Frontiers - Lean & IT

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

By any objective measure, Lean has ‘done well’. Most major organizations have active Lean/Continual Improvement activities. Lean thinking has developed roots far from its manufacturing beginnings and into far-flung fields like healthcare, construction and the process industries.

Yes, there have been dead-ends, detours and growing pains.

Why do so many organizations fail to fully harvest Lean’s potential? How do we sustain Lean as a system, and not merely a set of tools?

How do we engage senior leaders more deeply?

Nonetheless, we’ve made good progress these past few decades.

So what’s next?

Information technology. How to translate the powerful Lean principles methods & principles in this vital, fascinating, yet often arcane field?

There has, of course, been some helpful cross-fertilization. Agile, for example, and its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban..., are creative expressions of visual management, Pull and PDCA. But my sense is we've barely scratched the surface. (Are respect for people, quality in the process, and Strategy Deployment well understood?)

The obstacles are substantial. Information Technology language, mental models, and gembas are radically different than those in, say, manufacturing, logistics or the process industries.

IT value streams are among the most invisible my team & I have encountered. IT departments tend to be fragmented and often comprise multiple deep silos. (DEVOPS is a valuable attempt to integrate the software development and delivery process, and emphasizes communication and collaboration between product management, software development, and operations.)

On the plus side, IT practitioners are among the most capable and creative people we've ever worked with. As ever, shared experiential learning (Yokoten) begins with a shared understanding. I encourage Lean practitioners around the world to learn the language & business of IT, and to think deeply about how to support our colleagues there. (My daughter and I recently enrolled in a coding course, which took me back to my student days & reminded me I’m a bad coder…)

And I encourage our colleagues in IT shops around the world to learn & adapt the powerful thinking methodologies of Lean.

Should lead to interesting conversations.

Best regards,

Pascal



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

Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?
Too Often, Power Means the Power to Do Stupid Things

Big Data & PDCA

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

LPI Back to Basics Series, Part 2

"Big Data" is all over the Net, and rightly so.

Burgeoning computer horsepower means we're able to crunch numbers like never before.

Manufacturing, Marketing, Human Resources etc. will be able illuminate opaque areas.

Billions of data points -- molecular, customer and team member behaviour, for example -- can be analyzed, patterns identified and conclusions drawn.

Is that it, then? Can we fold up the management tent and let the computer figure things out for us? Can we outsource thinking?

Hardly...

Big Data, wedded to PDCA, is a blessing. Divorced from PDCA, it may become a curse.

Big Data can help us make correlations -- "When we do this, that happens." -- which inform our PDCA cycle.

But it's up to us to

• Develop hypotheses,
• Design & run experiments,
• Reflect on the analyses, and
• Adjust our hypotheses

It up to us to recognize the data that's missing, unknown or unknowable.

Deming, the consummate data guy, taught us that some things can't be measured.

How do you measure esprit de corps, indomitable courage, a sense of optimism, or simple decency?

Yet great battles and fortunes, achievement and honor, often turn on such unmeasurables.

As ever, technology, in this case, Big Data, comes to fruition only through the application of human finesse and intelligence.

So let's celebrate the Big Data's potential. Let's figure out how to use it to illuminate undiscovered countries.

But let's not outsource our responsibility to learn & grow.

Best,

Pascal




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

PDCA - the Pounding Heart Muscle of Life
Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership
Caffé Macaroni and Italian Design?
The Loneliness of the Small Business Owner

PDCA - the Pounding Heart Muscle of Life

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

LPI Back to Basics Series, Part 1

Plan-Do-Check-Adjust - so easy to say.

An inexperienced young fellow recently said to me, "PDCA is too easy. I need something more..."

At his age, I was thick too. The mist gradually cleared for me, as I'm sure it will for him.

My Toyota sensei once said, "Ten years to learn Plan, ten for Do, ten for Check and ten for adjust. I am beginning to understand PDCA now."

