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??

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.

Lean Roadmap

Roadmaps are handy little things, helping to point the direction while on a journey.  Sometimes they serve to identify markers on the road letting us know how far along we are, or telling us how far to go to the next marker.  The Lean Roadmap provides some general direction to keep our focus forward.  Many times we will not get the results that we want when we pick our favorite concept to launch into first. The steps in this map build upon each other to reach the smooth flow of the moving or pulse line.  Just like most other efforts we start by talking to our customers and finding out what they like, don't like, and what's important (what is value?).  We can make some presumptions about our customers, but we should go talk with them and confirm our beliefs.

Create the Vision

We all know that being able to describe the vision simply or on paper is one of the most important first steps in communicating the vision, and being able to imagine the potential in your organization's operations can put you on the road to good change.  Creating the vision may or may not be aligned with your organization's offerings, and the most important question to answer is "how are we creating value for the customer"?

When we measure Product of the 4P's (People, Process, Product, Performance) we are taking a look at the product performance and customer demand.  The measure of performance should be based on the requirements or the capabilities the product is sold upon.  Customers have expectations about the Product for how it performs today and future enhancements.  Does the vision need the Product to be enhanced?  This is one part of the Vision.  We must also evaluate how our Processes operate, do our People have the skills and abilities for new Products and Processes, and is the Performance good enough to provide the customer the experience that will keep them coming back for more?

Standardize the Flow From Improvements

Once we know where we are going (Future Vision) we need to know where we are starting (Current State) and where is the first marker (Future State).  These are high-level maps and metrics describing the Vision and different States.  These will be used to target improvements in the flows: product flows, work flows, and cash flows.  

Target and reduce the waste and variation.  This is the mantra, this is the drumbeat.  Everything follows a rhythm and this moves the organization to the next level of performance.  Learn from your processes and make changes that can be documented in your SOP's, Policy Statements, and other Work Documentation.  Deploy the new learning across the organization and manage the change reaching higher levels of performance.  Using a Kaizen approach will be faster, and small steps will be required.

Make the Supplies and Information Point-Of-Use

Improving the flows is not only the transformation steps in process, but creating efficient movement of inputs to the process.  Make the material and information inputs easy to find and fast to move.  Ensure this is documented in the new process and that everyone is emotionally and physically on board with the new way.  Implementing 5S concepts in your operations are focused on organizing and not housekeeping.  Organize your material and information in files and on your servers/clients.

Balance the Team

As you make improvement stay aware of bottlenecks in the system.  Comparing cycle time to takt time will assist in determining where the help is needed first.  Continue this analysis as customer demand changes.  Bottlenecks can (and will) move through your system.

Implement Visual Controls and Response

Visual Controls are the metrics, schedule, and constraints posted on the wall or on the displays that the team needs to be aware of.  While we may have the vision that says "no more fire-fighting", there should be some recognition that quick action is sometimes needed.  Having the signals in place that facilitates this planned response is much better than waiting for the boss to find out from an unhappy customer.  This type of system is the foundation of an Employee Empowered Workforce.

Connect Suppliers Using Pull System

Implementing a Pull System is much more difficult and will create much frustration if you have not started improving your flow.  Responding only when the order is received (start signal) should keep cash flow high by not spending those dollars on material and labor that will only increase Work-In-Process (WIP).  High levels of WIP in your system is just half-built product sitting around waiting to be damaged or made obsolete.

Move/Pulse the Line

We can all envision a Moving Line with Lucy and Ethel inspecting and packaging chocolates.  A Pulse Line is one with products that move to the takt time and they have longer cycle times or the cost to automate the transfer is too high.  In the places where our office products are created, we can use electronic workflow queuing to move products and to status completion.  The "Line" is really a collection of interdependent work teams operating to accomplish a series of tasks.  The results are fed back into the Visual Controls and then analyzed for new learning.  Using this method will help us to move to higher and more stable levels of performance.


I hope this encourages you to take another look at Lean Flow and how you may use the tools and techniques to improvement customer satisfaction and employee relationships.

When Good Ideas Go Bad

In my experience, groupthink is a behavior that can sink an improvement project if not caught and stopped early. Groupthink is where there is group pressure to ‘go along’ with the decisions of the group or the beliefs of the group. This can start with ill-defined problem statements, scope, and/or goals, and the team will stay on the wrong path if assumptions are not tested or questioned. Keeping charter information simple and validating the problem statement can go a long way control groupthink. Validation is accomplished through using process timelines or data that is reflective of the problem statement.

Another method to reduce groupthink is to use a balanced functionally diverse team. Members bring their own perspective of the problems and causes to the team and if functional diversity is not present, then the natural group will have the numbers to force their perspective on the other team members. Using balanced teams with one or two members from each function can prevent groupthink.

ummm, no.

My favorite cause of groupthink is when one "expert on everything" arrives and begins to tell everyone how to think. Many will go along to get along because they are afraid of making someone mad or they do not want to be seen as a non-team player or because they are introverts that are uncomfortable speaking up. As a project lead my first method is to take them off to the side and tell them to knock it off. If it continues I have called them out in front of the team, which usually sends them into the stratosphere. If I still do not see the behavior I am looking for I will send them back to their work group and let the boss know that I'm not interested in baby-sitting their problem child. I have not had to do this very often because we use ground-rules for team member behavior that are discussed during the kick-off of the project while everyone's Supervisor, the Project Champion and General Manager are in the room.

