Lean Quote: Goals Give You Something to Aim For

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 goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at." — Bruce Lee

Some say you should set specific, achievable goals, but actor and martial artist Bruce Lee notes that sometimes, it's okay to not reach that goal. If you've worked hard and made progress, that goal has still served its purpose by giving you something to aim for. It's better to be a little optimistic than overly realistic if you really want to achieve—though if you want those goals to really work, it's best to create multiple milestones along the way to help you out.

Lean Thinking is often described as a “journey, not a destination”. This journey toward dramatically improved business performance shares three characteristics with more traditional travel. Every journey has a starting point, an objective, and a path that connects the two. 

For me the Lean journey is not a stroll down a winding road but rather a climb up a perpetual hill. Reaching the top of the hill is the pinnacle of the journey. So you are either improving (climbing the hill) or you are falling back. The key to keep you moving forward up the hill is to stay customer focused (not competitor focused as that is looking behind you.) Your acceleration up the hill is controlled by the rate of new learning (this changes the speed of improvement). The smarter you work the closer you get to reaching the top.

Lean doesn’t end after you reach your first set of goals, and it’s not a finite project with a beginning and end date. Rather it’s a way of business life that everyone needs to pursue continuously. Sustaining the Lean effort and overcoming inertia requires institutionalizing your process (how you’re going to climb the hill). The real benefits of Lean come from a sustained effort over years, not weeks or months.

We have seen countless companies whose goal to be #1 leads to terrible demise once finally achieved. It is not necessarily that this is a bad goal but it is not customer focused. So once achieved they naturally decline. I believe if you are not improving then you are declining. 

 

Use a SIPOC to Scope Your Improvement Event

In process improvement, a SIPOC is a tool that summarizes the inputs and outputs of one or more processes in table form. The acronym SIPOC stands for suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, and customers which form the columns of the table.

First, a quick review of the elements of a SIPOC:

S (supplier): Entity that provides input(s) to a process
I (input): All that is used (mostly as variables) to produce one or more outputs from a process. It is worthwhile to note that infrastructure may not be considered as inputs to a steady-state process since any variability induced by such elements remains fixed over longer periods of time. 
P (process): Steps or activities carried out to convert inputs to one or more outputs. In a SIPOC, the process steps are shown at a high level.
O (output): One or more outcomes or physical products emerging from a process.
C (customer): Entity that uses the output(s) of a process.

Whenever you are planning to start some process management or improvement activity, it’s important to get a high-level understanding of the scope of the process first.  It has three typical uses depending on the audience:

• To give people who are unfamiliar with a process a high-level overview
• To reacquaint people whose familiarity with a process has faded or become out-of-date due to process changes
• To help people in defining a new process

Several aspects of the SIPOC that may not be readily apparent are:

• Suppliers and customers may be internal or external to the organization that performs the process.
• Inputs and outputs may be materials, services, or information.
• The focus is on capturing the set of inputs and outputs rather than the individual steps in the process.

To construct a SIPOC diagram, begin with a high level process map, usually consisting of four to five steps. Then list outputs of the process, followed by the customers who receive the outputs. Then turn your attention to the front end of the SIPOC, with a listing of the inputs to the process and their suppliers.  

By completing the SIPOC prior to beginning a project, the team prepares for the project by collecting examples of input and output reports, gathering forms used in the process, etc. SIPOC diagrams also help to confirm the scope of the improvement project. Most of the initial project work revolves around understanding the current state process. The SIPOC is a key tool to help the team understand and communicate the current state and the bounds of a given process as well as who might be critical to engage as the project develops.

8 Wastes in the Lean Office

The manufacturing process is not the only area of a company that incurs waste on a regular basis. Although most of us focus on the factory floor to identify the improvements needed to increase our competitiveness, many companies find abundant opportunities for waste reduction in the office.

