The Accelerated Project Launch (APL) is a working meeting facilitated by an expert APL consultant. It brings together all project stakeholders to clarify requirements, identify processes and make agreements. It's a way to dramatically increase a team's ability to deliver a quality product to customers on time and within budget.

The APL facilitation is typically a two-day meeting of stakeholders, including primes, subcontractors, suppliers and, of course, customers. The launch is "live" work, rather than training, so costs can usually be charged to the project budget. During the two days, the project manager presents the project goals, requirements, budget and schedule. The stakeholders then make agreements about their various roles, responsibilities and tools in order to integrate the work so nothing falls through the cracks as the project moves from one phase to another.

One important feature of enabling stakeholders to think together is the synergy generated, which makes for stronger decisions and agreements. Another advantage is that relationships formed during an Accelerated Project Launch make future interactions between stakeholders far more comfortable and effective. While APL has been used primarily with long-term projects lasting two years or longer, it has also proved effective with teams responding to RFPs as well as non-manufacturing projects.

History of Success
The APL was first used at Honeywell because many members of project teams were unclear about the project goals, requirements, schedules and budget. In fact, a survey of 126 members of one project team revealed that 105 of them were unable to accurately state the project goal. As the project moved from one phase to another, such as from design to development, the "throw-it-over-the-wall" syndrome was occurring regularly. People in development were not talking directly with people in manufacturing, who could not produce what development had given them. The manufacturing team then threw the plans back over the wall to the development team for revision. All this added cost to projects and resulted in significant schedule delays. When the APL process was introduced, it proved so successful that all newly contracted projects were required to hold a Launch.

Frequently Asked Questions About APL

Joe's Story
Joe was the PM of a new project. He had three goals: to complete the work on time, meet all requirements and do it within budget. His personal goal was to perform so well that he'd be asked to manage another project and maybe get promoted. He was under pressure to show results quickly, so he focused on the start-up tasks of staffing and ways to monitor and control the project.

Joe knew that it was critical for the team members to work together effectively, but he didn't think of that as a start-up task. He hoped it would happen automatically as the team members started working together. So he didn't directly establish the rules for communication, roles, responsibilities, handoffs, etc. This would have taken extra time and budget, and he had neither. He anticipated some problems with "high maintenance" folks, but he planned to deal with them as they came up. Besides, he was not eager to deal with criticism from his team about doing "touchy feely" stuff when there was so much "real" work to do.

For a time, everyone did their work; the project was humming along nicely. Then results started coming in, and Joe began to see variance from the plan. He was on top of it and asked the right questions: Why is this late? Why are you overspent? And although people gave good reasons, the variance grew. Joe started pulling people off their regular tasks to help unravel the problems, and this created new problems. Joe spent less time keeping everyone focused on the goals and working the plan--and more time fixing problems. The project focus soon got lost in the fire-fighting and Joe became fully engaged in the very thing he felt least competent to deal with: the people problems.

The Fix
Joe needed to get his project back on track quickly. He selected the Accelerated Project Launch (APL) as a way to do it.

The APL for Joe's project team was a two-day working meeting in which stakeholders got clarity and made agreements about: project requirements, goals, schedules, deliverables, processes, budgets, expectations for behavior, roles, responsibilities and communication. The attendance of all stakeholders was critical, since no one can make agreements and integrate work with someone who is not in the room.

Joe estimated that his savings as a result of APL was $150,000—an amount that would have been spent on schedule delays stemming from rework, firefighting, making and remaking agreements, clarifying misunderstandings and other "people issues" that predictably pull money from the project.

Frequently Asked Questions About APL

For more information, please contact us at (505) 867-3942 or info@aboutchanging.com.