This interactive workshop is designed to help organizations establish a disciplined capital project work process that, when coupled with good project practices, can lower project costs.
Workshop Summary
Many organizations in the process industries have an established work process to execute their capital projects. When an established, disciplined work process is coupled with good project practices, lower costs can result. The IPA Institute’s Work Process Reengineering Workshop is designed to help establish such a project process.
IPA has unique knowledge of the practices that have resulted in successful and unsuccessful implementation of work processes. In addition to a history of implementing successful metric programs, IPA pioneered the development of the five-stage capital work process that is now employed by the most capital-effective companies in the process industries.
This process aligns each functional project phase to provide project deliverables and critical information at the appropriate stages of the asset development life cycle. The process provides a means to do the following:
- Track task and activity progress
- Coordinate and synchronize multifunctional activities
- Obtain buy-in across all levels and from all functions
The workshop is most often held in conjunction with a benchmarking study that identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and practices being used by the given project process.
Topics Covered
The Work Process Reengineering Workshop must be customized to a specific project system. The first step to understanding the project process is to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s capital project process and to assess how competitive that process is relative to that of other project systems. This, then, forms the basis from which an improved project process can be developed.
The workshop includes classic process mapping activities supplemented by IPA’s specific expertise in capital project areas, and knowledge of the organization’s project practices and performance. Although each workshop’s activities will be customized to specific organization needs, most workshops typically include mapping the current process, identifying deliverables for meeting new project system requirements, defining a map for implementing the new project process, and developing an implementation plan.
“As Is” Process Evaluation
- Detailed analysis of the current project process, the “As Is” process
- The major activities, decision points, and interfaces in the current work process
- Gaps, redundancies, and other issues with the current process
Identify Gaps Between “As Is” and Best Practices
- Development of an improved project process based on the identified gaps between the current process and optimal process
Development of “Should” Roadmap
- Important activities needed for effective capital project systems as identified in IPA research
- Generate a precedence map to identify the activities necessary to prepare for completing deliverables for each key decision gate
- Produce a generic roadmap that reflects activities needed at each stage
Identify Deliverables at Each Decision Gate
- The key deliverables at each stage of the process and the required deliverables for each project phase
- Tools that can be used to complete the deliverables
Implementation
- How to successfully implement the work process changes that have been presented
Workshop Benefits
The Work Process Reengineering Workshop is facilitated by experienced IPA staff who have analyzed numerous projects and worked directly with organizations to improve project performance. Upon completion of the workshop, participants will have gained the following:
- Understanding of the organization’s current project system strengths and weaknesses, or the “as is” state of the project system
- Analysis of the gaps between the “as is” system and the optimal system
- Best Practices for capital effectiveness that can be integrated with the specific needs of the participating organization
- Project process roadmap, customized for your organization
Workshop Background
All course instruction, presentations, and supplementary course materials are rooted in IPA’s decades of experience evaluating project and project systems, and conducting quantitative research into capital project issues and trends. IPA maintains a proprietary database with information on more than 16,000 projects on which to base its analyses and studies.
IPA workshops are highly customized to meet the specific needs of the participating organization. Each workshop is a combination of presentation of key learnings and interactive sessions for participants to apply information to their own organization.
Target Audience
The workshop should include representatives from all functions involved in the capital project process. This includes representation from business, planning, process development, and operations, along with project management functions, such as engineering, procurement, and construction. Each function must be represented by individuals who have an in-depth knowledge of the current process and by leaders who are empowered to implement change.
Hold a Workshop
Due to the highly customized nature of the Work Process Reengineering Workshop, it is only held privately for organizations. For more information about holding a workshop for your organization, please contact the IPA Institute.
