Lean Sales and Marketing thru Service Design Thinking » Lean

Developing a Learning A3

business901 — Mon, 21 May 2012 14:33:00 +0000

Matt Wrye is a Lean Implementer that has a passion for continuous learning on all subjects related to business and lean. He is the author of the popular blog “Beyond Lean,” which centers on evolving leadership and changing business.

Our discussion center on his development of a Learning A3. From his blog post Learning A3:

A3s are used for solving problems, developing proposals and everything else. Why not for laying out a plan to show what people are expected to learn during a project or coaching session. Layout a standard or plan so expectations and progress becomes visible.

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Below are several formats for your use. I recommend viewing one before or during the listening of the podcast.

Learning A3 Example PDF

Learning A3 Blank Template PDF

Learning A3 Blank Excel Template

About Matt: Matt has a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University in Industrial Engineering. Among his other accomplishments are Lean Principles and Kaizen Certification from Lean Learning Center, Lean Coach/Mentor, Proficient in Lean tools and concepts, Shainin Red X Certified Journey and Master Candidate, and a ProModel Simulation Software expert. He is proud to have played a large and significant role in starting the Smith County Lean Consortium in Tyler, TX.

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Future of Lean Transcription

business901 — Thu, 17 May 2012 02:32:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the noted experts in the Lean Community, Dan Jones. This is a transcription of our podcast, The Future of Lean with Dan Jones. We spent a fair amount of time discussing Lean outside the four walls of the enterprise and how Lean interacts with the customer.

Daniel Jones is the co-author with James P Womack, of the influential, best-selling management books:
The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together
Seeing the Whole Value Stream.

A short excerpt from the transcription can be found here: The Challenge of Lean with Dan Jones.

Daniel Jones is a management thought leader and advisor on applying lean, process thinking to every type of business across the world. He is the founding Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy www.leanuk.org in the UK, dedicated to pushing forward the frontiers of lean thinking and helping others with its implementation.

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Individual Lean, the Root Cause of Success?

business901 — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

Can the principles of Lean be applied to your daily life? Dan Markovitz, founder and owner of TimeBack Management certainly thinks so. He has developed a consultancy specializing in improving individual and organizational performance through the application of lean concepts. Dan has backed up his claim in his latest book, A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance. Dan feels Lean can be just as powerful for yourself as it for organizations.

After talking to Dan, I reviewed the 5 basic principles of Lean:

Identify Value
Map Value Stream
Create Flow
Establish Pull
Seek Perfection

I certainly found an interesting relation to how I apply them from an organizational standpoint and how I could use them to improve my day. Dan gave a few tips and encouraged me to find the root cause of several of my most nagging problems. I can’t say the choices were easy but I was certainly able to address them and make decisions accordingly. Now, if I can only sustain it!!!

Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Download Here or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

I reviewed the book in this blog post: How do you handle inputs into your life? and there is a written excerpt from the podcast, Can you Lean yourself?.

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Preview of Presentation at the LSS12 Conference

business901 — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:09:51 +0000

This is a preview of my presentation at the Lean software and Systems Conference in Boston, MA. The Lean Software and Systems Consortium is bringing three premiere events to one centralized location to facilitate the next wave of ideas in methods, process and organization for software & systems engineering development. Boston is the premiere place to be for those innovating in the Lean community.

Preview of Presentation at the Lean Software and Systems Conference

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The Lean Software and Systems Conference emphasizes Lean concepts representing the next wave of ideas in methods, process and organization for software and systems engineering. It brings together an international community of practitioners, consultants, thought leaders and authors to cross-pollinate ideas and foster a sense of community for those promoting better economic and sociological outcomes in their workplace.

