Once again--why we go to gemba

As part of our ongoing learning experience in implementing standard management work, one of my colleagues and I walked through a production area this morning.  As planned, we stopped to speak with an area supervisor near her visual metric display.  She had two questions, which we were discussing....

When...

My colleague noticed a nearby piece of equipment six inches off of its appointed place.  Now, not all six-inch displacements are critical but this one was and he knew why.  This displacement bore the risk of causing a significant quality problem.   He knew it and it allowed a discussion with the supervisor, at that point, at that time, about the criticality of the correct equipment placement, what to do about it and how to prevent it.  

There is no way any report, paper or electronic, would have ever shown this potential problem.  There is no way any conference room would allow the timely, clear discussion he had with the supervisor.  There is no way any management seminar could ever communicate to a supervisor the passion for getting this part of the process right. 

We had to go to the workplace.  

Keep learning. 

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Turkey. Baseball. Coherence.

In that mellow, happy interlude between the Thanksgiving meal and the parade of pies for dessert, my mother-in-law posed a question to me which needed an answer.  

"So, just what IS going on with the Chicago Cubs?"  

My oldest son joined the discussion, an inter-generational reflection by three die-hard Cub fans on the direction of our favorite team.  The new management of the team (known for having the longest stretch of futility in major American sports, 103 years since winning baseball's World Series) is trying to fill the numerous gaping holes in the Cubs' lineup before the season begins again in April.

"But who are they going to get?" my perceptive mother-in-law continued. "We have no pitching.  Who will play first base? Can anyone hit?"  As usual, she was correct in her questioning.  

My son weighed in.  He pays particular attention to pitchers and his recitation of the low level of starting and bullpen talent slowly deflated the happy feelings still lingering from the meal.  

"So, is there ANY hope?"  his grandmother sighed.  

Only with a consistent approach, I suggested.  "Consistent?"  Yes.  Only with a broad framework of making decisions, selecting talent and making game decisions could the Cubs change their trajectory.  There are several such frameworks in baseball...the Cubs have never embraced any of them.  Good decisions, when uncoordinated, make for a disjointed organization.  And 103 years of futility. 

In the business world, understanding Lean gives such coherence to decision making.  It is this, far beyond its mere tools, which makes it a powerful concept.  

Would Lean help the Cubs?  I'm not going that far.  But it does mean a lot for most of our organizations. 

Keep learning.

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On Implementation

This morning's Wall Street Journal had a long article about the latest European bailout plan.  A major bank leader observed the results of the effort and said this: 

"The implementation challenge is higher than the design challenge."

Indeed. 

 

And this is not only true for Europe's economic crisis.  It is true for every bit of organizational design we do. 

 

Only when we implement do we have any impact. 

 

Good to keep in mind when designing.

 

Keep on learning.

 

 

 

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Right Sizing: A Full-Bore Example

When we talk about "Right Sizing" in Lean, the typical context is a machine way bigger than we need or a department spreading out to take available space rather than keeping machines and people close to each other. Yet it remains a difficult concept for many to grasp, especially when so many of us feel "bigger is better." 

I was thrilled, therefore, to stumble upon a marvelous small cafe during a vacation trip recently.  The Czarnuszka Soup Bar in Ephraim, Wisconsin demonstrates right-sizing with the best taste ever.  

Paul owns, operates, cooks, cleans, markets, and loves the CZ Soup Bar. I talked with him three times during our week in the area, the last a substantive conversation during a slow period on a Thursday afternoon. His story is instructive.  

Paul has been in food service for nearly 20 years, living in commercial kitchens, hoping to do something on his own.  Familiar with this small, tourist-oriented area north of the more famous town of Green Bay, Paul developed a plan over the past few years.

He looked for a small space, which he found about a year ago.  He then fitted it with a single stove, small but adequate refrigerator, seating for 12 people inside and 12 more on the porch.  He worked out a plan for a simple but compelling menu plan: Four soups and two sandwiches each day, the menu written on a chalk board.  He'd pick the soups, based on what was in season and what seemed pleasing to customers. He made it with passion, from scratch, from the heart.  He worked out the marketing plan; a simple photo of the chalkboard posted each morning on Facebook.   He worked out a personnel plan: he could do everything, needing no employees. 

He opened his dream in May, 2011.  Through the warm summer season, he did OK.  But his plan was to stay and prosper as the tourists left, the Wisconsin temperatures cooled and local residents still wanted tasty soups.  When we met in late September, the plan was gelling.  I witnessed a steady stream of customers, all enjoying the warmth and aroma of homemade soup in a cozy setting.  I saw a smiling Paul, feeling like it was coming together.  


What does this say about right sizing?  How did Paul right size?

