… They Can’t

….. but it is true that too many organisations believe that, let’s say a violinist can be the conductor whilst being expected to play their violin.

Pioneering the latest Agile, Scrum and Lean project management techniques Cubic Consultants have developed project management methodologies which establish value streams to improve the quality of the project, eliminate waste, create flow, reduce lead times and reduce total costs.

Single Points of Reference – Single Points of Entry – Once Only Entry – No Duplication – Empowerment

The success and the lessons learnt from the programs referred to below has enable Cubic Consultants to create a very lean and effective project management process, with a database of templates which quickly form the baseline and rapid start up process to any program. The templates visualise the entire process facilitating robust planning and control of the project. They also provide a proactive risk assessment enabling any constraints to be acted upon before they become issues.

The Single Points of reference, a single location where the master templates are located, provide the Stakeholders with “real-time” access to the projects RAG task status and Gateway Approvals through a simple clean Project Dashboard. Reports are created automatically following the principal of “Once Only Entry” giving the team a fully Integrated “real-time” control document where they can access and update their tasks as they are completed. These flexible but structured, dynamic methods and techniques are the basis to Cubic Consultants success thus far.

Cubic  –  Program Management

It’s important to differentiate Programs from Projects … There is no doubt that small local projects are best managed by knowledgeable individuals but programs are made up of a number of projects with complex dependencies.

Cubic Consultants have years of “Real life” experiences managing multi £m international, multi cultural ERP “Programs” ranging from:

Manufacturing / Operational Transformations Strategic Supplier Resourcing Initiatives , Acquisitions / Mergers, Supply Chain / Logistics, Business Process Design and Development Projects IS / IT System Design Development and Implementations, Cloud based and Web based software implementations Lean “Business Improvement” Projects.

Your success is very important to Cubic Consultants ……. we have the capability to exceed your expectations.

Cubic  –  Change Management

Change is a fact of life, gone are the days of a job for life, and faithfully loyal customers. Everyday we will be expected to be working on developing every aspect of our career, our networks, our skill sets and learning to re-learn. These trends demand more personal agility and change friendly organisations, more leadership from more people, and not just by management; more strategic sophistication and most basically, a much greater capacity to execute bold strategic initiatives rapidly whilst minimising the size and the number of bumps along the way.

Businesses always overestimate how they can “force” big changes on their organisations. They underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones.

As human beings we do not like change …. but is that really true! ….. research indicates that people actually react positively to change and the key word is “React”; the norm is to assume that a reaction is a negative reaction, but the reality is that most people are reacting to the “Breaking News” or their “Realisation” which in both cases often comes very quickly.

People often need time to reflect and absorb the “News” and consider the implication the changes will have on them, fully aware that the goal is the implication on the business and its future.

The key to a successful change program is understanding the gap between the current landscape and the future landscape and lets not forget, businesses underestimate how hard it is to drive people out of their comfort zones.

So …. How do we do it ?….

We need to differentiate between transformation and change.

Transformation is difficult if the organisation, its leadership, and the individual do not have the sense of urgency and the vision to want to make it happen

Cubic Consultants can help you transform your business.

Change starts with the rigorous planning and the evaluations of the various scenarios available, distilling those down till the strategy is defined.

We have many years of experience evaluating and developing business cases to support transformations.

Mindful of the Social, Economic and Cultural implications ( ignore culture at your peril ), a sense of urgency needs to be developed by the leading group, the vision needs to be communicated and people empowered to drive incremental progress and embed it in to the fabric of the business.

We have successfully led / delivered numerous multi £m international multi-cultural transformation programs

If you are wanting to change your organisation, the cultural changes come last, not first. Organisational cultures have a very powerful influence on human behaviour

We have a reputation for being culturally aware, whilst providing the leadership qualities to support the successful management process

Do what you never thought you would ….. and achieve what you never thought you could.

We did … and we can help you do it too.

If you simply change something, you can change it back …… If you transform something, it cannot be changed back

Cubic  –  Risk Management

Cubic has developed software which ca be applied to any risk evaluation requirement whether it’s a wedding or a 5 year business plan

The Process

The process breaks the “Risk into three elements

1) The Risk category,

2) The Risk Type

3) The Risk.