Forty years - for one the world's top auto executives.

There isn't much that's truly new. And there are eternal verities, like PDCA.

How often are we distracted, like crows, by the latest shiny object?

How many people are distracted by the latest get-rich-quick scheme -- Real Estate! Gold! Emerging Markets!

How many folks fall under the spell of latest & greatest motivational speaker?

Some of these may have merit in the short term.

But the real road to success is PDCA, the pounding heart muscle of the universe.

Inhale & exhale, expand & contract, wax & wane.

PDCA distinguishes us from the animals. It informs, or should inform, all human activity

So with all respect to Tom Robbins and Oprah, we already know the answer.

The 'silver bullet' is right in front of us. It's difficult, humbling work, but it works.

As we used to say at our old Toyota factory, "If you follow the recipe, you get a Big Mac every time..."

Best,

Pascal




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

Yokoten, Meta-cognition and Leadership
Caffé Macaroni and Italian Design?
The Loneliness of the Small Business Owner
What is Courage & How does it relate to True North?

PDCA in the Trades

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Recently, I spent several days with the great Joe Lodato and the Constrada team of homebuilding & maintenance contractors.

Joe & team have for years now helped maintain & improve our charming but somewhat old (1940’s) family home.

Things always come up - this time it was water leaks in the lower level – a notoriously tricky problem.

I was struck, once again, at Joe & team’s skill in PDCA & practical problem solving.

Joe & team took the time to define the problem clearly. They ran multiple controlled experiments, which gave them a deeper understanding of what was happening.

The boys did not jump to countermeasures.

“Putting a Band-Aid on it won’t help,” said Joe. “We have to get to the root, or in a few years, the leaks will be back even worse.”

Each experiment brought Joe and the team closer to the root cause – which was remarkable, and as usual, remote from the point of discovery.

“Holy cow,” Joe said, “you never know what you’re going to find!”

Joe and the team fixed the root cause, and added what they’d learned to their ‘Book of Knowledge’. (And their price was more than fair. In fact, I tweaked it so that Joe and his family can have dinner and a fine chianti, with our complements.)

Joe and his team are better at PDCA and practical problem solving than most executives. In fact, it’s not even close. (Executives do very little of this, no?)

How can this be?

Obliged for your thoughts. (In blogs to come, I’ll share mine too.)

Pascal




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

Nick Saban on the Power of Process Thinking
Lean and the Martial Arts
Daily PDCA is a Meditation
Ethics Again

Nick Saban on the Power of Process Thinking

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

PDCA – because it’s all too clear, it’s difficult

Here’s the great coach Nick Saban on University of Alabama football team’s success

“We’ve set up an organizational process, so that each person knows what they have to do during the week minute by minute… the players, the coaches.”

“We don’t talk a lot about winning. We talk a lot about what you have to do to play your best on a consistent basis.”

“We focus on a high standard of consistency…and understanding [we’ve] never arrived.”

The fundamentals – PDCA, process thinking, continuous improvement, total involvement are ‘simple’.

So simple that they’re hard. I’m not very good at PDCA, process thinking and the rest. (Like most people, I find it easier to jump to countermeasures and wing it in general.)

Like a number of Toyota alumni, for decades now I’ve relied on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual routine, to keep me on track. I’m simply trying to apply the practices very patient senseis taught me.

At best I partially succeed, but the effort makes all the difference. The process continually highlights hot spots, shortcomings & opportunities for improvement.

In my experience, terrific organizations, whether in business or sports, aren’t perfect. (They’re human after all.)

But they’re acutely aware of their imperfections & constantly try to improve. Of course, Lean methods are essential in making these opportunities visible.

But Lean methods are always in the service of this engine, this heart-muscle.

If I may suggest, Mr. Saban would find TPS culture simpatico, and would feel entirely at home in a Toyota factory or design studio.

