Blog posts on continual improvement

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• The State of Lean Implementation

  Interesting survey by the Lean Enterprise Institute notes the following as the major obstacles to transforming to a lean organization.

  1. Lack of implementation know-how: 48%
  2. Backsliding to the old ways of working: 48%
  3. Middle management resistance: 40%
  4. Traditional cost accounting system doesn’t recognize the value of lean: 38%

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• Turning The PDSA Cycle Rapidly (Iteration)

  One point he made was that he often finds that organizations fail to properly “turn” the PDSA cycle (by running through it 5-15 times quickly and instead to one huge run through the PDSA cycle). One slow turn is much less effective then using it as intended to quickly test and adapt and test and adapt…

  In my experience people have difficulty articulating a theory to test (which limits the learning that can be gained). He offered a strategy to help with this: write down the key outcome that is desired. Then list the main drivers that impact that outcome. Then list design changes for each outcome to be tested with the PDSA cycle. 

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• What one thing could we do to improve?

  Asking “how is everything” normally will get the response: “fine” (which is often that is exactly what the staff wants so they can move on without wasting any time). However, if you really want to improve that doesn’t help.

  To encourage useful feedback, specifically give the customer permission to mention something that could be improved. What one thing could we do better?

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• How to Improve

  Good management systems are about seeking systemic adoption of the most effective solutions.

  Here is a simple example. Years ago, my boss was frustrated because an award was sent to the Director’s office to be signed and the awardee’s name was spelled wrong (the third time an awardee’s name had been spelled wrong in a short period). After the first attempts my boss suggested these be checked and double checked… Which they already were but…

  I was assisting with efforts to adopt TQM and the time and when she told me the problem and I asked if the names were in the automated spell checker? They were not. I suggested we add them and use the system (automatic spell checking) designed to check for incorrect spelling to do the job. Shift from first looking to blame the worker to first seeing if there is way to improve the system is a simple but very helpful change to make.

  This example is simple but it points to a nearly universal truth: if an improvement amounts to telling people to do their job better (pay attention more, don’t be careless, some useless slogan…) that is not likely to be as effective as improving the process.

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• Change Your Name to Work With Our Software

  My advice. Don’t create stupid restrictions (in IT systems or otherwise). What do you care how long people’s names are? There are many people with 2 character names (even if your software says they are invalid, and + are a valid email character even if your software doesn't think so).

  Also, have customer service personnel who are trying to improve the system, not trying to get the customer off the phone to meet some arbitrary numerical target. Most often the representatives seem most concerned with getting you off the phone. An effective system to discover what needs to be improved is not something that management has bothered to design into the system. Big mistake.

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• Think Long Term Act Daily

  Thinking long term is not about waiting around. But it is about constancy of purpose. The powerful gains from any management system are not those in the first year. The benefits possible in the 5th year or 10th year… are not possible in first year. The capacity to take advantage of management improvement needs to be developed and it is a multi-year effort (if it is done well – otherwise it will abandoned after the initial hype for the next new fad). The gains should grow and compound over time.

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• Reacting to Product Problems

  Toyota is doing well but as they say themselves, over and over: Toyota still has plenty of room to improve. The key is to not only say so, but act on it (which I believe they are doing, the recalls give one indication of the continued need to improve).

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• Knowledge Management – Management is Prediction

  ...There are several reason these ideas have not been adopted but one is that they require some effort to document and then evaluate (and often those are missing). So many see any time spent improving the system as waste (based on their actions not that they would say such a thing) – they are only happy when producing today or fire fighting to enable producing today.

  ... A good deal of thought is needed on how to use the technology tools to implement the ideas, but new technical solutions are providing options. Blogs, Wikis, improved search for stored data, the ease of creating intranet applications…. are some additional tools that can be used to improve.

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• Design Your Organization to Serve Customers Well

  Around all these processes is potential information. And you can either use it or not use it. And in most places just waste it.
  …
  There is valuable information just running down the drain. If you have everybody turned on and looking at process and saying how can we make them work better, you need to get some information, you need to get some data. That is the way you actually solve problems.

  William Hunter in seminar, Quality is a Journey to Excellence

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• Encourage Improvement Action by Everyone

  Centralizing decision making is not an effective way to manage organizations. Organizations need to encourage improvement by everybody in the organization. We need to create a system where that is encouraged and supported.

  ...

  Without an understanding of systems and interactions sometimes changes are made without an understanding of the consequences those changes. The beer game is a good example of one way this can cause problems (people don’t always understand all the consequences of their actions). To be clear I agree with setting up systems that allow people to make improvements in the workplace. Just be cautious to avoid tampering.

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• The Triumph of Lean Production

  ... Just think about that Toyota’s Georgetown plant (seen by many as one of the best examples of lean manufacturing) stops the line 2,000 a week. Do you think your organizations systems are as well designed as the Georgetown plant? Does your organization stop to examine what needs to be improved with anything approaching that level...

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• Learn From Success and Failure

  ...how the PDSA improvement cycle should be used: results are studied to increase knowledge. If results exceed expectations that should not be a reason to avoid learning. If you only study what results tell you when results are unsatisfactory you can fall into the trap that “you only learn from failure.” I guess many people only learn from failure, since that phrase is so popular, but that method leaves plenty of room for others to learn faster than you thus gaining an advantage (a more effective method of learning). Don’t wait to fail to learn.

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• Illusions – Optical and Other

  Optical illusions provide a simple reminder of how easily we can think we know things that are not so.

  It is important to question what you believe; even when it is as obvious as the A square being darker than the B square. Understanding the ease with which we can reach false conclusions can be a powerful aid in improving management decision making.

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• Predicting Improves Learning

  Personally I have found the act of actually making predictions and examining the results incredibly helpful in improving the speed and depth of my learning. You can also learn tendencies for missed predictions (predicting greater improvement, prediction faster adoption of new idea, underestimate additional costs required by new procedures…) and then adjust to make better predictions over time.

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• Keeping Track of Improvement Opportunities

  Often deciding you will not do something (and not waste time and energy on things you won’t ever do) is the biggest step toward focusing on the most important items. Focusing on important, whether urgent or not, tasks often requires avoid seemingly urgent – but in comparison unimportant tasks.

  However, I like the idea of keeping a list of items that are pretty low on the priority list for several reasons. Sometimes they can be incorporated in another project without much effort (they are not worth doing on their own but while doing something else it can make sense. With a visible list (wiki technology is good for this) everyone can know what has been thought of and given low priority – they might be sparked by an idea either to give reasons why that should be a higher priority or as in brainstorming to propose another idea… You can look at the list when thinking about a redesign and incorporate whatever might make sense....

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