Obeya: The Lean War Room

Successful projects don’t just happen; they require hard work and collaboration from both project managers and team members to ensure all tasks are completed and goals are met, on time and on budget. However, many projects ultimately fail or are abandoned because the team does not work together to achieve shared goals. Much like how two people in a canoe won’t get anywhere if they’re rowing in opposite directions, projects will be doomed to fail if all members are not working towards the same end product.

To avoid this unfortunate fate, project managers can find help with visual management and the Obeya room. Visual Management is a Lean best practice used to inform and involve anyone in the process (even those who are unfamiliar with the details), and quickly allow them to see what is going on so that everyone ultimately understands what is under control and what is not. A key element of Visual Management is Obeya.

Toyota first created Obeya rooms during production of the Prius in the 1990s. Since then, organizations across many industries have put the concept into action. Obeya, which means “large room” in Japanese, involves bringing together departmental leaders to focus on big picture issues involved with a single project or initiative.

Creating an Obeya room is akin to creating a “war room,” a command center that draws together leaders from across departments in an organization. While most often associated with product development, Obeya also is useful as the command center for managing a new business strategy, software development, project management and workflow management. Obeya helps you to generate ideas, collaborate with management and stakeholders, and gain a full overview of the projects and any problems that need to be resolved.

An Obeya is not a process island. Simply putting all of your engineers in a single, big room does not an Obeya make. By the same token, a glass-walled room studded with monitors displaying and rotating real-time data every 30 seconds also doesn't qualify as an Obeya if it isn't used routinely to collaborate and manage the business. While the room may be visually eye-catching, that may be all it is.

The idea behind an Obeya is to break down the barriers that prevent employees from collaborating and sharing information to make efficient decisions. Obeyas are most effective when established and outfitted to solve singular problems or work on specific projects.

Obeya rooms are a process management tool that fuels creativity and collaboration between decision-makers on all levels while developing problem-solving skills. An Obeya promotes quicker, more nimble problem-solving by speeding up the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process.

Here’s a breakdown of the PDCA cycle:

·        Plan: Define a problem and develop potential solutions.

·        Do: Implement a proposed solution.

·        Check: Evaluate the results to see whether a solution is working.

·        Act: Take one of two actions: return to the planning step if the results aren’t satisfactory, or standardize the solution if the results are sufficient.

Rather than communicating across departments over the course of days or weeks, an Obeya brings together key decision-makers to implement the PDCA cycle and develop solutions quickly.

One of the most essential components of a successful Obeya room is choosing what will be visually represented in the room. Obeya rooms rely on visual management to spur collaboration and it is important that only relevant and important information is posted in order to keep the focus. For instance, posting customer complaints will keep managers focused on meeting customer requirements and their satisfaction. Other information that can be used in an Obeya are A3 reports, KPI’s, and the results of previous projects. The documents posted in an Obeya room should be clear and easy to understand, set up in a logical manner. It should flow from one side to the other and tell a complete story.

Visibility of information, transparency that applies to all relevant information, and visual organization are important quality attributes. When you walk into a well-equipped Obeya with your team, you would like to have easy access to everything you need. Information should be clear so that there are no misunderstandings. Then you are adequately enabled to identify improvements, make decisions and take action.

But this is just the foundational layer. First and foremost, it’s about the people. Nothing happens with all that neatly collected information if there are no people around willing to commit to each other and use the given platform to take action in pursuit of process improvement.

The Obeya connects information to people and therefore people to each other. By applying a repeatable rhythm and fixed structure, people in the Obeya meet other experts in their own field. All that expertise is needed to realize the strategic intention of the organization. Team members evaluate the status of their work and assess whether they are on schedule. Barriers can be discussed. Managers assess where resources can be deployed and see, at a glance, what that could mean for other initiatives.

Accountability is further supported through frequent “daily” reviews, which highlight responsibilities involved in executing project tasks and apply more pressure on the implementation of corrective actions. For those looking to analyze and improve their project processes more, this also can be great place to begin your daily  Gemba walks.

