Engineering Department Turn-Around
A client located in Columbia, MD sought my services to help him turnaround his engineering department, whose poor performance caused his engineering contract company to:
- miss contracted completion dates on several projects,
- overrun project budgets,
- engage in "death march" efforts to get projects back on schedule.
- witness a decline in employee productivity and attendance
Actions Taken & Results:
By working closely with the engineering department personnel, I improved the engineering department's performance by:
- establishing a consistent engineering project planning and budgeting process, which improved resource coordination and reduced budget overruns.
- scheduling weekly project progress meetings for each project team. During these meetings each engineer reported what project tasks he/she completed, whether he/she was on schedule, and what problems if any needed to be addressed,
- instituting comprehensive hardware and software design reviews, which significantly improved product quality and reduced development costs.
- meeting with two of the company's most irate customers to address their concerns regarding our company's missed delivery dates and to let them know that I understood their frustation. In addition, I worked with each customer to develop project plans, milestones, and deliverables upon which we could mutually agree.