My sense is we have an innate understanding of these things. (In the attached clip, the ESPN analysts certainly seem to understand what Coach Saban is saying.)

The challenge (speaking for myself) is to overcome our innate laziness, trickiness and dislike of standards. The challenge is to thereby learn & apply the fundamentals for the greater good.

The more successful and powerful we become, the easier it is to ignore them. (Power is the power to do stupid things, no?)

At this point in his career, Coach Saban can do pretty much whatever he wants to do, including ignoring the fundamentals.

But like all great senseis, he continues to practice and teach the ‘right way’. (Until he dies, I suspect.)

Bravo,

Pascal




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

Lean and the Martial Arts
Daily PDCA is a Meditation
Ethics Again
Lean/TPS in the Public Service – Part 3 – Obstacles & Countermeasures?

Daily PDCA is a Meditation

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

We are sleepers in a dream, the great philosophers tell us. Our grasp of what's actually happening is tenuous at best.

The great religions and philosophies entail ritual, prayer and/or meditation to help us ‘wake up’.

Lean/TPS is about wakefulness too.

Lean methods like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

And the most basic mediation of all is daily Plan-Do-Check-Adjust.

I’m a dreamer at heart, a ‘sleepy boy’, my Dad used to say. Daily PDCA is my anchor, my center, and has been for a long time.

Daily PDCA is hard, especially nowadays, when it’s so easy to get swept up in the tidal wave of tweets, blogs, pics, avatars, apps, games, music, videos…

I’m not very good at daily PDCA, but even partial success is a big deal.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed, confused & dopey man is king.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

Ethics Again
Lean/TPS in the Public Service – Part 3 – Obstacles & Countermeasures?
Lean/TPS in the Public Service – Part 2 – What are the Obstacles?
Is Lean/TPS Possible in the Public Service? – Part 1

Software is Eating the World – What’s It Mean for Lean/CI?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Hard to argue with this strong statement. Is there any major organization nowadays that is not an IT organization?

ING Bank, famously, has more IT professionals than Google. Today a Tesla car has more lines of code than macOS or the Windows Vista operation system.

What’s all this mean for the Lean/Continuous Improvement ‘movement’?

Lean/CI practitioners need to raise their games. We have to learn the language, technology and mental models of the digital world.

We have to reach out to our IT colleagues and help them deepen their practice, as they deepen ours.

Lean/CI has had a strong run these past two decades. Most major corporations now in most industries have active Lean/CI ‘programs.’

True, there are still comparatively few brilliant Lean organizations, and most senior executives still don’t understand the methods or the underlying mindsets.

But the Lean/CI tide has lifted most ships, and core concepts such as Value, Waste, Flow and PDCA are firmly rooted in contemporary business practice.

But it’s not enough. Lean/CI has much to offer the digital world. Digitization is an inherently abstract process. Bits & bytes are invisible, as are the circuits that animate a printed circuit board.

The more abstract a practice or technology, the more essential is a counter-balancing engagement with the physical world.

At its best, Lean/CI is simple & concrete. Our old Toyota senseis taught us to continually refine our thinking & processes by removing the unnecessary.

After a while it becomes second nature. Steve Jobs, famously, learned the art of design by studying Japanese calligraphy.

Strategy, problem solving, ideation, rapid experimentation and other core Lean/CI practices require a fluid back & forth between the worlds of reflection & experience.

We go see, reflect on what we saw, and go see again. Such core Lean/CI practices and mindsets can help to enable, focus and refine digitization.

But we have to be humble and open enough to accept that the world is changing very quickly. And we have to work very hard to understand the language, mental models & technology of our colleagues in the digital world.

Good learning, all.

Best regards,

Pascal

Frontiers - Lean & IT

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

By any objective measure, Lean has ‘done well’. Most major organizations have active Lean/Continual Improvement activities. Lean thinking has developed roots far from its manufacturing beginnings and into far-flung fields like healthcare, construction and the process industries.

