How much slack is enough, and where does that start becoming wasteful? We talk about Lean and do it as individual but we need slack. It’s hard to get your arms around it. -jd
Dan Markovitz: If you think about Taiichi Ohno, the first thing he had anyone do was stand in a circle, right, and just watch. Don’t do anything. Just watch, watch what’s happening and watch what people are doing. I think to a certain extent, we have to stand in a circle and watch ourselves. It’s probably unrealistic to ask a colleague, “Could you watch me for the next three hours?” That would be an interesting exercise as well.
I think the first step is to watch what we’re doing and figure out how we’re spending time, what we’re doing. How much of our activities are actually value creating and how much of it is just busy work? How much is form and how much is content? How much is waste and how much is value? I think that’s the first step.
I think that ties into the next idea, which you had talked about earlier, this notion of PDCA. What if we try an experiment? The hypothesis is that if we leave a certain amount of slack in our schedule, or if we work in a certain way, things will go more smoothly. Then continue the circle to PDCA, I think that might lead to more effective work.
The other thing that occurs to me, I’m on a roll here. One last thing is that what we’re talking about on an individual level, of course, cascades eventually to an organizational level. You’ve probably been in an organization that said, “Yeah, we’ve got 37 strategic priorities this year.”
You can’t have 37 strategic priorities in a year any more than you can have 37 strategic priorities for the day. I think the companies that really excel are the ones that don’t try to do 37 things, they try to do three things.
I think it was John Toussaint at ThedaCare, tells the story about how they had, when they were doing their Hoshin Planning, they first started with, I don’t know, six things or seven things. Then they went down to five things for the year. Then they went down to three, and now I think John Toussaint says, “If we can do two things great each year, that would be enough because it’s just so hard to do.”
Related Podcast and Transcription: Lean for the Individual
About: Dan Markovitz is the founder and president of TimeBack Management. He focuses on improving individual and team productivity through the adaptation of lean concepts. Dan’s book on improving personal performance by utilizing lean manufacturing techniques – A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance. – was published by Productivity Press.
Lean Marketing eBooks (More Info): Excerpt from the Lean Marketing House