My Gift to You

http://free-christian-wallpapers.blogspot.com/2010/12/merry-christmas-greeting-cards.html

Merry Christmas to all A Lean Journey Fans! Lean is a gift to us individually and to organizations empowering and inspiring improvement all around us. This holiday season I want to take the opportunity to thank all those who share the passion for continuous improvement and share in the learning on this blog. As a way of saying "Thank You" I want to share a gift you, a free copy of Henry Ford's "My Life and Work".


Henry Ford (1863-1947), founder of the Ford Motor Company, lays out the secret of his success in My Life and Work. Pretty much everything in the Toyota Production System can be found in Henry Ford's 1923 book "My Life and Work".

You can download your copy now here.


For those kindle users you can get a copy here

Lean Quote: Give the Gift of Inspiration

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.

"A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves." — Anonymous

The ability to inspire people to reach great heights of performance and success is a skill that leaders need. Passion, purpose, listening and meaning help make a leader inspirational.

So, why must inspiring yourself and others be so high on your agenda as a leader? First, because if you are inspired, you will automatically be more inspiring to others. Second, because an inspired team is an energized team, and an energized team is a more productive team.

If you have managed to capture hearts and minds, excite and engage people, they will in turn feel more motivated and energized to take action. In our fast-moving world where productivity is king and time is endlessly squeezed, focusing on increasing energy levels (your own and your team’s) is a lot smarter than trying to expand time.

To inspire, you must both create resonance and move people with a compelling vision. You must embody what you ask of others, and be able to articulate a shared vision in a way that inspires others to act. You must offer a sense of common purpose beyond the day-to-day tasks, making work exciting.

So this holiday gift giving season give the gift that lasts a lifetime. Give the gift of inspiration. Inspire them to be confident. Inspire them to greatness.



Stay connect to A Lean Journey on our Facebook page or LinkedIn group.
Follow me on Twitter or connect with me on Linkedin. 
You can also subscribe to this feed or email to stay updated on all posts.

That's Kaizen - FastCap Style

Many think Kaizen is about some sort of 5 day event where you shut down and make improvement.  Maybe this idea is fed by consultants in some manner but Kaizen in fact is not this.  It is about small incremental change. The type of change that makes it easier to do your job.  Change in which the people doing the task are intimately involved in.

In a new video from the team at FastCap they demonstrate what real Kaizen is all about.



There are so many great lessons in this video including:

• Make improvement in the Gemba (actual place).
• Importance of collecting data (stop watch) along the way.
• Some improvements don't work the way you expect but you still learn from them.
• If your improvement is not successful keep trying.
• Try other peoples ideas even if you think they might not work.
• People on the outside often see things you can't see.
• Importance of a knowledge coach (Paul Akers) to guide and encourage the team to keep improving. Notice he never solves the problem for the team but challenges them to think about what is happening.
• Making improvement is invigorating and rewarding.
• Seconds matter.

This is one of the best explanations of Kaizen I have come across.  I hope you enjoy it and share it with others.


Stay connect to A Lean Journey on our Facebook page or LinkedIn group.
Follow me on Twitter or connect with me on Linkedin. 
You can also subscribe to this feed or email to stay updated on all posts.

Learn to Achieve Flow in Your Workplace From Angry Birds

Angry Birds, found on so many smart phones is so compulsive because the game applies the rules for achieving flow in your workplace. First, having a clear objective and a goal which is difficult but not impossible. It allows control over the action and gives immediate and comprehensive feedback on the attempts. Finally. it celebrates success. Time passes without being noticed.

Management lessons from angry birds- goal setting, targets.

View more presentations from Zealworks

Daily Lean Tips Edition #24

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to help you along your journey.  Another great reason to like A Lean Journey on Facebook.

Click this link for A Lean Journey's Facebook Page Notes Feed.

Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:

Lean Tip #346 - Think Strategically about Your Improvement.

There is nothing worse than optimizing a process and then having the entire system be less than optimal. In order to understand the parts, you must understand the whole. Get your entire team involved, understand the business strategy and goals, and start thinking from a high level. After that you can drill down into the details.

Lean Tip #347 – Leader must ask the right questions.

Ability of leaders to ask the right questions is critical to the success of a project. The type of questions will determine the quality of process improvements. If leaders do not know what to look for, teams would get the message that they can get away with whatever is possible.

