Agriculture - The Next Frontier?

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The past several years the Lean Pathways team and I have been lucky enough to work in agriculture.

Good, smart, well-trained people, an instinctive grasp of the PDCA cycle, and a solid ethical foundation.

The soil, so to speak, is fertile indeed. (And the gemba is often glorious.)

We should tip our hats to farmers & agricultural industry. The past few decades, they've led a technological revolution.

Yields have increased exponentially through better crop varietals and farming methods.

Despite the dire warnings of the 'doomsters', food is more plentiful than ever.

(Just one example: India, plagued by famine when I was a kid, is now a net exporter of grain.)

Fresh fruit & vegetables are available year-round at reasonable prices. (My family has fresh berries every morning.)

We've seen marvelous kaizen in farming technology. Now we have to extend Lean thinking into farming operations.

Value/Waste consciousness, visual management, standardized work, and other Lean fundamentals, have the potential to extend & deepen farming's transformation.

Should be a great ride - GIDDY-UP!

Best regards,

Pascal




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

Lean Thinking in Software Design
Problem Solving and the Worlds of Reflection & Experience
Learning How to Manage
Bozos and HR

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

Ethics Enables Leadership

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Our Ethics blogs have generated plenty of good buzz -- thanks all!

A few more thoughts. Ethics enables Leadership - the way standardized work (STW) enables front line work.

STW reflects our current best and safest way of doing a given job. If we work to STW, we're confident we'll produce good quality & volume, with safety.

In a very real sense, STW protects us, giving us stability, continuity, confidence and freedom from anxiety.

Ethics entails standards of behavior which, if followed, provide very similar benefits.

The Cardinal Virtues, for example, provide constancy of purpose, mutual trust with team members and market partners, and reduce the risk of attack & prosecution.

Good Ethics provides predictability. Everybody in the organization can relax and focus on the job at hand.

It's much easier to achieve our Purpose, year after year. A pretty good return, no?

Ethics enables leadership. Good Ethics is good business. Say it three times aloud.

Now, it's damn high standard, especially for lowly sinners such as your faithful Business Nomad.

But we have to try.

Pascal




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

Leadership in Times of Crisis
More on Walt Disney
Walt Disney -- Lean Thinker
Do We Manage Our ‘Screens’ - Or Do Our Screens Manage Us? - Part 3

Pascal Dennis Bio

The Fog of Big Company Disease

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Last time I talked about Big Company Disease and suggested that a key symptom is The Fog…

(It’s fun capitalizing it, and reminds me of a goofy same-name horror movie.

A pal & I have had great fun making up horror movie titles related to, ahem, other atmospheric emissions.)

Joking aside, the Fog is deeply frustrating and debilitating. Here are some symptoms:

Your purpose is unclear. You're not sure who your customers or suppliers are.

You don't know if you're ahead or behind.

You can't see your biggest problems.

So you spend a great deal of time in the "spin cycle".

Life becomes unpleasant so you naturally look for someone to blame.

You buffer the chaos with capacity -- your time.

Eventually, you burn out.

The leader’s most important job, in my view, is making the current condition visible – by gradually dispersing the Fog.

Visual management, standardized work and other core Lean tools are terrific enablers.

Lean principles & thinking are even better.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

What is a Team?
Target, Actual, Please Explain
Why Do ‘Smart’ People Struggle with Strategy?
Social Media & the Lean Business System -- Risks & Opportunities

Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 2

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

“What is your thinking way, Pascal-san?”

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback on part 1 of this note.

The Lean ‘movement’ is indeed in flux, no? We need to reflect and adjust our activities in accord with the needs of our partners and communities.

How to do this? In my view, we need to double-down on Lean principles. Otherwise, may I suggest that we are essentially a skilled trade – useful, honorable, worthy of study and practice – but not a game-changing, earth-shaking, get out of town transformation.

Lean – aka Toyota Production System, aka the ‘Profound System of Knowledge’ (Deming) – is a set of principles that turn into methods & tools appropriate to the situation.

But many of us have become enamoured of our tools & methods, have we not? To be sure, Standardized Work, Jidoka, Heijunka and the like are splendid & powerful methods. But unless we understand & translate the underlying principles, our impact will be limited.

Principles are ideas; methods are the action that bring them to life. Principles are eternal; methods, temporary.