Companies using an Obeya may enjoy a number of benefits. Those include:

·        Efficiency: A project’s leadership team can save time by bringing helpful visuals, necessary information, and vital resources together in one place

·        Focus: Having key team members in the same room for collaboration and discussion means that project leaders can focus on the right issues

·        Collaboration: An Obeya fosters an environment in which employees can work together across disciplines and in real-time, rather than via e-mail or in rushed meetings

For project managers struggling to establish teamwork, visibility and accountability on their projects, Obeya may be the solution. With the ultimate goal of breaking down walls between team members and getting everyone working on the same page together, Obeya rooms provide big gains in both collaboration and problem solving, two features that are essential in project management.

The Benefits of Lean Visual Project Management

One of the greatest and most important challenges of project management is communicating clearly with your team about both the details and the big picture of your project. After all, it’s unlikely people will work on the right things in the right order if they don’t understand how each task– and its timely completion– contributes to the success of the project. One of the best ways to communicate with your team is via visual project management.

Visual project management is a method by which you can organize and visualize process over traditional projects and utilizing tools to help everyone involved visualize the status and needs of the project.

There are many benefits of visual management:

• Save time by simplifying the complex – Visual management helps people understand complex information at a glance, like what work items should be prioritized and who should be working on them.
• Reduce waste by communicating effectively – Take the guesswork out of teamwork by having a shared, common view of all work being done across the team.
• Overcome impediments to flow – See where work has slowed or stopped by creating a Lean visual management board that enables you to see bottlenecks and blockers.
• Collaborate and improve – Instead of pushing work blindly into team members’ queues, you can move work through our team process with a better understanding of capacity. This enables teams to collaborate in a healthier, more productive way.

Visual project management tools help bring the information to life, connecting the dots and painting a clear picture of the desired outcome, the current status, and any roadblocks that may be in the way. Visual management becomes a language that everyone can understand and explain.

A visual management board can help see the big picture, structure project activities, monitor and improve a team’s performance. Having a project board showing all the project tasks, their stage in the project life at any given moment can help significantly improve communication between team members.

More specifically, it enables the team to visualize the system, become aware of any constraints or roadblocks that might result, and begin a dialog on how to solve those problems. In this way, the challenges are directed to the system and how to solve versus focusing on the person as the issue. While there are many methods for collaborative communications, several common tools to foster the collaboration include consensus decision-making, A3s, Daily Huddles and similar problem solving activities.

Managing your tasks and overall projects require more than placing them in a sequence and attaching specific timelines to them. You need to adopt a better way to make your workflow transparent so you can continuously optimize your process and evolve it to create superior value for your customers.

Lean Quote: Lean as a Habit

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 fact that lean methods and practices are too often seen as “events” rather than “habits” is a common cause of program failure."   —  Rick Bohan

Lean is not about the destination but the direction or path you take toward this idealistic place. Lean is not something you check off your "To Do List". It is about the constant, persistent, even relentless pursuit of improving your current situation. Usually, it means doing something you haven’t done before because your old habits will not work in your new system. Lean is not technique you apply to your business system but rather a methodology that replaces your business system.

Every organization, company, assembly plant, cell and team is a reflection of its leadership. To create real change in a manufacturing enterprise, managers must first understand what drives the business. The source of power is people and their behaviors.

The sum of these behaviors is the culture. All business results are driven from the behaviors of people. When you change the culture, you change the business. Teaching people how to think and act differently is the key. The culture of your business can be your most powerful strategic advantage.

Creating a continuous improvement culture requires changing people’s habits. Habits are the set of things that people do subconsciously on a daily basis. They are in fact very difficult to change. Part of the challenge of starting and sustaining a continuous improvement program is identifying a set of desired behaviors and continuously reinforce them. This can include training and retraining employees, helping people understand when their behaviors are misaligned with the continuous improvement efforts, and giving positive feedback to those who exemplifies the desired behaviors.

