The KaiZone

Improving the business of life

Lean thinking and continuous improvement for family, home and self.

Contest: Make Your Own Leanable Moment

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A3 Examples

Guess what, KaiZone Community?  You emailed, clicked and commented . . . and I took note!  You said, “make The KaiZone more interactive!”  Done.  You said, “Leanable Moments are a hit.  Give me more!”  You got it.  You said, “Your articles are too long!  It’s a blog, not a novel!”   My bad.  I’ll keep it short and sweet . . . at least for today.

The number one request that I’ve received since starting The KaiZone is to share the form – known in Lean organizations as an A3 report – which I use for my Leanable Moments series of posts.  If you are not familiar with the term, the A3 report is the primary vehicle used to teach and practice the problem solving methodology within a Lean organization.  For a much more detailed overview of the A3 management process, I highly recommend that you read the book, Managing to Learn by John Shook and Jim Womack.  Alternately, head over to YouTube and check out the terrific A3 overview videos from Karen Martin or from Gemba Academy.

Free, Downloadable A3 Report Templates

Now, you can make your own Leanable Moments, and start eliminating the waste from your lives, using the free problem solving A3 templates located on the new Free Downloads page.  To download a copy, simply click on the text links above the image to open the file in the .pdf format.  On the page, you will find two different A3 report templates.  The Problem Solving A3 Template has been designed for you to practice the Lean problem solving methodology on the problems that you encounter in your everyday life.  The second was inspired by my previous post, Leanable Moment #2:  Problem Solving Skills for Your Children.  You can use the Problem Solving with Kids A3 Template to practice and to develop much needed problem solving skills with your children or students.

Make Your Own Leanable Moment Contest

I started The KaiZone with the purpose of helping others to bring Lean thinking into their business and personal lives.  I know firsthand the power of problem solving and my primary motivation is to develop The KaiZone into a platform that helps you to continually eliminate the things that get in the way of your happiness and your success.  To encourage you to start your own Lean journey, I am announcing the official kickoff to the ‘Make Your Own Leanable Moment’ contest.  The rules are simple:

  1. Use one of The KaiZone problem solving A3 templates as a guide to solve a problem in your life.  Any problem, no matter how big or how small, will suffice!  The main objective is to practice the pattern of Lean thinking and to develop your skills as a problem solver.
  2. Send to me a scanned copy or clear picture of the completed A3 report.  You can email it to joel@thekaizone.com, or message it to me on LinkedIn or Twitter @TheKaiZone.  Include a brief overview of the problem you solved and the results you delivered in your message.
  3. Submissions will be accepted through May 31st, 2014.
  4.  In early June, I will post a gallery of the submissions on TheKaiZone.com at which time you, TheKaiZone Community, will vote for your favorite Leanable Moment.
  5. The winner will receive a free copy of the book, Managing to Learn by John Shook and Jim Womack.

Please share the link to the contest with anyone who may be interested in developing the skills needed to improve their business success or personal happiness.  Organizations that are beginning their Lean journey can also use it as an opportunity to have some fun while getting practice at problem solving.

A3 Hints and Tips

If you’ve never completed an A3 report, here are three tips for getting the most out of the problem solving process and for maximizing your learning potential:

  1. The Best A3s are Ugly!  Too often, I see A3 reports that are works of PowerPoint art.  While they may look professional, they often miss the mark on the true purpose of the A3.  The value of the A3 report is not created on paper, but in the mind of the person doing the problem solving.  Because of the experimental nature of Lean thinking, we are constantly adding new knowledge, eliminating failed hypotheses and updating our view of how the world works.  As a result, the A3 report should be used as a living document that is updated frequently to reflect the current knowledge of the situation.  Forget the PowerPoint.  Use pencil, erase frequently, update as new knowledge is gained and don’t worry if it doesn’t look pretty.  Real problem solving rarely is!
  2. The Best A3s are Visual!  Simply put, pictures convey more information than words, and they convey that information more effectively.  Moreover, as I previously wrote about, the act of drawing significantly enhances the extent to which we learn when solving problems.  Be creative and seek ways to draw what you are learning instead of writing lengthy descriptions.
  3. The Best A3s Tell a Story!  Stories, by their very nature, must be cohesive.  The outcome of one event must feed in directly to the next event.  In the end, we are able to connect the dots, tracing the development of the plot line from the start to its final resolution.  The same characteristics are desired when solving a problem.  Problem solving is a process of thought, and the logical connections we make between the phases of the problem should add up to a clear, and logical story in the end.  Furthermore, the very act of storytelling is extremely beneficial to what we learn from problem solving.  Telling a story activates many, deep regions within our brains – the same regions that would be active if we were actually experiencing the events of the story – which significantly enhances our learning potential.

