Archive for Lean
Quality through Individual Actions Presentation
Posted by: | CommentsBelow is a presentation that I will be giving this week to the Plantmix Asphalt Industry of Kentucky. It will be during the winter training school and focus on Building a Quality Program through your Actions. This an hour long presentation and I noticed a few parts that the subject matter may seem to jump off course but it actually flows pretty well for me. What are your thoughts? Any improvement ideas?
Related Information:
Quallaboration Podcast with Personal Kanban Founder
Jim Benson talks about quallaboration – YouTube
Successful Lean teams are iTeams
Teamwork Is an Individual Skill
Service Design Thinking Podcast with Marc Stickdorn
Posted by: | CommentsService Design changes the way you think about business. No longer can companies focus their efforts on process improvements. Instead, they must engage the customer in use of their product/service rather than analyzing tasks for improvement. We no longer build and hope that there is a demand. We must create demand through our product/service and Service Design Thinking is the enabler of this process. It changes our mindset of thinking about design at the end of the supply chain to make it look good and add few appealing features (all within budget). Instead, it moves design and the user themselves to co-create or co-produce the desired experience to the beginning of the supply chain.
My blog and podcast for next few months will focus on these features with Business Strategists, Design Thinkers, Appreciative Inquiry Coaches, Architects and of course Lean Thinkers. I could not think of a better way to start this series than having a podcast with co-author Marc Stickdorn of This is Service Design Thinking. A preview of his book is below.
Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Service Design or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.
About: Marc Stickdorn graduated in Strategic Management and Marketing and worked in various tourism projects throughout Europe. Since 2008 Marc is full-time staff at the MCI – Management Center Innsbruck in Austria, where he lectures service design and service innovation. His main areas of interest are service design and strategic marketing management particularly in a tourism context. This involves research such as the development of a mobile ethnography application for mobile phones, the Customer Journey Canvas and various publications and presentations. Marc is co-founder and consultant of “Destinable – service design for tourism” and guest lecturer at different business and design schools.
His Websites:
http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/
http://www.servicedesignresearch.com
Related Information:
Define the Expectation, Delight the Customer
Lean Engagement Team Book Released
Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving
Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers
Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving
Posted by: | CommentsCould this be the missing link between Lean and Sales and Marketing?
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) focuses on growing or increasing in value through exploration and discovery. It is a positive approach to change. It compliments Lean Thinking when you view Lean from a Value perspective versus a Waste Perspective. It is also relevant on how you use Lean. If you use Lean on the supply side of the equation ridding yourself of waste might be the predominant thought. If you use Lean on the demand side, you have a tendency to view it more as a value producing mechanism.
Lean vs Appreciative Inquiry
- Lean you identify key problems vs AI you look for best experience or practice.
- Lean analyzes causes vs AI create future vision.
- Lean finds possible solutions vs AI shares values through dialogue.
- Lean you create action plans vs AI creates the future.
- Lean lends itself to linear understanding vs AI “leans” toward circular understanding.
So what are your thoughts?
- What happens when you take a positive approach to Lean?
- Does the same problem solving methods work?
- Can Appreciative Inquiry co-exist with Lean?
I was introduced to Appreciative Inquiry by fellow blogger, Ankit Patel who can be found at The Lean Way Consulting.
Related Information:
Slideshow, I used for reference:
Value can no longer be defined as What a Customer will pay for!
Evolution of Standard Work in my Sales and Marketing
Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers
Lean Sales and Marketing works because of Leader Standard Work
Posted by: | CommentsPeople struggle with Lean in sales and marketing because they don’t believe that many of the fundamental concepts of Lean, such as Standard Work can apply to the S & M discipline. If you review the slide shows under the Lean Engagement Team section on Slide Share, I think you will find how much they are based on standard work. Think about Leader standard work, it is intentionally designed to focus multiple layers of attention on the same process. For example:
The Team Leader’s Standard Work might including adding new call scripts into a follow-up campaign for a certain webinar or trade show. The team leader also heads a brief daily stand-up meeting with the team which is part of the regular agenda to ensure that appropriate action has been taken or initiated. The Team Coordinator should attend but not head the meeting.
