The One-Page Project Manager for Execution: Drive Strategy and Solve Problems with a Single Sheet of Paper

By Clark A. Campbell and Mike Collins

Drive Strategy With Simplicity–On A Single Sheet Of Paper!

The One-Page Project Manager set a new standard as an understandable and easy-to-apply organizational tool, allowing managers to summarize complex projects on a single information-rich page. This book, third in the OPPM series, describes how to combine the OPPM with the Toyota A3 report to create an enhanced, integrated management tool. With a refreshingly clear style, the authors walk users through implementing the OPPM/A3 using a variety of real-world case studies, as well as their own experience at O.C. Tanner Company. Rich with tools, templates, and teaching, the emphasis throughout remains on maintaining simplicity across the organization—communicating the right information to the right people at the right time to get the right things done.

Praise for The One-Page Project Manager

"Executives want the answers to two questions: Where are we today? Where will we end up? Do you really believe this cannot be accomplished on a single sheet of paper? The One-Page Project Manager series of books is encouraging you to do just that. Making this part of your Project Management methodology will simplify and improve your project communication, especially for busy executives."
—Harold D. Kerzner, PhD, Senior Executive Director, International Institute for Learning, Inc.

"Clark Campbell fills a void and bridges a communication gap that has long existed between company executives and project or program managers. OPPM successfully links corporate strategy to those in the trenches managing projects."
—Dr. Denis R. Petersen, PMP®, President and CEO, Milestone Management Consultants, LLC

"Clark Campbell and Mike Collins present how OPPM works to drive strategy deployment. With OPPM in our lean tool kit, we have tapped into the creativity of our people to pump up productivity, cut cycle times, reduce inventories, and sustain world-class quality."
—Harold Simons, Executive Vice President, Supply Chain, O.C. Tanner Company, Member of the Shingo Prize Board of Governors

(PMP and Project Management Professional are registered marks of the Project Management Institute, Inc.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Jan 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9780470591291

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

In my first two books, The One-Page Project Manager and The One-Page Project Manager for IT Projects, I covered in detail the thinking behind this valuable tool for project managers and how to construct one. In this book, I, together with Mike Collins, will expand the audience to include executives and leaders responsible for executing strategy. We will discuss how to add OPPM™ to the Toyota one-page A3 report and give specific examples of how these communication tools help drive strategy and solve problems in a remarkably simple way.

The one-page project manager (or OPPM) was developed in the early 1990s at the O.C. Tanner Company in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was first used in a $10 million construction and computer system project to build an automated distribution center and then on a growing number of projects over more than a decade. By 1997, Mike Collins joined the Tanner team, bringing with him his 20 years of experience with the Toyota production system. I would call Mike a Lean expert, yet he would say he is still simply a student. Mike was vice president and general manager of the American Shizuki Corporation, moved on to WorldTech Consulting in Southeast Asia, and now, in addition to his appointment as vice president of Lean enterprise development for O.C. Tanner, he continues to teach graduate courses on Lean principles at Westminster College.

It was Mike who first suggested that OPPM would be a powerful visual tool to efficiently communicate all the information contained on the right side of the one-page Toyota A3 report. Mike has put his idea to work with hundreds of problem-solving projects over the past 10 years. It was the success (unexpected even to Mike) of his work using OPPM and A3 to solve problems and drive strategy that provided the impetus for this book. People in manufacturing, and more recently across the enterprise, were executing the strategy because they were both conversant with and aligned to their required elements. OPPM and A3 communicated the right information to the right people at the right time to not only monitor, but to reinforce and reward getting the right things done—yes, execution!

THE KEY:

Execution, with simple communication.

Sun Tzu would say, good execution is the foundation of good strategy, and great execution increases strategic options. (See Sun Tzu for Execution, by Steven W. Michaelson.) And even more simply stated, Strategies most often fail because they aren’t executed well. See Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan.

Edward Tufte is professor emeritus at Yale University, where he taught courses in statistical evidence and information design. In his remarkable book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, he says, "Often the most effective way to describe, explore, and summarize a set of numbers—even a very large set—is to look at pictures of those numbers. Furthermore, of all methods for analyzing and communicating statistical information, well-designed data graphics are usually the simplest and at the same time the most