Got a Flurry of Project Ideas? Let’s Look at How Steering Committees Work in Engage

Organizations take on countless projects in the name of process improvement. Whether reducing defects or ensuring call centers are best equipped to solve issues, they’re ultimately looking to meet customers’ needs and help their business succeed. But with limited time and resources, they can only turn so many ideas into fully fledged projects. That’s where project steering committees come in.

These steering groups, also sometimes referred to as “SteerCos,” are responsible for: 

• evaluating project ideas and moving them through critical phases (more on that below)
• assigning projects the appropriate methodology such as DMAIC, DMADV, etc.
• routing them to the appropriate review board
• and (last but certainly not least!) setting deadlines

In large organizations, it is unlikely a single group of people will handle this responsibility across business units, divisions, or regions. Organizations can have hundreds of new idea submissions per week, so it’s important to route these ideas to the appropriate teams. Thankfully, you have the power to route ideas to the right committees within the workflow feature in Minitab Engage.

What is Minitab Engage and What is the Workflow Feature?

Engage is the simplest solution for organizations who want to execute and manage their Continuous Improvement and Operational Excellence activities. Executives can view a portfolio of always up-to-date projects and savings with the dashboard, and teams have the tools they need to visualize, optimize, strategize and document their project work in one convenient application.

An important aspect for any organization involved in this type of work is how ideas get generated, vetted, evaluated and ultimately approved. Within Engage, the workflow feature allows users to submit project ideas to be evaluated.

Learn more about how ideas become projects and move through the above stages in Workflow

How Do You Use Workflow with Multiple Steering Committees?

Let’s say someone has an idea like improving the data analysis skills of the finance team. They would fill out a Project Idea Proposal in Engage, like this:

In Engage, a Data Architect is responsible for system configuration. When they configure the workflow feature, they define a routing field so that new ideas will be directed to the appropriate steering committee. The Data Architect also assigns people to the appropriate steering committees.

In our example with improving the finance team’s data analysis skills, their Data Architect has routed project ideas by business unit:

This means when a user submits an idea, they are required to select the appropriate business unit. So that user in our example chose Finance and submitted the idea, and now the Finance Steering Committee members (and only the Finance Steering Committee members!) will be notified. It’s that easy!

Wrapping Up (and Marking This Post ‘Complete!’)

Engage provides all levels of your organization with the visibility, governance and tools you need to ensure a successful continuous improvement initiative. With the added flexibility of multiple steering committees, organizations can direct and manage projects more easily than ever.

Want to learn more about Minitab Engage?