If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to post them in the comments section below, or use the Contact the KaiZone link at the top of the page.  Good luck!

 

Leanable Moment #3: How I Added 7 Years to My Life in Just 3 Months

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How I Used Lean Thinking to Add 7 Years to My Life

Leanable Moments take you inside my home life to show you how I apply Lean thinking to real-world problems.  Each Leanable Moment is presented in A3 format – simply click the image to enlarge – and includes discussion focusing on the finer points of the problem solving process – the type of things they don’t necessarily teach you in Lean training!  Each discussion will conclude with a summary of key lessons learned, going beyond the boundaries of just one problem to take the waste out of life.

I will not soon forget the roller coaster ride that was the year 2013 for me.  Suffice it is to say that it had its share of ups: my wife and I welcomed our third child to the world and I changed companies to take a major step forward in my career; and downs: I’m commuting 60 miles every day into Northern New Jersey due to a change in job location, and I spent 6 months recovering from a minor knee operation due to an allergic reaction and an infection.  When the December holidays finally allowed for some much needed relaxation, I took the time to reflect on 2013.  Despite the peaks and valleys, I was proud for all that my family and I had accomplished in 2013 and the outlook for 2014 seemed bright.  Then I looked in the mirror.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the bulbous face staring back dictated to me the novella of my 2013 in an instant.   I invested a great deal of energy throughout the year in managing through the seemingly constant change.  Unbeknownst to me until that moment, the price I paid was my health.  Fortunately, the approaching New Year provided just the impetus I needed to set things in a different direction.  Unfortunately, of those people who commit to a New Year’s resolution, only 8% reach their goals. For the non-statisticians out there, those aren’t very good odds!

Whatever I was going to do, I knew it had to be different than the way most people approach their New Year’s resolution.  But how?  How would I start to understand the underlying causes of my poor health?  How would I set meaningful goals that would keep me on the path to my true north destination?  How would I develop habits of wellness and commit to a long-term healthy lifestyle?  Exactly how does someone who preaches the value of Lean thinking for a living – and not to mention operates a Lean blog purely as a hobby – attempt to improve his health?  Good guess!

In the above A3, you’ll find the story of how I applied Lean thinking to set the foundation for a long-term healthy lifestyle, using a simple strategy to add years to my life with minimal effort.

<WARNING!  Awful cliché approaching!>  You could say, I used Lean to get lean!

I warned you . . .

The Target Condition

With the growing pains of a new job, nearly two-and-a-half hours of daily commuting time and three children under the age of four, the operative word for my wellness strategy would be: SIMPLE  SIMPLER    SIMPLEST.  Because of my current lifestyle, I needed to challenge myself to define the simplest possible approach for improving my health, allowing me to meet my goals with minimal additional effort on my part.  Any strategy that required a significant outlay of time, money or effort would – simply – not succeed.

