Employee Buy-In to the Improvement Plan

As individuals we come up with really good ideas, changes to Products, Processes, and/or People in order to drive higher levels of Performance.  If we find a few people who think like us, the ideas and plans can become very elaborate.  We can hide in our offices or in the Innovation Stations and draw thought maps that would rival the great thinkers of Harvard and Yale.  But when we start implementing we fail to see the change we were looking for, our great ideas are stoned in the middle of the street, and we are ridiculed in front of our peers.

And that did not turn out how we thought it would.... once again.

Shaping the Vision

As we have explored before, change is hard.  It's harder when we don't include decision makers and smart people in the deployment of the vision.  The Captain of the ship points the way and we get to figure out how to get there.  "We" does not mean only the Directors and Senior Managers, it means all of us.  There are oodles of people out there, with skills and abilities that can help plan the change, execute the plan, transform the organization, and assess the results.

As the Captain's Executive Officer (XO), you get to figure out how to take the sometimes lofty statements by the boss and then translate them into what the future looks like for the organization and you are the point person for supporting the teams when the transformation begins.  More than likely you have something to start with, the Vision & Mission Statements, and the boss's lofty statements will typically track along in parallel.  Functionally this means something slightly different for each section of the organization based on how each connects to the main product or service that is provided.

The Correct Way To Draw An Org Chart

We have discussed creating the vision and specifying value in the past, but how do we take our thoughts and dreams on paper to those in the organization that will be going on this journey with us?  Spend some time talking with those teams to explore how they see themselves fitting into the Vision & Mission Statements and what do their metrics say about performance.  When they talk about the "things" they provide for the product or service, are they reflected on your VSM or Strategy Map?

Communicating the Vision

I'm going to presume that if you are in some sort (any sort) of Leadership position, that you have gotten over the fear of public speaking.  This will not be a one-time flash of the power point slide during an all-hands meeting and then you never speak of it again.  It will be discussed until everyone understands and are ready to start moving forward, and part of the conversation will be one where the vision is shaped.

You should discuss it everywhere you go.  Visit all the teams in their stand-up meetings, even if it's at 6am.  If you can put it on one piece of paper, hang the vision in the break rooms and the performance measurement screens on the walls.  Make it part of the company newsletters and create a video discussing the vision and how important it is to the organization.  When you are discussing it, do try to sound a little excited about the journey and the possibilities it will open for everyone.  And let the teams know they are part of this journey because they will be making adjustments to their 4P's also.

Share results with the organization while the transformation is ongoing.  What are the wins, what are the lessons learned, and what has been accomplished?  Reward some team members if you are having an all-hands meeting with the organization.  Instant awards like restaurant gift cards are cheap and easy.  Handwritten thank you notes provide a personal touch not seen today as often.  Award certifications if there are Green Belt or Black Belt certification projects tied to the change.

People want to know what you think about the transformation and if they are doing a good job.  Communication always comes up as a top issue for organizations and some of these ideas can help move you forward along your Lean Transformation.

Excellence Is Not Achieved By Bringing Everyone Else Down

Let's just get this out in the open; I am a free market conservative and one of the best tools in our arsenal to grow market share, innovate, and improve customer satisfaction is competition.  We compete with people, teams, companies, and economies.  We also have the innate ability to compete with ourselves.

As your organization travels your path you will have opportunities to grow and learn.  It is up to you to decide what to do with this new found knowledge; let it sit or implement it into your Standard Work instructions.  This new knowledge is not like wine that will get better with age.  Each day you do not implement is lost productivity and this loss is one of the barriers to growth.  You think, "we can't take on new work, we more than we can do right now", and you are right based on how you run the business today.

Excellence is a customer-based performance characteristic and you must compare your's to those you compete with.  I'm not suggesting that you try to get a tour of their facilities and steal the metrics hanging on the walls, but look at their service offerings on their website or talk to your customers that you know use your competitor's services.  You can also use your industry's benchmark.  But you have to look at that gap analysis as opportunity to improve.  Make sure you do not fall into the trap of rationalizing your poor performance by attributing your competition's success to luck or political alignments.




If you are not measuring your performance then you do not know what you do not know.  Also do not use the "I have not been yelled at by the Boss lately" metric to gauge your performance, this is a lie your brain uses to avoid potential conflict.  Using a Balanced Scorecard approach uses a series of questions and operational layers to determine what are the potential measures that would apply to your product or service, but is up to you to determine which to use.  You should use some of the measures that relate to Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, and Morale that will should aggregate performance, but not a single metric due to the risk of sub-optimizing the process to improve just one characteristic at the risk of negatively impact the others.

As you create your dashboard you will be tempted to use some high-end measurement system with all manners of bells and whistles.  I don't recommend this in the early phases of your measuring because you probably do not know what you need yet.  Spreadsheets or home-grown tools created in something like SharePoint will be just fine to start with.  As you develop your measures you must also determine how to respond.  What do you do when you see the measures going off the track?  Who is notified, how do you attack the problem, and how do you document the findings?

When you have your performance history documented and you see you are on your way to the top, think about comparing your current measures to past performance.  This would be the same as watching the futbol tapes after a game to see lost opportunities or turn-overs.  Where can the team improve performance by improving their skills?

What are you measuring in your office processes?

