1. Team Exercise 1.Discuss amongst yourself: a)What is the project goal? Measures for the goal? b)What project approach and activities do you anticipate to achieve project goal? c)What information/data do you think you will need for doing this project? d)Expected benefits to the client? 2.Make a list of questions that you would like to get answered during company visit for project kick-off.

2. Project kick-off/orientation meeting Get perspective of the project sponsor regarding the project motivation – “Why is project significant? What is the risk if you don’t address this issue? What is the business driver underlying this project? What is the benefit you are expecting to see? What is this project worth?” To who is this pain point visible, why do they think this is a pain? How do they know that there is room for improvement. Get an understanding of the organization so that you’ll know who you will need to talk to, who will provide info for your project. What kind of data will be available or can be gathered without much pain. Share your proposed approach and ask for feedback. Are there any organizational boundaries, any “sacred cows” that are out of scope? What is the company hoping to get as results? Any working hypothesis that they would like to explore? When things impact workforce, you need to ask other things – union or not; work rules, what job changes you can make; incentives; etc. What is the threshold on the amount of money you would be willing to spend? What do we have to show you for cost justification?

3. What to do after project kick-off/ orientation meeting Create Project Charter document (refer to Project Charter guidelines handout for what to include in Project Charter). This will require you to Clearly define project goal statement and scope Adapt project approach based on feedback received during visit Develop project plan including activities and milestones. (Consider list of data needs and sources, plan for gathering the data, etc.) Create preliminary framework for value proposition / business case (e.g., increased capacity, inventory reduction, scrap reduction, labor reduction). Make sure benefits are real (tangible basis in fact that says that if you do this then this will be the benefit – mathematical metric of improvement). Other things to consider: How will you account for potential impact on (1) Technology (systems & equipment), (2) process and (3) people. Typically the people side is the one that gets shorted – wrong assumption that people will change because it is good for the company. Risk management plan for the project (what if data is not available, what is people are not available.) 3