I started by doing some soul searching to better define what healthy really meant to me.  I was able to boil my personal wellness needs down to three priorities:

  • Lose Weight.  An obvious choice, but an important one.  Excess weight has been shown in countless studies to increase our risks of major health problems including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.   However, determining an ideal (target) body weight, requires more than just the number on the scale.  Body composition, the amount of body fat relative to lean body mass, is also of critical importance.  Therefore, I used this reference to set my weight loss goals of 171 lbs. at 15% body fat by the end of 2014.
  • Build Strength.  Despite being an athlete for most nearly all of my pre-college life, I’ve always been somewhat of a weakling.  Ten years of working in an office sapped what little strength I had built in my earlier years.   A lack of stability was likely the underlying cause of the back and knee pain I had been experiencing for the past few years.  Not to mention, building a little muscle was a very important customer requirement (from my wife).    I chose a very simple exercise, the bench press, to monitor my gains in strength.  As I had never before in my life been able to bench press more than 165 lbs., I set a target goal of 185 lbs. by the end of 2014.
  • Protect My Heart.  Although nearly all body parts are important a family history of cardiovascular disease amongst my grandparents placed my heart at the top of my priority list.  I used blood pressure as my primary measure of heart health, targeting a value of below 120/80 by the end of 2014.

The Current Condition

On 29-Dec-2013, I recorded the baseline for each of my targeted metrics.  My very own current condition put into perspective exactly how bad my health truly had become.  For my height, my starting weight of 204.3 pounds and 31% body fat put me in the overweight category, on the verge of obesity.   My strength had been reduced significantly since I remembered from my college days, with a one-rep max bench press of only 135 pounds .  However, of particular concern was my blood pressure.  Three readings averaged out to 140/86, which translates to a cardiovascular state somewhere between prehypertension and stage 1 hypertension.  I was at serious risk for developing heart disease later in life.

To see the bigger picture, however, I placed my data into a life expectancy calculator developed by the University of Pennsylvania.  Living well into my 80s has always been a given in the back of my mind; the data, however, predicted otherwise.  My life expectancy was a mere 78.75 years.

Cause Analysis

To simplify the analysis, I didn’t evaluate every potential cause for my lack of wellness.  Instead, I focused the analysis on just the critical few factors.  It was no surprise that at a high level, my unhealthy behavior was rooted in a failure to eat properly and a lack of exercise.  However, I was surprised to learn that the same cycle of events was at the foundation of both issues.  After several days of self-observation, I learned that I tended to eat poorly – in terms of quality and quantity of food – at times of the day when I was feeling particularly tired or stressed.  I knew I was eating the wrong kinds of food, but I chose to anyway because I sought the comfort of food to take my mind off of the negative feelings I was experiencing in that moment.  It was as if the stress of life depleted the energy that I needed to make better decisions about the foods that I ate.

Similarly, stress and lack of energy became the scapegoat for my lack of exercise.  I knew that I should be exercising regularly; however, when the opportunity presented itself, I would choose not to and convince myself that I was either too busy or that I didn’t have the energy.  I didn’t have the energy because I was not exercising; I was not exercising because I didn’t have the energy.  It was a vicious cycle.

Why wasn’t I eating well?  Why wasn’t I exercising more?  The underlying root causes in both cases were strikingly similar.  Major life changes in the past year had significantly increased the level of stress in my life, which sapped my willpower and led me to make poor health decisions. <conclusion>

Countermeasures

Experience told me that I needed to address the root cause of the problem in order to improve my situation.  However, my strategy for improvement required that I identify the simplest possible strategy for improving my health.  So, when I first started to look for opportunities to address the root cause of the problem, my increased stress levels, I had difficulty finding non-complex solutions.  The stresses had accumulated due to major life changes, like a new job and a growing family; short of packing up and moving the family closer to work– anything but a simple solution – I needed to look for other plans of attack.

Instead, I considered a different component of the root cause statement: ways in which I could improve the choices I made in relation to food and exercise.  Initially, improving my willpower to make better health decisions seemed as big of a challenge as reducing my stress; certainly, it did not seem a simple solution could be effective.  That is, until I researched the topic by reading the book The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal.  Two very important pieces of information about willpower ultimately allowed me to identify a very simple solution to my poor health decisions:

  1. Willpower works just like a muscle in your body.  It has a finite capacity to do work, and becomes depleted with repeated use.  In other words, the more we try to resist temptation in general, the weaker our willpower becomes.
  2. When it comes to seeking food to reduce stress, it’s not the food itself that provides the reward;  it’s the anticipation of the bad food that creates the craving.    Similarly, when it comes time to exercise, it isn’t the exercise itself that we seek to avoid; it was the anticipation of the exercise that drives us to prioritize other activities – like eating bad food!

