the lean project management is the exercise regarding principle
of lean manufacturing within project management practices. The lean project management is
mainly implemented for maximization of value while waste is minimised (Bascoul, Tommelein
& Tuholski, 2016). For this particular project the budget and the deadline for the project is
already defined and it has been assessed that both of these are quite limited. Thus,
implementation of the lean project management is vital so that project value is maximised and
the waste is minimised. In the following section how the lean project management is going to be
executed for construction of the dream home will be discussed.
2 a) Implementing Lean Management for Finalising Client’s Requirement:
Finalizing the requirement of the client is very much important so that the project can be
executed with ultimate precision. So, finalization of the client’s requirement is need to be as soon
as possible for starting execution of the project. By finalization of requirement of client quickly,
a large amount of time can be saved and in this way waste from the project can be removed.
Here, the finalization of the requirement of the client is associated with the scope finalization of
the project (Khwaja et al., 2018). As elimination of the waste is crucial for implementation of
lean project management, it need to be ensured that the project scope is free from the scope
creep. Scope creep in the project occurs while additional functions, features or requirements are
added beyond agreed scope. The scope creep also does not consider any type of impact on the
resources, cost and time (Madhuri, Rao & Murthy, 2016). Thus, it need to be ensured that these
situations does not occurs during the project execution. In this way, waste can be eliminated
from the project. To, ensure that scope creep does not occurs within the project some important
steps need to be followed. Documenting all the requirement for the project is the first step for
avoiding the scope creep. Also, a clear schedule of the project need to be prepared so that it
become easy to control the project and client of the project also understands the project properly.

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In this way elimination of the wastages from the project can be ensured and the concept of lean
project management can be applied for finalization of client’s requirement.
2 b) Implementing Lean Management for ensuring Communication with Project
Stakeholders:
Project stakeholders the crucial aspect for successful execution of a project. Currently, it
is vital to ensure proper communication with the project stakeholders for appropriate
management of them. If effective communication is not established with the project stakeholders
them it is quite possible that the project will not be achieving its desired goals. Thus, proper
communication with the project stakeholders need to be ensured and for that lean project
management can be employed (Andriof et al., 2017). Regarding the lean project management,
lean communication can be established in this case for reducing the waste from overall
communication process and lean management will be achieved. In the lean communication
process wastages from the overall communication process will be eliminated and for that some
specific steps need to be taken. To ensure a proper communication with the project stakeholders
first it is significant to know the stakeholders properly. In this way proper communication
process can be established and value can be added to the communication. Also, before starting
the communication, the purpose of communication should be clarified for avoiding any type of
unnecessary conversation (Lewis, 2019). During the communication if any type of statement is
provided then it should be supported with proper examples. It will create better understanding for
the statement which will help to minimise overall time required for the conversation by
eliminating the waste. Also, if possible, the communication should be always done in face to face
environment. This is essential for a quick conversation and will be providing a much value to the
communication process. Also, it need to be ensured that the communication is always done in
two way. Means, both the parties involved in the communication should be participating
actively. By following all of these factors lean management can be established within for
ensuring proper communication with the project stakeholders. Also, continuous improvement
need to be established for the communication so that lean management for the communication
process can be achieved.

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2 c) Implementing Lean Management for ensuring Subcontractors and Vendors are
managed effectively and efficiently:
Here, the subcontractors and the vendors also need to be managed efficiently and
effectively as they are the vital part for this current home building project. The raw materials and
a large amount of project execution part is dependent on the subcontractors and the vendors.
Thus, it is very much important to manage both of the subcontractors and the vendors. Here, also
lean management can be utilized to ensure proper management of subcontractors and vendors
(Ansah, Sorooshian & Mustafa, 2016). In this aspect there are total three important steps through
which lean management can be implemented. First, it is vital to identify all the subcontractor and
the vendors for implementing the lean management. In this step particular stakeholders for the
project can be identified which will be helping to reduce waste for subcontractor and vendor
management. In the next step objectives of those vendors and subcontractors need to be
identified so that their specific tasks can be managed properly and it will be helping in overall
vendors and subcontractor management (Thomas & Ellis Jr, 2017). All of these vendors and
subcontractor need to be categorized. It will again contribute in perfect management of those
vendors and subcontractor. Thus, by following above three steps wastages from the management
process can be eliminated and more value can be included within the overall management
process of vendors and subcontractor. In this way lean project management can be accomplished
for the management of subcontractor and vendors in an effective and efficient manner.
Conclusion:
The above discussion implies that lean project management is one of the important
criteria for managing any project in an efficient and effective manner. The lean project
management is capable of removing waste from the project and is capable of providing better
value to the overall project. In this way, implementation of lean practices can help to execute a
project in much more better way. In this report lean project management has been employed for
building a dream home for a client. For building this home the total budget is AUD $500,000 and
provided time is one year. As the budget and time for this project is limited, employment of lean
project management can be a great option for execution of this project. Also, for this project
there was three important task that need to be fulfilled and for each of these tasks project
management process related with those task has been defined. The first important task is

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finalizing the requirement of the client and for this project management process of project
planning has been selected. The next task is the ensuring effective and efficient communication
with the project stakeholders and to fulfil this criteria project management process of control and
validation has been selected. Management of the project subcontractors and vendors is also
crucial and for this project management processes of project planning and control and validation
has been utilized here. In this report explanation has been also provided regarding
implementation of lean project management for the above three cases. Here, the lean
management implementation technique has been defined for all the cases which are finalization
of client’s requirement, ensuring proper communication with the project stakeholders and
ensuring subcontractors and vendors are managed efficiently and effectively.

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