Culture is like a healthy lifestyle. There are no quick fixes. You have to commit to a long, everyday push to get the behaviors right. It’s easy to take one step forward and two steps back. Changing culture requires extensive discipline for managers / supervisors as well as the front line worker. Without the internal transformation we rely on our old tricks for fooling the system. The paradox is that most Lean implementations fail because Lean is too easy. It is easy to do the practical stuff, but very difficult to change behaviors and habits.

Lean culture is not something that you can implement and forget about; it requires daily feeding. Even Toyota lost its way a few years ago and learned how tenuous lean culture can be after the company went through a period of significant growth.

When there's a plan for making Lean an ongoing effort and not just a one-time event, it can be sustained over time.

7 Ways to Develop a Culture of Respect and Trust

People and organizations usually include respect and trust in their list of important values. They go hand in hand.

Respect and trust between leaders and direct reports is essential to the overall success of any organization. When employees feel a sense of trust and are confident that their supervisor has their best interests in mind, they are more comfortable engaging in open communication and are more likely to solicit feedback concerning their performance. This ultimately results in enhanced job performance and increased employee engagement.

Here are 7 ways to develop a culture of respect and trust in your workplace:

1. Listen to each other.

Communication is at the core of human relationships, and it should be no different with your colleagues. Open a dialogue by listening and making people feel comfortable sharing. This is an ongoing process that should go beyond a single engagement survey each year. Collect regular, ongoing employee feedback -- and all forms of feedback at that.

2. Show employees that you care.

In the same way you nod to someone to show them you are listening, make sure employees know you are listening by communicating the findings of any feedback they have provided. Employees want to know that their voices aren’t falling into a black hole. If you can’t make the recommended changes, simply explain why. It’s scary, but transparency like this goes a long way to create a culture of respect and trust.

3. Help each other.

People who respect each other help each other. They support each other as employees and as people. Not only does this mean that employees will have richer, more positive relationships at work but also when there is a culture of support, employees won’t be afraid to ask for help. This ultimately makes everyone more comfortable and effective in his or her job.

4. Encourage everyone to be themselves.

Work is a huge part of who we are. It reflects our choices, our passion and our ambitions. Therefore, it seems contradictory that many are worried about being themselves when they’re actually at work. While it’s important to stay professional, employees that feel comfortable being themselves are likely to be happier and as a result, more productive. When employees are being themselves, levels of creativity are likely to rise. This is because those who feel they are able to express themselves are more inclined to share their ideas and opinions.

5. Follow Through

It’s all well and good to facilitate group meetings and to prove yourself a sympathetic ear on the office floor, but if your subsequent actions don’t actually resolve the problems in these situations, your promises will be empty.

One leading reason employees leave their workplaces has to do with the lip-service they receive from their superiors.

In other words, managers who make promises and say all the right things but fail to follow through. That kills a culture of trust.

6. Give Rewards Where They Are Due

Since “all talk and no action” is a negative for managers, spoken or tangible workplace rewards are great incentives for people to work harder and better.

Although rewards should highlight the efforts of people who perform exceptionally, managers should also choose who to reward based on their professional merit, not according to how much you connect with them on a personal level.

Nevertheless, remember that people easily notice when managers show bias. Make sure the playing field is level, and ensure that when you extend rewards, you have professional reasons for doing so.

7. Show You Value Them as Thinkers

Perhaps the most significant management faux pas is a lack of humility.

You can avoid this by recognizing and appreciating your team’s ideas daily.

If your business doesn’t take risks or encourage new thinking, the business will suffer. You can make your company an innovation hub by actively encouraging employees to share their great ideas in supportive team settings that don’t silence anyone.

