It’s widely recognized that the Japanese company, Toyota, is an excellent example of lean manufacturing. Recently, I was reading about a concept Toyota employs called “genchi gembutsu,” which is translated in English as “go and see for yourself.” The idea is that instead of acting on assumptions without relevant data or validation, product innovators should be experimenting and gathering customer feedback prior to building.

When you see this idea stated in black and white it makes perfect sense, but if you have worked in startup then you know how difficult it can be to keep this focus! Ideas are plentiful yet direction can be ambiguous, and without someone to help create cohesion then it can easily turn into chaos. We don’t want chaos.

Enter the project manager.

In my experience, I believe the most important attribute of a project manager is the ability to ask defining questions to keep teams on track and moving toward a goal that will result in a sellable product. Sure, fancy spreadsheets and infographics are great to have, but at their core the project manager should be able to see past the mountains of data to get teams moving toward goals.

Examples of questions I like to ask at various stages of the project are:

“Who is this product for, how is it adding value, and what makes it different from the competition?”

“How can we modify specifications to continue to meet the need yet stay on track for shipment?

“What is blocking you from completing this task and how can we remove the blocker today?

If your team needs some help getting a project off the ground, or catching up on some outstanding project work, then please click the “Schedule a Consultation” button below!