7 Basic Quality Tools – Are they underrated?

By Al Norval (bio)

As I teach problem solving and observe people learning to problem solve according to the scientific method, I often see people struggling with the concepts of a hypothesis and the binary test of the hypothesis and with the rigor of the process. This is understandable as these are foreign concepts and new for most people.

It’s very rewarding to see people change as they grasp the mechanics and begin to apply them and then achieve remarkable results.

To start the problem solving process, we need to “To Grasp the Situation” to get an understanding of the problem and in many cases to actually be able to define the problem and then get to root cause. To do this we use the 7 Basic Quality Tools:

• Process Maps
• Tally Sheet
• Fishbone Diagram
• Histogram
• Pareto
• Run Chart
• Scatter Plot

The strange thing I find is that people will all nod their heads and say they know how to use them but when asked to give examples in everyday situations they can’t. In fact, when pressed to use them in an actual problem, often they can’t.

Many times I have to stop the problem solving and take a time out to have the group focus on learning the basic quality tools before they get back to working on the problem.

Why is this?

Often they are seen as too simple. They must be easy to use. But like anything that looks easy, without practice and application, we never really learn how to use them.

Lean is about thinking according to the scientific method. The scientific method is based on data. The 7 Basic Quality Tools allow us to organize and understand data so we can apply the scientific method. They make visible the data that is the backbone of good problem solving. Without them, we’re just throwing solutions at the wall and hoping something will stick.

I believe every leader and every one working in a lean environment needs to be able to master these 7 Basic Quality Tools to the point where they can teach others. Evidence of their use should be easy to see in any organization.

Simple – yes

Underrated – absolutely!

For more information on the 7 Basic Quality Tools and other Lean tools, please see Lean Brain Boosters

Cheersl

Al


In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

What Does Leader as a Teacher Really Mean?
PDCA - the Pounding Heart Muscle of Life
Want to Make Better Decisions? Simplify…
How do Adults Learn?

7 Basic Quality Tools – Are they underrated?

By Al Norval

As I teach problem solving and observe people learning to problem solve according to the scientific method, I often see people struggling with the concepts of a hypothesis and the binary test of the hypothesis and with the rigor of the process. This is understandable as these are foreign concepts and new for most people.

It’s very rewarding to see people change as they grasp the mechanics and begin to apply them and then achieve remarkable results.

To start the problem solving process, we need to “To Grasp the Situation” to get an understanding of the problem and in many cases to actually be able to define the problem and then get to root cause. To do this we use the 7 Basic Quality Tools:

• Process Maps
• Tally Sheet
• Fishbone Diagram
• Histogram
• Pareto
• Run Chart
• Scatter Plot

The strange thing I find is that people will all nod their heads and say they know how to use them but when asked to give examples in everyday situations they can’t. In fact, when pressed to use them in an actual problem, often they can’t.

Many times I have to stop the problem solving and take a time out to have the group focus on learning the basic quality tools before they get back to working on the problem.

Why is this?

Often they are seen as too simple. They must be easy to use. But like anything that looks easy, without practice and application, we never really learn how to use them.

Lean is about thinking according to the scientific method. The scientific method is based on data. The 7 Basic Quality Tools allow us to organize and understand data so we can apply the scientific method. They make visible the data that is the backbone of good problem solving. Without them, we’re just throwing solutions at the wall and hoping something will stick.

I believe every leader and every one working in a lean environment needs to be able to master these 7 Basic Quality Tools to the point where they can teach others. Evidence of their use should be easy to see in any organization.

Simple – yes
Underrated – absolutely!

For more information on the 7 Basic Quality Tools and other Lean tools, please see Lean Brain Boosters

Cheers

Lean Brain Boosters - Making the Invisible, Visible

By Pascal Dennis

Two years ago my colleague, Al Norval, and I were wresting with a tough question.

How do you make Lean principles visible?

Lean thinking, tools & leadership are often paradoxical & counter-intuitive.

Moreover, often they contravene accepted 'wisdom', at least as defined in our business & professional schools.

I've always loved doodling and my recently-published book The Remedy -- Bringing Lean Out of the Factory, which was full of them.

We had a brainwave.