Yes, there have been dead-ends, detours and growing pains.

Why do so many organizations fail to fully harvest Lean’s potential? How do we sustain Lean as a system, and not merely a set of tools?

How do we engage senior leaders more deeply?

Nonetheless, we’ve made good progress these past few decades.

So what’s next?

Information technology. How to translate the powerful Lean principles methods & principles in this vital, fascinating, yet often arcane field?

There has, of course, been some helpful cross-fertilization. Agile, for example, and its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban..., are creative expressions of visual management, Pull and PDCA. But my sense is we've barely scratched the surface. (Are respect for people, quality in the process, and Strategy Deployment well understood?)

The obstacles are substantial. Information Technology language, mental models, and gembas are radically different than those in, say, manufacturing, logistics or the process industries.

IT value streams are among the most invisible my team & I have encountered. IT departments tend to be fragmented and often comprise multiple deep silos. (DEVOPS is a valuable attempt to integrate the software development and delivery process, and emphasizes communication and collaboration between product management, software development, and operations.)

On the plus side, IT practitioners are among the most capable and creative people we've ever worked with. As ever, shared experiential learning (Yokoten) begins with a shared understanding. I encourage Lean practitioners around the world to learn the language & business of IT, and to think deeply about how to support our colleagues there. (My daughter and I recently enrolled in a coding course, which took me back to my student days & reminded me I’m a bad coder…)

And I encourage our colleagues in IT shops around the world to learn & adapt the powerful thinking methodologies of Lean.

Should lead to interesting conversations.

Best regards,

Pascal

Nick Saban on the Power of Process Thinking

By Pascal Dennis

PDCA – because it’s all too clear, it’s difficult

Here’s the great coach Nick Saban on University of Alabama football team’s success

“We’ve set up an organizational process, so that each person knows what they have to do during the week minute by minute… the players, the coaches.”

“We don’t talk a lot about winning. We talk a lot about what you have to do to play your best on a consistent basis.”

“We focus on a high standard of consistency…and understanding [we’ve] never arrived.”

The fundamentals – PDCA, process thinking, continuous improvement, total involvement are ‘simple’.

So simple that they’re hard. I’m not very good at PDCA, process thinking and the rest. (Like most people, I find it easier to jump to countermeasures and wing it in general.)

Like a number of Toyota alumni, for decades now I’ve relied on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual routine, to keep me on track. I’m simply trying to apply the practices very patient senseis taught me.

At best I partially succeed, but the effort makes all the difference. The process continually highlights hot spots, shortcomings & opportunities for improvement.

In my experience, terrific organizations, whether in business or sports, aren’t perfect. (They’re human after all.)

But they’re acutely aware of their imperfections & constantly try to improve. Of course, Lean methods are essential in making these opportunities visible.

But Lean methods are always in the service of this engine, this heart-muscle.

If I may suggest, Mr. Saban would find TPS culture simpatico, and would feel entirely at home in a Toyota factory or design studio.

My sense is we have an innate understanding of these things. (In the attached clip, the ESPN analysts certainly seem to understand what Coach Saban is saying.)

The challenge (speaking for myself) is to overcome our innate laziness, trickiness and dislike of standards. The challenge is to thereby learn & apply the fundamentals for the greater good.

The more successful and powerful we become, the easier it is to ignore them. (Power is the power to do stupid things, no?)

At this point in his career, Coach Saban can do pretty much whatever he wants to do, including ignoring the fundamentals.

But like all great senseis, he continues to practice and teach the ‘right way’. (Until he dies, I suspect.)

Bravo,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Daily PDCA is a Meditation

By Pascal Dennis

We are sleepers in a dream, the great philosophers tell us. Our grasp of what's actually happening is tenuous at best.

The great religions and philosophies entail ritual, prayer and/or meditation to help us ‘wake up’.

Lean/TPS is about wakefulness too.

