Handy Frameworks for systematic Project Operations
- Arpit Shah
- Sep 24, 2022
- 19 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
BACKGROUND
As much as I enjoy writing Mapping- or Operations-themed posts that make for an engaging read, they also demand substantial learning beforehand—which, for me, makes the entire process far more stimulating.
This topic—Handy Frameworks for Better Project Operations—took me back to the study material from my postgraduate days seven years ago (2014-15). Most of the core subjects of my Global Logistics and Supply Chain Management specialization were crammed into a single quadrimester towards the end of the one-year international program. The faculty were excellent, but the pace left little room to dwell on the scope and long-term utility of the content.
Like a perfume, most of what I learned has evaporated over time—except for the subject matter taught by Professor Arvind Subramanyam, who was as meticulous in documentation as he was precise in delivery. To ensure consistency, he handed out printed notes for every lecture—notes that had to be punched and filed neatly into a spiral folder.
While my classmates disliked being instructed like schoolchildren, that very folder has remained an invaluable reference point—far more practical than the PowerPoint decks or my own illegible notes.
HYPERLINKS TO SECTIONS
Since I tend to offer elaborate context, you may skip ahead to the sections you prefer-
PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION PHASE
1. AIDAS Theory of Selling, 2. Process Chart, 3. Project Charter, 4. RACI Chart, 5. SIPOC Diagram
PROJECT MONITORING PHASE
6. Postponement Possibilities Framework, 7. Product Ranking Model (ToC), 8. SCAMPER Framework 9. Seven Wastes of Lean Production, 10. VATI Analysis
PROJECT PLANNING PHASE
11. Affinity Diagram, 12. Gantt Chart, 13. NTCP Diamond Model, 14. Product Costing Model, 15. Your Custom Creation
I increasingly feel that corporate culture in India resembles the design of my course: dozens of tasks, unreasonable deadlines, and little patience for sequential clarity. Instead of thoughtful one-task-at-a-time execution, teams are pushed into rushed prioritization, multitasking, and an 80-20 mindset (which gradually morphs into 50–50). Inefficiencies creep in, debilitating output quality—something I’ve referred to earlier as the flexible-time approach of scheduling).
Yet, operational acumen is not what corporate leaders usually discuss at conferences. Instead, one typically hears:
“Our manufacturing facilities are state-of-the-art.”
“We deploy cutting-edge technologies.”
“We’ve raised X million dollars for expansion.”
“Our commitment to sustainability remains steadfast.”
The reality is far less glamorous. Growth is pursued at the cost of sound operations. Try evaluating an organization using questions like:
Can its staff readily and accurately summarize a project—dates, flow, contact points, current stage, and next steps?
How often must you follow up repeatedly to obtain basic feedback?
How difficult is it to implement new processes or policies?
How often do procurement teams go back to suppliers for clarifications?
How much hierarchy must you navigate to move a proposal forward?
How frequently does effectiveness drop when a new hire replaces a departing employee, despite long notice periods?
How often must you share excessive, irrelevant information before a genuine concern is processed?
Only a handful of organizations would score well here. These are not complicated operational requirements—yet the inability or unwillingness to adhere to them is disturbing. For many companies, none of this seems to matter as long as customers keep buying and salaries arrive on time.
Corporate culture today reeks of self-aggrandizement. Companies happily pay large sums to dubious “top-tier consultancies,” yet hesitate to compensate dutiful staff or negotiate respectfully with vendors. Instead of asking, “How can we work together to solve this?”, they ask, “How can your solution fix the mess we created—and at a lower price than what caused the mess in the first place?”
As one of my favourite Operations professors, Mr. Boman Moradian, says (paraphrased):
“All it takes is one agile, operationally adept competitor to knock the living daylights out of such elephants.”
To me, Structured and Persistent are the two pillars of good Operations. Structured because operations thrive on systematic processes; Persistent because disciplined repetition over time is what brings results.
Speaking of Operations as a body of knowledge, while some topics do appear overwhelming, the concepts are rooted in practical wisdom and on the implementation of frameworks - which sits well with me. And it is these frameworks that I had documented in that folder which has remained embedded with me - I have utilized some of them at consulting projects previously and even do so today while operating my firm. Unsurprisingly, they constitute a significant portion of this post.
So, here are fifteen frameworks, grouped under Project Implementation, Monitoring, and Planning. Each can help you understand, evaluate, or improve operations in your organization. Templates are linked at the end of each section.
FRAMEWORKS FOR PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION PHASE
1. AIDAS Theory of Selling — A funnel-based approach to Sales Operations
AIDAS stands for Attention → Interest → Desire → Action → Satisfaction. Tracking customers across these stages helps teams understand priorities at each point and plan the correct next steps. While widely used in marketing, AIDAS is equally powerful in improving Sales Operations.
