8 Ways to Develop Winning Teams in Lean Organizations Replayed

Jeff Hajek and Tim McMahon  discuss how to develop a winning team in a Lean company. In the April, 2011 episode of their live Lean broadcast, they dive into some practical tips about how to improve the performance of the people working in a continuous improvement culture--all in a way that preserves job satisfaction.

Lean Manufacturing Presentation from EASTEC 2011

Yesterday, while at EASTEC, The East Coast's Largest Annual Manufacturing Event, I have a chance to listen to a number of great presentations on Lean topics.  One of them was from Peter Lariviere, Lista International Corporation CEO,  where he describes Lista's Lean journey.  This CEO seems to really understand Lean.  He provides a great definition of Lean:

• Engage the best thinking of all our employees
• Eliminate waste
• Enhancing value added processes in the eyes of the customer

Here is a sampling of this presentation that also includes a number of great Lean examples from their operations:




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Book Review: Personal Kanban - Mapping Work/Navigating Flow

It was about a year ago while searching for a productivity tool for myself that I came across the Personal Kanban system by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. Now they have published a book detailing their system called Personal Kanban: Mapping Work/Navigating Life. Most books on productivity focus on doing more but Jim and Tonianne share a system to focus on doing the right work at the right time.

Personal Kanban is a simple system with dramatic results. It helps us manage ourselves, but also lets us share our work and our goals with others. Personal Kanban creates a visual display of work elements and allows you to manage your workflow.

The beauty of the Personal kanban system is that it is endlessly flexible. Our lives are not static, and neither is our work. Personal Kanban evolves as our context changes, encouraging us to innovate and invent in response to the variation we encounter daily.

There are only two rules with Personal Kanban:

     1. Visualize your work
     2. Limit your work-in-progress

Think of Personal Kanban as a dynamic, interactive map that surveys your personal landscape for lies heard, what you are doing now, and what you did.

Jim and Tonianne take you through the steps of creating your own Personal Kanban:

     1. Getting Your Stuff Ready
     2. Establishing Your Value Streams
     3. Establishing Your Backlog
     4. Establishing Your WIP Limit
     5. Begin To Flow or Pull
     6. Reflection

They also talk about prioritizing your tasks and relate the Personal Kanban thinking to that of other time management theories like Covey’s Urgent and Important Matrix. There is even a section on metrics to help you gauge your progress. Jim and Tonianne conclude with the importance of retrospection and introspection which lead to improvement and solving problems at their source.

Personal Kanban is a fun, practical read on time management. Each chapter ends with several Personal Kanban Flow Tips that summarize the key points of that chapter. The appendix of the book covers several Personal Kanban designs that will surely stimulate thoughts for your system. Jim and Tonianne have included numerous visuals to facilitate learning this productivity system.

There are two key takeaways from this book: Work unseen is work uncontrolled and we can’t (and shouldn’t) do more work than we can handle. Personal Kanban can help us see life’s complexities and make better decisions. With introspection, kaizen, and retrospectives we are better informed, more attentive, and relaxed.

As someone who has used this system, Jim and Tonianne have done a great job in this well written book explaining a novel productivity system. This book is a must have for anyone looking to become not only more productive, but also effective, and efficient. It serves as a guide, a springboard, and a mentor for establishing your own system. And remember Personal Kanban facilitates kaizen.


Note: The authors provided a copy of this book for review.

Lean at Home: My Visual Schedule

I am often asked if I practice Lean at home. In my experience true Lean practitioners don't separate home and work.  They can't shut it off.  They are trained to find waste and put countermeasures in place to improve the situation.  I am continually teaching my family about Lean so we can make things easier  and better.

I thought I would share one example of Lean from our home. My wife and I are very busy with our 3 kids between the ages of 4 and 8. There are school activities, sports, church activities, scouting, youth hockey association (board members), and parent-teacher association (wife is treasurer).  This is probably like most households with young kids.  It is extremely important that we are organized and have a plan.  We use a central calendar on the fridge to keep track of all our activities.

The calendar is simple but the color coded writing tells a message:

• Black - family meals, we plan out the plan out the entire week on Sunday
• Red - Kid activities or meetings that we need to go to
• Blue - Tasks, things we must due by these dates

This helps keep us organized, forces us to plan ahead, communicate our plan, and keep our sanity.

Do you practice Lean at home?  Share your experiences in the comments section.

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Lean Quote: Successful Manager Have an Appetite for Learning and Work on Themselves

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"The best managers are those who have an appetite for learning and are willing to work on themselves." — From " Becoming a Manager " by Linda A.Hill

Leadership is very important. One must learn how to become a leader first before becoming a master manager. Managers provide a direction for the employees and lead them by power, influence, vision, persuasion and communication skills.

Here are 10 good traits and characteristics of successful managers:

Be a Role Model – Remember that you are the leader for the people who work under you. They will mirror you and your work ethics. Be worthy of being a role model.