Three Events, One Venue – 3-Day Conference, Lean Camp & Lean Tutorials
Lean Software & Systems Conference 2012 (LSSC12) May 13-18, 2012, in Boston, MA

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Is your Customer part of your Inner Circle?

business901 — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

Are you looking for meaningful feedback? Are you having productive dialogue with your customers? Have you ever wanted to know instantly what your customers were thinking? In this short video, I demonstrate the quickest and easiest way to get closer to your customers. In fact, I have not found a more productive and efficient method.

This is what I call my Customer Kenny Project discussed in the video.

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Does Lean create Innovative Companies?

business901 — Mon, 07 May 2012 02:32:00 +0000

Many people only view Lean as a methodology to reduce waste, improve flow and drive internal processes. Many have even hijacked the term customer and created “internal customers” and lose sight of the true customer and the marketplace. These companies do not recognize Lean as a business process that strengthens and grows a company through collaborative learning. However, it is this model in conjunction with the concept of “Pull” that are the fundamental concepts of Lean that provides the value to innovation .

The ever increasing platforms of co-producing, open-innovation, co-creation is moving innovation from an exclusive internal platform to a more external platform. True innovation is not happening inside the 4 walls of an organization but out in the customers’ playground. As Voice of Customer tools get more sophisticated, we are not reacting and thinking of the next step needed to delight our customers, we are allowing them to show us the way. Organizations may lead in “design” but in use it is the customer and in use is where the value is derived (Service Dominant Logic Thinking Vargo and Lusch,2006).

Many would argue the Lean is about incremental improvement. It does not allow for breakthrough thinking. I agree that SDCA and PDCA and even the continuous mindset may not deliver breakthrough thinking. However, like most things you start one step at a time. The culture of Innovation starts with culture of continuous improvement. To start with breakthrough thinking is very difficult and typically not successful. You cannot just turn it on. So starting with PDCA and a continuous improvement is the only successful way, to create this “i (little i) culture.

Ramping it up and truly doing breakthrough thinking, the big ‘I” is when you must engage and understand your customer/market extremely well. This could be a description of the culture a Lean company from a Scott Anthony FastCompany Post on innovation:

A classic example of this is how a calligraphy class inspired Apple legend Steve Jobs’s emphasis on typography on early computers. The professors then detail what they call the “Innovator’s DNA,” four time-tested approaches successful innovators follow to gather stimuli that spur these connections:

Questioning: Asking probing questions that impose or remove constraints. Example: What if we were legally prohibited from selling to our current customer?

Networking: Interacting with people from different backgrounds who provide access to new ways of thinking.

Observing: Watching the world around them for surprising stimuli.

Experimenting: Consciously complicating their lives by trying new things or going to new places.

I like to use the term EDCA learned from Graham Hill to designate the Explore aspect of Lean. I view it as more of Design Type thinking content that allows for that collaborative learning cycle with a customer. This is a link to my blog post on the tools of SDCA, PDCA, EDCA: http://business901.com/?p=8490.

Why Lean? Design and Innovation takes place outside the four walls and Lean can be the methodology of choice. It drives both the Little i and the Big I. The first and foremost reason is that it allows the 1st step for innovation. Lean is the primary driver for the little i DNA. As a result, it allows for that culture to spread and create the DNA for the BIG I. Without Lean and the little i, you may never start!

My upcoming Podcast with Dan Jones dives into this type of Lean Thinking. Review these past post to provide some additional background, Thinking Back from the Customer –Lean Summit 2011 and The Challenge of Lean with Dan Jones.

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The Challenge of Lean with Dan Jones

business901 — Fri, 04 May 2012 02:30:00 +0000

Joe: Lean is leaving the four walls of the factory. As Lean moves into knowledge fields, I personally think waste reduction thinking is a burden on it. Everybody starts to look at that first rather than the collaborative learning aspect of it. I think Lean’s strength and growth is collaborative learning. That’s one of the secrets of lean. Is there a way to present that to people, better than what has happened in the past?