Making bad health decisions is obviously bad for our health.  But by resisting temptation and making good health choices, we strain our willpower “muscle”, making it more likely that we will eventually give in to our cravings.  It’s no wonder that most attempts to become healthy fail over time!  So how did I overcome my limited ability to resist making bad decisions?  By simplifying.   Instead of attempting to improve my willpower and rely on good decision making, I created a system in which I eliminated the decisions and the anticipation altogether.   I created standardized work for a healthy lifestyle.

Each day, I greet the morning with a green smoothie, which I prepared fresh the previous evening.  Mid-morning, I snack on a stash of organic nuts and dried fruits that I maintain in a convenient location to keep my energy high until the ding on my phone reminds me it’s time for my noon workout.  That is, the workout I blocked off on my calendar, just like the countless meetings that I can’t seem to avoid.  I follow the gym with a pre-made salad topped with grilled chicken or sushi if I’m feeling exotic.  A piece of fresh fruit mid-afternoon tides me over until dinner, which has been scheduled and prepared ahead of time by my wife.  Soon, it’s time for bed and the start of a new day.  Time to repeat the cycle all over again.  And again. And again.

Standardization has nearly eliminated the temptations that previously drove me to eat poorly and to skip the gym.  Healthy habits are now no more a choice for me than getting dressed or taking a shower.  I do not question whether I can squeeze them into a busy day and I do not look to substitute less healthy activities in their place.  They are, simply, what I do as part of my day.  And because I no longer rely on willpower to overcome bad decisions, my defenses against an infrequent craving are much stronger, and my commitment does not waver over time.

Am I perfect?  No.  I am still human after all.  I still have an occasional treat that wouldn’t exactly be considered healthy.  The major difference is now I choose to do so because I want to, not because I have to.

Verify and Standardize

Thanks to Lean thinking, and in particular the rigorous pursuit of simplicity, I am living a truly healthy lifestyle for the first time in my life.  But don’t take my word for it.  Let’s look at the data:

Table of metrics to monitor weight loss, strength and cardiovascular health.

The weight loss of 17.3 pounds does not tell the whole story.  Based on the reduction in body fat from 31% to 22%, I’ve actually lost 22.2 pounds of fat and gained 4.9 pounds of lean mass.

The increase in muscle has driven an even greater increase in strength, as I have already exceeded my year-end goal in the bench press by 20 lbs.  I’ve even been forced to increase my year-end goal from 185 pounds to 250 pounds.

The improved diet and frequent exercise also delivered a significant reduction in my blood pressure, bringing me down well into the healthy range.

Of all the numbers, however, the change in Life expectancy was by far the most impactful to me.  With the simple changes I have been able to make over just the last 3 months, I have added the equivalent of 7.5 years on to my life!

To ensure that I continue to make progress towards my goals, I check the status of my personal metrics on a weekly basis: every Saturday morning before breakfast.  Moreover, as a means of holding myself accountable, I will provide quarterly updates here on TheKaiZone.com .

Lessons Learned

  • Relentlessly pursue simplicity when addressing a complex problem.  One of my favorite Lean authors, Pascal Dennis, recently published a series of articles entitled Strategy Deployment and Dieting (see Part 1 and Part 2) noting that, when it comes to strategy, “more companies die from over-eating than from starvation”.  Strategies must be simple if we as humans are to internalize them.  Large, complex strategies do nothing but alienate and frustrate the people who must execute them, and are generally not sustainable in the long-term.
  • A few small changes can be transformational.  By making a few minor tweaks to my daily routine, I added 7.5 years to my life in just 3 months.  Large, slow and ineffective solutions (like fad diets or the projects that constitute the portfolios of most organizations) are necessary when we do not take the time to learn and lack understanding of the current condition.  Simple and effective solutions arise from a firm grasp on the problem we are attempting to address and its underlying causes.   This is the true spirit of kaizen and spreading this thinking is the mission of TheKaiZone.