This type of behavior can show up at any time during the project whether it is executed through weekly team meetings or kaizen style locked in a room for a week. When the behavior arrives a the end of the week when everyone is tired and ready to go home, the aforementioned expert will begin to implement her solution. Another method to overcome is to provide everyone with a number of votes or rating system to use across different possible solutions. I have had good results with this style and will continue to use it in the future.


Ultimately setting the expectations for team behavior must be established early (and often). If you are on a team and you begin to recognize groupthink, it may be time to become the voice of dissension.

Idea Transformation

How to make an "idea" person into an "implementation" person?

Sometimes you are minding your own business watching the clouds float by, working on another marketing presentation, or on a date with that special person in your life, and then POW!!!  You are hit so hard that it gives you a shiner on your driver's license.  The Idea Fairy has shown up to occupy the brain space you were using to focus on what was in front of you.  If you know whats good for you, you will write the idea on a napkin so you can put your focus back where it belongs.  Even better if you have a bright idea notepad (handy-dandy notebook?) that you carry around.

"Life's tough when you're stupid"

If you have spent some time observing your behavior, you may have determined during the day when you are at your most creative state and when you are at your most productive state.  I am an early morning thinker and a rest of the day doer with a brief blast of creativity late in the day.  Find your thinking time and space and pull out the idea assault from the day before and think about what you want to accomplish.  This is a dreaming phase to help you characterize the idea; write as much as you can about the end state.

What does your idea look like??

WARNING!!  The next step is where our excited idea holders begin to fall off the rails on the way to Awesome Town.  As boring as this sounds, you need to plan the implementation of your great idea.  

• What stuff (material or data) do you need to start with
• What kind of people help do you need
• What do you need to learn
• Do you need some money to make the idea happen
• How are you going to market the idea
• How much time do you need (or can you take) to implement this great idea.  

Keep in mind that some ideas have a short time span when the market is right and there is alignment between your great idea's purpose and the need it is meant to serve.  The project plan is to lay out our path and assist in determining if an important task needs to be accomplished before another.

If you are in the middle of a kaizen event and someone is hit in the head by the Idea Fairy, you can use a simple form to capture the idea that can help with implementation like the one below.  She will show up at the most inopportune of times demanding respect and acknowledgement.  Capture the idea, stick it to the process map or fishbone diagram and move along until you are ready to evaluate the idea.

There is DOWNTIME from the 8-Wastes!!

During implementation of the great idea, stop and look at the plan for changes that may need to be made and talk with your team members or mentor about the progression.  Is it coming together like you dreamed about days or weeks ago?  If you suffer from Not-Invented-Here (NIH) Syndrome, I recommend that you get over yourself.  No, I'm not kidding.

While this is an over-simplified version of what project managers do, it will take some practice before you are doing it right.  Remember that each failure is a stepping stone to success.  Don't give up, and learn as you move through your Journey.

Also remember that great ideas can come from little brothers.  Thanks Jeremy!

Lean Thinking - Make Value Flow Part 2

Making change is hard, but there are some models whose purpose it is to provide markers that shows the way.  These different road-maps take us to different destinations depending upon which journey we are on.  The criteria are specific, but easy to follow based on your current state.

PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT
Here we have our old friend DMAIC (Design-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) that is the umbrella for quality improvements based on statistical analysis tools developed in the '30s through the 1970s.  The model helps us to Define the problem, Measure how well the process is performing, Analyze for the root cause(s), Implement methods and practices to overcome the root cause(s), and finally Control our ability to backslide to the old and comfortable ways no matter how chaotic they are.

PROCESS DESIGN
If you are executing in the DMAIC model and one of the root causes is "we do not have a process", or you have been tasked to figure out how to do this new thing, then you may have found an opportunity to design a new process using DMADV (Design-Measure-Analyze-Design-Verify).  This should not be two dude's "Excellent Adventure" where you mess up until the boss finally accepts your new process because she is tired of your rock coloring game.  If y=f(x), then you need to figure out the important x's, or stated another way, stop guessing what color she wants for the rock.

Our Friend the Quality Function Deployment.  3 days?  Bah!

First find out who are the customers and what do they want about the product you are designing your process around, this is also called Voice of the Customer.  Do you have a large audience of customers?  Perhaps a well constructed survey would be best.  How about commandments from your company that your process must exist within or government regulations with which you must comply?  These would be the Voice of the Business.

Next, when you have collect this information, you can construct the Critical to Customer Requirements and Critical to Business Requirements.  Since "Critical" means measurable, we have the basis of performance.  No more needing to guess about the color of the rock she wants.

Now you can design the process that creates what is needed, how it is needed, in the amounts needed.  Simple right?  Probably not, especially if you think a complex solution proves just how intelligent you are.  Let's go with a solution that is as simple as it can be.  When designed and you have made a few rocks, do they align with the critical requirements?  If the answer no, then you are not finished.  Keep trying, you are almost there.  When the process is working as it should, document your process, someone will be expected to execute it later.