Why not create doodles that expressed Lean fundamentals in a light-hearted, engaging way?

We started with a suite of 12 entitled Brain Boosters - Lean Thinking.

Ya'll seemed to like them, so we followed up with two more suites: Lean Tools and Lean Leadership.

We've been gratified by the response & believe Brain Boosters are a fine addition to the Kaizen toolkit.

Here's how people have been using them:

• Mental Models Self-Assessment
• For each card, have team members individually score the organization 
• 10 = Lean Thinking; 0 = Conventional Thinking
• Plot the results. What do they tell you?
• Pick a few “hot spots” & make an improvement plan
• Reassess again at year-end
• Theme of the Day
• At team huddles, give a card to a team member.
• Ask her to find examples of both Lean & Conventional Thinking & report back at shift-end. Any learning points?
• Rotate on a set cadence so everybody gets a chance
• Lean Training, Kaizen Workshops, Gemba Walks
• Pass out Brain Boosters at training & kaizen sessions.
• Carry them during gemba walks & use to reinforce the basics

From time to time people email us with other innovative uses.

(One company obtained the rights to the images & has turned them into posters, T-shirts, mouse pads and other training aids!)

We'd love to hear more of your stories.

Thanks, as always,

Pascal

Crossing the Chasm

By Pascal Dennis

The past twenty years Lean has gone from strength to strength.

Lean thinking started in automotive, spread across manufacturing, into construction, financial services and health care.

Each of these industries have exemplar organizations that are redefining what's possible in terms of Safety, Quality, Delivery and Cost.

What lies ahead?

I believe we're about to "cross the chasm".

The organizations described above have largely been run by men and women for whom Lean thinking is entirely natural.

"Of course," they say, "this is just common sense and good business!"

They are the innovators and visionaries, the so-called early adopters, who usually lead any profound change -- and they comprise 10 to 15% of organizations.

To cross the chasm and enter the "majority" we'll have to adjust our approach.

Later adopters tend to be very pragmatic. They favour references, structure, standards (and even certificates).

"Show me -- prove it works" is their attitude.

Here at Lean Pathways, we've responded with

1. Brain Booster Pocket Cards and apps,
   
2. Webinars and Images,
   
3. Training materials, and
   
4. Pascal's books
   

We connect newer clients with existing clients, often visionaries who've achieved and sustained breakthrough.

The trick is to sustain the soul of Lean -- that profound merging of East & West -- as we cross the chasm.

The Wizard of Oz gave the Scarecrow a diploma.

We can give people a Lean certificate, but can we give them a brain?

Of course no -- but we can and must help them learn to think, which is what Lean is all about.

Cheers,

Pascal

Lean Leadership Excuse #3

By Al Norval

I work with leaders in many organizations that are making the transformation from a traditional way of thinking to Lean Thinking. Some are doing very well and some struggle with this transformation. In previous posts I’ve described a couple of the excuses I hear coming from Leaders about why they can’t make the transformation to Lean Thinking and Lean Leadership and truly lead their organizations to become the best they can be to deliver exceptional value to their customers.

Some of these excuses I’ve talked about in previous posts include:

“I don’t have time” and

“It’s so hard”

Today I’m going to talk about another excuse I hear more than I’d like to, which is:

“It’s easier just to tell people what to do”

This excuse goes right back to our Mental Model of Leader as a Teacher. In a traditional hierarchy with traditional thinking, the leader was the boss who often saw his role as telling people what to do. In a Lean environment, the Leader is a teacher who uses Socratic questioning to build the capability of the team. This is best done at Gemba by using real problems encountered by the team. By building the capability of the team, the team grows and is better able to solve problems in the future. The more capable people are, the more problems they can solve to root cause, the more time they free up for leaders to coach and mentor their team. It’s a very different skill set but one that starts a benevolent cycle of teaching, learning, and improving.

Leaders acting as teachers build the capability of the team but this takes time. Thus the dilemma – If I just tell people what to do, it’s easier and takes less time but people don’t learn, grow and develop their thinking. They learn to go to the boss and in extreme cases learn to do nothing until the boss tells them what to do. Since they keep coming to the boss asking what to do, there isn’t time to build the capability of the team.