Lean Tip #348 - Teams are the engines that deliver successful process improvements.

Teams are the engines that deliver successful process improvements. While there are many traits, the five key characteristics of an effective team for process improvements are:

• Teams should have a clear defined purpose;
• Teams should be cross functional and have representation of all stakeholders of the process;
• Teams should be empowered to take all required decisions;
• All team members should be trained on the improvement methodology;
• Team members should have good change management skills.

Lean Tip #349 - Learn how to use the word “WE”.

Learn how to use the word “WE” among your team members because this gives them confidence and encouragement. It shows that their contribution towards the process improvement is recognized and taken into consideration. It will also enable the team to get more information/ data needed for the process improvement.

Lean Tip #350 - Evaluate your improvement process as a whole.

Once you have put your plan into action and have achieved the results from it, you will need to evaluate your improvement process as a whole. Ask yourselves if the process had its desired effect. Was the process successful? Did it fix the problem? Did it eliminate waste? Did you implement the improvements on time and within budget? All of these factors should be taken into consideration.

Lean Tip #351 – Encourage Your Team Members.

Always try and encourage your team members and be sure that any criticism you give is constructive. Encouragement and constructive criticism is a sure way to promote team work.

Lean Tip #352 - Do Not Hide Your Mistakes.

To err is completely human, so you should not be afraid of the mistakes you may make and of course, you should never hide them. Each mistake you make saves everyone else from repeating it – this is the very case, when you should consider team profit higher than yours. Such lessons do improve team knowledgebase and highlight weak points.

Lean Tip #353 – Teams Require Good Leadership.

For a team to work well together there needs to be a person in the leadership position. Someone who will motivate, inspire, and make sure everyone is moving in the right direction.

Lean Tip #354 - Form Common Skills To Make Your Team More Productive.

Be sure everyone has a common skill base for communication, conflict resolution, problem solving, giving and receiving peer feedback. I find that teams who have these common skill sets are much more productive than teams that don't. Technical expertise is only half of the success quotient.

Lean Tip #355 - Acknowledge Unique Talents and Contributions.

Each team member brings value to the team. Point out or showcase various abilities. Take time in a meeting to recognize one or two members. Be sure everyone receives equal recognition.

Lean Tip #356 – You must believe in your goals to be successful.

You must believe that it is at least possible for you to achieve the goal or you will not be motivated to try. More importantly, it is you who must believe, not others. Also, just because you should believe that the goal is possible does not mean that you must expect it to be easy or even probable. Indeed, some argue that completion of only the most difficult goals will have enduring value to you.

Lean Tip #357 – Make your goals measurable and specific.

Your goals should be measurable and specific enough for you to know unambiguously whether they have been completed yet or not. Makes sure your actions and their timing will satisfy your goals and if not rethink your plan.

Lean Tip #358 - Prioritize your goals but be flexible.

Decide which of your goals (and tasks) are most important and assign your due dates accordingly. Be willing to change due dates or even put a goal on hold for a while if necessary.

Lean Tip #359 – If you get discouraged re-evaluate your expectations.

If you feel discouraged, it's probably the result of not meeting one of your own expectations. Ask yourself, "Was the expectation realistic in the first place?" If not, you have no reason to feel discouraged. Simply create a new goal (or tasks) that you feel are realistic and keep on going.

Lean Tip #360 – Don’t fear failure, if you don’t try, you gain nothing.

Fear of failure is a genuinely scary thing for many people, and often the reason that individuals do not attempt the things they would like to accomplish. But the only true failure is failure to make the attempt. If you don't try, you gain nothing, and life is too short a thing to waste.

Stay connect to A Lean Journey on our Facebook page or LinkedIn group.
Follow me on Twitter or connect with me on Linkedin. 
You can also subscribe to this feed or email to stay updated on all posts.

Key Learnings From 2011

In our strive for continuous knowledge sometimes we fail to look back.  Reflecting on our key learnings is an important part of the learning process. My friend Marci Reynolds has done just that in a new post on her blog The Operations Blog. Marci, the Director of Operations at ACI Worldwide, surveyed 12 top operations experts across the globe and asked them to share their most impactful learning or most important piece of advice.