Trust, much like organizational culture, is not built overnight. You need to earn it. Building an organizational culture is deeply rooted in trust, and collaboration starts with strong leadership that is willing to follow through, lead by example and walk the talk to create lasting and impactful organizational change. Leaders that personally role model trust virtues (e.g. honesty, reliability, discretion and focus on others ahead of themselves) and lead from trust values (e.g. relationship rather than transaction focus, collaboration, and transparency) create a strong work environment.

Establishing and maintaining a workplace culture of respect, inclusion, and positivity is essential to the productivity, growth, and continued success of your company. By implementing these tips, you’ll be well on your way to building a respectful workplace where everyone feels they are an integral part of the company and are committed to the organization, its values, and goals.

10 Qualities of Successful Lean Leaders

There is often a missing link in many Lean organizations - which is, the set of leadership structures and behaviors that constitute a lean management system. People frequently equate ‘Lean' with the tools used to standardize processes and generate efficiencies; and organizations tend to focus more on the implementation of these tools. However, implementing tools only accounts for, at most, 20% of the effort needed in lean transformations. The remaining 80% should be spent on changing leaders' behaviors and practices; and eventually their mindsets.

Lean leadership bridges a crucial divide: the gap between lean thinking and lean tools. Lean leaders have an essential role to play in lean transformations.

I have had the honor to witness several fine Lean leaders throughout my career, and would like to share with you my thoughts on the qualities which make them successful.

1. Focused on the Journey

Lean is a Journey. It is not a quick fix nor a Program of the Month. Far from being a mere operational tactic, Lean should be an integral part of the overall business strategy. Only after identifying ‘True North’ and a strong sense of purpose can an organization understand how to apply Lean to enhance performance through the increase of value. All of this requires long-term thinking, patience and a sustainability mindset.

Another key leadership behavior related to this quality is the ability to perform Hansei, Japanese for ‘reflection’, often referring to critical self-reflection. Only when we deeply reflect on our mistakes and opportunities can we attempt to move forward in our journey towards perfection.

2. Relentless Pursuit of Perfection

This quality is the very essence of Kaizen thinking. The absolute embracement of continuous improvement and utter rejection of the status quo. The Lean Leader believes that ‘good enough’ is never enough! Burning inside the heart and soul of every Lean Leader lies a fundamental belief that everything can be made better and that we must constantly strive to achieve perfection, knowing full well that pure perfection can never actually be obtained. A key leadership behavior to enable this trait is Insatiable Curiosity. In order to improve one must be curious about possibilities and alternatives, as well as embrace the key concept of ‘Learning, not Knowing’. The Lean Leader constantly strives to improve themselves, and thus their organization, and never thinks they know everything.

3. Process-Oriented Thinking

Lean leaders aren’t ones to demand positive results no matter the cost. In their case, the end doesn’t necessarily justify the means. Instead, lean leaders have the ability to take a step back and examine the processes that can lead to the right results.

In their mind, the right process will lead to the right results.

4. Customer Focus Obsessed

In Lean, the Customer is at the beginning and end of everything. Without an intense focus on the customer and an understanding of what they value, a leader will not know where to focus their improvement efforts and may actually end up inadvertently carving out value from the organization.

A key leadership behavior to support this quality is the ability to create a Problem Solving Culture – an environment where problems are readily surfaced (note the Toyota saying of "’No Problem’ is Problem!") and subsequently solved by the teams closest to where the work is being performed. Without a near-fanatical priority on customer value, the customer journey and a problem solving culture, it will be nearly impossible to meet or exceed the customer's expectations.

5. Tackle Problems Immediately (Stopping the Line)

When a problem arises, Lean leaders set the example for immediately tackling the problem before it grows. This is called “stopping the line,” a practice taken from Lean manufacturing, in which an assembly line would halt production to resolve an issue, no matter how small. This practice holds everyone on the assembly line (or value stream) accountable for delivering a consistently high-quality product.

Stopping the line forces every part of the organization to swarm to resolve an issue, learn why it happened, and prioritize work to ensure that it does not happen again. Continuous improvement cannot be one executive’s job; it should be the means by which decisions are made at the personal, team, and organizational levels.

