Leadership and Strategy are key to overcoming challenges of Lean adoption was the theme for the latest Lean Construction Ireland (LCI) Community Event which took place at the Irish Management Institute (IMI) on Tuesday, April 17th 2018.

The event was sponsored and hosted by Kirby and included keynote addresses from Jimmy Kirby, Kirby Group Managing Director and Stuart Lancaster, Leinster Rugby Senior Coach.

Jimmy Kirby discussed Strategy for a Purpose and demonstrated how a company can go about achieving its purpose or desired outcome through strategy. During his presentation, Jimmy Kirby said: “Successful, long-term businesses have a well thought through coherent strategy. Lean is a strategy for business, therefore the same applies. Lean transformations fail because of a lack of coherent strategy and effective leadership. In order to be successful in lean or any other transformation, you need a coherent strategy.”

“A good strategy is one that can be implemented; many times organisations go to implement a strategy without thinking-through the basics such as evaluating it against everything else that has already been decided to do, can we take on all of the required actions and who is going to get them done in the time set ” continued Jimmy Kirby.

Stuart Lancaster, Leinster Rugby Senior Coach, shared his extensive insight into building and leading high-performance teams. He discussed the leadership fundamentals needed to build great teams and shared the key characteristics of credible leaders which include honesty, the ability to evoke inspiration, forward thinking, technical excellence and most important, they follow through on their promises.

In addition to the keynote addresses, three breakout sessions were held which included presentations from Martin Searson, Kirby Group QA Manager, who discussed using Lean to improve defect and inspection management, Declan Holohan, Managing Director, Lean Touch Solutions Limited, who carried out the Parade of Trades® Simulation and Maria Ryan, Managing Director, Crystal Lean Solutions who discussed the ‘5 Critical Success Factors for Lean Deployment’

Lean Construction Ireland (LCI) is an all-island, independent, and voluntary not-for-profit association whose members passionately believe that Lean Thinking & Practices can enable and sustain enhanced effectiveness, efficiency, productivity, and profitability for the Irish Construction Sector, Clients, and Supply Chain.