Posts Tagged ‘ Continuous Improvement ’

How do you go to the Gemba when the Gemba is anywhere and everywhere?

February 1, 2012
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I have a dilemma. Since I have been blogging about ROWE and contemplating the virtual workspace, it is at odds with my affinity for Lean Thinking and, especially, the concepts of going to Gemba and Leader Standard Work. If process excellence is facilitated by having Leaders go to where the work takes place, how can this same process excellence be gained when workers are at home in their pajamas, banging away on laptops?

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Understanding that Results are an absolute

December 21, 2011
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Understanding that Results are an absolute

As I continue to contemplate the machinations of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), I've had a few conversations recently with people who are trying to understand how ROWE works. While I am far fom an expert, I have come up with a few things in order to share my understanding.

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Scholtes: The workplace visionary no one’s heard of

November 29, 2011
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In recent years, we've seen some thought leaders offer up best selling books, visionary programs and torrents of articles and other works describing what is wrong, how to fix it, and attempting to explain the science behind their approaches. In particular, Dan Pink gave us Drive, Best Buy gave us the ROWE experiment, and Lean thinkers continue to encourage us to think of front-line emplyees first, as in Jim Womack's Gemba Walk. What I find interesting is that all of these approaches to improving the workplace, at least in part, have some basis in Peter Scholtes 1998 Book, The...

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“…honest, thorough, and ongoing self-criticism…is at the heart of continuous improvement”

November 17, 2011
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“…honest, thorough, and ongoing self-criticism…is at the heart of continuous improvement”

Dissent is, afterall, the outward sign of dissatisfaction combined with the will to say something about it. In no way should we convince ourselves that silence implies consent. Instead, we should first think that silence implies the lack of desire to say what's on your mind for fear of retribution. So, we return to Deming's philosophy, which told us to eliminate fear. A lack of dissenting opinion is the manifestation of fear. An explosion of tight agreement is, too.

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Role of Finance in Process Improvement

November 8, 2011
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Role of Finance in Process Improvement

I caught a great article from Brad Power that was posted a couple weeks ago on the Harvard Busines Review, entitled "Shifting Finance from Controlling to Improving." What Power demonstrates are several CFO's who have endeavored to make understanding finances simple to those who don't live & breathe it in daily lives. They change the terminology to something more intutitve. They measure performance in a way that makes bottom-line impacts intutive. They help to spread the word about Lean to others with no-nonsense, easily articulated, and most importantly - easily acted-upon information.

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It’s still Easier, Better, Faster, Cheaper…in that order

November 2, 2011
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It’s still Easier, Better, Faster, Cheaper…in that order

The focus of improvement, and not just in lean, is in cost reduction and increased cycle time. That focus misses the point entirely, and remains unaware of just how brilliant the Easier, Better, Faster Cheaper methodology - when pursued in that order and that order only, truly is.

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More Mura Muri? (or, the reasons behind changing everything)

October 26, 2011
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More Mura Muri? (or, the reasons behind changing everything)

The truth is, the way we live our lives is broken. We see reformers in education, healthcare, management, personal organization, stress relief, motivation, and nearly every other area continuing to talk about ways to address the same things, over and over: Adjusting to an ever-changing, unpredictable world and finding a way to keep yourself, and others, from going crazy while doing it. Or, in other words: Mura and Muri.

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Measurement Tools might improve the quality of work, but not necessarily its enjoyment

October 20, 2011
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Measurement Tools might improve the quality of work, but not necessarily its enjoyment

I am starting to think that performance boards don't really help to drive improvement and, if they do, they don't really change behaviors. Frankly, I don' t think there's a tool anywhere in existence that can do that.

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Lean principles for knowledge workers (and everyone else)

October 12, 2011
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There is an article on the Harvard Business Review entitled "Lean Knowledge Work" by Bradley R. Staats and David M. Upton. I think it is one of the more important pieces examining the applicability of Lean concepts to areas other than manufacturing. The article, in my mind, focuses on the reasons why organizations who commit to Lean end up succeeding. That is, they begin to understand that addressing the mura (unevenness of operations) and muri (overburdening of people and resources) in the workplace as the root cause of muda (waste and inefficiency).

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6 Quick Lean Leadership Lessons

October 5, 2011
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Today’s manufacturing plants are busy places.  While the factory has always been home to long hours and hard work, it certainly seems like the pressure has been turned up a notch or two over the years.  The Lean Manufacturing journey can and will improve your operation yet time is still a factor.  Training and development often suffer when it’s crunch time. Terry Starbucker notes that time is a hindrance for training in many businesses when he states, “Sometimes it’s hard to get their full attention for 10 minutes, much less the time it would take to do a full-scale...

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