Have you solved a problem in a unique or innovative way that you would like to contribute to Leanable Moments?  Simply click here or use the Contact the KaiZone link at the top of the page and tell me about it!

 

Leanable Moment #2: Problem Solving Skills for Your Children

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Leanable Moment 2 Leanable Moments take you inside my home life to show you how I apply Lean thinking to real-world problems.  Each Leanable Moment is presented in A3 format – simply click the image to enlarge – and includes discussion focusing on the finer points of the problem solving process – the type of things they don’t necessarily teach you in Lean training!  Each discussion will conclude with a summary of key lessons learned, going beyond the boundaries of just one problem to take the waste out of life.

Name one skill that is more widely applicable to life in general than the ability to improve your situation through problem solving.  Despite the high degrees of relevance and value in business and personal life, the development of problem solving skills is not given a high degree of emphasis in most school curricula.  I do believe that school children learn skills and information through the act of problem solving.  However, learning how to solve specific problems is wholly different than learning the skill of problem solving.

The difference is context.  In a school setting, it is rare when the context for a problem is not provided by the teaching materials.  Typically, problems are pre-defined and the methods required to solve the problems are presented.  Students are evaluated based on their ability to apply the prescribed methods to the given situations.  However, this is not how reality usually functions.

Problem solving in the real world is mostly absent of these contextual elements.  They must be defined by the problem solver.  Mostly, our problems are not identified for us and our thinking is not constrained to any particular methods to drive to a solution. Therefore, sound problem solving requires the development of skills by which we learn to define and breakdown our own problems in highly diverse situations using a wide variety of possible methods.

Like any other skill, strong problem solving ability requires many, many hours of consistent practice and feedback.  Therefore, my wife – a former 5th grade teacher – and I believe that it is vital to begin developing these skills in our children at a young age.  We use moments from everyday life to reinforce the basic thought processes underlying Lean problem solving.  Rather than punishing our children for their mistakes or bad behavior, we try to instead see them as opportunities for learning.

One of the core tenets of Lean thinking is the emphasis placed on respect for people, which teaches us to improve the system, rather than blame the individual.  By incorporating these principles into our parenting, we not only improve everyday family life by continually refining our internal systems, but we also develop a critical life skill in our children.   Thus, it is by incorporating our children into the problem solving process that we show them the ultimate sign of respect.

We use the A3 format with the kids simply because they like to draw.  Knowing that they get to draw a picture of the problem that they were having and the solutions they come up with keeps them very engaged in the activity.  Although they cannot complete the entire A3 by themselves, we ask them the same set of 5 questions each and every time to help establish a pattern of thinking: What happened?  What should happen next time?  Why did it happen?  How do we keep it from happening again?  How will we know if it works?  We have discovered that, with a little consistency and some patience, using the A3 to solve problems with the children is a much more effective – not to mention fun – way to improve our family life than typical parental approaches.  Just ask Anna!

Anna and Her 1st A3

What follows is an example of how we apply Lean thinking as a family.  The attached A3 tells the story of how my two-year old daughter, Anna, and I solved the problem of spilling her water at the dinner table.  I have a hunch there are quite a few parents out there that may be able to relate to this one.

The Current Condition (What happened?)

Problems arise when we can identify a difference between how things are and how things ought to be.  Children often struggle to identify problems simply because they have not yet developed the understanding to truly comprehend how things should be.  Therefore, we have started to apply Lean thinking with the children only when it is truly obvious that something went wrong.  In this case, a large puddle of water on the floor at our favorite restaurant provided a crystal clear signal to Anna that there was a problem.   This was reinforced to me when Anna was able to tell me (and even draw) that she spilled her water when I asked her the first question, “what happened tonight at dinner?”

The Target Condition (What should happen next time?)

When asked the next question, “what should happen next time?” Anna understood that she should try to not spill her water at dinner.  The rewarding part for me as a parent was that she was not ashamed that she spilled the water.  Because we were having fun drawing the pictures and talking about it, she saw the activity as constructive and not as something that she needed to feel bad about.

