Page 285 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

272 C o n t i n u o u s I m p r o v e m e n t D e f i n e S t a g e 273

The team leader is responsible for regular updates to the sponsor and
all other stakeholder groups. This helps prevent undesirable surprises
during the later stages of the project.

Project Scheduling
There is a wide variety of tools and techniques available to help the pro­
ject manager develop a realistic project timetable to allocate resources,
and to track progress during the implementation of the project plan. These
systems are used to:
· Aid in planning and control of projects.
· Determine the feasibility of meeting specified deadlines.
· Identify the most likely bottlenecks in a project.

· Evaluate the effects of changes in the project requirements or
schedule.
· Evaluate the effects of deviating from schedule.
· Evaluate the effect of diverting resources from the project, or redi­
recting additional resources to the project.
A modern version of a Gantt chart for a 4-month DMAIC improve­
ment project, developed using MS Project, is shown in Fig. 13.4. Tradi­
tional Gantt charts were developed to show the relationships among the
project tasks, along with time constraints. The horizontal axis of a Gantt

Figure 13.4 Example Gantt chart for a DMAIC improvement project
(Keller, 2011a).

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