SOFTWARE DESIGN
The Software Development Life Cycle is a specific model used in the execution of software projects.  Keep in mind this is for implementing the solution that should be backed up with validated root cause analysis (remember the complexity thing earlier?).  The phases are Analyze, Design, Develop, Test, and Finalize; these should seem somewhat familiar in the DMADV model.

Agile is a customer-centered methodology where all the players are gathered together, complaints and good ideas are collected, prioritized, and executed in a group environment.  This is supposed to decrease the cycle time as everyone is together during the development and testing phases.  Scrum is a type of Agile where the prioritized activities are worked in Sprints using improved planning techniques.  This is an over-simplified explanation, but has shown to be effective when used appropriately.

WRAPPING IT UP
In the end we are trying to make our products flow better.  If we can design processes with less waste and variation, then achieving Return on Investment is faster.  Buy-in from our internal and external customers are important to our success in the future and our focus is still on the 4P's.

Lean Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up?

When we have Command & Control and grass roots effort, what do we do with the frozen middle?

I have talked quite a bit about the roles of Leadership, Facilitators, and Team Members.  These are important people that are Setting the Vision & Direction, Leading Teams to Improve Processes, and Providing Expertise in their Job Functions.  But what do we do with the managers between the top and bottom of the organization?  These people are the hard-chargers who were good fire-fighters that were needed at the time based on how we performed work under the batch and queue system of production.

These people now own processes, are measured to achieve results (maybe?), and are supposed to be growing the next generation of Leaders that will be replacing them in the next few years.  If you want the improvements to stick, they have to be involved in the change.  This level of the organization is where most of the Project Sponsors will reside.  Increasing the flow in their processes will improve their measures and provide them the opportunity to think beyond the fire of the moment.  Once you are on the Journey there will be less need to break out the old fire-fighting helmet.

This is where strategic tools like Lean Policy Deployment, Value Stream Mapping, and PICK Charts come into play.  These prioritization decisions are owned and controlled by the Process Owners.  It's not as exciting as putting on the Cape and Cowl, but it creates the condition where stability and balance can flourish.  Overcoming the daily fire drills can positively contribute to reduced levels of stress and decreased burn-out.  Remember what Dr. Tyrell said, "The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long."

Once it is determined which improvement is first and what resources will support the transformation the Project Sponsor will help to draft a charter with the Facilitator.  The charter provides the reason the team exists as it defines the Problem Statement, Goal, Scope (In and Out), Business Case, Resources, and Milestone Review Schedule.  If you are trying to use Lean Six Sigma to implement your "good ideas", you will be very disappointed.  The Good Idea Fairy is the ultimate business trickster and will lead you to the point where you are completely disappointed and will resist anything that remotely sounds like Lean and/or Six Sigma.

Our transformation model is simple enough to understand, but is not for the weak-willed.  You must have stamina to make it through the steps, and you will find that you spend a good portion of your time "Making Value Flow".  But this is exactly where you involve your Facilitators and Smart People to make the good change happen.  On the other side you will have a stronger and smarter team.

When Is Enough, Enough?

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away...   

I was teaching the Statistical Process Control & Capability module during a Lean six sigma Green Belt class and one of the students asked, and I'm going to paraphrase, "When is enough, enough?"  I think this would be a normal question to ask while learning how to Make Value Flow.  The question came from one of my Quality friends, and I'm sure he was thinking about all the different processes he supported that needed improvement and certainly not when he could put his feet in the air and his "you-know-what" in the chair.

If you have been measuring your performance, then you should have some amount of data collected around the problem you are experiencing.  If you are having quality problems, you may have Defects Per Unit (DPU), or Defects Per Million Opportunities (DPMO).  If you are having delivery problems, you may have Cycle Time or Number of Days Early/Late.  If you are having cost problems, you may have Cost Per Unit or Weekly Printing Costs.  Either way, you need some data that represents your process.

We can see the performance is in control and the stable, but is the process meeting the customer's needs?  This is always the right question!

When we use SPC we are looking for  indicators that signify when to start asking questions about the process.  There are four that are the easiest to use and remember; 1) Any points outside of the control limits, 2) Six points consecutively going up or down, 3) Nine point consecutively above or below the center, and 4) 14 points consecutively going up and down.  Having a process that performs within these four parameters means that our process is in control and stable, which indicates the flow is predictable.

Here is your SPC warning!  Do not let any of you Quality Engineers catch you putting specification lines on your SPC chart.

What it does not tell us is are we meeting customer expectations.  This is where we take our Voice of the Customer specifications and lay them on top of a histogram of the data.  From here we can see our performance compared to customer specs of no more than 21 days (USL, LSL).

Current State

And as we can see from the fine specimen above, when our cycle times are 22-25 days we are not meeting customer expectations.  Our process is in control, but not performing to the wants and desires of the customer.  In fact it may be possible that our favorite customer is looking for a new supplier of their information needs as we speak and I think that immediate action is required.