Cause Analysis (Why did it happen?)

To be frank, I expected that we would struggle working through cause analysis because of the complexities of the thinking that are required.  But we actually didn’t.  In fact, Anna was quite good at working through the 5-whys analysis with me.  It didn’t dawn on me until later that she was likely able to follow the lines of thinking because the 5-whys mimics the way that children naturally think when they want to learn.  I’d guess that most parents of young children can relate to being asked why something happens.  And then why that happens.  And then why that happens.  Again and again, until the discussion inevitably ends with, “BECAUSE I SAID SO!”

With a bit of probing, Anna was able to tell me that the water fell on the floor because it was setting on the very edge of the table [because that happened to be where she set it after taking a drink] and because she hit it with her elbow.  She hit it with her elbow because she was turning around in her seat.  She was turning around because, in her own words, “the fire was pretty colors, daddy!”

Countermeasures (How do we keep it from happening again?)

The 5-whys discussion revealed two ways to attack the root causes of Anna’s spilled water:  create the good habit of placing her drink in a better location or eliminate the bad habit of turning around in her seat.  As we did in Leanable Moment #1, since we’re either relying on the creation of or the elimination of a habit, we’ll refer to the habit loop coined by Charles Duhigg in his book The Power of Habit.

The Habit Loop model states that habits are created when a cue triggers an action, which in turn brings about a reward or a consequence.  It follows that getting Anna to place her cup in a better location after drinking requires the creation of a cue and a reward for doing so, neither of which exist in the current state.

Conversely, as anyone who has tried to give up smoking or stick to a diet will attest, breaking an established pattern of behavior is much more difficult than creating a new one.  Unlearning a habit requires the substitution of a different action in response to the existing cue that produces the same reward.  In other words, when Anna is triggered by a pretty fireplace (or anything else new or interesting that may catch her eye), a new behavior must be inserted in place of turning around in her chair which still yields the desired result (she learns something new about her world).  Breaking a habit is difficult to begin with, but trying to eliminate one that is tied to a very important biological imperative – curiosity – may be next to impossible.  Therefore, we chose to focus on the slightly more feasible countermeasure of creating the habit of proper cup placement.

We started by observing Anna at dinner for several nights.  We saw that there was a clear cue, in this case the need to put the cup down, and so we focused our efforts on creating a reward or consequence around the act.  On the first attempt, we set a rule with Anna that would provide her with positive or negative feedback:  the cup must be placed above her plate to keep it out of the heavy elbow traffic area of the table.  However, the main reason that this did not work was because the feedback (the reward and/or consequence) was not consistent.  The enforcement of the rule required the watchful eye of my wife and I, and with two other children, it was difficult for us to be aware every time that Anna took a sip of water.

Our next attempt tried to provide even more clarity around drink placement in hopes that we could be more vigilant in monitoring the process.  We tried using a napkin as a makeshift target that would designate where the cup was to be placed after drinking.  We found that the behavior improved, but not to the point where a repeatable habit was created.  My wife and I were still inconsistent with providing feedback – creating a system in any walk of life that relies on constant human policing is futile.  On top of that, there simply was no real reward driving Anna’s behavior.  When we did take notice, the chorus of “good girl Annie!” was simply not enough motivation for her to seek it out every time she took a drink.

On our final attempt, we focused on creating more of an immediate reward for Anna to driver her behavior.  We stuck with the concept of a target, but switched it from a napkin to a coaster.  We then let Anna decorate the coaster, and on top, we placed a picture of a fish.  Why a fish?  On one hand, Anna likes fish.  On the other hand, Anna knows that fish live in the water and can’t be left outside of the water for too long.  See where this is going?  We told Anna that in order for her to take care of her fishy, she needed to return the water to the fish on the coaster when she was done with it.  With the fish coaster, Anna finally has a reason and a clear reward for following the proper behavior, and with some consistent practice, the habit loop eventually formed for the placement of her drink.

Standardize (How do we know if it worked?)

