Explore the Open Exploration Session at the 2024 LCI Congress!
An interview with Jessica Kelley, Director, Integrated Project Delivery, Merck & Co., Inc.
We had the opportunity to talk with Jessica Kelley, Director, Integrated Project Delivery, Merck & Co., Inc., about the valuable 2024 Congress Open Exploration session geared towards advanced Lean practitioners.
Jessica, along with Andreas Phelps, founder and CEO of The Collective Potential; Kevin Labrecque, founder of Integration Point, LLC; and Stan Chiu, director of integrated project delivery for HDR will lead this unique double session. This workshop will enable industry peers to openly share their Lean implementation challenges, successes, and best practices, while collaboratively taking a deep dive into how to solve common struggles.
Join us at the 2024 LCI Congress, October 22-25, in San Diego for this session and many more! Register today and finalize your plans to attend.
Jessica is committed to sharing unique content for advanced practitioners at Congress.
Jessica, an advanced Lean practitioner, a long-time Congress participant, and past Congress chair, found she was spending a lot of time engaging with other advanced practitioners in the halls of Congress, and sometimes missing the actual sessions, because “we were getting so entrenched in working on solving problems in our spaces and sharing our combined experiences and journeys.”
“I started looking at providing more unique content for advanced practitioners. I’ve been championing that effort over the years and I’m working with a team of folks this year to continue that journey,” she continued.
This facilitated workshop will encourage expansive thinking.
Jessica offered, “We are creating a space for people to actively and openly interact on certain topics. This year, we launched a pre-participation survey to uncover hot topics the audience is struggling with.”
She continued, “Andreas Phelps one of the facilitators of this workshop session, is using the layered annotation process to encourage teams not to just talk about solutions to the problems they are struggling with, but to explore possibilities, ideas, and root causes to get to more expansive thinking. For a lot of folks in the community, it’s easy for us to go down a path of trying to find a solution right away. We are trying to push thinking more expansively initially, and work and build off each other.
We will hear what others have contributed and add on to it and see where it goes—hopefully to unique spaces we haven’t thought of before. There are some challenges that have been around a decade or more, so we can’t solve them with the current thinking.
Then, we will ask what opportunities and experiences could continue to progress after Congress. We will do some work around effort and impact and really see if there’s an opportunity to put a more collective focus on these issues moving forward. We are not expecting to solve things in two hours—but how can we move the needle over the next year?”
“The intent is not to regurgitate the problems we all experience, but to use new facilitation structures to expand our thinking, brainstorm more, and build off the collective knowledge of the room, not individuals. We hope to unearth things not considered in the past, whether it’s opportunities or root causes we haven’t explored. Or we could bring light to things that haven’t been targeted that may deserve more effort moving forward,” Jessica added.
Attendees will get to explore fresh insights, build connections, and ensure their voices are heard.
Jessica shared that she hopes attendees benefit from an added element of Congress that stretches their thinking.
“I hope through the course of the conversation, ideas get stimulated, and connections get made to help attendees progress work at their organizations and within their spheres of influence—that attendees take insights gained to apply to their work,” she shared.
“It’s also a chance to add their voice and help influence what LCI chooses to invest in to help drive the industry forward at a faster pace. Because many LCI board members will be in this session and report back to the board, this is a space for people to get access and contribute to the thinking,” she continued.
Advanced Lean practitioners across industry sectors and roles will benefit from this session.
Jessica noted, “This is for advanced practitioners to go deep into challenges they’ve experienced. They can be from any space in the industry. Lean doesn’t have to be in their primary job description or title. Whether you are delivering work at the trade level, a project manager, a designer, an executive leading an organization, or an external consultant, this session is for you. We want a large diversity of thought and perspectives to contribute. That will get to the solutions most likely to work.
Don’t limit yourself. If you aren’t a Lean champion, think about where you see yourself at the spectrum of knowledge at Congress. Are you in the top 10% of Lean experience? Do you understand how Lean systems play together? Then you belong in this session.”
LCI and Lean tools, concepts, and systems help the industry move forward and do better.
We asked Jessica how Lean helps to transform our industry. She responded, “I think what’s most impactful is recognizing that the way the industry is delivering work today as a whole is not meeting the needs of the owners who are paying for the work. It’s not meeting the needs of the people in industry, based on mental and physical health and safety. We want to attract the best and brightest out of high school and colleges. We can do better.
LCI has a big impact as people get exposed to:
- Different way of doing work that is more rewarding
- Better outcomes for partners and owners
- Creating tools, concepts, and systems that make it easier for the industry to move forward and change.
We need to create enough of the will to make the change—and make that change easier. LCI does this throughout the year. At Congress, LCI keeps people motivated in the pursuit.”
At this year’s Congress, Jessica looks forward to reconnecting, collaborating, bringing new colleagues—and enjoying the San Diego sunshine!
Jessica shared, “At Congress, I always look forward to reconnecting with friends and peers— catching up and picking their brains on what they’re working on, what successes and common struggles we have, and iterating to get it better.”
She continued, “There are a lot of presentations this year I’m excited about. People are looking at things differently and presenting on more unique elements. There is a presentation on the benefits of mock-ups as a testing ground for the team dynamic itself, not just for the solutions—Mock-ups for Team Building, Communication, and Quality. It’s a different angle.
I’m excited to see the different owners coming into the space and driving it.
I’m bringing new folks from our organization. It’s always good to get more people exposed to Lean and to help them build their network My network is large and keeps growing and I use it all the time—probably weekly. Helping others build their network to have a similar impact on them is rewarding to me.
And I’m excited to go to San Diego for the sunshine!”
Don’t miss this session and many others at Congress. Explore the interactive agenda and join your Lean partners in San Diego! Register today.