For example, principle like ‘Make Problems Visible’ and ‘Build Quality into the Process’ find expression in Toyota’s famous Andon board. If we focus on the Andon board, and not the underlying principles, how are we to help, say, a developer of financial security software?

Do we advise them to install an Andon board & all the related electronics, because that’s how we did it in our manufacturing plant? The IT company would show the ‘sensei’ the door – rightfully! (“I don’t care what you did in your manufacturing plant…”)

But if we reflect deeply on the underlying principles, we might come up with very interesting countermeasures, as have the splendid Menlo Innovations and their CEO Richard Sheridan – (two coders side-by-side, checking & confirming each line…)

Or we might have come up Agile & its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban etc.), as our IT colleagues did a decade ago.

Now ideas are harder to teach & apply than methods. Unlike methods, ideas cannot be turned into three-day, or five-day, or three-week ‘programs’. Ideas are not so easily monetized. But their impact is much greater, and the astute leader will notice the difference.

Much of my personal practice entails coaching senior executives. I start with the principles, to get their interest, then provide examples of how the principles have been applied in different industries.

Underlying message: “Lean is a transformational strategy, a game-changer…”

Starting with tools sends a different message. “Lean is like a skilled trade – helpful, useful, worth doing, but not a game-changer.”

Our Toyota senseis emphasized principles above all, and their core question is burned into my consciousness: “What is your thinking way?”

If we deepen our understanding & application of Lean principles (thinking), we’ll be relevant & helpful for decades to come – and have a hell of a good time too.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 1
What is Courage & What’s It Mean for Strategy?
"How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san?"
What is a Good Life?

Two Pillars of the Lean Business System

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Continuous Improvement and Respect for People - big ideas that deserve to be capital letters!

These reflect the infinite finesse of the Lean Business System.

They are yin & yang, masculine & feminine, mind & heart.

Each contains the other, as in the famous yin/yang image.


Continuous improvement is largely, though not entirely, an affair of the 'rational mind', which some people call the 'Left Brain'.

We need to know the fundamentals, including Value/Waste, 5 S, Visual Management, Standardized Work & the like.

We need enough problem solving 'reps' so that our core katas become part of our muscle memory.

Respect for People is largely, though, again, not entirely, an affair of the 'heart, which some people call the 'Limbic Brain'.

Respect for People requires empathy, and a solid grounding in core values.

Our readers will know, by now, that for me, this means the Cardinal Virtues:

• PRUDENCE,
• TEMPERANCE,
• COURAGE,
• JUSTICE

These figure strongly in my book, Reflections of a Business Nomad.

By the way, my friend and colleague, Dr. Reldan Nadler, has written persuasively about the importance of Emotional Intelligence in leaders.

I recommend his books warmly.

Best regards,

Pascal


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

Why Do We Learn More from What Did Not Work?
Failure is a Requirement for Innovation
KAIZEN – Small Changes vs. Monster Projects
Is Inventory a waste or a cover-up of deeper waste?

Neither Too Rigid, Nor Too Loose

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

When it comes to fundamentals like Strategy, Management System, Standardized Work, Quality in the Process and the like, it’s easy to become rigid and even doctrinaire.

After all, these are the concepts that underlie TPS, the ‘world’s most powerful production system’. In the circumstances, we’re right to be doctrinaire, aren’t we?

“We have to have four mother A3s – one each for People, Quality, Delivery and Cost! We have to have strategy A3s and dashboards for everything!

Standardized work means Content-Sequence-Timing-Expected Outcome! Quality in the Process means detect the abnormality, stop the process, fix the immediate problem and develop countermeasures for root causes!”

No doubt, you’ve heard this sort of thing too.

In fact, as we apply these timeless ideas in areas further and further from manufacturing, finesse is of the essence, and rigidity, a recipe for failure.

The further from manufacturing we get, the more important it is the we translate the principles, and not insist, “This is how did things at Toyota, or Honeywell, or Proctor & Gamble or…”

This is a major challenge for ‘Lean’ practitioners in these times of tumultuous change. Who cares if your muffler manufacturing factory has the best SMED process in the industry?

Demand for mufflers is going nowhere but down, no? But the principles underlying SMED – separate internal & external work, convert internal work to external work etc. – transcend manufacturing.

SMED principles can readily be applied to shortening changeover times in healthcare, aviation, and software design.

The same applies to any ‘Lean’ principle. Principles are eternal, countermeasures temporary.

And this reflects the deeper challenge facing the Lean movement these days.