Dan: “There are some obstacles in that kind of environment that make it hard for people that want to grasp this. The first obstacle is that we are knowledge workers, we don’t want to have people standardize what we do. We are creative folks. We got away from that factory environment where we just do the same thing over and over. So the idea of standardization is an anathema. However if you look at any work, particularly design work or transaction processing work, a lot of it actually is fairly similar and routine. Also that’s where the problems are. If you can standardize those routine tasks actually what you end up doing is freeing up time for the creative tasks. So once people see that, they switch their views and think, well the standardization not of everything but of the routine and getting the hassles out of the routine that really makes my life better.

That’s one obstacle. You can’t tell people that standardization leads to creativity but actually it does. That’s what people discover. And in the end, you ask them after they’ve done a bit of this, and improve their lives, where they’d like to go back and they always tell you, no you’re kidding. Now it is so much better. So that’s one way in. The other way in, in that kind of work too is that people are typically working on too many projects at once and so there is lots and lots of changeovers going on.

They are typically working ahead of the customer or the user specifying what they actually want. So there is a tremendous amount of confusion as to what the actual task, the actual problem that you are trying to solve is. That just generates a tremendous amount of unnecessary work that people are happy to do but actually isn’t creating any value for the customer and it’s not always easy to see which work is really work and which work is actually going to lead to something tangible for the customer.

The thing about the construction industry for instance, in the construction industry the business model is such that the contractors actually make money on the changes. They don’t actually want the customer to really specify in detail exactly what the building is going to look like, because they are bidding low to get the business anyhow, and they want the customer to make changes so that they can then charge a hell of a lot for the changes, and that’s where they make their money.

There is a similar aspect in IT systems as well. Partly we are trying to always sell prototypes that are not fully developed and get the customer to pay for the development part but also because the customer is not knowledgeable at what the capabilities might be, and because it takes too long to develop these systems and type of things needs change, this all adds a tremendous amount of confusion. So in IT development I would say you don’t start until the very last moment when the customer has done all the specifying they want, until they are really clear what they want.

Then don’t work on anything else until you finish it. So you have all the information you need, work on it, completely, uninterruptedly, until it’s finished. That will end up with less work per project and much better customer satisfaction. So you just got to start looking at the workflow and the type of work and the influences on that work in a slightly different way.”

Listen to next week’s Business901 podcast as we explore the future of Lean!

Daniel Jones is the author, with James P Womack, of the influential, best-selling management books:
The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together
Seeing the Whole Value Stream.

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4 Disciplines of Execution – Lean Simplified

business901 — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 02:32:00 +0000

#the4disciplines - I have been a long time fan and practitioner of Franklin Covey’s, The 4 Disciplines of Execution. One of the reasons maybe that the 4 Disciplines are closely related to Lean practice of PDCA. If you are looking for a simplified version of putting PDCA in practice these 4 Disciplines serve as an excellent guideline. It is PDCA without calling it PDCA. In fact, I cannot remember in any Lean Engagement that I did not cover this material.

The 4 disciplines have been slightly updated in the book and can be summarized:

(Plan) Focus on the Wildly Important (WIG): Execution starts with focus. Focus on the one or two goals that will make all the difference, instead of giving mediocre effort to dozens of goals.
(Do) Act on the Lead Measures: Apply a disproportionate amount of energy to the activities that drive these lead measures. In this way, your team is creating the present while focused on the WIG.
(Check) Keep a Compelling Scoreboard: If you know the score all the time, people will be engaged.
(Act) Create a Cadence of Accountability: A frequent recurring cycle of accounting for past performance and planning to move the score forward. Great teams operate with a high level of accountability.

One of my takeaways from the book was this statement: “Accountability means making the personal commitments to the entire team to move the scores forward and then following through in a discipline way.’ Closely resembling a past blog post, Kaizen is Always Individual.

Never understood why there had never been a book published and was excited to see the material finally in print. This is a video introducing the 4 Disciplines of Execution by Franklin Covey. It illustrates the frustration that most leaders experience when trying to execute on their strategy.