In the office environment, the 8 classic waste types of the Lean methodology manifest in different ways than we see on the factory floor. Here is a list of the 8 wastes of Lean, and some ideas about how they manifest in the office environment.

Transportation = movement of the work.  Manifestations include handoffs where the work is transferred from one person to another.  Transportation of electronic files is particularly insidious because it frequently results in multiple, varying copies of the work, which must eventually be reconciled.  It leads to other wastes such as defects, overproduction, and processing. Transportation is also an opportunity for a defect when the work goes to the wrong person or fails to get to the right person.

Inventory = work that is waiting to be processed.  Inventory is a common result of multi-tasking and otherwise un-balanced workloads.  Inventory can be found in e-mail or work order in-boxes, to-do lists, product development pipelines, and resource assignment charts.  If a person has three tasks to complete, it is guaranteed that two of them are waiting (in inventory) while that person performs the third.  If you want to be able to see inventory like you do on the factory floor, you must make the lists, in-boxes, resource assignments, and project pipelines visible in your workspace.

Motion = people moving or working without producing.  Meetings are motion in the sense that they are work without producing, unless a decision is made or information is produced during the meeting.  The motion you see of people moving from conference room to conference room and back to their desks is indeed wasted motion, but it’s probably not the waste to target first.  Motion shows up as people search for files they can’t find, in phone calls to track down information, or from unnecessary button clicks to get to the bottom of a work order to update the to-do list.  Most un-productive work takes place inside the electronic system while the person is sitting at his/her desk or while they are sitting in a meeting. 

Waiting = people waiting for information in order to do work.  This is another common result of multi-tasking, and also the primary cause of multi-tasking.  People work on other things while they wait for one thing to be processed and made ready.  Unfortunately, when the one thing finally becomes ready, we tend to finish what we started before getting back to it.  Because of multi-tasking, waiting is difficult to observe.  You must ask questions to discover it, or identify it yourself when you run into it.  It’s perhaps the most common and wasteful waste of them all in the office.

Overproduction = producing unnecessary work or deliverables.  Overproduction shows up in multiple copies of information, producing reports that aren’t read, writing formal documents or content where only the table is read, reply all, working on deliverables that aren’t important, and delivering the same information in multiple deliverables or formats.  Overproduction frequently shows up when managers ask underlings to do things that make the manager’s life easier.

Over Processing = unnecessary effort to get the work done.  Over Processing shows up in additional signature approvals, data entry or data format changes, frequently revising documents or information, or complex forms or databases that require information to be entered repeatedly.  Over Processing often results from the creation of multiple versions of a piece of work, that now must be reconciled into the true work.  

Defects = any work that did not accomplish its purpose or was not correct the first time.  Defects include late work, incorrect information, conflicting information, instructions that must be clarified, insufficient information, partially complete work or information, miss-named files, lost files or information, and anything that must be reworked.  Rework is the pain that results from defects.  Find the re-work and you will find the Defect waste.

Underutilized Skills, Ideas = capabilities of people that are not used or leveraged.  This happens frequently in large organizations where the skills and backgrounds of everyone are not common knowledge.  This can vary from not capturing ideas that employees might have for new products or innovations, to the six-figure salary executive correcting data entry errors in a financial spreadsheet. The biggest crime in this category is not empowering or enabling the people most intimate with a process to improve the process.

Transferring Lean manufacturing concepts to the office may take some convincing. First, office employees must accept the philosophy as appropriate for their work space.  Individuals may find it hard to imagine implementing concepts originally designed for factories into a working office environment.  While they wade through company policy, orders and emails, the factory folks are already steeped in the language of Lean and comfortable with words like “kaizen” and “kanban.” Once office employees increase their confidence level with the Lean concepts, they’ll want to share improvements and ideas with their shop floor counterparts, bridging the gap between the shop and the office, and increasing loyalty, enthusiasm and pride within your company.

Lean Quote: Knowledge is Not Power, Only Potential Power, Until We Do

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.