The Team Coordinator might then work with the team to go over playback of scripts for training. He may bring in additional trainers as part of a weekly program to improve delivery. The TC ensures that program has been coordinated with other actions in the marketing communication department.
The Marketing Communication department sends follow-up emails, auto-responders and/or direct mail.
The Value Stream Manager might allocate budget for calling program and meet once a week to check progress and to lead a regularly-scheduled meeting with the TC, TL and MC to discuss the problems or opportunities.
It is this way that standard work is layered to ensure focus on the processes that produce the results. It is one of the most challenging aspect of the transition from a traditional results-only culture to a lean results-and-process-focused culture.
A quote from Dr. Michael Balle, “Lean is not a revolution; it is solve one thing and prove one thing.” Leader Standard work is the foundation of Lean Sales and Marketing and the fundamental process that replaces the "Silver Bullet" found in most typical marketing jargon.
What are your thoughts? Is your marketing efforts based on standard work?
Systems2win(who I work with) has an excellent description on the website, Leader Standard Work tool.and a new video out (below) that explains Standard Work.
Related Information:
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011: The 99 Percent Solution
Six Sources of Influence in Change
The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean
Even Seinfeld used Standard Work
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: How to implement Lean Thinking in a Business
Posted by: | CommentsTracey Richardson’s How to implement “Lean Thinking” in a Business is my third and final blog review for the John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival. Tracey is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team member, team leader and group leader in the Plastics Department from 1988-1998. She has over 460 hours training in Toyota Methodologies and Philosophy and currently is a trainer for Toyota, their affiliates in North America, and other companies upon request. Tracey experience in Toyota methodologies including: Lean Problem Solving, Quality Circles, Lean Manufacturing tools, Standardized Work, Job Instruction Training, Toyota Production System, Toyota Way Values, Culture Development, Visualization (Workplace Management Systems), Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), Meeting Facilitation/Teamwork, and Manufacturing Simulations. 
Tracey also was the 2010 recipient of the Business901 Podcast of the Year! The podcast discussed A3 problem Solving.
Tracey likes to discuss the culture before jumping into problem solving but she takes a look at culture from a different perspective than others. It just about comes across as an attitude (in a very polite way) and there is type of swagger about the whole thing. Why not? When you become #1 in the world such as Toyota did and you are #1 methodology in the world which Lean probably is, why not have that swagger to your discussion? It is not pompous, it is an attitude that what you are doing works! She doesn’t write enough in my opinion because of her commitments as a trainer but her blog is one you should follow, you do not want to miss a word she says. You can also find her answering questions on the Lean Enterprise’s A3 Dojo Website.
What does the word “Lean” mean to you or your Company?
As I travel around the U.S. working with various companies that make a variety of different products, I realize a common denominator throughout them. How do they define the word “lean”, as well as the word “culture”? What I have realized is very interesting!
When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the “tools”, and that’s what companies seem to want, so of course, that’s what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the “respect for people” and developing the workforce as a team. I can’t ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY – TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like “Lean”, nor did we really think about our daily actions as a “culture”. It was just in the atmosphere. It wasn’t until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I’ve experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect…..
Pathway to creating a “Lean Culture”
As I travel around to various clients they are always asking me, “How do you implement or create a culture like Toyota has”? I tell them that’s a very loaded question :). There are so many aspects of creating that culture it’s hard to give a short answer or even “wave a magic wand” to say… “Here is what you should do!!”. I wish I was that good . How I see it, you really need to differentiate the People side of Lean versus the Tool side. The People side will always be the most difficult aspect of the discipline needed to create this thing called Culture. The tools are just what they are, mostly countermeasures to change some discrepancy in our process. For the tools to be successful, People must understand their involvement or the purpose behind the tools. As I have stated in previous blog posts you must explain from the company perspective the WHAT, HOW and the WHY of any change or expectation within a persons work….
Tracey’s website: http://teachingleaninc.com and email: tracey@teachingleaninc.com
Related Information:
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: Graham Hill at CustomerThink
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011: The 99 Percent Solution
LabWorks Opens in the Lean Marketing Lab
The importance of PDCA in Marketing