Is ‘Lean’ a principles-based profession, or a skilled trade? The distinction is important.

I don’t want to be misunderstood. I respect and admire skilled tradespeople. They’re an honorable and essential element of successful organizations.

But they’re insufficient if you want to transform an organization or an industry. For that you need principles.

Principles are harder to internalize than countermeasures. But principles are eternal, whereas countermeasures are temporary.

Which brings me to the title of this piece, which a wise old gentleman taught me many years ago. The old gentleman is gone, and I am his scarcely adequate proxy.

Neither too rigid, nor too loose, expresses reflects the subtlety and intelligence needed to apply principles in ever more complex situations.

It reflects the need to be humble and learn from quick experiments – because we don’t really know, and can’t really know what’s going on unless we study the situation.

As a colleague likes to say, “If your first hypothesis isn’t embarrassing, you’re not really trying.”

Good advice in a world where Value is often a vague shadowy thing, and changing with every new technological miracle.

Best regards,

Pascal

Where Lean Has Gone Wrong & What to Do About It, Part 2

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

“What is your thinking way, Pascal-san?”

Thanks for your thoughtful feedback on part 1 of this note.

The Lean ‘movement’ is indeed in flux, no? We need to reflect and adjust our activities in accord with the needs of our partners and communities.

How to do this? In my view, we need to double-down on Lean principles. Otherwise, may I suggest that we are essentially a skilled trade – useful, honorable, worthy of study and practice – but not a game-changing, earth-shaking, get out of town transformation.

Lean – aka Toyota Production System, aka the ‘Profound System of Knowledge’ (Deming) – is a set of principles that turn into methods & tools appropriate to the situation.

But many of us have become enamoured of our tools & methods, have we not? To be sure, Standardized Work, Jidoka, Heijunka and the like are splendid & powerful methods. But unless we understand & translate the underlying principles, our impact will be limited.

Principles are ideas; methods are the action that bring them to life. Principles are eternal; methods, temporary.

For example, principle like ‘Make Problems Visible’ and ‘Build Quality into the Process’ find expression in Toyota’s famous Andon board. If we focus on the Andon board, and not the underlying principles, how are we to help, say, a developer of financial security software?

Do we advise them to install an Andon board & all the related electronics, because that’s how we did it in our manufacturing plant? The IT company would show the ‘sensei’ the door – rightfully! (“I don’t care what you did in your manufacturing plant…”)

But if we reflect deeply on the underlying principles, we might come up with very interesting countermeasures, as have the splendid Menlo Innovations and their CEO Richard Sheridan – (two coders side-by-side, checking & confirming each line…)

Or we might have come up Agile & its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban etc.), as our IT colleagues did a decade ago.

Now ideas are harder to teach & apply than methods. Unlike methods, ideas cannot be turned into three-day, or five-day, or three-week ‘programs’. Ideas are not so easily monetized. But their impact is much greater, and the astute leader will notice the difference.

Much of my personal practice entails coaching senior executives. I start with the principles, to get their interest, then provide examples of how the principles have been applied in different industries.

Underlying message: “Lean is a transformational strategy, a game-changer…”

Starting with tools sends a different message. “Lean is like a skilled trade – helpful, useful, worth doing, but not a game-changer.”

Our Toyota senseis emphasized principles above all, and their core question is burned into my consciousness: “What is your thinking way?”

If we deepen our understanding & application of Lean principles (thinking), we’ll be relevant & helpful for decades to come – and have a hell of a good time too.

Best regards,

Pascal

Lean is a System

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The eternal verities are just that, and we need to keep returning to them.

Lean methods have such an appealing clarity and intuitiveness that we can easily lose sight of the most important thing:

They’re just tools – methods, drills, routines that are part of a broader system and set of principles.

And that system, which some people call the Toyota Production System (TPS), helps us continually address the most important questions of management:

• What is our Purpose?
• What should be happening?
• What is actually happening?
• How do we get back to a good condition?
• What is our ideal condition?
• What will we do next to get closer to our ideal condition?

These questions are a fractal, of course, and apply at all levels from the front line (Level 1) on up.

And as parts of a system, Lean methods must express the core principles, and connect to:

• Purpose, and
• One another

If a given method, say 5S, does not connect to our over-arching Purpose, by helping to make problems visible, for example, why are we doing it?

And a given method like 5S only makes lasting sense and provides lasting value if it is connected to other methods, which in turn are connected to Purpose.

