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How To Boost Your ROI With A Foolproof Project Selection Strategy

/ Newsletter, Project Selection

Being a leader means juggling countless projects, strategically allocating teams and resources, and working to achieve exponentially better performance over time. It’s exhausting–almost by definition. We get that. And we want to help.

That’s why we developed processes that will help you choose the right projects for your team. This strategy ensures your team works on the focused, high-impact projects that will produce tangible positive results. 

Remember: Projects can be an opportunity to improve your bottom line, customer satisfaction, and reputation or a black hole that draws in time and energy without giving anything back. Let’s make sure your team only works on the former. Let’s enhance your project selection strategy.

How Pareto can help


The best way to do that is to first focus on highly visible projects. These projects will be those that are clearly a problem in your department or at your plant; for example, prohibitively high scrap rates, a serious reliability issue, or recurring customer complaints. Clearly, the root cause for these problems should be immediately identified and a corrective action deployed.

However, once you’ve dealt with many of these highly visible problems, you may find yourself unsure as to what projects would have the highest impact moving forward. You could choose from a variety of smaller problems, but it’s unclear which is most beneficial. You might also remember the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of results come from 20% of causes, and worry that if you don’t choose the right project, you won’t see optimal KPI improvements. That’s where having a robust project selection strategy comes into play.

At this point, consider the following in choosing your team’s projects:

  • MULTIPLE METRICS | If a traditional Pareto analysis fails to identify high-value projects, those opportunities are being hidden by the structure of the data. By analyzing data across multiple metrics and revealing like events, your opportunities become clear. For example, it might appear you have several small problems in many department areas. However, when the varying metrics for each smaller problem are analyzed together, you are likely to find an underlying opportunity across all events. To employ this method, combine your portfolio of projects for each area (warranty, cost, customer late delivery, etc.), find the overlap, and focus on that to improve several KPIs.
  • METRIC ACCURACY | Another potential stumbling block during project selection is metric accuracy. When measurements aren’t accurate or reliable, it’s unlikely you’ll have the information necessary to make the optimal decision during project selection. So before you select a new project, have your team prove that the metrics you’re using to make your decision are valid–including that they are not skewed by anomalies. This will ensure you focus on chronic, serious problems that will yield substantial results.
  • NEW OPPORTUNITIES | Not only is it important to pursue projects that will mitigate problems for short-term gain, it’s also essential to choose those projects that will provide long-term opportunities. For example, if you solved that tooling problem that you’ve been working around, would you be able to launch a new product? Acquire a new customer? Instead of thinking in band-aid solutions and focusing on bailing the water out of your boat, could a well-selected project allow you to identify and plug the leak so your crew can traverse new waters?

By moving from projects that address highly-visible issues to those that solve like-event problems or offer new opportunities, you’ll be poised to easily boost your KPIs and improve customer satisfaction. No juggling involved.

If you have additional questions about project selection, make sure to visit your RT5 folder on the Collaboration Platform.

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John Abrahamian

Executive VP - Problem Solving

John Abrahamian is a highly respected problem solver as well as an expert in the field of Lean manufacturing, with a career spanning over three decades. Throughout his career, John has become renowned for his innovative approach to problem-solving and his unwavering dedication to customer satisfaction. 
  
After receiving his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut in 1985, John began his career as a design and development engineer at Pratt & Whitney. It was during this time that his interest in problem-solving first emerged. By 1994, John had become a Continuous Improvement Manager at the company. During his tenure, John led Pratt & Whitney’s efforts in Lean manufacturing and Value Engineering. 
  
In 1990, John began pursuing his MBA in Operations Management, where he was first introduced to the concept of Lean manufacturing, and this influenced the direction of his career. In 1996, he was encouraged by his Pratt & Whitney team to take Shainin Red X training, building on his Lean manufacturing efforts. This training proved to be a turning point in John’s career, igniting his passion for problem-solving and setting him on a path to becoming one of the industry’s most respected experts. 
  
In 1998, John joined Shainin, where he has spent the last 25 years pursuing his passion for problem-solving. During his time here, John has developed innovative approaches to problem-solving, having received a US Patent for a problem-solving method. He also integrated function analysis into Shainin methods, seeding what would ultimately become Resilient Engineering.  
  
Despite his busy schedule, John still finds time to pursue his hobbies, which include golfing, stand-up paddleboarding, and skeet shooting. He especially enjoys traveling with his wife and spending time with family, including his three grandsons. 
  
Having the opportunity to work in a wide variety of industries, experiencing different cultures and meeting new and interesting people gives John the kind of job satisfaction that makes him grateful to be in this field of work. He truly enjoys creating meaningful relationships with his customers and inspiring ordinary engineers to become extraordinary problem solvers. 

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