Operation Performance Improvement: a project on reflection
Reflective practice has grown and developed over the last few decades throughout different fields of professional practice and education. Reflection is a vital learning tool for both individuals and organisations, and yet it is an area, which gains little formal focus within many organisations.
In studying the project environment at a major rail (brake system) manufacturer, Sepideh Habibipour found out how higher project performance was achieved through a specific focus on improvement.
Due to the company’s development and changes in its business strategy, the organisation required the implementation of new processes, new modules in its SAP and some minor changes in hierarchy organisation structure. Executive management decided to run a project named ‘Operation Performance Improvement’ to manage the requirements successfully.
The project manager, to achieve continuous performance improvement and benefits in the project and organisation level, chose to implement a reflective practice approach starting with ‘Service Centre Improvement’ in weekly meetings. Benefits achieved through this project were:
- Increasing efficiencies in different departments
- Increasing team members’ competencies and changing team members from trainers to reflective practitioner
- Increasing the level of trust through deferent departments by sharing knowledge and experiences in a non-judgmental environment
- Adding knowledge assets to the organisation by creating dynamic converting knowledge processes (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge)
Find out how the company fared in its quest for performance improvement through reflective practice and some of its lessons learnt in Sepideh Habibipour’s whitepaper, ‘Project Performance Improvements’ [PDF].
