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Supply Chain Innovation

Supply Chain Innovation (Org Design)

How might we create a culture of innovation and creativity within the supply chain organization?

#ProjectManager #Strategy #Facilitation #Org.Design

 

Org: Procter & Gamble || Location: Costa Rica || Date: Jan 2016 -Jul 2017 || Role: Project Lead

Brief

Procter & Gamble’s service center (PSC) manages its Latin America’s supply chain planning operations from Costa Rica. This organization is composed of about 450 employees in multiple roles. I worked as part of the PSC’s Capability team, in charge of continuous improvement, training, and new technologies’ implementation.

Supply chain operations, as a fundamental function of the company, need to be highly responsive, adaptable, and innovative. PSC was a relatively new organization in the Costa Rican office, composed of many recent young hires and experienced managers, in such context the organization’s challenge was to leverage the power of its people to be constantly innovating while maintaining the efficiency of standardized supply processes and functions.

The project: to establish a road map to create a culture of innovation and creativity within the organization.

My Role

I was the program lead for the innovation initiative, from establishing goals and KPIs to defining scope and priorities of the different projects. I managed a team of five graphic designers (contractors) and was the direct manager of four full-time employees working within the capability team.

The process

This project grew organically, starting from side creative activities to the creation of an integrated strategic plan with KPI’s related to new capabilities, number of people trained in new methodologies, number of projects and savings from the innovation pipeline, among others. This project leveraged the integration with other functions seating in the Costa Rica office (such as IT, Finance, and HR), as well as the creation of new physical spaces, such as the innovation center.

Results **

Start-Up Innovation Process

Developed a strategic plan and a clear roadmap for the organization and executed year one of the plan.

Innovation capabilities;

  • Delivered 10+ ideation sessions.

  • Coordinated and co-facilitated the first InnovationFromGroundUp ™workshop in the region resulting in 4 final projects with clear execution plans.

  • Trained 200+ people in design thinking 101.

Concept development;

  • Created the Think Hub space; a bi-weekly open innovation space for members of the organization to explore and developed their creative confidence.

  • Designed the “Grow-a-ton” initiative that increased completion of career plans in record time (from 30% to 98% completion in one week).

  • Co-designed a “Technology Savings” campaign that resulted in $287M savings.

Capability building through visual storytelling

I designed a new training delivery method using visual storytelling to accelerate the cross-functions learning capabilities of the 20+ teams/areas in the organization.

Initially, I handled the visual/graphic design, script creation, voice recording and video edition of the first prototypes. I then developed a process and managed a team of 5 graphic designers to deliver 15+ videos and a pipeline of 40+ videos. The character created went on to be a symbol of learning and development, and was recognized as a mascot of the organization. I received the San Jose Center Innovation Award for this initiative.

All images are proprietary of Procter & Gamble.

Storytelling

As part of this role, I had an opportunity to orchestrate new storytelling and presentation deliverables for the organization. We had opportunities to showcase, in creative ways, our work to high level regional and global directors.

Lessons Learnt

Internal innovation processes need to be built with sustainability in mind to avoid the efforts depending on specific people and ensure the prosperity of the work. I also learned to keep pushing myself to work on the type of projects that best fit my skill set and consequently fulfill my professional development.

** Once presented with a great scholarship opportunity, I moved to NYC to complete my master degree and could not see the full implementation of the strategic plan, consequently I detailed here those results achieved during the first year of implementation.