Lean methods like visual management, 5 S, standardized work, and pokayoke, are meant to jolt us out of our slumber.

"Hey, buddy wake up! There's a problem over here!"

And the most basic mediation of all is daily Plan-Do-Check-Adjust.

I’m a dreamer at heart, a ‘sleepy boy’, my Dad used to say. Daily PDCA is my anchor, my center, and has been for a long time.

Daily PDCA is hard, especially nowadays, when it’s so easy to get swept up in the tidal wave of tweets, blogs, pics, avatars, apps, games, music, videos…

I’m not very good at daily PDCA, but even partial success is a big deal.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed, confused & dopey man is king.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

PDCA in the Trades

By Pascal Dennis

Recently, I spent several days with the great Joe Lodato and the Constrada team of homebuilding & maintenance contractors.

Joe & team have for years now helped maintain & improve our charming but somewhat old (1940’s) family home.

Things always come up - this time it was water leaks in the lower level – a notoriously tricky problem.

I was struck, once again, at Joe & team’s skill in PDCA & practical problem solving.

Joe & team took the time to define the problem clearly. They ran multiple controlled experiments, which gave them a deeper understanding of what was happening.

The boys did not jump to countermeasures.

“Putting a Band-Aid on it won’t help,” said Joe. “We have to get to the root, or in a few years, the leaks will be back even worse.”

Each experiment brought Joe and the team closer to the root cause – which was remarkable, and as usual, remote from the point of discovery.

“Holy cow,” Joe said, “you never know what you’re going to find!”

Joe and the team fixed the root cause, and added what they’d learned to their ‘Book of Knowledge’. (And their price was more than fair. In fact, I tweaked it so that Joe and his family can have dinner and a fine chianti, with our complements.)

Joe and his team are better at PDCA and practical problem solving than most executives. In fact, it’s not even close. (Executives do very little of this, no?)

How can this be?

Obliged for your thoughts. (In blogs to come, I’ll share mine too.)

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Justice, PDCA and Paris, part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I talked about the two aspects of Justice:

1) Adherence to a standard – e.g. a code, law, or for Lean practitioners, an image of ‘what should be happening’

2) “The habitual rendering to each man his lawful due” – Spinoza. In other words, ‘fairness’ – too each, his own.

I suggested that standards protect an organization from chaos, the force of entropy. If we relax our standards, our business results inevitably decline.

Then I asked:

1. Which standard do you think is best, freedom of speech or political correctness (not offending anybody) - and why do you think so?

2. What’s the purpose of standards in an organization, and in a society?

We’ve had interesting comments – thanks, all.

Here are my thoughts on each question:

1. I believe freedom of speech is a higher standard than ‘don’t offend anybody’, and that we need to protect it.

Freedom of speech is also freedom of thought, and both are the wellspring of creativity, fun and prosperity. Without freedom of speech, there is no Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Zuckerberg – and no Albert Einstein, for that matter.

How many Steve Jobs have repressive societies produced? Jobs was difficult, opinionated, abrasive. So were Socrates, Copernicus and Galileo.

So were Aristophanes, Cervantes and Solzhenitsyn. So were Avicenna, Rumi and Naguib Mahfouz. Such people call it as they see it, and if it offends, too bad.

I’m sympathetic to our Muslim colleagues who found the cartoons tasteless and offensive, and to our Christian colleagues whose values are regularly mocked in mainstream publications like the New York Times.

But the remedy is far worse than the disease.

“Drive fear out of the organization,” Deming taught us. He was right – again. Fear kills kaizen, as does political correctness.

(Can you name an interesting politically correct author? Is there a funny PC comedian?)

Similarly, in an organization, kaizen challenges the status quo. Lean practitioners always face the forces of inertia, the corporate anti-bodies, that seek to stifle change of any kind, even beneficial change.

I remember a local union president fighting our efforts to reduce ergonomic burden in some very bad jobs. “We like our jobs just the way they are!” he thundered.