6. Clear Expectations and Accountability

Communication is obviously key to this quality. Lean leaders clearly vocalize their needs. They establish sets of expectations for a particular task or project and don’t allow ambiguity to creep into their communications. Vague expectations can cause duplications in work, miscommunications or just generally waste people’s time while they scratch their heads trying to figure out their leader’s meaning.

Once lean leaders set those clear expectations, they then have no issue holding people accountable. They expect those around them to take ownership of their tasks and complete them within the allotted amount of time.

7. Going to the Gemba

Gemba is a Japanese word that means ‘workplace’, or in practical use ‘where value is created’. Leaders need to spend less time in the office or conference room and more time at the real touch points impacting the customer and the employees. Only then will they truly understand the real situation so that they can take effective actions to improve performance.

The Lean Leader manages by Gemba instead of managing by powerpoint by proactively scheduling ‘point of impact’ walks where they can actively engage with the people closest to the customer, instead of relying on 3rd party reports and only going to the workplace when there is a problem. Lean Leaders provide continual coaching at the Gemba versus giving orders from the office, fully exhibiting the critical behavior of active questioning and listening to constantly develop and challenge the minds of their people.

8. Knowing When To Lead and When To Follow

Part of being a lean leader is an ability to read situations well. If there is a vacuum and leadership is needed, a lean leader won’t have an issue stepping up and taking charge.

But then again, a lean leader also knows when it’s time to step back and allow others to lead. Putting leadership on a project or task in someone else’s capable hands is a important act of cultivating leadership qualities in colleagues.

9. Be Free With Praise But Also Be Honest

Lean leaders are respectful and dole out praise far more than they criticize. Correcting issues is obviously important for the learning process, but lean leaders should aim for a 5-to-1 praise to criticism ratio when addressing colleagues.

That being said, lean leaders always aim for honesty. Sugarcoating the truth doesn’t help anyone involved.

10. Practice What You Preach

The old adage “practice what you preach” is particularly important for lean leaders. Nobody is going to buy what you’re selling if you’re not living it yourself, whether that’s lean principles, continuous improvement or any other concept.

Yes, the Lean leader should obviously act a role model for others, but they should also teach leadership and encourage those qualities in those around them.

These 10 qualities are by no means exhaustive, but I believe they do capture many of the behaviors that we have come to associate with Lean Leadership. They are generally distinct from the general leadership qualities and should thus be considered ‘additional’ traits above and beyond the foundational ones. It is important to cultivate these leadership expectations by institutionalizing them in your practices for leader development. But most importantly, leaders must build a lean culture by themselves adhering to the principles of lean leadership on a daily basis, thus generating the repeatable behaviors in the organization that will result in a high level of performance.

Just as a Lean transformation cannot happen overnight, a Lean management transformation is not something that can be turned on with a switch. For many leaders, this requires abandoning many of the principles that have gotten them to where they are.

Lean Quote: Excellence Over Perfection

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.

"Perfection has to do with the end product, but excellence has to do with the process."   —  Jerry Moran

We must recognize that perfection and excellence is not the same thing. Perfectionism is about the fear of failure, while striving for excellence is the urge for success. Excellence is superior performance, persistence, and the commitment to do something exceptionally well. Excellence requires risk, effort, spontaneity, hard work, and extending yourself to reach your full potential. Perfectionism interrupts a natural curiosity to learn, inquire, and invent. It causes frustration, pressure, doubt, and constant self criticism.

When we strive for excellence, we have high standards. And in general, there’s nothing wrong with having high standards. In fact, it can be a good thing. High standards can encourage us to make improvements, solve problems and do quality work.

Perfectionism, however, is an impossibly high standard — with no room for imperfections and no compassion for mistakes.

People who strive for excellence can accept that mistakes are inevitable and value what they learn from them. They don’t let mistakes define them.