I have followed this program since its inception and attended workshops more than once. This has been a foundational tool for me and any client associated with me. Since 2004, I have routinely listened to the audio of ">‘The 4 Disciplines of Execution for reinforcement. I think the book will greatly assist organizations in developing and executing their strategic objectives. If you can’t tell by now, I highly recommend the new book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution.

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The Lean Business Practices of a Deli

business901 — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 02:32:00 +0000

In the Business901 podcast, The Aroma of a Good Vision Ari Weinzweig, CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, MI shared the “secrets” that have helped take Zingerman’s from a 25-seat, 4-person start up to a nationally known, $40,000,000-organization employing over 500 people. this is a transcription of the podcast.

In the book series, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, part 1 offered up the “secrets” behind Building a Great Business, and now part 2, takes a look at the leadership style that has helped make Zingerman’s such a special place to work and to eat. While everything in the book draws on what Ari and others have learned and live at Zingerman’s over the three decades since the Deli first opened back in 1982, all of the material is totally applicable to organizations of all sizes and scopes—it is, as Ari says in the introduction, leading towards a new way to work.

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Leading Lean from the Middle

business901 — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 03:19:31 +0000

Paul Yandell of Value Stream Focus was interviewed in the Business901 podcast, Transforming Lean thru Middle Managers. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Paul Yandell is a manufacturing and supply chain specialist with strong skills in identifying and eliminating waste and improving operational performance. His particular strengths are building infrastructure to support turnaround and growth situations, building and leading teams in total quality environments and he is bilingual (Spanish).

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Can Lean be driven by Middle Management?

business901 — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Paul Yandell: I speak to middle managers, I was a resident with them. I think most of us have been middle managers and understand those frustrations. I hit on a theme of a guerrilla manager, years and years ago, and I’ve actually given a similar talk to a number of national and local forums. It really resonates with people, because people stuck in the middle are trying to figure, “What do I do? How do I be effective?” Many of them are waiting for leadership. I’ve also done a lot of teaching, and I find my students are the same way. They say, “I’m learning Lean tools, but how do I put them to use?” I’m trying to say, “Just go right ahead. Don’t wait for your CEO to say, ‘We’re going to go down this path.’ Just start leading the company from the middle and you can be quite effective.” We did that at Dimension One Spas, and we completely turned around the culture and transformed the company to a Lean company. We ended up winning a regional Shingo prize. It was a validation of our efforts.

But it was really like a middle management revolt, if you will. The owner, like many small business owners, didn’t take a strong interest in manufacturing. They want to make sure there’s no problems in manufacturing, but they’re not really sure how to build things. They’re more sales people or finance people, generally. When they see someone getting traction, they generally say, “OK,” as long as you’re getting top management support, you don’t need top management leadership. I think many people think they need leadership. There’s a big difference. I think you can lead from the middle if you have support from the top.

Joe Dager: You’re singing my song, Paul. I’ve already started the podcast, I thought what you just said is golden.

Paul Yandell of Value Stream Focus is my podcast guest next week and we discussed one of my favorite topics – Middle Management. Paul Yandell, led a lean transformation that won the 2007 Pacific Northwest Silver Medallion Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. Business Week called the Shingo Prize the “Nobel Prize for Manufacturing”.

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Does Lean solve some problems for ROWE?

business901 — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 02:31:00 +0000

David Kasprzak, of the popular blog, My Flexible Pencil discussed ROWE in the Business901 podcast this week. ROWE is a concept developed by Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler, co-authors of the book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution. ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. It is a revolutionary new way of working that gives employees more responsibility and accountability for their work and the way they do it.

Are Lean/Six Sigma and ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) complimentary, or competing, approaches to workplace transformation? Both place a heavy emphasis on value and the elimination of any activities that don’t produce that value. Lean, however, advocates an engaged management that is able to “go to Gemba.” In gemba, leaders can observe where value is created in order to find waste and identify areas for improvement. ROWE, however, places a heavy emphasis on worker autonomy and freedom, as long as the Results are achieved. This could lead to the Gemba being anywhere and everywhere, especially for knowledge workers. Listen to the podcast as we attack issues such as this.