So, I hear the excuse – It’s just easier to tell people what to do. Get it done, get it over with and just move on. Short term thinking with short term gains but no foundation for the future. Lean is a journey to True North with our people pulling us into the future. For our people to do that, leaders need to invest in building people’s capability one step at a time. It’s long term thinking with respect for people at its core and it’s not easy.

But just because something is easy, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. That’s why it’s called Leadership, the ability to do the right things not just the easy things.

For more on Lean Mental Models, please see Lean Brain Boosters.

Cheers

Leadership Lessons from General Colin Powell

By Al Norval

I was reading an article the other day on Leadeship Lessons written by General Colin Powell Chairman (retired), Joint Chiefs of Staff. In it he had a quote that I really liked:

“The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership”

He went on to say that in his opinion, given this test, the majority of CEOs would fail. They would fail because they have built barriers to communcation preventing people from even asking for help and they have fostered a culture where problems are seen as failures or weakness and so are covered up.

This speaks directly to Lean Mental Model # 5 – Problems are Gold, buried teasure to be unearthed. But in all too many organizations, problems aren’t treated as gold, rather they are treated as things to be swept under the carpet and left alone. In these organizations the questions that are asked aren’t the Five Why’s rather they are the Five Who’s. People learn quickly to stop bringing problems to leaders. The funny thing is - the problems still exist.

I often ask people if they know of an organization in the world that doesn’t have any problems. This always raises a few chuckles. Of course every organization has problems, none are perfect. So if every organization in the world has problems, why is it that they don’t see problems as normal and as gold since they are an opportunity to get better? The answer lies with our leadership mental models. Leaders set the tone for the organization.

I agree with General Powell’s quote. As a leader, the day people stop bringing problems to you, is a failure of leadership.

For more information on Lean Leadership Mental Models, please see Lean Brain Boosters.

Cheers

Gary Kasparov and the Breakfast of Champions

By Pascal Dennis

Chess is arguably our greatest strategy game.

More books have been written about than for all other games combined.

Chess has infused our language: checkmate, stalemate, opening phase, end game, gambit...

Chess has such a strong hold on the human mind that chess champions are notoriously eccentric.

(Check out the recent, excellent documentary called Bobby Fischer vs. The Rest of the World)

Gary Kasparov, the greatest chess player of them all, is the exception.

After retiring in 2005, he has devoted himself to exposing Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime, and to leading Russia's fledgling pro-democracy forces.

He is also successful entrepreneur and author, and is happily married.

So his recent book about chess and business strategy is especially important.

It's called How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves - from the Board to the Boardroom.
Kasparov's insights into excellence are especially interesting.

What makes a champion?

Frequent, frank - even ruthless - reflection and self-assessment, Kasparov tells us.

Indeed, if we think of elite performers across a range of endeavors - Steve Jobs, Jack Welch, Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods (pre-implosion), Yoyo Ma, Yitzhak Perlman come to mind - we see the same pattern.

What's this got to do with you?

The Lean Business System is about elite performance.

It's best practitioners - Toyota, General Electric, Proctor & Gamble, United Technologies, Alcoa, Danaher and the like - ruthlessly self-assess, and adjust based on what they see.

Our improvement kata - tip of the hat to my pal, Mike Rother, is our driving force.

Here at Lean Pathways we've boiled the kata down - and call it Four-Step-Problem-Solving.

(There are others. I'm not into theology - pick a good one & get going...)

We supplement our kata with Brain Booster Pocket Cards and Apps.

But it's all about reflection and adjustment thereby - the Breakfast of Champions.

More about Kasparov in future blogs.

Sayonara ya'll.

Cheers,

Pascal

Humor in Adult Learning

By Al Norval

We in the Lean community have a unique challenge. We need to be both students as well as teachers at the same time. While we are rapidly learning and applying many new things, we have an obligation to teach others in our work groups or organizations what we have learned. Part of this is the concept of Yokoten, the rapid sharing of information laterally throughout the organization. This requires a mature Lean organization with systems and structures developed to ensure this happens. More on the topic of Yokoten in a later blog.

For today, I wanted to talk about teaching and adult learning. Adults learn differently from children. Kids are sponges for information. Adults on the other hand are full up or overloaded with information. In order to learn, adults have to replace what they have previously learned. To make matters more complicated, adult retention of things they have learned can be as low as around 10%.