When we pursue excellence or high standards, we value the process, not just the outcome. We know that the learning that we build along the way, is often as important as the outcome. When we value the process, we are better equipped to weather life’s ups and downs because we know that the outcome isn’t always a reflection of our effort, skills, or intelligence.

Excellence is about focusing and improving the process – whatever it is to achieve the desired result or goal. The paradigm shift is about believing that once we continue excelling and improving at what we do well, the results would get better and better.

Strengthening Your Communication Skills as a Leader

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Most everyone knows that certain skills define those who make strong leaders. Somehow these people manage to bring people in line with their ideals, address differences, and create a productive workforce with minimal effort. Many of us are full of admiration for those who seem to naturally command this respect.

But what exactly is it that defines a great leader?

There are surely a lot of things that go into it. But perhaps one of the most essential aspects of a strong leader is communication skills. These leaders seem to have a natural ability to speak with people and meet them on their level.

As you work to become a strong leader within your company, building and strengthening communication skills is critical. Here are a few ways you can start.

Building Trust

There are few things more valuable to an employee than having a supervisor they trust to look out for their best interests. As a business leader, figuring out how to start building this trust amongst employees can be a real challenge. Once again, communication is a key component of doing this — and it is something you can work on strengthening while you grow as a manager.

One of the best ways to build trust with employees is to strive for transparency in all actions. This means being open with them and sharing the good news as well as the bad news. It also means working to make sure that employees are never caught off-guard by some of the big changes and new directives that may be coming down the pipe. Transparency is a commitment to being honest, even if it might make you feel more vulnerable — most employees recognize and appreciate that.

Employees who trust their managers to be straight with them about company concerns are more likely to find satisfaction in their jobs and feel like valued members of a team. In the long run, this communication strategy could greatly increase workplace happiness and productivity. Trust in a leader with good, transparent communication skills can also help employees and the company get through some of the most difficult times.

Listening Skills Matter

Another aspect of communication that good leaders continually work to strengthen is their listening skills. When most people think about working on communication, they think about the need to be better at talking or writing to people. But really, that’s only half of it — effectively communicating involves both speaking and listening — it's a two-way street.

Sitting back and listening to employee ideas, concerns, and questions can be a powerful means of moving the company forward in a positive direction. Actively listening by asking questions, getting more information, and thinking critically about the problems at hand can bring to light issues that need to be addressed as well as inspire creative new ideas. Try not to judge the situation too early on, listen without prejudice and try to hear the core message that people are trying to communicate.

Communication, and listening especially, can be even more difficult in the modern era with a remote workforce and a growing dependence on technology. But it certainly is possible. Numerous online tools have been developed that work towards breaking down online communication barriers. It can require a different mentality to communicate and listen well online, but leaders who strive to reach out to and hear directly from employees will continue to find success.  

Showing Empathy

It won’t always be easy to reach out and connect with every employee. There are certainly different communication styles that you’ll have to be aware of including socializers, directors, relaters, and thinkers. Taking the time to think about communication and respond to different employees in a way that will resonate with them is an important component of effectively conveying a message. It is also the first step in empathizing with them.

Empathy can be one of the most difficult skills to learn, but it is also one of the most highly sought-after soft skills any employee, manager, or company leader can have. It is essentially the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, think about how they might feel or react to a given situation, and adjust your actions and responses to connect with them on their level.

In the workplace, showing empathy can help you to understand an employee’s situation and recognize the outside factors that may or may not be contributing to their performance. For instance, during the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees were put in a situation where they suddenly couldn’t take their kids to school or daycare yet they still had to adapt to remote work and meet deadlines while balancing these stresses. Recognizing these unforeseen struggles and responding is empathy at work and employees appreciate it.

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Communication skills are always something that can be improved upon, even for some of the best workplace leaders. Different aspects of communication such as increasing transparency, active listening, and developing empathy are all important to being a successful communicator and ultimately a successful company leader. 

About the Author: Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and business topics are his favorite. When he isn't writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.