Lean Course Registration Deadlines:

‌Intro to Lean 

‌When: Wednesday, 4/23/2025 from 1:10-4:30 pm

Registration Deadline: 4/11/2025

‌For More Information | Shortcut to Registration

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‌A3 Thinking 101 Spring 2025

When: May 14- July 9 (for complete schedule click the link below) 

‌Registration Deadline: 5/2/2025

‌For More Information | Shortcut to Registration

Real Estate's 3-Part Lean Practitioner Journey

Sometimes a problem is just too big. Here’s how one team successfully navigated the challenge of breaking up a large project into smaller pieces. How it impacted relationships with customers and improved service delivery. 

            John Watkins (Real Estate, Director of Project Delivery), Robert Hutson (Real Estate, Project Manager), and Sara Noii (Real Estate, Project Manager) earned their Lean Practitioner Certification in our Fall 2024 cycle. They identified a large organizational issue, but it was too big and involved too many areas for one person to solve. They worked as a team to effectively divide the work into 3 more manageable A3s that they had more influence over. 

• John Watkin’s A3 “Project Initiation Collateral Issues Identification and Resolution” focused on inadequacies in the intake process for potential projects and worked to create a process for tracking and communication. By holding regular Active Daily Engagement Huddles, John was able to show respect for people and created a space to discuss and record issues. 
• ‌Robert Hutson’s A3 “Establishing a Synchronized Work Order” worked to address the issue of PM’s not responding or following up with client orders within the recommended 10 days. Robert created a RACI chart to assign, clarify, and communicate roles and then created an action plan to track progress. 
• Sara Noii’s A3 “Project Intake Request—ROM Budget Process” revealed a gap in communicating the Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM), which provides a high-level estimate of project costs and schedule. She found that many PM’s skipped this step, or didn’t know how to create an ROM and worked on standards of practice and training.  

     With regular check-ins, John, Robert, and Sara were able to stay in sync on their overall problem and individual progress. They led gemba sessions with PM’s and stakeholders to understand what was actually going on, with many of their countermeasures people-focused. They used their learnings to fine-tune their documents and ensure that they were still in alignment with the overarching project.  

     Ultimately, by respecting their colleagues and clients through active listening and curiosity, this team was able to make very meaningful changes to their everyday work: 

1. Adding and requiring that the Collateral Issue Resolution section to the Evaluate Feasibility Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) be resolved before proceeding with the project, brings to light various forms of issues that could have significant impacts on projects. Adding this process before the project significantly improves the flow of the project and prevents the listed Collateral Issues from impacting the project. 
2. ‌Establishing the proper work order prevents lost time on new work orders. The RACI chart created to assign, clarify and communicate roles, along with the action plan created to track progress provides reference points to keep everyone on track, accountable, and in communication with each other.
3. ‌For the ROM Budget Issue, a standard process was published and incorporated into the SOP along with resources and instructions to PMs on how to deliver the information to their customers. This standardization will help guide the PMs in presenting the ROM budget to their customers in the most appropriate way. 

‌     Are You working on an improvement process? We’d love to celebrate you! Apply for Lean Practitioner Certification, to share your improvement efforts and get recognition from your colleagues and managers. 

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‌Lean Practitioner Certification applications are due April 10th. 

‌For more information on how to apply for Lean Practitioner Certification, visit our website: Epmo.UCSF.edu/fas-lean-practitioner-certification-program