"Knowing Is Not Enough; We Must Apply. Wishing Is Not Enough; We Must Do." — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Most people falsely believe that "knowledge is power." It is nothing of the sort! Knowledge is only potential power. It becomes power only when, and if, it is organized into definite plans of action, and directed to a definite end.

You can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you don’t do anything with it, it’s useless. It’s not what you know, it’s what you do with what you know—and doing it with a sense of urgency—that will enable you to accomplish what sometimes seems unattainable.

“Potential” has as much impact as running shoes that stay in your shoe cabinet. Or the healthy food that is not eaten. Or words of appreciation, respect and love that were never expressed. Or the time that was spent doing something else than that you said is important to you.

It’s always been, and always will be, the implementation of knowledge that empowers any human being. That was true even during the times when only few people had access to knowledge, before the time the Internet and access to it became commodity, and before the printing houses emerged. Already then, it was not the knowledge that gave power. It was the access to knowledge that gave those few individuals power due to their position in the society, as the possessors of something rare and wanted always do.

Knowledge has no value except that which can be gained from its application toward some worthy end. It’s what you do with this acquired knowledge that defines your power. If you don’t convert that knowledge into action, it will remain a source of power – untapped power.

Many in businesses fail not because of knowledge but lack of experience how to make things work. To be a success in business you do not have to know everything. What you have to know is how to get the specialized knowledge to make you successful and create a bias towards action.

 

Book Review: Lean for the Nonprofit

How is it possible to do any more with any less? That’s what nonprofit organization leaders have been asking themselves. During difficult economic times, donors and funders often reduce giving, making it more difficult for nonprofits to serve clients. For this reason, nonprofits are compelled to identify new or innovative ways to keep service levels up and costs down.

For nonprofit organizations, Lean manufacturing principles can serve to help staff and volunteers reduce needless effort, as well as assist in better support of their mission. Sheilah "Paddy" O'Brien recently published a book that captures many of the best practices of businesses and applies them to nonprofits. The book, titled "Lean for the Nonprofit, What You Don't Know Can Cost You," presents a streamlined management method.

At the heart of Lean manufacturing principles is the motivation to produce quality products as efficiently as possible. Doing so reduces the expenditure of time, energy and resources for both the producer and the consumer. Nonprofit organizations can apply Lean practices to increase service delivery by working smarter, not harder.

At 37 pages O’Brien gives a brief overview of Lean and how rapid improvement events can improve processes within nonprofits. There is a detailed case study of an eligibility process for a health plan at an insurance company to illustrate the process. She includes a number of color images to support her points. This whole primer is about focusing on reducing the waste with processes to free up more capacity and dollars. Many organizations do not know about waste and instead are focused on optimizing what is already working well.

While there is much literature on Lean manufacturing principles in traditional and service industries there is very little for nonprofits.  This primer can be a good interlude for nonprofit leaders to consider another way however you’d need more training to execute successfully.

  

Five Functions of a Team Leader

In the early years of business, a team leader’s function was much less complex. He or she was primarily regarded as an overseer both by employees and by management. The job was quite simple then: carry out orders from above and if the people below don’t produce, fire them. In today’s ever changing business environment, most of that has changed, and changed for the better. The traditional autocratic boss is no longer effective. Employees today have different needs, work for different reasons, and are more educated and aware than ever before. Today’s team leader is looked up as a coach, motivator, mentor, staff development specialist, and person who can be trusted to get results. 

Competition, technology, and economic conditions have forced companies and organizations to realize that their most valuable resource is, in fact, their people. Today’s team leader needs the skills, adaptability, and the flexibility to achieve the results in this fast moving, global marketplace. Today’s team leader must now think in terms of effectiveness, excellence, accelerated results, return on investment, and profitability.