It is shaped as a funnel because prospects drop off at each stage. For example:
Tom emails brochures to 100 prospects (Attention).
20 respond expressing Interest.
10 show Desire and request quotations.
6 take Action and purchase.
Only 4 remain genuinely Satisfied (post-delivery issues accounted for).
The key to effective Sales Operations lies in documenting each stage in sufficient detail, monitoring it regularly, and revising actions when needed.
2. Process Chart - to measure time spent on productive activities
Not to be confused with the Process Flow Chart which is an expanded diagrammatic view, a Process Chart quantifies the time spent on each process and labels it under:
Operation (productive)
Transportation
Inspection
Delay/Waiting
Storage
Process Cycle Efficiency (Time spent on Operations ÷ Total Process Time) is a useful metric to understand what portion of time is being spent on productive activities. The objective for an organization is to continually improve PCE by finding ways to reduce non-productive time, thereby improving efficiency and cost (because longer processing time almost always correlates with higher cost).
3. Project Charter - A structured, authoritative summary of the project
A Project Charter is a neatly structured document that contains an authoritative summary of the project scope, objectives, risks, the people involved, and other relevant details. Once signed, it often functions as a contractual agreement.
While the technical definition of a Project Charter can be accessed here, the method of developing it and the content to be included within can vary. Here is a useful guideline document that you may refer to. The template in Figure 4 was shared by my professor, Mr. Arvind Subramanyam, and I continue to use it to this day—not only to summarize consulting projects but also as a formal response to a Request for Quotation (RFQ).
Read more about Project Charter here. Access the template of the framework here. If you choose to use it, do print it on A3 paper (set as default) as it appears more impressive in a large frame.
4. RACI Chart - Assigning responsibility with clarity
A RACI Chart, technically known as a Cross-Functional Roles and Responsibility Matrix, is a practical tool used to clarify who is responsible for what—across tasks, processes, and entire workflows. In large organizations, or even in smaller ones that are scaling, it is common to encounter two extremes: a lack of accountability on one end and overlapping responsibilities on the other. A RACI Chart helps resolve both by clearly assigning ownership.
The chart itself is straightforward to construct, although it must be developed with consensus among the stakeholders involved. The first step is to list all unique activities within the project. Once this is done, each person or team is assigned one (or more) of the four RACI roles based on their involvement in completing that activity. The four role categories are:
Responsible: The individual(s) tasked with executing the activity. These are typically the process owners.
Accountable: The person ultimately answerable for the activity’s outcome. Only one individual should hold this role per task.
Consulted: Subject-matter experts whose inputs help refine or guide the activity.
Informed: Individuals who need to stay updated on the status or progress of the activity.
The convention is to place the activities vertically and the personnel or designations horizontally. Once the chart is populated, the clarity it brings is striking—ambiguity gives way to structure, and operational friction reduces significantly.
For one consulting project, I had adapted the standard RACI Chart by incorporating additional fields such as the Organization Chart, Process Owner, Process Time Taken, and Process Dependencies. This expanded version made the document far more actionable and useful for the client.
5. SIPOC Diagram - to map processes and its key elements
SIPOC, a framework commonly used in Project Management and Six Sigma workflows, is an acronym for Suppliers, Inputs, Project Steps, Outputs, and Customers. With a SIPOC Diagram, one can obtain an overview of the processes and their context in terms of the materials, information, and resources involved. Creating a SIPOC Diagram entails:
naming a process,
defining its starting and ending points,
listing the key outputs of the process,
defining the customers who receive these outputs,
arriving at distinct project steps - decisions and feedback should not form a part of this list,
listing the key inputs to the process,
defining the suppliers who provide these inputs
While Customer Acceptance Criteria (refer Figure 7) is typically not documented in a SIPOC Diagram, it serves as a useful summary of the organization’s understanding of the project as well as the customer’s expectations at each stage. Essentially, this section captures aspects where failure to comply with customer preferences would result in rework and additional costs.
The SIPOC Diagram also helps in knowledge transfer, as it can be used to train new joinees or employees transitioning into new roles. Being a high-level document, SIPOC lays the foundation for more detailed workflows such as the Work Breakdown Structure and Process Flow Chart.
FRAMEWORKS FOR PROJECT MONITORING PHASE
6. Postponement Possibilities Framework - to align Production strategy with Product Demand
Postponement happens to be one of my favourite topics in all of Supply Chain Management. I find the concept profound and often evaluate organizations through the lens of whether, and how effectively, they use it to gain competitive advantage.
In essence, Postponement involves delaying key production or processing activities—as well as the investment associated with them—for as long as possible, preferably until the customer confirms the order.
There is a cricket analogy that captures this concept beautifully: Postponement is similar to how MS Dhoni approaches a run chase in limited-overs cricket. He takes his time, stays at the crease, keeps the required run rate within reach, and only accelerates in the final overs to put pressure on the opposition and seal the win.
Operations-savvy organizations strive to:
predict end-customer demand by monitoring point-of-sale (PoS) data, and
continually transition toward a more Pull-based supply chain approach (as opposed to a Push-based approach)
This is because volatility in customer demand reverberates across the supply chain and magnifies as one goes upstream in the network. By adopting Postponement—that is, shifting toward a pull-based system—an organization can not only improve working capital and respond better to changing customer expectations but also reduce the Seven Wastes of Lean Production, such as overproduction, overprocessing, and waiting, across its value stream.
The framework below outlines the various ways in which Postponement can be applied. A manufacturer can see where its current production strategy sits on the spectrum and what options exist to shift toward a more pull-driven approach. For instance, Make to Forecast lies at one end—pure push—where everything from design to distribution is completed before the customer order arrives. At the other end is Engineering to Order, a pure pull strategy where every activity starts only after customer confirmation. The strategies in the middle (like Assemble to Order) combine elements of both.
It is worth highlighting that moving fully to a pull system is neither necessary nor always beneficial. The right strategy depends on:
the nature of the industry,
how the supply chain is structured, and
what customers expect.
What the framework does well is show how organizations can reassess and recalibrate their production strategy as customer behaviour, competition, and market conditions evolve.
7. Product Ranking Model - to know which products to sell using the Theory of Constraints
I don't think you would disagree that the primary goal of any organization outside the social sector is to maximize its profits. Everything else—the number of customers, employees, factories, or the size of the office—matters far less if the business is not profitable.
Q: So, operationally speaking, how should an organization maximize its profits (or minimize its losses)? A: According to the Theory of Constraints (TOC), it can do so by maximizing its Throughput, which is defined as the rate at which the company generates money through sales.
Let me explain the idea of Throughput with a simple example.
Imagine you run a company that manufactures ten types of chairs and you're reviewing last year’s performance. You begin by looking at the selling price list and ranking the chairs accordingly (Figure 10).
Would this ranking help you decide:
which products to prioritize?
which ones to keep selling?
which ones to discontinue?
Not really—because price alone doesn’t tell you anything about profitability. You still don’t know the cost of producing each chair.
Next, you dig up the variable cost for each chair—raw materials, labour, and other expenses that change with each unit produced. You then compute the Contribution Margin (Selling Price − Variable Cost) and rank the products again.
Now would you be able to determine which products to prioritize selling, continue selling and discontinue selling? Many would now conclude:
products with the highest Contribution Margin should be prioritized,
since every product shows a positive margin, none should be discontinued,
perhaps we should now add fixed cost to the calculation.
Reasonable guesses, but operationally still incorrect. ToC argues that maximizing profits requires maximizing Throughput, and the information so far isn't enough to calculate it.
To proceed, you add a few more data points:
the production rate per day (assuming everything produced is sold—no leftover inventory),
the annual fixed cost, and
your desired annual profit.
Using these, you calculate Throughput per day (Production Rate × Contribution Margin) and rank the products again based on this metric:
Essentially, instead of focusing on Sales, you are factoring in the organization's ability to produce a particular type of chair as well. Still, the real insight comes when you map Throughput against your fixed costs and profit target. Based on this, each product can fall into one of three categories:
Winner — Throughput per day exceeds Fixed Costs + Desired Profit
So-So — Throughput per day covers Fixed Costs but not Desired Profit
Resign — Throughput per day does not even cover Fixed Costs
This gives you clear guidance:
Focus on Winners, since these products best support profitability.
Continue the So-So products, as they help recover fixed costs and keep operations stable.
Phase out or redesign Resign products, because they restrict your ability to reach your profit targets.
If you were to reflect on these suggestions, I'm sure you'll find the Theory of Constraints concept to be as illuminating as I did when I first encountered it.
Some may argue that Resign products still serve strategic goals—customer choice, export opportunities, innovation, etc. That may be true, but from an operational efficiency standpoint, continuing to produce them at current rates directly undermines your ability to achieve the desired profit.
Resources are finite. Deploying them toward Winner products is almost always the smarter operational decision. If there is any appetite for experimentation or strategic positioning, do it with the So-So category, where improvements can turn them into Winners.
