Customer
Claus’ customer in VELUX is Lars Overgaard Bohlbro in the Supply organization, Senior Director Product Introduction for the Slope Roof Windows Product Category.
Claus has been hired in VELUX to strengthen the process around preparing/qualifying and executing projects within the field of cost out, quality improvement and sustainability improvement.
Claus has done a very good job in this regard and has conducted thorough analyses through stakeholder interviews and has combined the findings with his own experiences in project and portfolio management to come up with workable solution suggestions.
It is clear that Claus has used his personal skills of understanding people to achieve good stakeholder commitment in the analysis phase, which has paid off in the implementation phase.
During the time in VELUX, Claus has also been asked to manage a project with the purpose of strengthening the role of Supply when conducting projects in the category of New Product Development. Again, Claus has made a good job by engaging relevant stakeholders in the process and added his own experience wherever necessary. The result of this work has been clear gate deliverables with clear pass criteria, which has made the process more streamlined with focus on involving the right stakeholders for decision making at the right time.
Claus has ensured that the proposed solutions are ready to use in the organization and his approach of being open-minded, constructive and passionate about his work has resulted in large respect for his person and the solutions.
I hereby give my strongest recommendation to engage with Claus.
Note: VELUX has approved the sharing of the content below.
Purpose of Claus' assignment
The biggest Product Category Team in VELUX is Lars’ Slope Roof Windows, running a substantial portfolio of projects ranging from the relatively small ones to the very big ones.
The ability to act effectively (doing the right things) and efficiently (doing these things the right way) are key to success. Claus’ assignment is to twofold:
-
Process optimization of the Intake process; that is the process ensuring that ideas (cost-out, optimization, sustainability, quality improvement ...) spawned in the different parts of the organization are processes and selected (doing the right things) in a transparent, fast and as simple as possible way.
-
Supply is a key player when VELUX brings a new product to the market with implementation in the production and supply chain, and making sure that a plan exist for the full industrialization. Claus' assignment is, together with a core team, to optimize Supply's role during such product introduction.
Claus cannot disclose any VELUX-specific details, but will below outline some of the strategies and approaches used from his toolbox.
The Intake process
The whole point of the Intake process is to make sure that we’re doing the right things; that is, – making sure that we generate a valid basis for the Project Portfolio decision.
Highly inspired by the Business Model Canvas, we’ve decided to focus on evidence for validity in the three hypothesis areas, Desirability (do we need it?), Feasibility (can we do it?) and Viability (is it worth doing?). This simple, yet strong approach ensures a basis on which to decide the project portfolio, balancing the project candidates fast and efficiently.
Claus’ job is to optimize and make this Intake process come alive in VELUX’s systems and processes, and not at least in the organization. It is of paramount importance for Claus to respect and understand VELUX’s context and rationale for the as-is situation. Claus is investing a significant effort in stakeholder dialogues, aiming to understand symptoms, root-cause and workable solutions.
Supply during new product introduction
Bringing a new product to market is a complex endeavor, engaging large parts of VELUX’s organization. The Supply organization plays a key role with a big impact on all key success criteria. The importance of being able to act with effect and efficiency in Supply projects, cannot be overstated.
Claus’ job is to help Supply, Sharpen The Saw running projects, being an effective and efficient citizen in VELUX’s overall project model.
Inspired by the notion of encapsulation and stable interfaces, used in the realm of software, we’ve defined an approach strategy with initial focus on the Supply project’s interface to the other key players when bringing new products to the market.
Getting this interface right is a highly iterative process, involving a lot of stakeholder dialogue and refinement. Apart from sharpening the saw in Supply itself, the dialogues have the positive spin-off to further strengthen the relation with the stakeholders. A real win-win.
VELUX strategy: "It’s our nature"
VELUX’ sustainability strategy, comes with a commitment to become Lifetime Carbon Neutral by 2041. The Supply organization has a direct impact (also) on VELUX’ ability to deliver on this commitment, requiring it to act effectively and with efficiency.
Copyright © VELUX 2022