At this point you should be constructing a charter, assigning one of your belts to lead the project, and kick-off the team.  Work your best as a Project Sponsor, Smart Person or Supplier/Customer and document the results in an A3.  When you have enough data with the new process you can see how the center and spread fit within the specifications.

If you have identified the root causes and adequately implemented a new process that has improved flow, then you are done with that process for now.  The biggest indicator is the edge of the distribution is some amount away from the specification.  For you math nerds, below is the formula and you want to get as close to 1.5 as you can.

Improved Process #1

Based on our results we can see that are delivering everything on time, and if we finish early we can hold the deliverable until the customer is ready.  Be wary of producing too much too fast.  That would make our work-in-process increase, which means the window between "doing work" and "getting paid" increases and this is detrimental to cash flow.

At the end of the day we want our products to flow without stopping though our value-added operations to meet customer demand.  Deliver too late and the customer must wait (Wait Time), but if we deliver too early the customer has to over-handle (Excess Processing) the product until they are ready to use it and this is "Inventory" they have to hold until they are paid.  If you have paid any attention over the last 5 years, this over-capitalization is one of the causes of the downfall of the American automobile industry.  Leadership is the decision-maker, but the following histogram represents one possible best fit.

Improved Process #2

Improving performance is not something that will automatically happen, learning curves are not absolute.  Market forces fluctuate and your ability to adjust with them could be one of your long-term indicators of success.

How do you use your data for improving flow?

Designing the Perfect Process

In all the work places we have been, do you remember ever asking how someone came up with this insane method to respond to a customer order?  Taking the order is easy, we receive an email from our website catalog system.  But everything else we do after that resembles a group of 5 year old Americans playing futbol (ok fine, soccer).

We would like to think the process was designed using the smartest people, using the best tools, and the most responsive and fair management techniques taught in the best MBA schools.  No such luck my friend.  Your current process was haphazardly put together using years of bad results from battling against lawyers, the least amount of communication possible, and it's certainly not documented or repeatable.  The last thing we also want is someone able to measure the process only to beat us up with the charts.

Does any of this sound familiar?

When do we start creating the new process?  The best situation would be during New Product Development or when you start to go after new customers.  Sometimes your current process does not meet the customer needs and small step improvement is not enough.

Let's start by defining a few characteristics of the perfect process and what it looks like:

1)  It has no review cycles, quality comes from the process
2)  There is no guessing
3)  There is no hunting and gathering
4)  The time from order to fulfillment is as short as possible
5)  The customer receives the order defect free and exactly when they want it

With this in mind, let's start....

You will need to collect any regulations that may impact your process or product, voice of the customer using surveys or direct interviews, and any business concerns that may exist.  We will put this on a House of Quality or Quality Function Deployment (QFD) (same thing... mostly, just don't say that to one of the Six Sigma guys).  Rate, prioritize, and score these to help determine the level of focus to be applied during the actual design of the flow.

Benchmark other organizations or companies dealing with the same type of product.  Be open and honest, those organizations getting good results will be very proud of their process and will happily show you their stuff.  There may be more information published on the internet, in trade magazines, or state/federal government survey data.

More time is used defining requirements so when it is time to document the new flow it almost creates itself.  Ok it's not that easy, you will need the smart people to help lay out the steps.  Lock everyone in a room, tape a long piece of butcher paper on the wall, break out the sharpies and sticky notes, and tell everyone to put their shoes on 'cause they're going to go do some work.

Start with the first signaling step and have the rest of the team fill out the remaining steps of the flow.  Keep a large copy of the QFD taped to the wall next to the flow so they don't forget about the customer's and other process stakeholder's needs.  Add the inputs and outputs to each step step to help the team focus on the thing going through the system.  Complete your Value Analysis and look for any of the 8-Wastes that can be eliminated before the process goes live.

When you have this completed and the team reaches consensus on the flow, put it in your SOP or Deskguide format.  Create the training to deploy the new process to the other team members who have not seen it and any new team members that come on board later.  Determine the measure points for Quality, Cost, Delivery, and any other Customer measure to finish the process.

If you have some sort of process automation, make sure you have separated the steps in the process to show which are performed by people and those performed by the computers.  Don't mix these as computers can't think critically and make decisions and people should not be creating information that no one will see.

Does the perfect process really exist?  Probably not, but can get very close.  All processes need to have learning steps so when quality or cycle time issues are identified they can be quickly eliminated from the process.  Update the Deskguide and document in an A3.

Everyone raise your right hand and repeat after me.  Go ahead, get that hand in the air.

1)  I will not accept poor quality from my external or internal suppliers.
2)  I will not pass on poor quality to my external or internal customers.

OK, put you hand down and share cool things your have seen in your processes!

We Just Lost Half of the Team

One day were are a happy team, plenty of work coming in and we don't have too many customers calling every other day about their orders.  Then the boss from corporate comes in, goes to our branch manager's office and closes the door.  This does not look good.

A couple of the sales guys split, muttering something about hand delivering some reports.  A few of us go to lunch and the rest plan out the remainder of the day.  The manager's office is empty when we return, but our in-boxes have a meeting notice at the end of the day.  Of course we all panic, there was nothing in the body of the email and we never have cake at the end of the day.