• His facility.  The small store was what he could manage himself.
• His equipment.  The kitchen had just what he needed; no extra.
• His marketing.  With a small menu, a photo on FB works great. 
• His location.  He picked a small town where a small soup bar had a chance of succeeding. 
• His menu.  The offerings each day are limited...it's a soup bar, after all, not a diner.  This lets him deliver what he knows he can make well.
• His technology.  A chalk board is far more flexible than a written menu.  Paul can shift it (and does) daily.  He told me how he enjoys experimenting to find what works.  
• His expectations.  This is the biggie.  At a strategic level, Paul rightsized.  Paul knew what he wanted; independence, a way to make an adequate if not extravagant income.  And he sized the entire enterprise to do just that. 

Will he make it?  Time will tell.  But Paul sure set it up well.  

And a best-ever example of right sizing.

Keep learning. 

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Moneyball, the movie

This afternoon, I saw the movie Moneyball.  I have seldom been so moved by a film.  

And I mention it here because this true story is the best metaphor I've ever seen of the need for a clear-cut philosophy of organizational success which is reducible to practice.    

Period.

The need for clarity of objective.  The need to describe it.  The need to get buy-in.  The inevitable resistance.  How, in a change setting, the situation often (always?) worsens before improving.  The need for valued assistants. How to make decisions consistently and confidently.  How the human and the structural interact.  The self-doubt.  Partial vs total success.  

This film captures the life of an organization at multiple levels.  I strongly recommend it to you.  

One note, especially for my readers outside the United States.  The film is entirely built around the game of American Baseball.  A knowledge of baseball improves comprehension; a working knowledge of baseball statistics and baseball history helps more.  Yet, even without this, many of the lessons will flow for you. 

I was familiar with the book from which this movie was made.  Yet the film captures organizational change in a way no book ever could. 

And it is an excellent way to keep on learning.

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Two Questions to Get You Unstuck

Had a perplexing and complex problem recently, which really had me up the proverbial creek sans paddle.  When I remembered something I had read some time ago from David Allen.  He suggested asking these two questions when in such a situation:

 

1.  What is our desired outcome?

2.  What is the next step?

 

And this helps.

 

The first question is a broad one.  Where do we want to end up?  What is the aim of this project, this set of tasks, the solution to this problem?  If we were planning a trip, we'd answer it by saying "We want to arrive in Denver by 5pm on the afternoon of the 15th." This question establishes the goal, the point at which you would say "There, did it, I'm satisfied." 

 

The second question is a very near-term, tactical question.  What is the very next step I need to take?  What is the single action I can take now which moves me closer to the outcome?  What specific, single thing must I do in the next hour?  For our trip, we'd answer it by saying "I need to get on-line an book a flight to Denver on the 15th and make my reservation today."  Or I might say "I need to compare the price and time of flying to the price and time of driving to Denver, this afternoon." 

 

I applied this to my perplexing problem.  The first question settled the nature of the tension I felt; two competing agendas were clashing and I stated how each could be satisfied.  The second question then became obvious; a conversation with stakeholders in each of the two competing agendas.  Suddenly, I was unstuck and moving.

 

Try this, as you keep learning.

 

 

 

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Mistake Proofing--why we should love annoyances

A central element of Lean is developing processes which MUST produce a correct result.  Don't get distracted by the Japanese term jidoka; we simply mean by it "mistake proofing." 

Process excellence buddy Dan, a.k.a. "The Kaizeneer" recently posted a short video which is an excellent example.  It lasts a minute and illustrates years of expreience.

Several points of note:

-This is a non-manufacturing example.  You can mistatke-proof many processes.

-It is very simple.  This improvement required virtually no cost and very little time.

-It makes the process work, every time, with no special instructions. No emails or documents or posters required.

-It solves an annoyance.  The small things, the proverbial "pebbles in the shoe" are the source of many small improvements like this.

Look for some annoyances and see what you can go. 

Keep learning.

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Pull. Please.

We ran out of a production supply yesterday.  It surprised all of us. 

 

To my delight, the key folks involved immedately went through a simple 5-Why exercise.  They discovered root cause, which turned out to be a good thing, related to some positive developments elsewhere in the company which required more of the stuff we ran out of. 

 

But how to avoid having this happen?  Clearly, the countermeasure in this case could not be "Hey guys, be less succesful over there". 

 

Digging a little deeper, they discovered we were purchasing this supply on a schedule, not on demand.  Put another way, we were "pushing" the procurement, based on the day of the week.

 

How'd that happen?  We understand pull, making a replenishment only when needed.  Why didn't we do it in this case?

 

Was it simply forgetfulness?  Or perhaps the convenience of plopping down an order reminder as a recurring task in a calendar?

 

I don't know. 

