Challenges and Opportunities for Innovation in the Public Works ...

evealing. When categorized into eight management areas, the
CII products were shown to have potential gross savings of
anywhere from 5 to 15 percent and a benefit to cost ratio never
less than 10 to 1. This was based on the replies of over 400
respondents from members of CII companies. There is a strong
motivation for and significant energy being expanded on the
implementation activities of CII.
Recognizing that only companies can implement, CII implementation
activities need to make implementation more company
friendly. The CII Strategic Plan, revised and published in
1990, noted that under the key pursuits of our Institute that
implementation should aggressively address planning, communication,
education, and measurement. As a result, a number of
action teams were formed to address various issues. Currently,
CII has 15 action teams which are working in virtually all the
areas laid out by the Strategic Plan.
One fundamental truth is demonstrated by the "typical
company." To date, most of the involvement in CII has been at
the corporate level where the awareness of the product has been
high. However, implementation takes place at the project
level. CII products must be applied to the projects if the
paybacks from implementation are ever going to occur. As a
result, project managers not only need to be more aware of CII
products, but to be knowledgeable in their application.
One of the first implementation products of CII dealt with
planning and organizing a CII implementation program. The
Plants and Divisions Action Team of CII has recently completed
a publication called, "Implementation Process for Improved
Quality." It is built on the total quality and management
model. The manual lays out a typical process for implementation
and allows a company to tailor that process to their own
uses. Another action team, the Pilot Projects Action Team,
produced a brief publication on pilot projects and how they can
be used as an implementation tool. The pamphlet describes how
the barriers to organizing a pilot project can be overcome, and
what guidelines should be followed in executing CII products
through a pilot project. Additionally, another planning tool
has been the "Manual for Small Project Management." This
addresses the often ignored small projects, and how CII
products can be applied to them. It is organized by the phases
of a project with some special subject areas as well. It
serves as a good reference manual and menu for CII product
applications on small projects. If you will note, the word
"small" is actually scratched out and the word "special" is
inserted. This is because in defining small projects, what is
small to one company may be large to another and vice versa.
However, each organization seems to have small projects which
frequently are ignored.
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