So 5S is connected to Standardized Work, which is connected to building quality into the process, which is essential if we are to flow our products & services to our customers, which is essential to meeting our Purpose.

You get the idea. Sorry to belabor the point, but losing sight of our core principles and purpose is a clear & present danger, perhaps the biggest one facing the ‘Lean movement’.

If we navigate according to our principles & purpose, we can change the world.

If not, we’ll perhaps deliver some helpful cost savings, and while being relegated to the dusty & damp management tool shed.

Best regards,

Pascal

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

Agriculture - The Next Frontier?

By Pascal Dennis

The past several years the Lean Pathways team and I have been lucky enough to work in agriculture.

Good, smart, well-trained people, an instinctive grasp of the PDCA cycle, and a solid ethical foundation.

The soil, so to speak, is fertile indeed. (And the gemba is often glorious.)

We should tip our hats to farmers & agricultural industry. The past few decades, they've led a technological revolution.

Yields have increased exponentially through better crop varietals and farming methods.

Despite the dire warnings of the 'doomsters', food is more plentiful than ever.

(Just one example: India, plagued by famine when I was a kid, is now a net exporter of grain.)

Fresh fruit & vegetables are available year-round at reasonable prices. (My family has fresh berries every morning.)

We've seen marvelous kaizen in farming technology. Now we have to extend Lean thinking into farming operations.

Value/Waste consciousness, visual management, standardized work, and other Lean fundamentals, have the potential to extend & deepen farming's transformation.

Should be a great ride - GIDDY-UP!

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reflections on Physicians’ NEJM Rant

By Pascal Dennis

Jan 14 issue of NEJM included an interesting Opinion Page piece by Drs Hartzband and Groopman

With all due respect, the good doctors voice opinions that were canards a century ago, and are outright howlers today.

Here are just a few:

• Standardization does not apply in medicine


• People are not cars


• Lean means stop-watching the patient-physician interaction

The authors continually equate Taylorism with Toyota, despite the obvious and well-documented differences in philosophy and practice.

NEJM readers and many of our colleagues, notably Mark Graban, have provided a cogent point by point rebuttal

I’m struck by the authors’ degree of frustration and sense of grievance.

The medical profession is in the midst of epochal change. Used to be most doctors were self-employed. Now most work for large organizations and the trend will only accelerate.

Are physicians comfortable working in teams, thinking laterally, making problems visible, and having their thinking regularly challenged by uppity nurses, patients and others? Perhaps not.

Physicians are very indeed at good scientific thinking and structured problem solving. In my experience, they also quickly absorb other Lean fundamentals – provided we translate them together and prove they work.

Fair enough, no?

So to Drs Hartzband and Groopman, with great respect, please reflect on the all feedback you’ve received.

Lean is not your enemy – quite the contrary.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Quality in the Hospital Laboratory Process?

By Pascal Dennis

“We’re sorry…” CEO Toronto Hospital for Sick Children

Terrible story, folks, out of the Hospital for Sick Children. Sick Kids apologizes for drug-test failings.

Flaws in the Motherisk laboratory’s hair-strand drug and alcohol testing process might have caused some parents to lose custody of their children. Other parents might face unjust criminal convictions.

Children’s Aid Societies use the results of such tests to make decisions on custody and so on. After months of denial and deflection, the hospital has finally accepted responsibility and apologized.

Cold comfort to the victims, though. How many lives have been damaged?

As always, there are learning points. What are possible causes of this laboratory disasters?

Layout?

• Poor overall layouts result in chaotic work pathways, which increase contamination risk
• Work Area Layout – are all the items technicians needs to do their work within easy reach, or do they have hunt and peck?

5S & Visual Management

• Are reagents, equipment, slides and the rest easy to find? Is it easy to tell, ‘what is it?’, ‘where is it?’ and ‘how many?’

All of these increase contamination risk.

Standardized Work?

• Are there simple, visual standards for the lab’s core ‘recipes’?
• Are standards checked and updated regularly, and ‘owned’ by team members?

Team Member Training Process?

• Are lab team members trained in core standards using robust methods (e.g. TWI)?
• Are team members cross-trained to build capability and ensure requisite skills are in abundance

Daily Accountability?

• Does the hospital’s management system include daily stand up meetings in front of team boards wherein team members are encouraged to make problems visible?

Team Member Involvement and Problem Solving?

