Example Reflection – Mind Mapping

Challenge & Selection

I joined my organization(Construction Conmpany) as a Trainee. In the very beginning of our training,  we were told that everyone is required to understand the project operations completely and submit  a proposal for tackling any one issue they encountered so that our operations could be improved.  The higher management will evaluate the proposals and the efficacy of best proposal would be  checked on a single project initially before rolling it out across all projects. As my training period  started, I noticed that the information flow was not smooth at all which resulted in reworks and very  low efficiency. In addition, we encountered this problem with our Client and vendors as well.

Application

I started out my in-depth exploration by initiating discussions with the ground staff who was mainly  responsible for carrying out execution. To my surprise, I discovered that in spite of the fact that they  were the most important agents of task completion, they were never informed about the updates in  real time. This would bring the planning & execution team in direct conflict and sometimes even  involve client and vendors as well. I also realized that the use of manual methods for preparing  reports, billing and sending them via mails was one of the primary reasons why people missed the  key information at times and how all these systems were leading to performing same job repeatedly  in different formats.

Insight & Approach

I was quick to identify that the use of digital means can greatly help us here. This would not only  bring the entire staff at par with information availability but also relieve them from preparing the  same report each time in different formats for different stakeholders.

I started out by discussing it with the execution staff. They required only two features to help them  out: real-time update on drawings with complete list of approvals with information on changes  underway (if any) and an automated system for generation of quantity reports by just updating the  progress so that they can focus on operational efficiencies.

When discussing with the mid-management about this, they were very happy by this approach but  were concerned with regards to how a single platform will achieve the desired level of privacy that  they require in case of certain sensitive information. I discussed with them how recent  developments in software industry allows organization to control the level of access they desire for  different employees. It was at this stage that they recognize that we can involve client as well as  vendors also on the same platform, which will save them from a large number of hassles. They  helped me get approvals from Project Manager to discuss with clients & vendors about their  expectations from this software and how this would help ease the coordination among everybody.

At the end of my training period, I submitted my report. I was called upon by the CEO’s office to  have a discussion on implementation of the same. I was provided with an IT and Product  development team to develop the software and implement it in an upcoming project.

We observed that the new software, even though has some capital expenditures saved the project  team from lots of reworks and coordination issues, which boosted their efficiency and help us  increase our margins by 1%. Soon we expanded it to other projects as well by incorporating  suggestions from different clients, project staff and higher management.