As a team leader, one of your primary roles is developing the resources, specifically, the human resources of your department, business unit, or team. The tasks of a team leader are classically defined as those of planning, organizing, staffing, motivating, achieving, and evaluating results. Let’s take a look at these five functions in a little more detail.

Planning
Planning involves establishing and planning the goals of your department, business unit, or team. These goals must be aligned with the overall organizational goals, the goals of your boss, and the individual goals of you and your team in order to achieve the best results. It is proven that if a team, business unit, or departmental goals conflict with overall organizational goals, or if individual’s goals conflict with either, the organization and the individual will not be as productive.

Organizing
Organizing involves making sure that all of the necessary processes are in place. These processes should include, or be connected to, providing service that exceeds customer expectations or to produce the products your customer requires. Organizing could involve providing customer support or technical assistance, scheduling machine time and ordering raw materials, assigning priorities and routing workflow, as well as developing new products and services. Once your goals are established and action plans are developed, it is your responsibility to organize your efforts and energies and those of your team.

Staffing
Staffing involves choosing, selecting, or involving the right and best team members. This may occur at the point of employment where you are called upon to interview applicants and select those you would like to hire. It also occurs daily as you are involved with staffing assignments and responsibilities in accordance with your team’s, department’s, or business unit’s objectives. As you lead and guide your group on a daily basis, you are constantly involved in making decisions about who should be assigned to do a particular job or project, who should be scheduled for a particular kind of training, or how many new people you might need in the future.

Motivating or Directing
Motivating or directing may be your most important function. Remember, your role has a lot to do with getting results through others. Ultimately, every team leader is judged by the results of his or her team, department, or business unit. All of the sophisticated planning, organizing, and staffing will be of little use unless you can create an environment where your team is motivated to generate the required outcomes. Remember that once your goals and action plans are established, you must elicit the commitment and cooperation of your team members by establishing and maintaining a motivating environment.

Evaluation
As a team leader you are responsible for evaluating what goes on in your team, department, or business unit and the results generated. You are constantly observing how the team is proceeding to the desired outcomes. You are responsible, when things are not running well, to take corrective action. Proactive evaluation of results and outcomes involve constant monitoring and measuring of processes, resources, and team members to ensure all activities and plans are yielding the results that you are responsible for and the organization expects.

If you look at these five functions carefully – planning, organizing, staffing, motivating, and evaluation – you’ll see that they really operate as a continuous cycle that is never-ending. Goals are established and action plans are developed to achieve specific and desired results. In order to carry out the specific action plans, team members are selected, materials and machines to be used are identified, the amount of time to complete, and these types of things are organized. While the actual work is going on, you lead and organize as well as direct and motivate. As the work is progressing, you manage the results by measuring and evaluating. When the results are not satisfactory, you analyze the reasons, make plans to deal with the root cause, and then organize, staff, direct, and measure the effectiveness of the new plan which perpetuates the continuous cycle.

Lean Quote: Simplicity is the Key to Brilliance

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.

"Simplicity is the key to brilliance." — Bruce Lee

Simplicity is the key to effective continuous improvement.Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. Simplicity is not simple. If it were otherwise, it would not be the subject of discussion. Simplicity would be what is taken for granted.

According to Occam's razor, all other things being equal, the simplest theory is the most likely to be true.  A simple solution always takes less time to finish than a complex one.  So always do the simplest thing that could possibly work next. If you find something that is complex replace it with something simple. It's always faster and cheaper to replace complexity now, before you waste a lot more time on it.

In my experience with problem solving in a Lean environment it is often those simple creative solutions at the source of the problem by those who do the work that are the most effective.  Lean leaders understand this well and work to create a culture that fosters and develops the use of this ingenuity.

If your process isn’t simple, it’s going to be very expensive, not very usable, and probably not sustainable – put simply, it will fail. Whether evaluating new processes, or determining which ones to re-engineer or discard, make simplicity a key consideration. Remember this – usability drives adoptability, and simplicity is the main determinant of usability.