Then we create a template which can be used as the baseline (knowledge / master data) for subsequent projects

The template is imported in to the project and a risk analysis is developed specifically for that project

The Risk analysis data which has been developed is visualised in a summary report showing all the risks associated with the project

Finally Communication – Cubic has developed simple reports to provide the appropriate data to the appropriate people.

Individual Reports

1) Total number of risk items per team member,

2) Total calculated risk per team member

3) Total value of risk per team member

So …. How do we do it ?…. Visualising, personalising, quantifying.

Cubic  –  Business Analysis

Cubic Consultants have provided solutions to businesses for over four decades

As business analysts, we identify and articulate the need for change and identify how organisations can work, to facilitate that change

We work across all levels of an organisation and may be involved in everything from defining strategy, to creating the enterprise architecture, to taking a leadership

role by defining the goals and requirements for programs and projects or supporting continuous improvement in its technology and processes.

We apply the principals of “Lean” … the essence of Lean is a system approach to the elimination of waste.

For individuals operating within a function of the business it can be very hard to visualise the whole “end to end” process; as an example, water is a liquid at normal temperatures. It’s constituents Oxygen and Hydrogen are gases. You could never understand the properties of water from studying oxygen and hydrogen independently …. in the same way Lean is a “system” … and its value is always greater than the sum of its components.

Cubic  –  Lean Management

When engaged in a project we apply “Lean” principals with the analyst taking the role of the “Change Agent”.

Initially we will establish a rapport (trust & respect), with stakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies, and operations of an organisation. This will help us to be able to select the most appropriate tools to support the analysis and recommend solutions to enable the organisation to achieve its goals.

We are business analysts not “Subject Matter Experts” albeit we have an enviable scope of experiences. We absolutely respect the “knowledge”, the value of the team members. They may come from an IS / IT technical or programming background or they will often come from within the business itself.

Having a detailed knowledge of the business domain can be equally useful (if not more so). We will then work with the team using the lean principals below:

Value – Activities that do not produce value are waste therefore value enhancement is arguably more important than waste reduction especially in service.

Waste (Muda) – Wastes takes various forms whether its a manufacturing process or a series of service activities, here are a few examples of waste:

Human Motion; Transportation; Processing; Inventory; Defects; Untapped Human Potential; Inappropriate Systems; Energy; Water; Natural Resources; Duplication etc. etc.

Gemba – The “Gemba” walk is the term used to describe personal observation of work – going to personally see where the work is happening

Value Stream Mapping – Being clear about the objectives; defining the current state, defining the future state, agreeing how to get there, (Plan Do Check Act)

Lean Tools – To support the “Principals of Lean” we need some tools 5S (Housekeeping), Kaizen (Continuous Improvement), 8D (Problem Solving) A3 (Reporting) etc.

As analysts we have delivered solutions in Sales, Technical Management, Quality, Supply Chain, Purchase, Manufacturing Operations, Human Resources and many other areas

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” –Charles Darwin

About the Cubic Logo

 … It’s all about managing the stuff inside peoples heads.

The logo is proven proactive method of managing and reacting to risk in organisations

The horizontal “Flow” represents the interactions between customers, suppliers, and internal functions.

The vertical “Flow” represents the interaction between the leadership, its management and the employees in the business.

The logo represents a unique methodology of assessing the vulnerability of the processes within a business by evaluating the flow of the data the information and the knowledge which represent the routines which have developed organically in organisations overtime.

The horizontal “Flow” represents the interactions between customers, suppliers, and internal functions.

The vertical “Flow” represents the interaction between the leadership, its management and the  employees in the business.

In the example below the input is Green, “Explicit” – “Controlled” – “Repeatable” and as a result of the process the output is Red, “Tacit” – “Creative” – “Random”

It’s all about people and the amount of variability they bring to the process. Its about determining how dependent the organisation has become on the individuals involved in the complex “web” of business processes and their dependency on individual knowledge, expertise and craftsmanship.

Cubic Consultants will help you to visualize the level of dependency (The Risk) your business has in its processes. We will enable you to minimise that risk and proactively manage and control and implement your change programs. and your New Product Introductions successful.