Transforming Operations Management:
A Streamlined Approach in Real Estate Development
Situation: I was engaged with a local real estate development firm that was in need of a professionalized and streamlined operational process. The company was struggling with productivity, elongated meeting times, dropped responsibilities, and strained relationships with investors, partners, and contractors.
Task: My objective was to design and implement an improved operational process that would increase productivity, reduce unnecessary meetings, prevent tasks from being overlooked, and enhance relationships with key stakeholders. I also retained the creative rights to this work for community reuse.
Action:
Base Template Design: Collaborated with internal SMEs to define an idealized project flow, ensuring tasks were completed as quickly and thoroughly as possible. I organized it by function for clarity and ease of use, outlining all major dependencies within and across functions.
Deep Task Level Context: Ensured complex tasks and milestones contained the necessary context and guidance, enabling team members to understand and perform their work effectively.
Kanban View: Introduced a Kanban-based workflow for team members to review their assignments, troubleshoot issues, and communicate task statuses efficiently.
Metronome Meetings: Implemented routine team meetings, ensuring project plans were always updated and team members were on the same page. I made sure these meetings didn't consume more than two hours of any single team member's week.
Clear Priority: Developed a project priority board so everyone could easily understand the most critical projects at any given time. This incorporated operational importance, long-term financial value, and the overall project status.
Staffing Model: Constructed a model to estimate staffing needs based on the number of concurrent projects, helping to predict contract and full-time hiring needs as the company grows.
Result: I successfully implemented a complete operating system and delivered a comprehensive operator's manual, outlining roles, processes, and definitions. We then deployed the program for 12 active projects across 12 team members and made it the standard process for all new work. This not only improved the firm's productivity and stakeholder relationships but also simplified training, onboarding, and change management for the team. Ultimately, it led to a smooth transition as the company hired my replacement to carry forward the improved operations. I have since deployed this system for Affordable Durham to great success and CASA NC is working on deploying a version of it for themselves.
Artifacts:
