537: How To Ask Better Questions and Drive Project Success, with Brecham Group
Chris Hamley, Co-founder and CEO of Brecham Group, is a supply chain veteran with over 30 years of experience. He advocates for a mindset of continuous improvement, famously coining the mantra to "suck less" rather than chase an unrealistic state of perfection. Drawing from an early career experience with a misaligned WMS project, Hamley emphasizes that project success hinges on having better conversations, not just asking better questions, to ensure alignment. He advises that implementation is only 60% of the work and that the ongoing process of course-correction is vital for achieving desired business outcomes.
Today I’m joined by Brecham Group, a company who believe your supply chain operations should be a powerful competitive advantage, not a source of inefficiency or frustration.
The Brecham Group is on a mission to empower organizations and operators to expect and achieve excellence through their Precision Supply Chain Operations – a proven approach that outperforms with rigorous execution, holistic planning, innovative thinking, and practical decision-making.
Today Chris Hamley, Co-Founder and CEO at Brecham Group will be talking all about setting projects up for success. We’ll be sharing why it’s important to ask better questions before you start, and what teams wish they would’ve asked. We’ll be sharing top tips on facilitating better communication between companies and vendors. And we’ll be exploring the big impact you could have on project success with one simple change.
Guest bio:
Chris Hamley is the solutions architect for distribution operations. His clients have included leading retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers in consumer products, apparel, automotive, food and beverage. Chris has thirty years of experience in supply chain strategy, supply chain planning, supplier relationship management, network strategy, cross docking and flow through strategies, distribution operations, operations re-engineering, facility and material handling system design and implementation, warehouse managements systems, distribution operations implementation and business process reengineering and change management.
An introduction to Chris and Brecham Group.
Why technology projects fail: the problem with people, why we need to define what failure actually looks like, and the experience that taught Chris to ask better questions.
The importance of diving deep, before you even start a project, and how mismatched expectations and project failures can be prevented by having better conversations.
From a lack of shared language to rigidity in project structures, why customers don’t ask the right questions or have the right conversations up front.
The key questions businesses should ask potential partners at the beginning of any new project.
Chris’s advice for facilitating better communication between client and vendor.
How companies can keep positive communication going over time, and why the ‘course-correcting’ part of a project is more important than the ‘go-live.’
Whether striving for perfection is ever realistic.
The impact created when companies do ask the right questions and have better conversations with their partners.
What businesses need to be thinking about now to prepare for success in 2027.
Teaser alert: news on a brand new project partnership between Brecham and Let’s Talk Supply Chain.
Resources & Links Mentioned
- Head over to Brecham Group’s website now to find out more and discover how they could help you too. You can also connect with Brecham Group and keep up to date with the latest over on LinkedIn, or you can connect with Chris on LinkedIn.
- If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more from Brecham Group, check out 515: Experience Precision Supply Chain Operations, with Brecham Group or their live show Performance Paradox.
- Find our other podcasts HERE.
