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Project: Program management consulting
Location: N/A
Client: FedEx Kinko's
In 1998, we were asked by the newly-hired SVP Real Estate Curtis Barlow to help him evaluate their store development program. The company had just completed an important "roll-up" whereby the company purchased all eight hundred stores from its partners into a single corporate entity. Tied to this was the goal of growing the company at the corporate level, which amazingly, it had never done. Curtis was charged with the task of building a new store development organization from the ground-up. We were asked to help him do that. Our assignment fell into three key areas:
Store development process
Information technology & reporting
Design management organization
Process
We interviewed representatives from each of the key functions: real estate, finance, design, construction, lease administration to determine how the process was working and identify key deliverables, decisions and customer-supplier relationships. We then developed an integrated process that would knit together the functions for each project type (new branch, relocations, remodels, minor remodels). We then trained all the key participants in the new process. This resulted in a process manual that was distributed to all key participants.
Information technology & reporting
Concurrently, we found all the spreadsheets, lists and ad-hoc data sources that were being used to track the various processes related to development, then developed an integrated store development database that we named "Kinkobuilder". We were able to identify all the projects, data, schedules and status then normalize it with the new process and against all the other data sources. We then worked with the CFO and the key managers to create management reports that would allow each to track not only their process but those that relate to their process. KinkoBuilder was designed as a throw-away as their IT organization had hired a high-powered big-name management consultant to create a similar thing for them. Five years later, KinkoBuilder was still in service and the big-name consultant was long-gone. The big name consultant cost them tons of money and got nothing done; we cost a fraction of that and gave them a real tool that worked. I love that.
Design management
Also concurrently, we worked with Curtis and his team to create a design management organization and process geared to a high volume corporate rollout program. We assisted him in interviewing and hiring a director of design, then worked directly with him to develop the tools and procedures needed to gear up for growth, including a design criteria manual, CAD standards and templates, consultant agreements, and change management procedures.
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