The fish coaster is now a mainstay in my wife’s purse and we bring it with us whenever we go out to eat.   As is represented in Anna’s drawing, she knew that the coaster was working if the water didn’t fall on the floor anymore.  So far, it hasn’t.   I won’t say that the problem is solved because some level of spillage is inevitable as long as toddlers are given cups full of liquid.  However, solving this specific problem is tantamount to developing within our children the skills that they will need to solve their own problems, whatever life may throw at them.

Lessons Learned

1.  Developing strong problem solving abilities within our children requires consistent practice and feedback outside of the school environment.

2.  The five questions below provide a simple and practical method for establishing a pattern of Lean thinking that can be followed by even young children:

  • What happened?
  • What should happen next time?
  • Why did it happen?
  • How do we keep it from happening again?
  • How do we know if it worked?Breaking existing habits is much more difficult than establishing new habits.

3.  To alter a current habit, we must identify an alternate and desirable action that can be performed in response to a trigger which yields the reward that is being sought.

Be part of the Lean at Home movement!  Use the comments section below to share your personal experiences, struggles and tips/tricks in teaching kids problem solving skills. Have you solved a problem in a unique or innovative way that you would like to contribute to Leanable Moments?  Simply click here or use the Contact the KaiZone link at the top of the page and tell me about it!

 

Leanable Moment #1: Taking Its Toll

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Leanable Moment 1

Leanable Moments take you inside my home life to show you how I apply Lean thinking to real-world problems.  Each Leanable Moment is presented in A3 format – simply click the image to enlarge – and includes discussion focusing on the finer points of the problem solving process – the type of things they don’t necessarily teach you in Lean training!  Each discussion will conclude with a summary of key lessons learned, going beyond the boundaries of just one problem to take the waste out of life.

The Current Condition

For us road warriors, the EZ-Pass is a borderline necessity.  My 68-mile commute would be that much more unbearable having to stop and wait in line for 5 minutes to pay the toll on my way to and from work.  Not to mention, there’s a slight discount – about 20% – for using the EZ-Pass over paying in cash; 400+ trips a year and those pennies really add up!

That being said, when I drive to work without my EZ-Pass – which I do a lot! – it’s a big inconvenience for me.  The problem starts when I remove the EZ-Pass from my work car – of course it’s a Toyota! – and use it when we go on trips in the family car that require tolls.  In the last year, I have not remembered one single time to put the EZ-Pass back in my work car before driving to work the following morning.

To solve the problem, I first needed to define exactly what the problem is, which is where the discussion gets interesting.  From experience, I know that how a problem is initially framed has an enormous impact on the options that are considered for addressing the problem later on in the problem solving process.  In this case, there are two ways that this problem can be framed:

  1. The problem is that I forget the EZ-Pass in the family car.
  2. The problem is that I drive to work without the EZ-Pass in my work car.

Take a minute to think how you would frame the problem at this point.  Why did you make that choice?

I chose to go with the latter option, driving to work without the EZ-Pass, because that is when I feel the “pain”.  It does not necessarily inconvenience me to leave the EZ-Pass in the family car; I could always remember to grab it at a later time.  I feel the pain when I drive to work without it and I have to stop and pay the tolls!  We’ll see later how the framing of the problem becomes a very important factor how the problem is eventually addressed.

The Target Condition

Note the simplicity of the goal statement.  We have a tendency to over-think our goal statements.  In this case, I simply want to make sure that every time I drive to work, I have my EZ-Pass in my work car.

Cause Analysis

The next step in the problem solving process is to understand why the problem is occurring.  I used a root cause map and drilled down to deeper levels of understanding by using the 5-whys technique (my favorite tool in the Lean toolbox).