8. SCAMPER Framework - to redesign business processes
While SCAMPER is widely known as a technique for brainstorming new ideas, its value in process redesign is equally significant. Figure 13 lists the components of SCAMPER, along with definitions and related trigger words.
Practitioners often extend the Process Chart by adding SCAMPER columns. This allows them not only to visualize the current operations—the steps and the time each takes—but also to imagine the to-be state. By applying SCAMPER, one can systematically explore ways to redesign processes and improve Process Cycle Efficiency, ultimately strengthening overall operations.
9. Seven Wastes of Lean Production - to identify excesses in the Value Stream
TIMWOOD is a mnemonic that captures the seven forms of waste in Lean Manufacturing. Lean, at its core, is about producing goods with the shortest possible Production Lead Time, the highest Quality, the lowest Cost, and the most reliable Delivery.
Developed by Taiichi Ohno—the father of the Toyota Production System —the Seven Wastes framework helps organizations understand where inefficiencies may exist within their Value Stream and why eliminating these wastes is critical. Overproduction is considered the most serious waste, as it not only triggers several of the other wastes but also causes bottlenecks across the manufacturing process.
The figure below outlines each component of TIMWOOD, along with short descriptions and examples of how each type of waste is typically formed.
10. VATI Analysis - to understand the pattern of material flow in production and its implications
The VATI Analysis framework helps one understand the operational characteristics of a plant by examining how material flows through it. The flow often resembles one of four shapes—V, A, T, or I. Based on this Flow Configuration, one can identify areas that require regular attention and where bottlenecks are likely to occur.
A manufacturer’s goal is to keep material movement fluid across the production line. Indicators of fluidity include quick processing, minimal WIP inventory, shorter equipment setup times, and limited waste generation. These improvements should not be pursued in isolation; rather, a systems-level view is essential to understand how different components interact and influence overall operations.
The Theory of Constraints (ToC) underpins VATI Analysis. To maximize profitability, organizations must maximize the rate of production (along with sales), which means addressing the most limiting factor in the value stream— bottleneck.
The four figures below illustrate the V, A, T, and I configurations, along with their characteristics, likely pain points, and industry examples.
To perform VATI Analysis yourself, you would need to map material flow within the plant, noting areas of convergence and divergence—points where the flow comes together or branches apart. The pattern that emerges will broadly resemble a V, A, T, or I configuration. Based on this, you can use the framework’s insights to schedule and control material movement in a way that enhances fluidity.
For example, in a V-shaped facility (such as an oil refinery), a single raw material—crude oil—is fed into several branches that eventually produce multiple finished goods. These systems commonly struggle with high WIP and finished-goods inventory relative to raw material inventory. Diverging branches may also compete for input material, resulting in shortages.
In contrast, A-shaped plants (such as automotive component assembly) face risks at converging points. A shortage of one key raw material can stall the entire assembly line, causing a buildup of other raw materials and WIP inventory. This highlights the synchronization challenge—ensuring all branches release output at the right time for the converging branch to function smoothly.
T-shaped plants (such as furniture manufacturing) process multiple raw materials in separate batches, with differentiation occurring late in the process during assembly. Inventory issues usually arise at the WIP and finished-goods stages, and both grabbing and synchronization issues can occur at the divergent points.
I-shaped plants (common in confectionery manufacturing) often face challenges at intermediate processing stages, where shared equipment, raw materials, and resources must be carefully coordinated. These issues are amplified in industries with high demand variability.
FRAMEWORKS FOR PROJECT PLANNING PHASE
11. Affinity Diagram - to organize ideas into systematic buckets
The usefulness of an Affinity Diagram in documenting the output of brainstorming exercises lies in its simplicity. Each idea for improving operations is placed under a broader theme, and no critique is allowed during this stage. Participants are encouraged to contribute freely—whether the ideas are good, impractical, costly, or naive—so long as they support the organization’s objectives. Once grouped, each theme and its collection of ideas can be examined in detail, discussed, and shortlisted for implementation.
From personal experience, I can confirm that this seemingly rudimentary technique is routinely used by top management consulting firms during the planning phase of large projects. The themes become independent workstreams, each staffed with a specific number of consulting resources. Junior and middle-level executives from the client team typically contribute numerous operations-improvement ideas during breakout sessions moderated by consultants. These ideas are then reviewed with senior client stakeholders, and approvals are obtained for the viable ones.
Once the pool of ideas is finalized, it serves as the foundation for defining the objectives of each workstream. For instance, a team may be tasked with generating one million dollars in savings by sourcing a new supplier, with an additional half-million expected through bulk purchasing. A task force of senior client members is formed to oversee the project, nominate process owners, and work with the consulting team to achieve the agreed-upon outcomes within the required timeframe.