The remaining minutes and hours count down and we all meet in the larger conference room.  The branch manager is standing at the front of the room with a powerpoint on the wall.  He goes through the charts; sales per employee, backorders by customers, quality surveys from customers, accounts past due to suppliers.  None of this looks good and our question was how long had it been like this?  Has anyone been paying attention?

One by one we were called into the office.  There were three of us at the table, the branch manager, someone from corporate HR, and I.  They asked if I understood the information presented and I said that I did, and I asked how long has performance been like this?  He made some comments about the softness of the local economy and expected it to turn around at any time.  None of what he said sounded good.

About half the team survived this round of layoffs.  We had to do something.....

This is how some organizations start their Lean Journey.  Sometimes we see teams respond with positive change by using their metrics and creating a plan to improve customer satisfaction and aggressively getting new orders and customers.  Sometimes the teams blame others, lobby for a government bail-out, and continue in their same, old, wasteful ways.

Just like any other personally damaging situations; smoking, obesity, and high-stress are all responses to bad practices and our businesses can exhibit the same types of response factors.  Fire-fighting, low customer satisfaction, and poor team relationships are not going to fix themselves.  You can't wait for the team to turn around on their own.  Someone (you) needs to make a bold statement.  "We will no longer be in the Fire-Fighting business!"

You will hear some chuckles, but it's ok.  Half of the team is gone, so how do you do the same amount of work with less people?  It's not simple, but you're going to have to learn from your mistakes.  Talk to your customers about your delivery, look at how you do things and improve.  You have to get the team out of Egypt and get Egypt out of the team.

You  may be tempted to start creating plans and roadmaps and start bringing in high-powered consultants.  If you were starting the Lean Journey when times were good, those tools would be perfect, but you are not and we need to start the transformation now.  Your Burning Platform (or BHAG) is right in front of you, take a picture if you need one.  Start with the processes you use to create your products and remember this analysis is based on the thing going through the system or process.  Do you have any performance data; cost, quality, delivery?  If not, then begin collecting it now.

Have you talked to your customers yet?  We will use that information when we create the new processes.  We may even pull out our House of Quality (or QFD) to help align customer needs and the requirements we must comply with.

We then map those processes and remember this is based on how we do it now, not how we want to or what the SOP says how the process is supposed to operate.  Ask where are those inspection review processes and how we fix the documents?  Circle these steps with a Red Sharpie, these will be targeted first!  If you have some sort of review trail from emails or a workflow system, put the quality failures in categories and force rank them by count so you can attack the worst offenders first.

Once you have that, get the team together for a fishbone party.  Remember that you put the problem statement or quality failure at the head of the fish and the potential causes on the four bones.  What four bones?  I'm glad you asked.

If you start using Man, Method, Measurement, Mother Nature, Material, and Machine in the office you will spend the next hours trying to get the team to not think of these in manufacturing terms.  In our information processes we use People, Place, Policy, and Procedures.  Nearly all issues that exist today will fall into those categories.  When the team is passed out on the floor and have nothing else to give, begin weeding out the least likely causes and work your way up to the most likely or direct causes.

Bundle related causes together and begin brainstorming potential solutions.  We will also begin to start mapping out the new process based on the number people available, a "No Fire-Fighting" culture, a bold statement that our internal teams will neither accept or pass on defective information, and we cannot inspect quality into our products as high-quality must come from the process.  Everyone must buy-in to the new process, both the smart people doing the jobs and the Leaders of the organizations.

Once you have tried a few things and have picked the best of the best (for now) you need to document how the process operates so when new team members come on when the economy recovers they have something to be trained on.  Determine some metrics so poor performance is not a surprise anymore and there will be plenty of time to respond.  Everyone needs to know what right looks like.

Transforming under fire is never pleasant, but the good times just doesn't always provide the need for change.  Bad things happen, and then we pick up the pieces and continue on.

When your team has been through a rough time, what kind of lasting change did you make?

Incentivizing Improved Performance

Have a team that produced great results when their past performance was consistently less than stellar?  Was this a one-time bump or will there be long-lasting results?  Do you think the team will show high performing metrics next review?  You probably know the answer to this.

Companies and their internal organization should have plans to improve or innovate their products and services.  Those plans need to be developed with and approved by the Board, flowed down through the Leadership Team, and marketed to the employees.  These plans should be visual, achievable and relevant enough so that anyone we ask will understand what right looks like.  We are asking for everyone's support as if the future of the company depends on it, because it does.

We know this is a journey and we should be plotting our course, stop once in a while and take a look at the progress you have made.  Bring the team together and show them that working together to a common goal can make happen. Along the way, take pictures, shoot some video, interview people involved in the change, and use your project documentation to create storyboards to help show the transformation.  Remember this is not small step change on one little project, but transformation across an entire site.

Think about how to reward the teams for this amount of change.  A pay increase would be great, but we're talking about real employee appreciation not short-term impacts that are quickly accepted as the normal condition.  Employees today are looking to make a personal connection that can act as compound interest on their careers.  They also want to know that their contributions are making a difference.

