Building a project-driven enterprise [Book Review]
This is a book in project management that adds a useful dimension to the subject matter. It is written in a language that appeals more to practitioners rather than students of the subject. The book, Building a Project-Driven Enterprise , consists of four parts that are divided into nine chapters. In part one, the principles of efficiency in management of projects are described. Part two, presents methods for lean project management, while in parts three and four, product development processes and enterprise-building issues are addressed. The following paragraphs summarize the contribution of these parts and their respective chapters. Through the entire book, the author’s emphasis is on how to be lean, yet efficient. He begins Chapter 1, by stating “Five principles of lean thinking” 1) Principle 1—the value of each project must be precisely specified; 2) Principle 2—calls for the identification of the value stream for each project; 3) Principle 3—deals with impetus of “value to flow uninterrupted;” 4) Principle 4—preaches the need of letting customers pull value from the project team; 5) Principal 5—the continuous pursuit of perfection. The essence of these principles of lean thinking is to eliminate waste from value. It should be noted that the author recognizes the difficulty of this endeavor. Also in this chapter, the author provides an interesting analysis where he tabulates the activities of an employee’s 8.5-h workday. He reports that out of these 8.5 h, only 1.5 h have added value. At the end of the chapter, some of the learning points are given. One of the most important of these suggested points is that one has to develop counter measures to fight sources of waste. He mentions this to be “the heart of the book.” Chapter 2 begins by quoting Henry Ford’s saying, “From time waste there can be no salvage, it is the easiest of all waste and it is the hardest to correct because it does not litter the floor.” This quote sets the tone of this chapter, where basically the author addresses time batches and the value of just-in-time (JIT) information. In this chapter, the dichotomy between waiting for information before proceeding with successor activities, which their viability could be significantly impacted when the information is received, or taking the risk of proceeding in parallel in order to save time, is discussed. An example is given to show what could be done to avoid delays (or loosely, as the author refers to them, as time batches) without having to incur the risk of going forward before the proper information is collected. In the example, the author also describes three sources that create “time batches” and concludes the chapter with them. These sources are holding information when needed, indecision, and traditional operational methods, such as “first job in first job out” (FIFO). The author describes in general terms ways to work around these obstacles. Nevertheless, in our view, these recommendations seem to lack specificity and necessary details.