Future State Value Stream Mapping

Standing in the office, staring at the wall with your Current State Value Stream Map (VSM) pinned up, you may be thinking that someone needs to hide this thing before the boss walks in.  The communication lines look like one of those sketti-maps, and the work balance chart is normally distributed.  Take a breath and remember that this is a journey, don't stop believin'.

Remember the Normal Distribution?

Time for some calm and rational thinking, what did the Lean Policy Deployment matrix indicate that was the highest priority for the team?  You can see the operational targets and how they relate to what is important, but what does this mean for our processes?  Now we are connecting the dots between where we are now and where we need to be moving toward.  Do we have the measurements in place to help us see where we are?  If not there needs to be a line drawn in the sand for our baseline or starting point.

Take the goals from the Lean Policy Deployment matrix and any yearly "goals & objectives" given to the team, and connect them to your Current State VSM.  What picture emerges?  Does this flatten your work balance chart?  If you find that your goals do not change your VSM, you may have weak or ineffective goals.

Now is the chance to talk with the team.  Get their opinion on the obvious problems pointed out on the map.  What problems do they see on a recurring basis?  What opportunities do they see?  This is a great way to empower and engage the team.  They want to be listened to, they want to know that their input is valuable and that they are not just button pushers making documents go somewhere.

Our VSM friend, the Starburst!

Armed with this data, you have something to talk about with the boss.  Show them where you think the problems exists, show the data, and then show them the starbursts that you and the team created.  Give some credit for the creativity of the team!  Talk about where you think you could improve performance and customer satisfaction.  The boss may provide some more goals to think about for transforming to a Lean flow.

Take the starbursts and place them on a Benefit/Effort matrix and now you and the boss have something to work with to prioritize the improvement activities for the coming year.  Below could be your new best friend for prioritizing opportunities, the PICK Chart.  Decisions made from this matrix will need to be balanced against the Lean Policy Deployment matrix.  Think about what is important to improve and what is attainable. 

PICK Chart

If this is your first time to attempt to formally improve your processes, take the top one or two prioritized opportunities and compare their goals to the Current State Value Stream Map.  What impact will these make to the 4P's or to Safety, Quality, Cost, and Delivery?  These opportunities may enable other improvements, like communication flow or decision making processes.  Don't let the fear of making Quality improvements impact what is executed first.

Now we bring in our tried and true project management skills and abilities.  Write a problem statement without any assumption of root causes, define SMART goals, and determine deliverables.  Document the project on a one-page A3, there is no need for a 125 slide project briefing.  There is nothing brief about 125 slides, seriously, knock it off!  Put the smart people in a room, find the "Belt" person you have heard about and start exploring what is going on with the process.

Share what you have learned with the work team as you go through the project determining root causes and deciding what your going to do about it.  Create some metrics and a desk guide to keep you from backsliding to the old, comfortable, chaotic process.  You are responsible for the team's results, own it!  When the process is fixed, celebrate the success with the team.

In 12 months you're going to go through this again.  Make sure you have your stuff in order.

Is change hard?  Yes, but so is coming into work everyday knowing that poor performance is making an impact to the team's moral and no one cares to make it better.

Have you seen VSM be successfully used as a strategic planning tool or ever been involved in a VSM "Event"?

Lean Policy Deployment

Aligning tactics to strategy

Welcome to September!  Guess what it is time for now?  That's right, this year's goals and objectives for the company.  How are we doing this year so far?  Did you set sales, safety, delivery, or financial goals?  Did you build that new capability you wanted?  Are your teams progressing in maturity?

These are worthy and usual safe things to chase, but are they the right things for your company or teams?  You will also find that you may have a team or site that is the benchmark for the company.  Translating your vision into the strategy is up to you and your board of directors, and determining how to advance to that vision will be executed by management and the teams.  Each team member is aware of their strengths and weaknesses, and this tool can help them grow into that type of person they want to be.

How to build

1. Identify the key issues in the organization's customer focused performance.  These may come from a Value Stream Mapping Event or a strategic offsite meeting.
2. Determine measurable business objectives that address these performance issues.  You are not boiling the ocean, and they do not say "do stuff better".  A good tool to use here would be a Balanced Scorecard.
3. Define or Refine the overall vision and goals.  Goals will be listed under Target Operational Results.
4. Develop supporting strategies for pursuing the goals.  These will be listed next to the Objectives.
5. Determine the tactics (or projects) and targets that facilitate each strategy.  List tactics above Selected Projects and targets next to Improvement Targets.  
6. Decide the strength of alignment within the matrixed entries on the map.
7. Implement performance measures for every business process.  If it is worth doing, it is worth measuring and doing right.  Yes measuring is hard, but so is laying people off because you did not work on the things that were important.
8. Measure business processes during execution.  Do not wait until the end of the year to see if you hit any targets.

How to measure

And now we are off and running!  We are delivering sales orders, reports, and briefings.  The team is collecting data and we are compiling it into something that tells the real story.  Whether we are using a fully automated workflow tool with performance reporting, or collecting information on a form and typing it in a spreadsheet, we need to make sure we share it with the team.

Don't try to create excuses if the information is not great, we are smart enough to see through management's smoke screens.  This is the perfect opportunity to use some A3 Problem Solving.  Use the results to strengthen your system and processes, and celebrate your successes once in a while.


What results have you seen with your improvement planning?