The KaiZone

Improving the business of life

The 3 Most Powerful Lean Tools: They’re Not What You Think

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Lean Toolkit

One of the real joys of my role as a lean coach is introducing fresh minds to lean thinking through introductory training.  I start every class with a simple question:  Why are you here?”

The response?  Predictable. Irregardless of how experienced the students are or what industry they are from, the top few reasons are always the same:

Top 5 Reasons People Take Lean Training

 Our Obsession with Tools

Lean tools.  Without fail, the number one reason that people cite for enrolling in lean training is to learn “lean tools”.    (And yes, I really did have one individual who signed up for lean training seeking dietary advice.  But that is a topic for another day . . . .)

It doesn’t matter how many times that I hear it.  If you could look inside my head at the very first utterance of the phrase “lean tools” this is what you would see: [Read more…]

 

What is a Lean Leach? Understanding the Two Dimensions of Lean Systems

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Puzzle Pieces

 Joel, you see with one eye closed.  Your world is flat.  Your thinking has no depth.  Next time, open both eyes so maybe you see the people, too.”

Ouch!  My sensei’s assessment of my first kaizen event was not quite as positive as I had hoped.   Outwardly, I thanked him for his feedback and vowed that I would learn from the experience.  My internal dialogue, however, contained of a litany of four-letter words, insults, and the vow that my first kaizen event would also be my last kaizen event.  Thankfully, my cooler head prevailed, and I thought it a good idea to seek out my sensei and better understand his teaching before I swore off this “stupid lean stuff” forever.

I learned two very important lessons from that follow-up conversation.  The first being that lean senseis can be quite brutal in their criticism; if I was going to learn anything from the man, I needed to swallow my ego.  A little humility can go a long way.

The second lesson came in the form of a quote that still echoes deep in the catacombs of my mind to this day.  He said, “Joel, you need to understand that . . .

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5 Whys Folklore:
The Truth Behind a Monumental Mystery

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Root cause analysis, 5 whys, 5 why's, memorial, monument, root cause, cause analysis, birds, spiders, 5 whys example

When you think of the great individuals in lean history, what names come to mind?  W. Edwards Deming.  Taiichi Ohno.  Shigeo Shingo.  Don Messersmith.  Oh, you’ve never heard of Don Messersmith?  Perhaps, you’re not familiar with the name, but I can almost guarantee that you are familiar with his work.

Don Messermith is an esteemed professor emeritus at the University of Maryland.  His accomplishments in the field of entomology – the scientific study of insects – are many, as evidenced by the extensive list of distinguished titles, prestigious awards, and publications that bear his name.   But among his comprehensive catalog of contributions, one study in particular stands out above the rest.

Although the work predated the Google search by nearly a decade, and despite never warranting an official publication, there are more than 140,000 pages on the internet which reference the study.  As a matter of fact, it’s quite likely that there is only one surviving copy of the work still in existence today.    So, why should we care about some little-known, unpublished report from a study on insect behavior performed almost 25 years ago?  Because sitting in a file folder in the desk drawer of Don Messersmith resides a report on perhaps the single, most famous problem ever solved: [Read more…]

 

Problem Solving: Why Skill-Based Learning is Harder Than You Think

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This article was originally featured on The Lean Post .  Special thanks to Lex Schroeder for her tireless work in helping to refine this piece.  

What if surgeons learned the skills necessary to operate in the same way we attempt to develop problem solving skills in our people?

“Good morning. My name is Dr. Gross and I will be operating on you today. Don’t worry, you’re in good hands. My day job is in accounting, but I was recently hand-picked by my management to pursue a Green Belt in surgery because I’m told I’ve got ‘potential’. I have completed more than two weeks of classroom training where I learned from some of the most expensive surgical consultants in the world.  Rest assured, I am willing and able to use each and every tool in the surgical toolbox.

Today, I’ll be using the standard, 5-step surgical framework known as DMAIC, which stands for Don’t-Move-And-I’ll-Cut. Unless, of course, something goes wrong in which case I’ll insist that we follow PDCA – Please-Don’t-Call-Attorney! That’s just a little surgical humor.  You look tense. Shall we get started?”

Developing strong problem solving skills throughout the entire organization is critical to building a lean culture. Yet, most organizations never come close to achieving this “everybody, every day” ideal. One reason is that most of us know little about how people develop complex skills like problem solving.  How learning works is a black box in which we find ourselves feeling around in the dark, looking for a way out. 

Thankfully, cognitive development scientists do know something about this.  Research illuminates our core learning mechanisms for processing new information and developing new skills. We can think learning as something we’re already quite comfortable with in the lean community: as a process that can be continually refined and improved over time.

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60% of Projects Fail: Improve Your Odds with the Premortem Technique

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Tips for Increasing Personal Productivity and Time ManagementRead on for your free premortem template and facilitator guide.  Personal Productivity Pointers give you the tips and tricks that productivity masters use to get more things done.  Using Lean thinking to keep your ideas and your outputs flowing, you’ll turn your to-do list into a to-done list.  It’s like a shot of espresso for your daily grind.

Every single day, things die unnecessarily.  Lots of things.

In fields such as healthcare, the connotation is unfortunately a literal one.  Each year, 900,000 Americans die prematurely from the five leading causes of death, and the figures suggest that between 20% and 40% are preventable.

However, in most areas, death takes on a more figurative sense.  Projects die.  Programs flat line.  Initiatives nosedive.  Transformations fail.   And the rate at which they do is alarming.  Estimates suggest that only 41% of projects will be successful in terms of meeting expectations for time, cost and quality.  Whether the number is completely accurate is irrelevant; the undeniable truth is that in whatever we set out to accomplish, there is a real and significant chance that we will fail.

In response to these failures, organizations have turned to postmortem reviews designed to prevent future recurrences.  No matter how thorough and effective the postmortem, however, there is and always will be one **ahem** fatal flaw with the process.  Let’s see if you can pick it out in the diagram below:

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