Jordi van Kogelenberg
Project Manager
Read time
4 min read
Date
8/12/2024
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When I look at the industry my peers and I are working in, you can see a rapidly evolving business landscape that is working hard to catch-up to other industries. Whilst most industries that are pillars of the global economy have chosen a path now enabling them to evolve or improve their already automated processes, we as the logistics industry are still at the step of getting our processes fully automated. Obviously, this is a process that was started over 20 years ago with the first automated warehouses and automated container terminals and we all know these things take time. But we need to be frank, the race is not over by a long shot.
Many companies face challenges during the implementation phase, leading to delays, cost overruns, and suboptimal outcomes. Successful implementations of new IT systems supporting the step to automation, civil projects and retrofitting manual equipment to work in an automated way are critical for growth and conservation. And although we have been doing this for over two decades I find one critical resource being underexposed by most project directors or project managers.
This often overlooked (critical) resource that can significantly improve implementation processes is the collective knowledge and insights of employees. In this article, I want to explore how organizations can unlock employee expertise to streamline implementation efforts.
Obviously, the first question that comes to mind is, why? Why would I take my valuable staff, who are required in the yard or control room and have them spend countless hours with the project team?
To answer this question, I’ve summarized my personal experience into three subjects.
1. Bridging the Gap
Employees possess firsthand knowledge of day-to-day operations, existing workflows, and challenges in those workflows. When implementing new systems or preparing projects, tapping into this human database of insights can bridge the gap between theoretical plans created by the project team and eventual practical execution of the new workflows. By involving employees early in the project, we can gain valuable context to identified problems and identify new potential bottlenecks that where never considered before. It is of the utmost importance that these roadblocks are identified before any development starts, as theoretical plans hardly ever will succeed in a practical environment.
2. Adjusting Critical Success Factors
Using employees and their insights can help the project to adjust critical success factors. Whether the project is big or small, employees can provide a nuanced perspective on certain success factors that are identified by the project owners. For example, staff may suggest or highlight certain changes that are required to make a human interface in a system actually workable, as they know how often a certain menu or field is interacted with. By adding this knowledge, the critical success factor being the system implementation, can be adjusted in such a way that the requirements are optimized before development or implementation begins.
3. Enhancing Change Management
In my opinion, the biggest factor for success in a project implementation is change management. You can buy the best equipment or install golden faucets, but if the employees are not engaged enough your project will fail. To prevent this disengagement it is important to utilize staff who understand the organization’s culture and dynamics. Their insights will guide your communication strategies, training programs, and will prevent the requirement for managing active resistance. When employees feel they are being heard, they will become the projects advocates outside of the project team supporting a smooth implementation.
So how do we utilize this earlier stated humandatabase? At Solid Port Solutions we aim to do this by following the three topics below.
1. Cross-Functional Teams
We always try to put together cross-functional operational expertise teams. This means members from different departments come together as a think tank. This team will collaborate with the project execution team in identifying bottlenecks, challenging decisions and by creating a holistic view when looking at impact on all company employees. Weekly progress meetings allow the team to share knowledge, insights or address issues they have with decisions or proposed workflows. By using a cross-functional team you prevent employees from developing a fear of missing out.
2. Testing Programs
Before a full-scall go-live can take place it is important to involve a diverse group of your staff to create test scenarios and have them support the project team in testing these scenarios. By involving them, your staff will be more engaged and it will prevent them from pointing the finger at the project team in case certain processes to do not work as expected. After all they are as accountable as the rest of the team for creating and testing the scenarios. Secondary, having the actual executing layer of your organization contribute to the testing, will boost their confidence in working the new workflows before a go-live. Enabling them to troubleshoot more issues and preventing you from having to escalate towards vendors costing valuable time.
3. Knowledge Sharing Platforms
Enabling your employees to come up with ideas and share them on a platform will increase the amount of input you will receive. Often employees find it hard or scary to give feedback in a group or to share their ideas within the group. By enabling them to do this online, you will create a knowledge platform that can be used to identify issues in the project or find out new troubleshooting ideas for certain issued at hand. Discussing the topics that are brought up online in a regular meeting with all employees involved will boost morale, as staff sees that their incentive is taken seriously.
The use of employee insights is not just about gathering information; it’s about nourishing a culture of collaboration, feeling empowered, and a company wide contribution to continuous improvement. Project teams that recognize the value of their employees’ input will navigate the implementation of projects more effectively and with less late identified issues, resulting in smoother processes and better outcomes.
At Solid Port Solutions we aim to always achieve a proper project implementation by utilizing the knowledge that you sometimes do not even know is there. Want to know more about this or are you interested in how we can help you to utilize your organisations knowledge?
Let us know by contacting us below!
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