 

But the mistake sure helped us assess the error.  And I hope our error might help you assess if you have "push" somewhere you need "pull".  None of us ever fully arrive.

 

Keep learning.

 

 

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Thanks for Reading!

Seth Godin published this post 2 days ago.  I paste in its entirety:

 

Consumers and Creators

Fifty years ago, the ratio was a million to one.

For every person on the news or on primetime, there were a million viewers.

The explosion of magazines brought the ratio to 100,000:1. If you wrote for a major magazine, you were going to impact a lot of people. Most of us were consumers, not creators.

Cable TV and zines made it 10,000 to one. You could have a show about underwater spearfishing or you could teach people to make hamburgers on donuts. The little star is born.

And now of course, when it's easy to have a blog, or an Youtube account or to push your ideas to the world through social media, the ratio might be 100:1. For every person who sells on Etsy, there are a hundred buyers. For every person who actively tweets, there are a hundred people who mostly consume those tweets. For every hundred visitors to Squidoo, there is one new person building pages.

What does the world look like when we get to the next zero?

 

Writing this blog since 2002 has been and continues to be a fun pastime for me.  I'm certainly aware of functioning at that 100:1 level.  It's a select audience who is interested in and willing to read about Lean and why it works and when it doesn't work.

 

So, this post is merely to say a heart-felt "Thank you" to all of you readers!  I appreciate you!!

 

Keep learning.

 

 

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Strategy or Slogan?

Today, August 4, 2011, was a rotten day for the financial markets.  The Dow Jones, S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes all fell by 4.3%, 4.8% and 5.1%, respectively, in one single day.  

That is data.  What does one do with it?  How does it affect behavior for one holding stock investments?

I got thinking about this while connecting dots between two conversations earlier in the day, neither of which had anything to do with the financial markets.

First, I talked with a senior manager I've known for a long time who leads a local manufacturing company.  The subject was "how do you know the cost of each product".  With clarity and energy, he literally used the back of one sheet of paper to describe exactly how he calculates the cost of a product.  He described how he calibrated this method, how he checks it, how he can easily and quickly compare his cost to what a customer is willing to pay and, thus decide whether or not to pursue a particular deal.  It took all of 4 minutes to explain to me.  He had taught this to his managers and used this method for the past five years.  They all knew what to do when faced with a pricing decision.  I asked him if it had worked through the vicious downturn I knew his company had endured in 2009.  He smiled and said "This was our lifeline."  

He had a strategy for product pricing.  A robust strategy.

After lunch, I spoke with another friend who works for a different local company.  Their business has picked up wonderfully in the past 6 months and they were planning for a busy fall and winter.  Yet, he seemed perplexed.  It seems they have waffled in several aspects of taking advantage of these opportunities.  They had two legitimate paths to take; yet it was unclear which of the two paths company leaders want to take.  I asked him how this was affecting him and other employees.  He described a couple of big meetings during which senior managers shared a catch phrase intended to inspire.   It was a good phrase; short, alliterative, catchy.  Yet, it did not shape behavior.  People could interpret what it meant based on their own background and interests.  

He had a slogan.  A clever slogan, but only a slogan. 

It was late in the afternoon before I even had a chance to note today's free fall in the financial markets.  I emailed a friend on the West Coast who works in the investment industry and asked him, jokingly, if he was talking people off the proverbial ledge.  He responded, marveling at what he termed a "bloodbath".  But he then commented on the advantage certain investors enjoyed if they had a well-grounded investment strategy.  "It's days like this one which show the usefulness of a strategy."  Those without a strategy, he went on to explain, don't know when to sell or when to stay in.  Those with a strategy do; in fact, those with a strategy buy or sell the mistakes of those without, to their own advantage. 

I've personally shaped a clear, written strategy for managing my investments over the past three years.  It holds up.  It told me, immediately, what to do with today's market information.  The strategy has worked in up and down markets.  I'll sleep well tonight.  

A strategy shapes behavior. 

Which brings me to my point:  Lean is a strategy.  It is a comprehensive plan which shapes behavior.  It is understandable.  It is robust.  It allows an entire team of people to know what to do in the face of a wide range of situations. 

No customer will buy a single thing from us just because we do Lean.  They will buy only if they like what we have for the price we offer.  Our strategy for delivering those products is to use Lean principles.  The customer doesn't care about our strategy, so long as we deliver.  Yet a Lean strategy is central to delivering.  

A strategy shapes behavior.  It must tell responsible people in the organization just what to do in certain situations.  It may be boring.  It may be dull.  But it is likely very effective.

Why do people resist charting a clear strategy?  Is it laziness?  Is it fear?  Is it a desire to keep all options open at all times?  I don't know.  

But I do know a strategy beats a slogan.  Any day.

Keep on learning.

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