A Hands-On Approach to Project Management.
Practical guide for effectively managing and delivering management consulting projects.
Project management is vital in consulting projects, ensuring effective planning and execution to keep activities on track and deliverables on time. This flexible framework applies to both advisory projects and those with an implementation phase. Its adaptability ensures impactful results across diverse industries, objectives and project complexities.
01.
Scope
Definition of the project’s objectives and boundaries, including key deliverables, timelines and milestones.
02.
Baseline
Evaluation of the current state of systems, processes and performance with finalized KPIs and baseline metrics.
03.
Analysis
Analysis of process and performance, including gap identification, insights and root cause determination and improvement opportunities
04.
Solution Design & Implementation
Design of new solutions, systems, and tools to address root cause with a pilot run and final rollout using agile principles
05.
Monitoring & Control
Supervision of new ways of working through change management and performance tracking
Activities
- Clearly understand the project’s objectives and scope by thoroughly reviewing the engagement letter and the proposal deck shared with the client during the pre-engagement stage.
- Prepare a project kickoff deck that includes a detailed project timeline, approach slide and project governance structure.
- Project timeline is one of the most critical component of the Define phase. It requires a thorough understanding of the project scope, activities to be followed each week along with key deliverables
- Approach must cover methodologies and frameworks to be applied, business functions to be involved, planned data collection and process walkthroughs and the key performance indicators (KPIs) to be impacted.
- The project governance structure should clearly define the steering committee members, the project lead from the client side, key stakeholders based on project objectives and the frequency of review meetings.
📌💡 Key Practical Tip:
Ensure that the project scope is formally signed off by the client-side project lead during the kick-off or within the first 15 days of the project. This alignment on deliverables is critical, as project leads may not always have a clear understanding of the scope and deliverables outlined in the engagement letter (EL). Additionally, in some cases, deliverables may not be clearly defined in the EL, and client expectations may differ. Establishing this alignment helps ensure a smooth project completion and closure.
Activities
- Engage key stakeholders through structured meetings to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current process.
- Conduct on-site visits to the workplace and plant(s) to observe and capture detailed, granular insights into process operations.
- Develop an “as-is” process flow to clearly document the current state.
- Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to be monitored based on the project’s scope.
- Collect relevant data and perform analysis of current performance.
- Gather at least two years’ worth of data to account for cyclicality and seasonal variations.
- Validate analysis findings with key stakeholders to ensure accuracy and alignment and finalise the baseline numbers
- Baselining is a critical step in the entire project, as the success of improvements and overall project effectiveness depend on this stage.
- Its important to get the baseline numbers signed with the steering committee head or top client or get confirmation on email.
- If the project outcome is not quantifiable, secure agreement on the baseline as-is process and obtain formal confirmation—via signature or email—from the process owner, Heads of Departments (HODs), and the head of the steering committee.
Input
- Project scope
- Current process documents
- Historical data (min. 2 years)
- Stakeholders insights
Output
📌💡 Key Practical Tip:
It is recommended to link KPIs to financial benefits, as clients typically assess project success based on return on investment. Additionally, when securing baseline sign-off, incorporate exceptional scenarios—such as sudden organisational restructuring, unexpected regulatory changes, or critical technology failures—into the documentation to account for factors beyond the consulting team’s control that could affect project outcomes
Activities
- Critique the “as-is” processes to thoroughly understand each step, along with inefficiencies and deviations. Identify all process gaps and validate findings with key stakeholders.
- Analyze data using statistical or visual tools to identify patterns, trends, bottlenecks and anomalies. Use baseline historical data for all analyses.
- Compare current performance to industry standards, client goals or internal best practices and define targets for all key KPIs agreed during the Baseline stage; if benchmarks are unavailable, analyse deviations within the system for target setting.
- Combine data analysis and identified gaps into key takeaways, highlighting process strengths, weaknesses, and inefficiencies
- Use structured techniques to drill down into the causes of identified gaps and issues
- Based on root cause analysis and insights, identify specific opportunities for improvement, prioritising them by impact and feasibility. In most cases, a problem is not caused by a single issue, therefore, all contributing issues must be addressed to achieve the desired result.
- Present findings, gaps, root causes, and improvement areas to key stakeholders (e.g., process owners, leadership) for feedback and agreement.
Input
Output
- Gap analysis
- Insights & findings
- Root cause analysis
- Improvement areas
- Target of all KPIs
📌💡 Key Practical Tip:
Target setting is a critical step during the analysis stage. All key KPIs, agreed upon in the baseline stage, should have clearly defined realistic targets to ensure that the overall benefits meet the level agreed upon in the engagement letter or fulfill the client’s expectations. Targets must be based on the improvements identified in each area and their quantifiable benefits.
Activities
- Design solutions, systems or tools to fix issues and achieve project goals based on analysis stage outputs. In some cases multiple issues may impact the goal. For example, to improve throughput (production per day) issues like quality rejections and maintenance breakdowns may need to be addressed.
- Break the improvement effort into short, iterative cycles (e.g., 2 weeks sprints or as per effort required) for development and feedback. e.g. In sprint 1 work on quality issue followed by maintenance issues in Sprint 2.
- If the team is large enough, work on multiple functions simultaneously and plan for each function in sprints. e.g. within maintenance create sprint 1 as breakdown maintenance, sprint 2 as preventive maintenance etc.
- Build and refine solutions iteratively within each sprint, incorporating team and stakeholder input.
- Test the solution(s) in a controlled, small-scale environment (pilot) after each sprint.e.g. Take trial of quality related solutions in any one line or shift.
- Measure pilot outcomes against goals and gather insights for full rollout.
- Update solutions based on pilot feedback and prepare for broader deployment.
- Deploy the refined solutions across the department or organisation as applicable.
Input
- Gap analysis
- Insights & findings
- Root cause analysis
- Improvement areas
- Stakeholder feedback
Output
📌💡 Key Practical Tip:
Start implementing the low hanging fruits (easy and impactful solutions) first in-order to show benefits to the client as they start losing patience typically after 6-8 weeks into the project. Engage client team during solution designing stage to ensure buy-in and ease in implementation during pilot and roll-out stage.
Activities
- Sustain New Ways of Working (NWOW) through spot-checks and training, launching change management efforts to communicate benefits, address resistance and build end users buy-in.
- Identify change champions and define a RACI matrix for each new solution, system, and tool.
- Monitor KPIs through daily logs and weekly review meetings and ensure change champions drive adoption.
- Address KPI deviations with corrective actions, training change champions, system owners, and managers for continuous improvement.
- Document Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all new solutions, systems, and tools.
- Hand over all project-related documents to the client project lead for ongoing ownership.
📌💡 Key Practical Tip:
Sustainability matters as much as solution quality—train change champions and end users thoroughly post-rollout and enforce 100% NWOW compliance.