I was fortunate to contribute to this post with first learning:

Developing Leadership Skills Must Be Intentional “This past year I’ve learned the value of continuous learning for the development of leadership skills. Far too may business executives believe leadership skills stem from some sort of wondrous epiphany or other such flash of insight. Sure, great ideas can come to any of us, but being a bona fide leader also means study. It takes reading books and online articles on all sorts of subjects, attending workshops/seminars, and learning from others for instance to develop leadership abilities. It can be a long education, but one with rewards that multiply with the more knowledge you have under your belt.” Tim McMahon, Founder of A Lean Journey Blog

Another favorite is from our friend David Kasprzak at My Flexible Pencil Blog:

Attendance Is Not Synonymous With Performance “In 2011, I discovered the need to ask the question, “Why are we here?” in the operational sense. A tremendous amount of waste is produced from the belief that being in attendance is the same as, or necessary for, producing results. How much of this waste could be avoided if we shattered the assumption that attendance is synonymous with performance, and managers followed the principles of the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) to measure people only on results?” David M. Kasprzak, Author, My Flexible Pencil Blog: Discussing management excellence and the pursuit of work/life synthesis

And, one last one to share was from Marci herself:

Practice Process Improvement – Before Executing Process Improvement “In 2011, I learned the value of teaching and helping others practice new process management skills, as an alternative to traditional training and immediate implementation. Professional athletes practice their moves over and over again, before they actually compete. The same can easily apply to the process of learning new business skills. If we practice first, we will be much more successful when we begin to apply them. I described this in more detail in my earlier post “A focus on learning will fuel more doing”.” Marci Reynolds, Director Global Customer Operations, ACI Worldwide, The Operations Blog, @marcireynolds12

The remaining list of learnings can be viewed on Marci's Blog -  12 Operations Experts Share Their Key Learnings From 2011.

What would you say?  Share your advice and key learnings from this year in the comment section here.

Lean Quote: Hoshin Kanri is the Structure that Creates Results

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.

"Unless structure follows strategy, inefficiency results." — Alfred Chandler

Traditional planning methodologies focus on steering an organization in the direction desired by top management. Often referred to as management by objective (MBO) since top management establish the objectives, targets, evaluate whether employees meet these targets. Unfortunately, as we know, you can’t achieve the desired results by just dictating individual targets.

Hoshin kanri translates the strategic intent into the required day-to-day behavior. It is not another attempt to improve MBO. While hoshin kanri and MBO both aim to deploy company goals and encourage employees to achieve them, there are several radical points of departure. Specifically,

• Hoshin kanri deploys the voice of the customer, not just profit goals. More than the traditional MBO description of projected market share, profit goals, and revenues, hoshin kanri maps and controls the path to a new design based on customer priorities. It describes the behaviors needed to achieve the policies that support the strategic vision.
• Hoshin kanri depoys breakthrough strategies. It concentrates resources on strategic priorities and chronic problems by going after root cause(s) of obstacles to achieve dramatic improvements in performance.
• Hoshin kanri controls the means and methods, not just the results. It manages cause and effect linkage of supporting strategies, measures, and targets to ensure that employee efforts are realistic, synergistic, and add up to the total effort required to meet corporate objectives.
• Hoshin kanri is a continuous improvement management process, not calendar-driven system. MBO typically establishes a set of quarterly and annual goals. In contrast, hoshin kanri identifies a few critical breakthrough objectives that require coordinated and focused effort over an extended period of three to five years. Annual objectives are established within the context of these longer term objectives.
• Hoshin kanri emphasizes frequent reviews up and down the organization. In MBO, the performance review, often an annual event, does not capture or communicate valuable feedback to inform future rounds of planning. Hoshin kanri uses an explicit inter-level communication system to continually distill local lessons and channel them upward to the leaders of the organization. It routinely tracks performance, reviews the capability of the entire planning system, and modifies it accordingly.
• Hoshin kanri is not tied to performance appraisals. Authentic hoshin kanri separates the evaluation of personnel from the evaluation of the strategy. It focuses not on personnel, but on the quality of the strategic assumptions and the discipline of the planning system.

 Features like these make the hoshin kanri process an attractive alternative for MBO. It emphasizes Lean management principles: customer focus, process control, employee participation, and management by fact.