When scaling companies, I always followed the thought that you needed core competencies that could be performed as standard work along with incremental improvement into your markets or through your product/services. However, this is just not about becoming more effective and efficient around your core; it is about exploring the edges of your product/services or markets to find new opportunities. I have used the Marketing Gateway of SDCA-PDCA-EDCA introduced to me by Graham Hill to accomplish this. The matrix for this outline is below, and I encourage you to review this short eBook, The Lean Scale-Up for more information.
The concepts first delivered to me by Jon Hagel in The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion, and later emphasized through the use of Explore-Do-Check-Act (EDCA) has served me well with most customers. Looking to the edges of markets and customers is simply where I find opportunity. The difficulty in implementation is the allotment of budgets and time for each component, SDCA – PDCA- EDCA, in conjunction with the needs of the organization. There is also a team component part to it which I discussed in the eBook, The Lean Engagement Team .
This recent video by John Hagel, see below, made some rather strong claims which I am still mulling over as I write this blog post. In the video, Hagel challenges the thought that an organization built on effectiveness and efficiency can deliver as a Learning Organization. Or as he puts it, built on the acceptance of failure. It goes against the fundamental thinking and culture of effectiveness and efficiency, right?
When you consider how Lean may apply to this thinking I see the disengagement between traditional Lean practices versus the Lean StartupTM thinking. I can relate these to my problems through the years in delivering the thought of Lean as a knowledge building process versus the Lean thinking based predominately on waste, or effectiveness and efficiency. This line of thought also sums up the difficulty of applying Lean to the sales and marking process for most manufacturers. It is that strong disconnect between the Lean Practices of Exploration (EDCA) and Standard Work (SDCA).
I am not sure that I agree with Hagel that you have to be one or the other. The ability to transverse from the edge (EDCA) of a product/service or market must go through a process of exploitation and exportation that is accomplished through the use of PDCA. Even at that the direct connection to effectiveness and efficiency still is not there. owever, I do think that you cannot transverse between the two. The glue, the bridge between them is PDCA. I encourage you to take 30 minutes out of your day to watch this video before reviewing the blog posts below.
Related Blog posts:
Old Style Thinking of Plan – Do
Sales Collaboration Using Explore – Exploit – Export