Predictive or Responsive?

Do I try to predict what demand will be for my product?

or

Do I try to respond to demand which is evident?

 

Do I try to train my people for what I think they will need?

or

Do I try to help them be rapid learners of the skills required?

 

Do I try to guess what new products will sell well?

or

Do I make a lot of products and make more of what sells well?

 

Do I try to anticipate which direction the stock market will move?

or

Do I set up my portfolio to respond reasonably whatever the market does?

 

 

Responsiveness generally trumps predictiveness.

 

 

 

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Dumpster Diving, Designed-in Waste

You can learn a lot from a trash can.  It is the one place everyone agrees is the placeholder for waste. 

 

This morning, I pulled a large sheet of purchased material from a trash can.  We had punched a number of smaller parts from it.  There was a perfect stencil remaining, the outline of all the punched parts.

 

And, man, was there a lot of material left.  A quick set of measurements confirmed what my eye suggested…by moving the cutting pattern around, we could have had almost 20% more parts from this same sheet of material.

 

We designed in waste to this automated cutting pattern.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.  We planned the waste and executed the design perfectly.

 

Is there anything more painful than seeing such intentional waste? 

 

You can learn a lot from a trash can.

 

Keep on learning.

 

 

 

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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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