So, I have a totally off the wall question. Are any of you guys using a formal project management technique such as scrum, waterfall etc. to do work on your cars? If so, what technique are you using? Are you using any sort of computer tool to do this, or charts etc? If the latter pics/scans would be awesome. I've decided that I need a better way to control, evaluate and understand the aspects of the automotive projects I have so that maybe I'll actually finish one of them in the next 40 years.

 

sure do, my project technique is buy a car put it on jack stands, buy another car put it on jack stands and again again untill the garage is full. ha would also like to hear real answers to this.

 

I worked for 15 years as a program manager. For helping myself on projects where I am doing the work I find a simple “bullet chart” gives me the best help for the least effort. Accompanying each bullet task I have $$$ and hrs and occasionally an anticipated end date for the discrete task. Many of the management tools are about communicating with others so that they can have enough information to support the efforts of the cognizant few on a project. This in turn makes tracking to a planned schedule possible. Since my project’s schedules are all as time and budget permits, projections (other than $ & hours to complete) would not be value adding efforts. For a vehicle bullet list, the engine would simply be “build engine”. The engine build would have its own list of tasks.

If you’re farming out a lot of work then more formal methods might be some help. But even there since so few suppliers in the auto services arena keep their promises I doubt that scheduling would be accurate enough to add value to the project.

When supervising program managers I found a big difference in the approach of people who understood the manufacturing of their products and the people who were pure managers. The pure manager did not believe technical knowledge was important to their job. Those guys could end up with two pounds of paper for every pound of end item product produced.

 

I manage and track the production of complex plastic injection molds with a fairly basic Excel spread sheet.
Every piece of the puzzle goes through multiple departments to get completed. Every department movement is updated as it happens. (even added an automatic day count up when it hits a specific department to track where the bottlenecks are.
I break it down into product range and then list EVERY sub item on it. If it gets or needs to get touched it goes on the list.
Utmost importance is to list all items that are or will be addressed and keep it updated as you go.
It can be as simple as a check off list, simple calculations up to complex formulas calculating percentages of completion hours logged and $$$ spent/remaining.

There are several "free" versions out their other than the Microsoft one. I believe Google has one.
Start as a simple list and build as needed when you end up with redundant steps.

Bottom line on anything you choose is to use it as a tool for efficiency as the day progresses. Not just another thing to update at the end of the day because it will just be a useless burden in your day you have to update. Which will end up not happening.

Mike.

 

Is this a competition? If so who's winning? Or perhaps we're all winners (or losers) in some odd way.

I actually know this feeling being in IT, except that they send 1,000 emails to change a screw. There are days I just want to take my Outlook and apply a "delete" filter to all the emails of certain people. But hey, that wouldn't be nice now would it nor would it be good if something that was actually important came along.

Back on topic though, you're saying basically you use a waterfall structure to plan out what you do, but that moving to a different form would probably do little good? I do remember watching a video on Scrum, and that if you use it you'll see how your project has holes in it almost immediately and therefore will probably leave the project on the cutting room floor which likely makes it totally unsuitable for projects which you don't want altogether too much sanity checking on. What I'm getting out of this is that the more complex PM techniques are for dealing with social challenges as much as anything. I have a few of those with my projects, but then again it's hard not to touch anything and have some logistical issues.

Any of you guys ever used the Mind Map software Dia at all? I've used it in the past for note taking, wondering if it'd be a half decent choice for something like this. I've got a smallish white board here that I've pretty much filled up between the two cars, would like something a little more fluid in terms of tracking work flow and mapping the processes out.

 

bigger white board

I can get away without gates or predecessors because I understand the process. I can work with a chart rather than a program because I know the ramifications of “your cylinder heads are back ordered for 6 weeks”. I don’t to have a program spit back “step 200-engine complete-delayed six weeks” to know what just happened. If I had a dozen customer’s cars with hard due dates a scheduling program might have some worth but building space craft components with a department of about 75 people I found the white board and support of three smart people could handed problems very quickly once we had created individual program schedules as a base. The key is knowing what is really happening on the production floor. I firmly believe the emphasis on methods may be appropriate because it is getting harder to find key people who know their departments. In this country we look down at hands on skilled labor. A kid can have an advanced engineering degree and end up head of a division and yet not know what a screw driver is. That is the guy pushing management tools on everybody else because he has no clue as to how stuff gets done and can’t comprehend that others do know the jobs of those they supervise.

 

/\/\ Same point I was making as well. /\/\
It is a tool to aid the work load/sequencing not a tool to prove to the higher ups you are worthy of your pay.
oooh look at the fancy Gantt chart I made. lol