See Possibilities – Good managers know how to bring out the best in others. They look for possibilities that perhaps no one else can see.

Be Creative – A creative manager separates a competent manager from an exceptional one. Creativity adds that special spark to otherwise mundane responsibilities and projects, and can act as an inspirational tool for co-workers and other employees.

Great Customer Service Skills – No matter what type of business you are in, you can benefit from having a manager who is excellent in dealing with customers and clients.

Being a Team Player – The manager has to be someone who is committed to working with a team of people for the improvement of the whole business. This means that the manager isn't in the business solely for the selfish reasons of "getting ahead". Instead, they are is interested in growing the business because it is going to be to his benefit as well as to the benefit of the other people working with him in the company.

Commit – Commit not only to the success of your team’s project, but to your team members as well. Remember: your level of commitment is contagious.

Be ‘Human’ – Don’ let your authority create a gap between you and the members of your team. There is nothing wrong with being yourself. Be someone your team members can look up to. Gain respect, loyalty and a good connection that way.

Stay Versatile – There is always room for flexibility and versatility. Be open to sudden changes and others suggestions – even if they are a junior.

Optimistic Attitude – You don't want a manager who is calm but indifferent. You want a manager who is going to approach each project and each work day with an optimistic attitude. You want a manager who will come in smiling and who will express genuinely good feelings about the work that she is doing with her team. This will help to keep morale in the business high which leads to satisfied employees and higher rates of productivity.

Have Fun While You Work – A good manager knows how to have a good balance between being professional at work and having fun in the process. I’ve known this quality to work wonders in combating attrition as well! But don’t forget, there is a very fine line between having fun while you work and still staying focused.

If you are willing to learn to be a great manager from other great managers and work on improving yourself in terms of these 10 characteristics you will find you will be successful, too.

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12 Ways to Start Building a Continuous Improvement Culture Replayed

Jeff Hajek and Tim McMahon latest installment of our montly live Lean conversations. In this episode from March of 2011, we discuss how you can go about building up a continuous improvement culture in your organziation.

Go See, Ask Why, Show Respect - A Review of Gemba Walks

I just finished reading Gemba Walks, Jim Womack’s newest book from LEI. In Gemba Walks, Jim Womack a pioneer in bringing Lean to the world, shares a decade of learning that will have a deep resonance for both the Lean community and for anyone seriously engaged in improving any value-creating activity.

The life of lean is experiments. All authority for any sensei flows from experiments on the Gemba [the place where work takes place], not from dogmatic interpretations of sacred texts or the few degrees of separation from the founders of the movement. In short, lean is not a religion but a daily practice of conducting experiments and accumulating knowledge.

Over the past decade, he has shared his thoughts and discoveries from these visits with the Lean community through a monthly letter. In Gemba Walks, Womack has selected and re-organized his key letters, as well as written new essays providing additional context.

Gemba Walks shares his insights on topics ranging from the application of specific tools, to the role of management in sustaining lean, as well as the long-term prospects for this fundamental new way of creating value.

The most productive way to walk is to follow a single product family or product design or customer-facing process from start to finish. As you do this you look at each step with the eye of the customer and from the perspective of creating values and asking how this can be done with less. This process Jim summarizes by the phrase “Go see, ask why, show respect.”

In one of his newly written sections Jim reflects on a decade of walking by sharing lessons he has learned from all these Gemba Walks.

Lesson 1: The critical importance of the simple act of walking. When you get bogged down, distracted, or even discouraged rediscover the power of going to see.

Lesson 2: Never walk alone. What is the benefit if only you see the current state and think of a better way to create a future sate? Always walk the value stream with the people who touch it. It will be their efforts who are needed to improve it.

Lesson 3: Expand your focus. Many look primarily at the steps in the value stream and ask how to remove the waste. You must ask about the support processes to get the right people to the right place in the value stream at the right time with the right knowledge, materials, and equipment.

Lesson 4: Reflect first on the purpose of the process. Focus on what problem the customer is trying to solve and ask whether the existing process, now matter how well, run, can effectively address their problem. Pay special attention to the way people are engaged in the operation and its improvement.

Lesson 5: Make work fulfilling. There is nothing worse than seeing good people trapped in an unfulfilling process that they lack the power to improve.

Lesson 6: Stability before full panoply of lean techniques. The process must be capable (able to produce good results every time) and available (able to operate when it is needed).

As John Shook says in the introduction Jim has a remarkable ability to frame issues in new ways, asking why things are as they are, causing us to think differently. Something he referred to as “intense noticing”. Jim inspired all of us by simply seeing and communication lean best practices. He encouraged others to try new things or to try old things in different ways. Offering others the courage to try truly embodies showing respect for people.

I recommend Gemba Walks to anyone serious about making improvements where humans create value. Reading this book will reveal to readers a range of lean principles, as well as the basis for the critical lean practice of: go see, ask why, and show respect.