By Pascal Dennis
Big Company Disease has many causes.
One of the most subtle is our inability to ‘wrap our arms around’ the PDCA cycle.
Myriad improvement cycles begin – but they become fragmented:
- Group A develops the Plan,
- Group B deploys,
- Group C checks the Plan, and
- Group D adjusts it.
I call this Scatter, with a deep bow to the late, great Al Ward – friend, colleague & profound Lean thinker.
Al described this syndrome to me over lunch a decade ago, and then again in his splendid book Lean Product & Process Design.
Improvement, whether a Kaizen Workshop, Problem Solving cycle or Strategy A3, requires complete PDCA cycles
One person (or team) needs to wrap her arms around the cycle, and thereby develop the profound, sympathetic knowledge central to breakthrough.
Thereby, our entire brains start firing – Left, Right, prefrontal cortex etc.
The countermeasures we select are usually simple and clear.
There’s usually a sense of release. “Of course! Why didn’t we see it before!”
As opposed to the ponderous, countermeasure-by-committee stuff that blights so many report outs.
So how to reduce Scatter?
Lean fundamentals like visual management and Leader standard work are a good start.
Veteran Lean companies like Toyota have developed the Chief Engineer role in Design, and Key Thinker (aka Deployment Leader or Pacemaker) role in Strategy Deployment.
Their job is to oversee & manage broad PDCA cycles – and to record & share the learning.
There are all a good place to start in your never-ending battle with Scatter.
Best regards,
Pascal
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