Traditionally, brainstorming happens in in-person meetings using sticky notes and markers. Today, virtual sessions are far more convenient, allowing members from different departments and geographies to participate at short notice. Breakout rooms features in video-conferencing tools make it easy to hold theme-specific discussions within a single meeting, enabling senior leaders from both teams to move between groups, observe, intervene, and finalize action items efficiently.
12. Gantt Chart - to schedule project workflows effectively
The Gantt Chart is one of the oldest project-scheduling tools and remains widely used to this day. Most readers would already be familiar with it. Although numerous visually enhanced formats are available, I prefer using a simple Excel-based version—it is easier to create, maintain, and modify.
In professional practice, Gantt Charts are often used alongside other Operations frameworks such as the Work Breakdown Structure and the Network Diagram. A Gantt Chart is essentially a calendar-based system for tracking both the timeline and progress of project activities. Tasks, processes, or action items are listed along the Y-axis, and the timeline is placed along the X-axis. The duration of each task is then mapped and colour-coded (blue in the example below) based on its expected start and end dates.
As the project progresses, completed tasks can be indicated in a separate colour (green), while moderately or heavily delayed tasks can be marked in yellow or red. Comments or status notes may be entered directly into the coloured cells and reviewed according to the monitoring cadence. Overall, a Gantt Chart is an effective and intuitive scheduling tool.
13. NTCP Diamond Model - to assess a project across four important dimensions
The NTCP Model evaluates a project’s characteristics using four dimensions:
Novelty – the degree to which the product is new to the market (derivative, platform, or breakthrough).
Technology – the level of uncertainty associated with the technology to be used (low to super high-tech).
Complexity – the intricacy of the project scope (assembly, system, or array).
Pace – the speed and urgency with which the project must be executed (regular to blitz).
Plotting a project on all four dimensions produces a diamond-shaped representation. For example, in the smartphone industry where innovation cycles are fast and frequent, the diamond typically intersects the Fast category under Pace. Explanations for each level can be found here.
This mapping helps decision-makers assess whether the project aligns with the company’s strategy and capabilities, understand the inherent risks, estimate the resources required, determine the processes to be followed, and select an appropriate management style. The NTCP framework is also useful during implementation or post-project review to identify gaps between how a project should have been managed versus how it was managed. The shape of the diamond is telling—the larger the diamond, the greater the project’s potential, but also the higher its risks.
While I haven't had the chance to utilize this model professionally thus far, but I really appreciate the framework as such. Just as a 2×2 matrix is widely used to classify business scenarios, a diamond-shaped framework is ideal when four major parameters need to be compared. For example, I created a semi-automated decision-diamond to evaluate how a company’s job description aligned with my ideal and minimum criteria for a role. You can download and adapt it for your own projects.
14. Product Costing Model - to systematically arrive at an estimate of the product cost
At the planning stage, estimating product cost—both internal (manufacturing) and external (procurement)—is critical. Much of operations planning, budgeting, and resource allocation depends on this estimate. The Product Costing Model helps structure this computation effectively.
The model consists of four broad components:
Direct Costs
Indirect Costs
External Procurement Costs
Selling, General, and Administrative Overheads (SG&A)
Both Direct and Indirect costs are further subdivided into Material, Labour, Equipment, and Other expenses. When combined, these provide a sound estimate of the total Product Cost. The framework is straightforward but extremely useful for project planning.
15. Your Custom Creation - Develop a new framework compatible with your organization
We have reached the final framework, and no—I am not being cheeky with this one. I genuinely believe in creating custom frameworks for project planning based on what I need to document, measure, or monitor, taking into account stakeholder expectations, organizational culture, and broader industry dynamics.
Sometimes I adapt existing models, as you may have noticed throughout this post. At other times, I design entirely new ones based on client objectives. That said, thoughtful design is essential: poorly conceptualized frameworks can confuse teams, waste time, and erode morale.
To build an effective custom framework, I recommend documenting and measuring operational processes in a structured manner and instilling this discipline across departments. Analyse the recorded steps and timings carefully, overlaying them with sector-specific insights and customer needs. This approach will naturally highlight opportunities to develop frameworks that address bottlenecks and priority areas.
Once a framework is deployed, ensure it is monitored regularly and that preventive and corrective actions are implemented. Lastly, the outcomes of these improvement initiatives should be documented and shared with relevant stakeholders through a Management Information System (MIS).
Hope you enjoyed reading this post and found it informative. You can access the complete list of templates mentioned above here. In case you have any queries and/or suggestions, please feel free to reach out.
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