Thankfully, that was some years ago, and both management and the union have embraced a better approach.

2. The purpose of standards in an organization it to support our Purpose by making problems visible.

Thus, in my view, a corporation has every right to not publish material that might be offensive to its customers. In fact, it would be foolish to do so. Why offend your customers?

The purpose of standards (values) in a society is, likewise, to help citizens achieve their purpose – happiness, freedom and prosperity, or some permutation thereof.

Freedom of speech trumps political correctness, in my view, because it better supports happiness, freedom and prosperity.

In summary, Justice is about adherence to standards, and about fairness. Justice informs PDCA and the Lean business system, just as surely as it informs society.

Justice does not exist in nature, only in the human heart and mind. That’s why we treasure it so.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Justice, PDCA and Paris, part 1

By Pascal Dennis

A terrible week in Paris, no?

I’d planned to blog about Justice & PDCA. It’s impossible not to also reflect on those terrible events.

What is Justice?

There are two aspects:

1) Adherence to a standard – e.g. a code, law, or for Lean practitioners, an image of ‘what should be happening’

2) “The habitual rendering to each man his lawful due” – Spinoza. In other words, ‘fairness’ – too each, his own.

Let’s reflect on the first definition. Justice, thus defined, directly informs all elements of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, Lean’s core algorithm, and most obviously, the Check phase.

“Target, Actual, Please Explain,” was a core mantra at TMMC, our Toyota factory in Cambridge, Ontario.

Justice entails adherence to a standard, which could mean a manufacturing, legal or ethical standard. Organizations, and people, develop their own standards based on their Purpose.

The standard, in turn, makes OK/Not OK visible to all, so we can see & fix the problem. Hence the Green/Red traffic lights on our team boards, our Top Three Problem list and so on.

In an organization, standards protect us against decay, the powerful force of entropy. If we lower of standards for, say, safety, quality or productivity, our business results inevitably slide too. We get weaker.

For this reason, standards and stability form the foundation of the famous Toyota Production System.

What about the Paris massacre? Did the killers have a set of standards, or a ‘code’. Yes, clearly they did. Their code likely included ‘standards’ such as: “People who make fun of our religion should be killed.” – a revolting standard to most people.

But the killers, and their apologists, might argue they are ‘just’, because they live by a code.

Hence, the need for the second element of Justice: to each person, their lawful due. (Can any reasonable person argue that the Paris victims deserved to die?)

Justice, thus described informs Lean’s ‘respect for people’ principle.

Many people marched in Paris, including many world leaders. Were they all marching in support of freedom of speech?

Hard to believe - some the leaders who marched in Paris brutally repress journalists. So why were they marching?

Thuggish leaders were likely informed by the second element of Justice – (To each his lawful due), and not be any respect for freedom of speech.

I can imagine such leaders thinking, “The cartoonists did not deserve to die. Six months in jail and a hundred lashes would have been enough.”

In western democracies, there is now a competing standard to freedom of speech – that of political correctness, which may be roughly summarized as, “We should not say anything to offend anybody.”

Let me conclude with a few questions:

1. Which standard do you think is best, freedom of speech or political correctness (not offending anybody) - and why do you think so?

2. What’s the purpose of standards in an organization, and in a society?

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean & the Military

By Pascal Dennis

Fine HBR piece by Gretchen Gavitt on Leadership & the Military

My experience suggests that the military teaches important virtues:

• Clarity of purpose
• Focus & commitment
• Attention to detail
• Respect for time
• Teamwork
• Integrity

Military training can also provide a solid foundation in core Lean methodologies like standardized work, Level 1/2/3 checking, and PDCA.

(The US Marines call the latter OODA – Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.)

My many ex-military colleagues are among the most thoughtful and well-read people I know.

A military career entails endless training - and waiting - for trouble that will, hopefully, never materialize.