In summary, adults are tougher to teach and retain less of what we teach them. This makes it tough for us in the Lean community to fulfill our role as a teacher.

What are some possible countermeasures to this?

The first countermeasure is “Learn by Do”. The act of applying the learning drives it deeper and makes it real. But what is it about “Doing” that drives higher learning and retention? Because people are involved in “Doing”, their brains create more neural connections with the activity than with just passive listening to a talk about the subject. The more active the participation, the more neural connections are formed and the higher the learning and retention. That’s why just listening to lectures has low learning while Learn by Doing has a much higher retention rate of the learning.

But how to drive the learning even higher?

The first is to teach others. We learn by teaching. After all, you’ve got to know a subject before you can teach it. Nothing tests your knowledge of a subject as much as trying to teach others.

Lastly, adults learn best when the learning environment is light and has some humor. Again we can see how humor creates more neural connections by triggering emotions and so enhances the learning experience.

How to add humor to the learning environment – through the use of images. Not all of us are comedians so we need props. Images with a light, humorous touch provide that and help create a learning environment that is conducive to adults both learning and retaining what has been taught.

Putting this all together, a process of a little training using light images, followed by doing, followed by rapid feedback creates rapid learning cycles that drive home the key learning points in adults. Practicing these ourselves enables us in the Lean community to fulfill our mission as being both students and teachers.

For more information on the use of Lean images to add some humor into your training, visit the Lean Pathways Shop.

Social Media & the Lean Business System -- Risks & Opportunities

By Pascal Dennis,

Been thinking a lot about this lately.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, as well as, the abundance of cell phone apps -- what do they mean for Lean thinkers?

Seems to me social media represent a powerful new learning channel -- provided we keep the fundamentals in mind.

Yokoten -- means shared, lateral, experiential learning.

We learn by doing -- not by browsing.

If we spend too much time at our screens -- we sacrifice depth.

Depth of understanding requires action followed by reflection -- away from your screen.

Use the screen to supplement your knowledge.

Then turn the damned thing off and get to the gemba, where you must practice, practice, practice.

Social media are marvelous, helpful and oh so seductive. Used properly, they're a boon.

But they're no substitute for experience, for the school of hard knocks, of growth & learning.

Regards,

Pascal

Curing What Ails Our Hospitals

By Al Norval

I read this article in a recent issue of Fortune magazine and have to admit it was the catchy title that caught my interest. "Curing What Ails Our Hospitals” went on to talk about a new design for hospitals that dealt with three problems that afflict most current hospitals. That is:

Infections
Energy Efficiency
High Cost

The article stated that infections were the leading cause of death in US hospitals.

In a play on words, the article quoted Norman Cousins saying that “A hospital is no place for a person who was seriously ill”.

I think that one line summarizes the state of Healthcare in North America.

Rather than just stating the obvious, the authors did offer several countermeasures. I’ve summarized the approach this way – improving the quality of patient care by reducing hospital induced infections will result in lower a length of stay for many patients. A shorter length of stay translates into savings and improved patient (Customer) satisfaction. Combine that with energy efficient buildings and a focus on prevention using team based care and the costs of healthcare can be brought back into line. Makes sense to me – I’d be interested in your opinions.

Their ideas for team based care included small neighbourhood hospitals which sounded a lot like SMED and small lot size needed for flow. Flow occurs in the absence of waste and I could visualize many waste reduction ideas in their design. Having the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and others involved in patient care work as a team eliminates many forms of waste and more importantly allows the team to problem solve quickly and efficiently.

It all comes back to the basics of Lean:

Eliminate waste
Focus on the Customer
Engage team members in problem solving

By doing this, costs will take care of themselves.

Why Lean in Sales?

By Pascal Dennis

Why indeed? Isn’t Lean a factory thing?

Well, no…

Lean is a business system comprising the entire enterprise.

The Toyota Business System, for example, addresses the three critical “loops”:

1. Design
   
2. Make
   
3. Sell
   

Guess which one is considered most important? Sell – because it’s closest to the customer.

Sales are about information. What features does the customer want? At what price point? What promotions does he respond to? How does she want to receive her products or service?

