Sunday, December 12, 2010

Lean Behaviors: Mock Up, Part 2

Taking my own advice (and that of a colleague), we did a life-size mock up Friday of a new, pull-based scheduling system.  We did it with the folks who will have to use it.

 

What did we learn?

·         How much physical space it would take

·         Our initial thought on label clarity was inadequate

·         The concept will likely work

·         Three other assumptions were slightly off target

·         Batching is built into our DNA

·         Flow is tough to learn

 

How did we learn it?

·         We watched the space it would take

·         We watched clumsiness in working with kanban cards

·         We listened to language

·         We watched moods change from comprehension to confusion to frustration to insightful satisfaction

 

What will we do?

·         We handed out three assignments to get at by Monday at 9am

·         We scheduled a repeat of the mock up later on Monday morning

 

In short, we did a pile of learning and a pile of teaching in a mere 90 minutes at virtually no cost just by doing a mock up and simulating three days' production cycle. 

 

No computer screens in sight. 

 

Seven people, sitting, walking, scowling, asking, listening, talking, moving, adjusting, clarifying. 

 

90 minutes. And I truly don't think it would have happened as well had we not done the mock up.  

 

Well worth it.

 

 

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1 comment:

Mark Welch said...

I love it. A LOT of learning in a hands-on practical way with the people who do the work making the decisions. And no electronic assistance.

This is lean the way it is meant to be.