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About David Kasprzak: While working as a cost & schedule analyst, I realized that the sources of either good or poor performance usually rested in the habits, practices and mindsets of both the leadership and the led. As a result, I began to explore the “people side” of performance. On this blog, David addresses both workplace and family situations by applying ideas derived from Lean, ROWE, Project Management, Organizational Behavior and my Master’s-Level education in Political Science and Business Administration.

P.S. Last week, I asked, Does ROWE solve some Lean problems?

More information about Dave and Rowe can be found:
ROWE, Lean and the Shingo Model
“Results Only” means “Value Only”

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ROWE: Results-Only Work Environment

business901 — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:35:00 +0000

ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. It is a revolutionary new way of working that gives employees more responsibility and accountability for their work and the way they do it.

ROWE is the core of the CultureRx philosophy. ROWE is all about results. It’s all you need to increase productivity, engagement, employee retention — AND the bottom line. Listen to what Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson speak about ROWE, the Results-Only Work Environment.

Cali and Jody state their case;
* the importance of RESULTS over time worked
* the power of INDIVIDUAL CONTROL
* the impact of negative comments, aka SLUDGE
* the 13 GUIDEPOSTS that make a ROWE
* stories and insights from Best Buy employees working in a ROWE.

ROWE is a concept developed by Jody and Cali. Details are published in her book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution. In next weeks podcast, I have David Kasprzak, of the popular blog, My Flexible Pencil discussing ROWE.

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Does ROWE solve some Lean problems?

business901 — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 02:35:00 +0000

In next weeks podcast, I have David Kasprzak, of the popular blog, My Flexible Pencil discussing ROWE a concept developed by Jody Thompson and published in her book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution.

An excerpt from the podcast:

Joe: That’s a very interesting point, because that’s what always frustrates me is that when people get into Lean, they just say “Oh, it’s a cultural change.” They create this atmosphere that you have to have, that you’re supposed to have blind faith going there. That it’s going to happen. Does ROWE solve some of those problems?

David: I think it does. I think it does it in a very interesting way. I think ROWE is very much aware, and having talked with Jody directly, those folks are very much aware that businesses have a higher purpose. We can talk mission and values, but above that is a higher purpose. I think a lot of us are familiar with the example of the gentleman sweeping the floor at NASA, and they ask, what is his job? He said, oh, I helped to launch the space shuttle. So there is NASA’s mission. Their higher purpose is to put a man on the moon or win the space race, or one of those things. There’s a higher purpose involved.

We’re looking to get people to that higher purpose, gives them a greater ability to focus on just what they need to do to accomplish that purpose, and that’s where the culture change begins. Wait a minute, if I’m at home today right now and not doing what I would otherwise be doing if I was in the office ?? which might be nothing more than hanging out at the water cooler ?? am I detracting from the purpose of the organization?

Or they may have worked in a daycare as well, and they believe their higher purpose is to create a greater society, and the way they create that greater society is through proper education of young children.

If I decide to go and get my hair done today, and I don’t have someone to cover for me, am I helping to achieve that higher purpose? No, clearly you’re not. However, if you’re given the responsibility for making sure someone covers your time and it does not detract from the higher purpose, then you are free to do what you feel you need to do that day.

That’s why I say the responsibility only aspect of ROWE… I think there are sort of three Rs in ROWE. There’s Results Only, Responsibility Only, and Respect Only. I think if you accomplish those things, people intrinsically start to see the need for efficiency, because not only does it benefit the business, but let’s face it, people want to benefit themselves, too.

More information about Dave and Rowe can be found:
ROWE, Lean and the Shingo Model
“Results Only” means “Value Only”

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