Transparency

Part Four of the Foundation Thinking Series

The word Transparency has received much attention over the last few years, yet I believe it is misunderstood among those who use it most.  Transparency implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for everyone to see what actions are performed and how decisions are made.  We can see the results of actual Transparency in our Behaviors, Performance, and Values.

And since companies can't actually be accountable, communicate, be open, or exhibit other human behaviors we are really talking about the people in the company.  The people in the organization must have the right behaviors, performance, values, and integrity.  Problems around those issues will not be repaired if they stay in the dark bureaucracy where "people" barriers stop the flow of information.  If people in your organization have integrity problems, you will not like the results of you new-found imperative.

Accountability

Part Three of the Foundation Thinking Series

Accountability is the acknowledgment and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies including the administration, governance, and implementation within the scope of the role or employment position and encompassing the obligation to report, explain and be answerable for resulting consequences. If you are accountable for the performance of the team, then when things go right it's you who will receive the benefit, but when things go wrong it's you who will receive the blame. When you are accountable you own it, not the last guy.

Leadership

Part Two of the Foundation Thinking Series

According to Ruggero & Haley, Leadership is influencing people by providing purpose, direction and motivation while operating to accomplish the goals and improving the organization.  This means that Leaders are Involved and Active in the Processes.

Let's break this down one piece at a time...

Process Discipline

Part One of the Foundation Thinking Series

In its original sense, Discipline is systematic instruction intended to train a person, sometimes literally called a disciple, in a craft, trade or other activity, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order".  It also involved the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.  "And you will report status every day until it is fixed!"

Then there is Process Discipline and the "Rule of Rules”: Never make a rule that you are not willing to enforce every time. Every time equals consistency. In order to be consistent, therefore, the line between acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior must be crystal clear. You must know exactly when to act.  Two ways we can cook discipline into our processes are by using standard work and by using a reaction plan in the process control tool.

Can it be any more clear than this??

Operational Excellence

When we think about linking people with the processes, products, and performance, using a model helps us see at a high level.  This also helps to create a system framework that connects tools and thinking to standard practices we will use.  Operational Excellence is a concept of operations that focuses a team's outputs on consistently meeting customer's needs and improving supply chain relationships.  I will address Operational Excellence implementation, the integration of tools with Integrated Teams, and ways to monitor success that will help you retain your customer base and open doors to new customers.

Implementation is aligned to a team's continuous performance improvement level.  Teams that are actively using Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, or other improvement methodologies will implement faster than those that only know they have problems and are not sure how to permanently fix them.  It's the recognition that problems exist, or the journey is stalled, and that is where we begin by talking to the customer, asking what would be perfect about the delivery of the product, and measuring performance results to those attributes.  This may not be an easy conversation, but it provides insight to the level of satisfaction your customers are experiencing.  Using this information, Leadership needs to be armed with the questions that keep a project or team on track to reach that level of perfection.

Integration of tools with the Integrated Teams, focused on specific problems, will affect the measures being taken from the Voice of the Customer.  Whatever improvement tools or methodologies are being used, the desired impact is to improve flow.  This is made by using Lean to remove waste, Six Sigma to remove variation and improve quality, TOC to synchronize the supply chain with the bottle neck and then remove the constraint, or any combination of those with the plethora of other tools that exist.  Remember this, "Flow is King!".  If the product if not flowing, whether in the material value stream or information value stream, then it is sleeping (on the job!).

Monitoring the organization's or team's progress on the journey is enhanced with visual controls linked with the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Business.  We collected VOC earlier so it's just a matter of calculating the center and spread of the data, compare that to "what would be perfect", and decide the first step to take.  Voice of the Business is based on corporate or business unit goals, or goals used by the team.  These are usually related to cost, safety, inventory-turnover, and other measurements relating to cash flow.  Again, collect you current data, compare it to the goal, and decide the first step to take.  This resulting information needs to be shared with the team, stakeholders, customers, and possibly suppliers.

As you collect the data and begin asking questions as to why the team is experiencing defects, long cycle time, customer dis-satisfaction, or other problems, you will identify opportunities to make positive impacts to flow.  These opportunities will need to be vetted against the root causes to make sure they will affect the bottom line, not just "good stuff" types of ideas.  One way to know if an idea will impact the bottom line is if it resides on the critical path.  Newly trained improvement facilitators can execute these opportunities to become "certified".  Becoming certified is another measurement, the next important metric is average cycle time for the facilitators reach their fifth project.

So Operational Excellence is a concept of operations that focuses a team's outputs on consistently meeting customer's needs and improving supply chain relationships.  This type of thinking about your operations and your organization will help jump start the transformation and turn opportunities into the dollars that can be used to grow your business.