This gives intelligent, capable people plenty of time to read and reflect.

If you want to understand strategy, read Sun Tsu, Thucydides, Livy, Machiavelli, Jomini, von Clausewitz…

(Avoid the academics unless you’re sleepless.)

To be sure, the military is prone to the large organization’s ever-present dangers: bozos & bureaucracy.

Wise leaders, military & otherwise, support various types of ‘predators’ to keep the ‘2 B’s’ under control.

(Absent predators, bozos multiply, not unlike rabbits in Australia – with similar effects on the ecosystem.)

In closing, here’s a sharp salute to the men & women who serve and sustain this honorable & vital tradition.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Big Data & PDCA

By Pascal Dennis

LPI Back to Basics Series, Part 2

"Big Data" is all over the Net, and rightly so.

Burgeoning computer horsepower means we're able to crunch numbers like never before.

Manufacturing, Marketing, Human Resources etc. will be able illuminate opaque areas.

Billions of data points -- molecular, customer and team member behaviour, for example -- can be analyzed, patterns identified and conclusions drawn.

Is that it, then? Can we fold up the management tent and let the computer figure things out for us? Can we outsource thinking?

Hardly...

Big Data, wedded to PDCA, is a blessing. Divorced from PDCA, it may become a curse.

Big Data can help us make correlations -- "When we do this, that happens." -- which inform our PDCA cycle.

But it's up to us to

• Develop hypotheses,
• Design & run experiments,
• Reflect on the analyses, and
• Adjust our hypotheses

It up to us to recognize the data that's missing, unknown or unknowable.

Deming, the consummate data guy, taught us that some things can't be measured.

How do you measure esprit de corps, indomitable courage, a sense of optimism, or simple decency?

Yet great battles and fortunes, achievement and honor, often turn on such unmeasurables.

As ever, technology, in this case, Big Data, comes to fruition only through the application of human finesse and intelligence.

So let's celebrate the Big Data's potential. Let's figure out how to use it to illuminate undiscovered countries.

But let's not outsource our responsibility to learn & grow.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

What Makes a Great Coach?

By Al Norval

I’m sure we’ve all heard about the often quoted 10,000 hour rule. The rule states that this amount of practice will lead to mastery over the given subject and thus to great success in the field. In fact, this is only half true. Practice alone is necessary but isn’t sufficient to lead to mastery.

Take my golf swing for example. No amount of duffing balls off the tee at the driving range will make a huge difference in my swing (Please don’t ask me what my handicap is). The reason being I’m merely practicing the same mechanics over and over again and end up reinforcing my bad swing.

What I need to do is to make adjustments to my swing and to do that I need a coach. Not just any coach but one who can analyze my swing, understand where I’m at and then introduce a deliberate training program that corrects my swing.

The adjustments are never easy since I’ve had years of repetition that have locked the flaws in place. To overcome these flaws and correct my swing I need to concentrate fully on applying the lessons from my coach.

I don’t have a swing like Tiger Woods so my golf coach needs to improve my swing by introducing adjustments little by little. Each one needs to challenge me so I have to concentrate on it to incorporate it into my swing. And I need to practice it over and over again to lock it in. If the adjustment is too big, I’ll just give up because it’s too difficult. If it’s too small, I won’t need to concentrate and the adjustments won’t get locked in. Concentration is often something that gets overlooked but it’s concentration that creates the neural pathways in our brains that lock in the learning. As these get locked in they become automatic and provides a foundation upon which to make the next improvement.

The last thing I need is a good feedback loop so as I try to make these adjustments I can see if they are working or not. On the driving range that usually means looking at the end result by admiring the flight of the ball. The problem is I’m looking at the end result and not the process of the swing. A better way would be to look at a video of my swing or to have a mirror set up so I could see what my swing looked like. Quick feedback on the process.

What makes a good coach?