  • Why #1:  Why do I drive to work without the EZ-Pass?  Two reasons.  Obviously, one reason is that I leave the EZ-Pass in the family car.  However, the second reason is not-so-obvious and I likely would not have noticed it without practicing Go and See by sitting in the car:  the EZ-Pass is installed behind the rear-view mirror and is not visible to me when I sit in the driver’s seat.  Therefore, I cannot see that it’s missing when I start driving.  Note that this location is a safety measure – doesn’t obstruct your view while driving – and cannot be changed.
  • Why #2: Why do I leave the EZ-Pass in the family car?  Three factors all contribute to my forgetfulness.  First, similar to above, I can’t see the EZ-Pass in the family car and therefore, don’t notice that it’s still in the car.  Second, when we arrive home, our first priority is to usher our three young kids in the house because we don’t want them running out into the street*.   The third factor relates to how habits are formed.  Obviously, I am not in the habit of remembering the EZ-Pass.  In Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, he establishes that the habit loop consists of three components:   a cue that triggers a routine which generates a reward (or consequence).  In the case of the EZ-Pass, my habit loop is broken in that there is nothing that triggers the desired routine (re-installing the EZ-Pass in my work car).

* Side note, why do they call it herding cats?  In my experience, herding toddlers is much more difficult!

  • Why #3: Why do I not have a trigger to remember the EZ-Pass?  I once had a mentor that claimed there were only three root causes to any problem:  there either is no standard, the standard is not being met, or the standard is not good enough.  In this case, I simply have no standard process for exiting the family car, other than attempting to herd the children safely into the house.  I stopped asking why at this point because doing so does not add new information.  The best plan of attack is to create a standard process for exiting the vehicle that triggers me to take the EZ-Pass with me before driving to work.

Countermeasures

The first and most obvious countermeasure would be to simply get a second EZ-Pass dedicated to the family car.  However, that option would require me to open up a second account in which I would have to maintain a cash balance above a designated amount.  Doing so would be akin to following conventional management thinking:  when there’s a problem, just throw more money at it.  I’m not about to go there.

Next I brainstormed ways to create the trigger that would remind me to take the EZ-Pass.  I came up with three potential triggers:

  • Place a reminder on the door handle of the family car reminding me to take the EZ-Pass before exiting the vehicle.
  • When removing the EZ-Pass from my work car, tilt the rear view mirror down towards the floor.  Only put the mirror back in the proper position when the EZ-Pass has been re-installed in the work car.
  • When installing the EZ-Pass in the family car, place the keys to my work car in the family car.  As long as the EZ-pass remains in the family car, so do the keys.

I eliminated the first option immediately.  I’m not a big fan of reminders because I can choose to ignore them, and over time, our natural tendency is to simply stop noticing them altogether.  I liked the second and third options because the triggers are clear and I could not ignore them – think poka yoke.  However, the third option is preferable to the second because the trigger comes sooner.  In the second option, the trigger would not come until I was ready to back down my driveway on the way to work.  In the third option, I get the trigger before I ever walk out the front door . . . hey, where are my keys????

At this point, however, I want to revisit the framing of the problem statement.  Note that the proposed countermeasure would not prevent recurrence of the problem if it would have been framed around leaving the keys in the family SUV.  I still would have left the keys in the family car.  However, because the problem was framed around the actual event that was causing me pain – driving to work without the keys – there are more, effective countermeasures available.

Standardize

After standardizing the process for transitioning the EZ-Pass between the two cars, I monitored the problem to make sure the actions worked.  Three family trips so far and I’ve returned my EZ-Pass to my work car each and every time.  Simple problem solved (so far) with zero cost, and I get over an hour of time back with my family every year.

Lessons Learned

  1. Solve the right problem!  Take the time to define – write it down! –  the problem that you are trying to solve and frame it so that it focuses on the actual pain that you are experiencing.
  2. When trying to affect behaviors, remember the habit loop.  Don’t focus solely on the actions you want to occur.  Driving the right behaviors also requires that the right triggers and the right rewards (or consequences) are in place.  In the absence of any one of the three elements, the habit is never established.

In next week’s Leanable Moment, we will discuss how to turn kids into Lean thinking problem solvers!

Did you solve a problem that you would like to contribute to Leanable Moments?  Simply use the Contact the KaiZone link at the top of the page and tell me about it!

 

Inspiration

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lg-63Everyone needs a little motivation to make the leap.  This is mine.