How was our last promotion perceived? And so on...

Production (Operations), usually our most valuable & expensive asset, runs on information. We only make what our information tells us to make.

If our information is wonky, our most valuable asset is unlikely to operate in its sweet spot. Result: overproduction, inventory and all the associated ills.

So how do we introduce Lean in Sales?

Here are some questions to get you started:

1. What is value in Sales? (Who are our internal & external customers and what do they need from us?)
   
   
2. What is waste?
   
   
3. What are some core mental models in our Sales department?
   
   
4. What are our current processes for delivering this value?
   
   
5. How aligned are they to delivering the value our customers expect?
   
   
6. How do we improve them?
   

Lean is harder outside the factory – because our product & processes are typically invisible.

If you make scrap in a factory, everyone can see it. “Hey, we made a whole pile of junk yesterday…”

In business processes, by contrast, you can’t see the scrap. A good forecast & a bad forecast look identical…

On the plus side, sales folks are usually smart & creative. If you introduce the fundamentals with finesse, they run with them.

For more, check out The Remedy – Bringing Lean Out of the Factory to Transform the Entire Organization, and our Lean Leadership Brain Booster suite.

That’s all for now.

Pascal

Aikido and Lean

By Pascal Dennis

Aikido is the Japanese martial art developed by Morehei Ueshiba -- one the greatest Japanese senseis.

I studied aikido for fifteen years -- hard practice 3 or 4 times a week, as well as, summer camps in New England and beyond.

My aikido training has never left me. When I joined Toyota I felt instantly at home.

"I get it, this is a dojo..."

Now, years later, I'm still practicing the techniques our aikido senseis taught us.

Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

(I pause here and respectfully bow to the late, lamented

• Kanai-sensei of Boston Aikikai, and

• Kawahara-sensei of British Columbia Aikikai)

Turns out this is the best way to learn -- (see Dan Coyne's The Talent Code for more).

I'll say it again: Go slow, stop and fix, repeat...

So easy to say...

Do we have the guts & discipline to do?

Cheers,

Pascal

Success is the Enemy of Future Success

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment begins with True North -- our strategic and philosophical purpose.

True North entails developing a clear picture of

1. Ideal condition, and
   
   
2. Target condition.
   

At the process level, this means answering questions like:

"Is the process behaving as expected?"

Corollaries: Do I understand my process? Is our hypothesis sound? If not, how do we adjust it?

"Is there creative tension in our management process?

Corollaries: Are problems visible? Are we challenging ourselves or simply resting on our oars?

True North works much the same at the broad strategic level.

In my view, its purpose, at each "level of magnification", is to create discomfort, and reflection (hansei) thereby.

Wakefulness, if you will.

Success is the enemy of future success.

What quality do outstanding individuals (and organizations) share?

Relentless self-examination -- after defeat, and more importantly, after success.

As evidence, I'd offer Michael Jordan, Jack Nicklaus, Garry Kasparov, Pablo Picasso, and all great sports teams...

Regards,

Pascal

Why Images?

By Pascal Dennis

As you may know, we've worked hard to illustrate Lean Thinking, Tools & Leadership with doodles.

We've developed three corresponding suites of Brain Booster Pocket Cards, as well as an App (& more to come).

We're lucky to have a gifted artist in Dianne Caton.

But even the humblest drawings (like mine) can be interesting.

My latest book, The Remedy, is full of my scribbles, which Di transformed charmingly.

Images go directly to the limbic brain -- the timeless world of direct experience, memory & intuition -- where learning happens.

The rational or Left brain is helpful in processing and applying learning.

But we learn largely in our limbic brain.

Our limbic brain likes stories, images, drama, emotion...

Disengaged students don't learn. Accident victims, who tragically have suffered damage here, also struggle to learn.

So...in our own modest way, we're trying to connect with the seat of learning.

Humor also helps. It's a grim world -- the "Light Touch" has always been my ideal.

People learn best when they're laughing.

Cheers,

Pascal

Lean & Green

By Al Norval,

A topic that doesn’t get as much time as it deserves is the relationship between Lean and Green.