Companies in the recent past paid some percentage of the savings.  This is nice too, but too often the savings are soft or cost avoidance types of savings.  While these opportunities need to be implemented also, they increase capacity of the team and have the affect of reducing over-time to achieve better balance between life and work.  We have seen this types of reward systems become abused and leaves a bitter taste with the Leadership team when reductions to bottom line costs are not realized.

This type of thinking can certainly be used to motivate employees to continue improving and innovating, and employees knowing their efforts are appreciated make huge steps in retaining them.  Green Belt or Black Belt shirts with company logos are nice, but mentoring from the boss and opportunities to move up the ladder reinforce the confidence in the actual people doing the actual work.

What type of actions have you used to show employee appreciation?

Bi-Polar Working Environment

Looking back on it, the highs were high and the lows were low.  Does work seem like an endless roller coaster?  Do you run from one fire to another, double-booked status meetings, or was that another failed review with the originator pulling out of the parking lot for the weekend?  You think you get off the ride at the end of the day when you leave the gate, or is that just the part of the ride that is not doing loops?

What is in your mind when hear "a steady flow of work"?  A gently flowing stream that pops with trout hitting the surface and the water is bubbling through the rocks?  No, that is supposed to be a vacation.  Did I just hear someone's cell phone buzz while we are fly-fishing?

How many of us walk in to the build and put on our fire fighting gear?  Go ahead and put your hands down, I'm not taking a survey.  Our never taking off the gear is an indication that we do not have a workflow control system.  Everything is hot and/or late.

Getting out this mode of operation requires everyone on the team, including the coach, is making a conscience decision to stop treating everything as a fire.  And we have to start learning from our mistakes.  The solutions that support the learning must also be appropriately applied.  Anchoring the entire organization because of ethical or technical issues does not help foster trust between management and employees.

Operational Excellence is about the journey, not the destination.  We learn and grow while building trust through relationships.  You may not see it at first, but when you realize the roller coaster is no longer running you can see organizations are made up of people, not systems and tasks.

I Smell Soap!

How many times have we heard the warnings?
"Our biggest customer is coming (or the boss, or some shareholders, or OSHA) and we need to clean this place up!"

So we have two days to "clean this place up!"  Lucky for us we have a few well trained firefighters that can work and hide stacks of files, miscellaneous inventory, and review those customer reports so we can ship them out early tomorrow morning.  Everything else comes to a screeching halt.  Did I just hear one of the supervisors whisper that this looks like a 5S Blitz?

The big day arrives, everyone looks busy, the boss looks at the Ops Manager and says, "I smell soap!"

Or...

The big day arrives, everyone is busy, catching up on two days of downtime, when our favorite customer arrives.  "All of your office areas smell so clean!"  

She is getting the 5-Star treatment.  Walking through the areas, seeing a white board with tracking numbers next to the reports they ordered with status of "Delivered" next to them.  The Office's Operations Manager is smiling, and gives the customer a box of branded office swag, cups, banner pens, and flash drives, on her way out the door.

LOVE the banner pens!!

For those of you who honestly think this is what a rapid 5S Event looks like or that 5S is Housekeeping, I have a little secret for you.  You are wrong, not mistaken, and those who told you that were wrong.  For the rest of us this is turns into an effort in futility and the clutter will return in about two weeks.

There is a way to avoid all the dramatics, and fire-fighting.  The site has to become organized.  This is not something that a small group can accomplish, it's going to take everyone from the employees all the way up to the Leadership team.

5S is a system of organization that helps us answer the following questions:
Sort - Do we need everything we have?
Set in Order - Do we have everything we need?
Shine - Can we see abnormalities?
Standardize - Can anyone do this repeatedly?
Sustain - Are we maintaining or backsliding?

Each "S" is built on the previous, and it starts by Sorting to remove the fog of clutter.  If you see half eaten bags of cheesy poofs laying around, listen to the voices in your head and throw them away.  When we Set in Order we are removing searching waste.  We are no long a hunting and gathering society, work should be the same.  The work of Sorting and Setting in Order is executed by the smart people.  The actual people doing the actual work knows what is needed or not needed.  The boss can come participate, but only as a set of hands doing work.

When we Shine we are keeping our machines (printers, computers, network drives, etc) in a like new condition so we can see a small problem before it becomes a much larger problem.  How often does the printer go down because you ran out of paper in the office or because little hang-ups turned into an issue where we have to call the guy who sold us the printer four months ago?

When we Standardize we are documenting how we do things.  Is there a standard method to creating folders on the servers for new projects?  How about projects that are complete or abandoned?  How long does it take someone to find the information they are looking for?

Sustaining the gains involves Leadership being active in the change process and I don't mean they only move their furniture around.  Take a waste walk, go to the gemba!  That is the actual place where the actual people are doing the actual work.  Does the work flow?

One of these days the customer, or the boss, or OSHA is going to stop by unannounced...

Don't just shake your head up and down, share what you have seen in the comment box.

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"?

Current State Value Stream Mapping

Transformation has many requirements, two of those are knowing where we are and where we are going.  This week we will address how to see where we are using Rother and Shook's "Learning to See" method of Value Stream Mapping.  If you want to learn more about your process, this is a perfect way to do it. 

