5 Questions With Katie Wells, Vice President of Project Delivery at Brasfield & Gorrie
This week, Katie Wells, Vice President of Project Delivery at Brasfield & Gorrie, shares her experience with implementing Lean. Learn how Katie tackles challenges and see her advice on how to start.
1. What hurdles did you encounter when implementing Lean on a project (in your company), and how did you tackle them?
Trying to eat the elephant in one bite. Once I see an opportunity to make a positive impact, I want to tackle everything at one time. Recognizing that change takes time and to celebrate the small wins was a big hurdle for me to get through. Now, 10+ years into my journey within our organization, it is remarkable to hear our leadership infusing 1% better every day as a core strategic effort across our entire organization.
2. What stories can you share about a successful Lean project (Lean implementation effort) you participated in and what do you think made it work?
My most recent example is a large healthcare project where the client expected the team to utilize Target Value Delivery. There were varied levels of experience between the owner, design team, and contractors so it was critical to be integrated with the team as a coach and ensure we were building a high performing team early in the process. We had a great start with a kick-off meeting, core clarity sessions, and established team performance metrics. As we kicked off design and validation, the building program wasn’t nailed down which made our validation exercise more challenging and as we got into the schematic design the team quickly realized we had some budget concerns. We put a hold on advancing design until we could get our arms around the budget. We went through an extensive team-wide value / opportunity exercise and were able to get the budget back in line with allowable cost. Had we not had the right team structure and trust in place, we would have not recognized the budget concerns when we did and would have substantially impacted the overall schedule.
3. In your opinion, what are the biggest benefits of applying Lean and how have they impacted your projects, your teams, or your organization?
The relationships you build through clear goals, communication, and healthy conflict. Lean is so much about breaking down silos and building up relationships and open communication. Too many times we see across projects, teams, and in our organization, the primary reason for conflict is a perception someone is hanging on to, lack of clear communication, or simply a lack of clear roles & responsibilities. There is so much power in implementing simple lean tools that can turn around the most challenging projects / teams.
4. How do you assess if your Lean game is strong; are there metrics or techniques you rely on and can share?
I always tell my team the best metric to know we’re making an impact is if a team asks you to come back.
5. If someone’s just dipping their toes into Lean, what advice would you offer from lessons you’ve learned?
You can’t solve a problem if they don’t see they have a problem to solve. For several years, we consistently just pushed the tools instead of listening first. Doing a retrospective or something to identify the major pain points for a team and then determine a strategy to address those pain points will go a long way. But the main thing is follow through – make sure you jump in and get in the ditches with the team to help solve them.