We know that Lean is based on Team Members driving the elimination of waste to provide our Customers with more value. Toyota has summarized these in three key principles:

• Continuous Improvement
• Elimination of Waste
• Respect for Humanity

Green has become the symbolic color of environment protection and social justice. It was chosen for its association with nature, health and growth.

But how are they related?

One of the key tenets of Lean is “do more with Less”
– less human effort, less time and less resources so we’re able to turn our inputs into outputs faster with less waste.

Normally we think of this as the waste of production materials but let’s look deeper and see what other wastes we can uncover. This means less waste in:

• The water & energy used to produce the materials
• The effort, equipment & energy required to move the materials
• The man-power, materials and energy needed to build equipment that over-produces to customer demand
• The energy required to heat & cool buildings built to house these over-sized pieces of equipment
• Information systems needed to track the materials and transactions
• The effort needed to maintain all this extra stuff

The list is almost endless. The truth is our current cost systems don’t track these types of wastes very well, if at all, so they form part of a large, barely visible mountain of waste. The Remedy to this is to begin to see waste with a new set of eyes and that begins with developing a new set of Mental Models to guide us. The Lean Thinking Brain Booster pocket cards are a great starting point for anyone beginning this journey and for people who need a quick refresher.

Elimination of Waste – great for customers, Team Members, Shareholders and good for the environment.

 

Lean and the Excellence Authors

By Pascal Dennis,

Over the past two decades the "Excellence" authors, Jim Collins, Peter Senge et al have produced a series of helpful books (Good to Great, The Fifth Discipline and others).

How do these relate to the Lean movement?

The Excellence authors basically got it right in my view. Their work is congruent with Lean -- (I continue to refer to them.)

But the "Excellence" books are (necessarily) academic.

The Lean movement has brought these ideas into the messy world of practice -- a great and continuing contribution.

Imagine a messy changeover kaizen in an Indiana stamping plant. The team stands glaring at you with their arms crossed.

Can we cut changeover time in half? Can we teach these jokers how to sustain & make further improvements?

(Will they kill us?)

Our revered and scary gemba -- where the proverbial rubber hits the road...

That's why I write business novels.

Hopefully, The Remedy, and its prequel, Andy & Me, in some small way give people a sense of what transformation looks and feels like.

Mobile Apps and Lean

By Al Norval,

Like many of you, I’m having to learn a new vocabulary and a new way of managing in this world that seems to be spinning faster and faster every passing day. Years ago, I learned e-mail, then it was texting & IM and now it’s smart phones and apps. It’s interesting to note that every new thing that comes along claims to be able to make our lives more efficient which I translate to mean more waste free. While there is some truth in this, the efficiency gains (waste reductions) are overcome by the amount of information coming at us in an ever increasing torrent.

Some of this information is truly helpful. I have to admit, I like the Sports app which allows me as a long suffering hockey fan to look up the scores for my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs. Unfortunately, I don’t usually like the score but that’s another story. As a customer, I find value in the way & speed this information is made available to me and so there is value in this app. Likewise for the weather app I use. As I travel many days of the year, I find value in being able to look up the weather in a number of different cities and being able to see it quickly and up to date. Like the hockey scores, I don’t always like what I see.

These apps are great because they do provide value to me the Customer. The information is up to date and provided to me on demand in a way that is visual and so easy to understand. I can quickly get an update and so react appropriately.

In the Lean world, we face the same situation. When we are at Gemba or working with a team, how do we get a quick update on Lean basis? How do we know how to react? How do we know how and what to teach to our teams?

Many times we are away from our workstations and come across a problem or a moment when we could teach teams Lean Mental Models and the basic way of thinking. Unfortunately, we are away from our normal material and need to rely on our memory. We need quick access to the information but don’t have it at our fingertips. The opportunity passes.

Now we can use the same app technology on smart phones. I’d like to introduce the Lean Mental Models app for BB & iPhone. It’s twelve Lean Mental Models contrasted against the Conventional Mental Models that we can use when we are away from our workplaces but still need quick access to the Lean Mental Models.

Like the other Sports and Weather apps, I’m sure you will find value in this app.

Available at:  http://itunes.apple.com/app/lean-thinking-brain-boosters/id450984003?mt=8

Blackberry App: http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/20774?lang=en