First the rules (oh, no!  not more rules), Value Stream Maps are based on products.  Don't get hung up on thinking about factories, we all make something.  Gears, cars, hot dogs, lawn chairs, pizzas, newspapers, lumber, stock analysis, laptops, contract statements of work, testing instructions, decisions what to spend resources upon, etc, etc, etc; get it?  We all produce something that is passed on to the next internal customer or our final external customer.

Our Current State map

Here is our example Current State Value Stream Map.  Current state means how the product flows as of today.  Again, how the product ACTUALLY flows, not what your ISO documentation says, or how you wish it would flow, but the no-kiddin' real way it flows right now.  If you don't know, go ask the actual people doing the actual work, in fact I recommend you go find out who those people are right now.  Go ahead, I'll wait...

As you can see in the picture the inputs from suppliers are on the left and the output going to the customer is on the right.  The product going through the flow is on the lower half of the map and the information supporting the flow is on the upper half of the map.  Under the transformational activity boxes is where we will store some important metrics like cycle time, touch time, quality yield.  And last, but certainly not least, the time line along the bottom which we will use for part of our value analysis.

Did I say last?  Two more things, identify the product/process and put today's date on the map!  This is really important as you begin to start constructing these high level maps.  One day in the far future you will find a stack of maps and wonder which ones need to be trashed and you will not have a time reference.  Yes I said trashed, we are not cartographers.

There are several things we can read from this map.  Check out the balanced work chart in the lower left corner.  If you are in love with TOC, you should be able to identify where the bottleneck is located.  The Value Added calculation is based on the amount of work in the system in hours and the cycle time of each activity.  The amount of work is based on the calculation of the number of items in the flow and the cycle time for one.

WIP (the number of items in the flow) is an important measure because it represents labor costs and material costs.  Add them together and you know how much money you have tied up.  If you could reduce your WIP costs, what else could you do with that money?  Expand your capital, update your old computers, hire another sales person?  Is the communication flow adequate?  If you are only talking to the last person in the flow then you may not be seeing how the other sections in the product flow are performing.

These maps help to see where to attack first, where is the longest cycle time, lowest quality yield, or longest touch time?  If you have a Belt in your organization, get their help analyzing what is going on with the performance.  While we are asking uncomfortable questions, when was the last time you were on the floor?

So next week we will explore the construction and use of the Future Vision map that will contain the 5-year plan.

What has been your A-Ha! moments constructing your Current State maps?  Does it make you want to start implementing solutions?

Lean Flow and Employee Involvement

There is no shortcut or back road to Lean transformation, it's not a journey you make on your own change, and it's not a top-down only effort.  But you have some busy people that can help you navigate in the dark, they are your employees.  How many of us remember when work arguments were won based on volume and creative profanity instead of the facts and data of the situation? The yelling may have diminished, but I'm not sure we are all in for using facts and data.

We do know that it is rough out there, but this is not the time to hide in the office and wait for the dust to settle.  Now is the time to look at how we do things to better meet customer needs and expectations.  We know that Lean is based on the Toyota Production System and part of the foundation is "Respect for People".  Everywhere I have worked, Leadership says that "People are our most important asset".  Does anyone know what that really means?

Lean Transformation Model

As you notice from the model we start with choosing one of our products and ask the team what they think their customers would say about that product.  We need to go talk with the customer also, but this gives us a starting point.  Share this information with the team, it may shock or surprise them (or confirm what they know) but the truth will be there out in the open.  Think about how these truths align with the 4P's.

When we map and measure the processes that support a product we are using the team not only to uncover the hidden processes we use, but so we all have a common understanding how we construct that product.  There will be human interactions the team may not have experienced before and you need to be ready to lead them through the various situations.  Make sure you attempt to includes everyone's voice.  Even your hard working introverts that are not sitting at the table (there they are along the wall) have something to say.

If you have adequately defined the flow problem and identified the most likely direct root causes, ask your team members for their suggestions to overcome the causes.  Some of the team may have been through that type of problem and could have the answer.  Try the solutions before any wide-scale implementation to uncover any constraints you may not have anticipated.  One person on the team, or the boss, will not have all of the answer that is needed, but each person may have a piece of the answer and it is up to you to create the picture of the new process.

Once you have the solution implemented, track the performance and share the results with the team.  This should be displayed on a board in a common area and where you hold team meetings.  You may even be able to connect that information with customer surveys or financial analysis.  Share the before and after data with the team to show them their efforts are making a difference.

What has been your experience working with teams or being on a team that improved one of your processes?

Change Fundamentals

“Change makes me feel uncomfortable.”

“Change is hard.”

“We don’t need to change, everything is fine.”

I’m sure you have heard these before, maybe even said something like this.  But now you are in a position of Leadership or you are responsible for the activities of a team and you see that you’re not reaching the performance levels you need to get ahead.  Money Girl may be scheduling meetings with you twice a week to discuss your budget numbers.  You could be meeting twice a day and that is not going to solve your problems.

