Previously when I was discussing, Let’s make Lean Simple Again, I had introduced the SALES Acronym for providing an overall scope to the effort and provide direction for the participating team. However, there is another challenge and that is ensuring we understand better the level of perspective we are facing. We want to understand the highest leverage action that we can take in a given moment. It sounds very simplistic, but starting a change effort that we have little control of or that we are capable of finishing happens more often than one might think. It is about putting ourselves in the right perspective (situation) for a successful outcome.
In addition, we want to ensure that we are applying standard work, continuous improvement and exploration appropriately. If you have been around a Kata presentation by me, I use the Level of Perspective during the presentation. It was created in n the System Thinking world and is primarily the work of Daniel Kim, and you can Google Levels of Perspective or the Vision Deployment Matrix and find a PDF copy or purchase the book, Organizing for Learning: Strategies for Knowledge Creation and Enduring Change. In addition, John Shibley wrote a paper, A Practice Theory for Organizational Learning, and what I might call a 6-page description of a 4-step process and iteration of going from current to future state.
PDF Download: Lean is Simple
I was hoping with a basic understanding of Kim’s and Shibley’s work and my original posting on Lean is Simple that the diagram would make sense. Do you think it adds to your understanding of applying Lean?
This is a blog post on how I use it in a sales and marketing scenario, Dealing with Levels of Perspective.