Did you see the Guardian recently?

Following our work with them, City of Edinburgh Council won a national award for the improvement in their roads service. If you want to know what they did you can get it here today.

Here's what happened...

Failing road's service taps into method that increases productivity by 200%, slashes time to repair from 333 days to 39, and wins a Guardian award...all in 5 months

And they did it without:

• Extra resource
• Targets or
• Bonus schemes

Most project managers are still trying to manage their projects using the old ways: bonus schemes, targets, and incentives. But there is a better way, common sense but not common practice. Once you learn this method, you will deliver projects faster and cheaper than you can imagine.

Here's the story

At the start of 2008, two foresighted managers, Andrea McHugh (Head of service) and Euan Kennedy (Head of roads), decided that they'd had enough of bad press from their local newspaper, and mounting complaints from counsellors.

They wanted to revolutionise the service they provided for road users in Edinburgh. In short they wanted faster, better quality repairs, and they decided to do it even though it would collide with the start of the tram works.

Job one was to get a handle on the extent of the problem. But what they found was much worse than they expected. Although the key performance indicators showed that nearly all repairs were done in three days, the reality was very different. In-fact the true time to repair was worse, by around a hundred times. The data showed that it was not uncommon for a repair to take 333 days.

And though they thought productivity wasn't a problem, they soon found that only 60 repairs were being done per day.

Now it's important to say this, the people doing the repairs were doing their best. But they were working in a system that conspired to make performance worse. No matter how hard they tried, nothing changed.

But there was light at the end of the tunnel. Facing up to the reality of the problem gave them laser-like insight into exactly what needed to be done. And with the help of highly motivated team of workers here's what they achieved:

• Increased number of repairs from 60 per day to 150 per day
• Time to complete a (proper repair) reduced from 333 days to 39 days
• Shortlisted for the Guardian awards for public service improvement
• Accolades and thank you letters from councillors and members of the public.

And if you're thinking that they used more resource, then think again, they didn't.

But here's their secret: What they did was changed their method of looking at, managing, and designing the work. Alison Angus, a project lead on the job, said

“When you think about it, what we did was just common sense, but it's not common practice, certainly amongst local authorities.”

Here's some more benefits of thinking like City of Edinburgh Council

Alison is right, it was easy, when you learn how to get knowledge about how the work works you find

• Immediate insight into what to change, and how to change it (often, managers report that they're suddenly seen as some sort of guru because they have all the answers).
• That you don't have change hundreds of things, but just two or three policies or measures are sufficient to turn around a whole department.
• That front line workers (including unions) are only too happy to be involved. Most thank the Lord that at last common sense has prevailed and managers are finally paying attention to the right things.
• Best of all once you know how to find the problems, you can repeat the process over and over again, and keep on improving.
• The method also radically improves other project environments, such as capital works and refurbishment programmes in housing, implementation of I.T. programmes, gully cleaning, building moves and much more.

Once we had completed the work, Alison asked me to document the method that we used, which I did...but then I thought “given the current economy shouldn't I offer to those on a limited budget?” If this is you, read on.

Here's how the method works

1. It's for project environments, so don't bother if that's not you.
2. You learn to study the work and find out what's wrong and the extent of the problems. This takes a few days but it's easy to do.
3. You throw out all your existing beliefs about how to manage in project environments, and discover that there's a better way of working. If you're happy with your current performance then best leave this alone.
4. You isolate an area to run a trial and have a go.
5. Once you've proven it works you repeat the process across your service.

And you don't have to work in roads, this is for you if you work in:

• Capital building projects
• Refurbishment projects
• Graphic design
• Print
• Architecture
• Building moves
• I.T. implementation
• Consultancy
• Website build and design
• Pharmaceutical

Here's the offer

Again, this is not usually what we do. But you have a one-time chance to get the inside track on this method.

So, if you are interested, here's what you get:

	A report that uncovers the exact questions to ask and methods to follow to find out if your service (remember project environments only) is in need of a new life.
	A questionnaire with the report that you can use to analyse your project methodology and find out if it's failing, (knowledge is power, if you know about it you can fix it).
	You find out if what how you manage projects is wrong, and what you can do to change it, quickly.
	Why traditional project management methods don't work and what to do differently
	Seven steps to quickly build and run your next project, and it's not what you expect
	The three most common reasons for project failure, once you know these you can avoid losing control of your service
	Why due dates will make your project run late and what to do to deliver projects faster, with full content and on budget.
	How you can avoid the biggest destroyer of project failure – multi-tasking
	A simple exercise you can use to show anyone in five minutes flat why multi-tasking will extend the time of your project and what to do to stop it.
	The exact steps to take if, like City of Edinburgh Council, you run a multi-project environment and you want dramatic improvement of throughput.
	How to build a project network so that you don't forget a thing, and do everything in the right order. Who'd have thought that two simple sentences could make such a big difference.
	What measures to use in a project, and what not to ask if you want your project to finish on time.

What's the investment?

I'm not going to lie to you, it took me around four years and around £10,000 to learn this method, but that was learning every little detail of how to use it in every situation imaginable.

So what I've done is stripped away all the stuff that's nice to know but not really necessary and given you just what you need to get going. Click here to buy it now for only $37

And if you're sitting on the fence let me give you just three little nudges:

• There's no risk if you don't like it, just drop me a note I will refund your money.
• There's a set of slides that you can customise. I've even paid for the images, so you can explain the method to others.
• And a third bonus, which is a guide that goes with the slides that explains exactly what to say and how to use them.

Finally, is it for you?

If you're happy with your results don't get this, it's too radical for you.

If you don't like a little effort and investing in your learning, it's not for you.

If you only learn stuff when your employer is paying, it's not for you.

Only get this if you really want a better way of running your project environment.

I hope that you choose to get in and get the same insights as City of Edinburgh Council. Don't miss out - get it here now for only $37.

Regards

Stuart Corrigan