This model is used help align groups of people to specific results and keep them within the left and right boundaries of their tasks and responsibilities.  The Beliefs of the individuals on the teams will lead to the Behaviors which drive their Actions that produce Results.  This helps to show why people think “Change is hard” and you do not see the Results.  Turning the team around is not only your responsibility; it’s in your skills toolbox.

The first step is the hardest because the team’s lack of momentum has anchored them to the past.  Did they win a team performance or safety award ten years ago?  Does your team currently perform the best in the branch but their internal competitors should all be sent back to the farm team?  You may find the team is the “cream of the crap” and this is never a nice realization.

You need to find out what the team Believes.  Do they really know their performance or want to know?  Do they believe they have the ability or permission to make change?  Do the team members have the skills, knowledge, and ability to perform the work that is being asked of them?  And there are more questions you could ask based on your industry or location.

Beliefs are the hardest to change; many were shaped by past experiences.  You will be battling against previous good or bad managers, corporate cultures, left-wing professors, and perhaps an undesirable work ethic.  Some team members will be easy to shift and a small number, if any, will probably need to be released back to wild.  Jim Collins talked about having people in the right seats on the bus, assuming they are on the right bus to begin with.

Tools to help Leaders re-align the individual’s and team’s Behaviors are the Company’s Vision, Mission, Goals and Objectives.  Do your team members know how and where they fit in the Vision and Mission?  This may take some exploration with the team and your Leadership.  I have seen teams try to determine how they fit, review this with Leadership and are sent back being told to try again.  This is not a catastrophic event as long as you can show you are learning from the experience.

Goals and Objectives play a large part by providing a basis for measuring the team.  Remember that not every team will have Objectives for every Goal, and try not to overthink your importance to the site but be open to how everyone fits together.  Goals should link Objectives to the Vision and Mission.

Measuring the team’s current performance to the Goals and Objectives can be an enlightening event that will drive the team to Action.  Don’t just print the chart and stick it on the wall, share it with the team and ask questions that lead to sustained high performance.  Using A3 Thinking helps to document what the team is experiencing and how they can learn by evaluating the low and high performance times.  This learning is documented in the team’s standard work, SOP, or Desk Guide and is used for training new team members.

These Actions will create Results with increased performance, higher levels of predictability, and increased team moral.  We are not just robots moving paper from one pile to another pile; we are thinking creatures with drive and a desire to make customers happy with the products we provide.  The processes we work in will not improve on their own, they require the ingenuity and creativity we have in all of us to make change.  It is there, just waiting to flourish.

How have you seen or experienced a change in hearts and minds?

Poke-Yoke the Engineers

Being an engineer and forced into a box did not "feel" right.  How am I supposed to use my technical creativity to take these requirements and turn them into something you can hold in your hand?  Get away from me with your process stuff, I'm here to (hold up your shield) support the customer!!

I acted this way for a time while adjusting from being a recent college graduate to a responsible and productive member of society.  I had my office, with three computers, bookshelves full of component specs and design books, and my attitude of "THESE HANDS WERE TOUCHED BY GOD!!".  Obviously those people don't understand my brilliance and I must dumb-down my methods to meet their level of intelligence.  Now, if I could automate the human out of the equation quality and productivity would instantly improve.

Wow!! Was I really that full of myself?  I don't think I was very helpful during that time in my career.  I had just left Uncle Sam's Misguided Children two years before and graduated with my Manufacturing Engineering degree a few months prior. I had a few career successes and my level of confidence in my abilities were over-the-top.  I had lost my touch with reality and the work relationships suffered.

It only took a project or two to learn that my work produced a product that was needed for another team on the floor and their success (read as OUR success) was based on how well I performed, not just technically but to their schedule. I learned there was enough variation in my output to disrupt everything on the floor when I worked in my own smoke-stake or rice bowl.

We started by paying attention to the feedback coming from the floor.  How often were they coming back for us to fix something, how much time was spent during changeover, and how often did we deliver our products late to their need?  Simple, but powerful measures to gauge performance.  When we analyzed the data coming from the floor, we found the enemy and he was us.

Continuous Learning Cycle

Our first move was to document changes being made on the fly and changes being made at our desks.  Most of the changes had been made on the floor, which hid most of the problems and the information showed us how bad our product was.  A picture began to form showing what exactly who the culprits were and they were quickly standardized through our purchasing department.

Next we checked all our computers to ensure we were all connected to the right data sources.  Some had "drifted" off course and was quickly realigned to master libraries.  We saw a vast quality improvement after the last of the "bad" product had gone through the system.  It looked like the worst was behind us, but in reality we were still in a fragile state.  We still needed to update our standard desk guides.

When we stabilized our output, we began to chance variation in the inputs.  The design engineers had their design software connected to standard data sources linked to our MRP system.  We tracked our requests to them to fix their problems, shared that data in a professional manner, and saw results.  We found problems in the MRP system also and many times the reason was they did not think that option mattered to anyone.

It is great to feel like the hero that saves the day, but after a while we get tired of the same old problems.  It looks like no one cares when things do not improve on their own.  We live in the information age, and when there are problems with the information flow we have to address those to closure.

What has been your experience working in the data flow?  Have you seen improvements over the last few years?