• The ability to Grasp the Situation and understand the student’s current condition
• Having a well-designed teaching curriculum
• Setting targets that challenge students but are still attainable
• Understands the right process will deliver the right results
• Provides quick feedback on the process
• Inspires the student to concentrate on the process

Sounds like a PDCA loop and it is but it must applied with a human touch.

What separate good golf coaches from good business coaches? Very little – it’s all about the coaching process. The subject matter changes but the process remains the same.

Do any of you know any good coaches? If so, what is it about them that makes them a good coach? I’d love to hear from you.

Cheers

PDCA - the Pounding Heart Muscle of Life

By Pascal Dennis

LPI Back to Basics Series, Part 1

Plan-Do-Check-Adjust - so easy to say.

An inexperienced young fellow recently said to me, "PDCA is too easy. I need something more..."

At his age, I was thick too. The mist gradually cleared for me, as I'm sure it will for him.

My Toyota sensei once said, "Ten years to learn Plan, ten for Do, ten for Check and ten for adjust. I am beginning to understand PDCA now."

Forty years - for one the world's top auto executives.

There isn't much that's truly new. And there are eternal verities, like PDCA.

How often are we distracted, like crows, by the latest shiny object?

How many people are distracted by the latest get-rich-quick scheme -- Real Estate! Gold! Emerging Markets!

How many folks fall under the spell of latest & greatest motivational speaker?

Some of these may have merit in the short term.

But the real road to success is PDCA, the pounding heart muscle of the universe.

Inhale & exhale, expand & contract, wax & wane.

PDCA distinguishes us from the animals. It informs, or should inform, all human activity

So with all respect to Tom Robbins and Oprah, we already know the answer.

The 'silver bullet' is right in front of us. It's difficult, humbling work, but it works.

As we used to say at our old Toyota factory, "If you follow the recipe, you get a Big Mac every time..."

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

PDCA & Wakefulness

By Pascal Dennis

We live our lives asleep...

A recurrent theme with philosophers.

In our consulting work & in my books, I call it the fog.

Those of you who work in large corporations know what I mean.

Everything is blurry - our Purpose, Processes, Expected Outcomes.

What game are we playing?

Are we winning or losing?

Plan-Do-Check-Adjust is about wakefulness.

It's embedded tests which serve as prods - "Hey, wake up!"

That's why it takes a lifetime to learn.

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean Fundamentals & Strategy Deployment

By Pascal Dennis

Strategy Deployment makes problems visible.

The core process steps are:

1. Develop the Plan
2. Deploy the Plan
3. Monitor the Plan
4. Improve the system

Each step entails a deep, shared understanding of Lean fundamentals.



To develop a good Plan, for example, we need to Go See and grasp the situation thereby.

But this is difficult if our visual management and information flow are poor.

It'll be doubly hard if our managers hide problems because of dysfunctional mental models.

Similarly, improving the system requires a solid understanding of Practical Problem Solving and root cause analysis.

Sustaining improvements entails locking in improvements with 5 S, standardized work.

Weak fundamentals are perhaps the most common failure Strategy Deployment failure mode.

In summary, please supplement your Strategy Deployment efforts with a broad development of Lean skills - for front line team members, as well as senior leaders.

And remember, since Lean is all too clear, it takes time to grasp.

Best regards,

Pascal

A Challenge to the Lean Community

By Pascal Dennis

Here's a challenge to all of us in the Lean movement:

Do we practice what we preach?

Do we practice PDCA at the micro, annual & long term level?



Do we set time aside for improvement every day?

Do we have a personal improvement plan for ourselves?

Do we reflect on target vs. actual and make corresponding adjustments?

Or are we like the doctor who chain smokes?

Or like psychiatrist whose personal life is a mess?

(Do as I say, not as I do!)

We are what we do.

If we all we do is talk about standards, problem solving & PDCA -- then we are all talk.

But if we take time each day for improvement -- we'll become kaizen people.

Let each of us reflect with humility.