• Are team members trained in fundamentals like standardized work, visual management, and problem solving?
• Do leaders at all levels actively support total involvement and daily problem solving?
• Does the Human Resources system support and promote such leaders?

Hard questions, all.

My heart goes out to the victims.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean & Wakefulness - Reprise

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools 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!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me and its sequel, The Remedy, all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise -The Paradox of Standards

By Pascal Dennis

The Toyota Business system is full of paradox -- one of the many things that make it unique.

Standards are one its most paradoxical elements.

Standardized work (STW), for example, the best way we currently know to do a given task.

Our Lean Brain Booster pocket cards each that we need "simple, visual standards for all important things."

I was taught that STW comprises:

1. Work content,
2. Sequence
3. Timing, and
4. Expected outcome

Pretty ‘rigid’, no?

You'd think, therefore, that STW would be restricting...

But STW frees you up -- for learning and improvement!

My wife, Pamela, teaches kindergarten. Her class includes a number of youngsters with special needs (autism, learning disabilities etc.)

Children have difficulty with basic activities like tying their shoe laces, washing their hands, and going to the bathroom.

The latter, in particular, is rife with anxiety for many kids.

So, Pamela developed simple, visual standards for each of these activities.

Result: no accidents, anxiety or humiliation.

Effect: kids have more energy for learning. I'm very happy to report that Pamela's kids are thriving.

Lesson: Standards set you free.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Lean & Wakefulness

By Pascal Dennis

The Lean Business System, at heart, is about wakefulness.

Philosophers throughout the ages have argued that we are sleepers in a dream, that our grasp of what's actually happening is, at best, tenuous.

Many schools of philosophy and religion include exercises, prayer or meditation designed to "wake" the sleeper.

Lean tools 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!"

Strategy Deployment, the application of the scientific method to our enterprise, is also about wakefulness.

Our Level 1, 2 and 3 check processes, for example, should be stand-up meetings in front of a board or wall that makes "hot spots" painfully clear.

"Holy cow, look at that! We should do something..."

My books (Getting the Right Things Done, Andy & Me, The Remedy) all entail the protagonists' gradual awakening.

Let me conclude with a mixed metaphor: In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.

Cheers,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: Lean – Where are We Now? - Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time, I invoked nature’s sigmoid curve and asked:

1. Where on the curve are we now? Are we still in the state of accelerated growth – or has Lean leveled off?

2. If the latter, how to create a new sigmoid curve? What are the obstacles and possible countermeasures?

These questions have triggered fine discussions within our Lean Pathways team and among all our friends & colleagues.

Seems the consensus is that Lean is levelling off and approaching a plateau. Lean has ‘won’, if you will.

Lean/Continuous Improvement has developed roots in most Fortune 500 companies, and across a broad range of industries.

We have a significant and growing number of splendid Lean organizations.

It would be easy to rest on our oars. But if we did, we’d risk the fate of numerous other worthy “improvement” paradigms (e.g. TQM, Business Process Reengineering et al).

Here’s our next challenge: How do we get a new sigmoid curve going?

In my view, the key to generating a new upswing for Lean is two-fold:

1. Double down on the principles and thinking behind Lean, and

2. Extend Lean thinking upstream and downstream of Operations

I’ve written a book {The Remedy] & blogged extensively on number 2.

What about number 1? Increasingly, Lean is taught as a set of tools and practices – each worthy and helpful in their own right. Visual management, 5 S, standardized work et al are splendid, effective practices – necessary, but not sufficient. For a start, they’re unlikely to seize the imagination of, say, a Chief Information Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, or Chief Medical Officer – or of a CEO, for that matter. I spend much of my time coaching such folks. They see the tools of Lean as ‘Operations’ stuff – helpful, but not transformational.

But the ideas & principles underlying Lean are as profound as those underlying medicine, law or engineering, or any great profession. I was trained as a Chemical Engineer and learned the principles of heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid mechanics, unit operations and more. I understood that my job was to apply these principles in ever more complex situations – hence their power.

Lean principles are as powerful and as eternal, in my view. We need to teach them as such, and challenge ourselves to apply them in more & more challenging and complex situations. How well we do this will determine Lean’s trajectory over the next few decades. (It’s the challenge to which we at Lean Pathways have dedicated ourselves.)

Our nemeses in this great endeavour? Arrogance (Hubris), complacency, fear – the eternal trifecta.

Should be an interesting year - and decade.

Best, Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Why Do We Learn More from Failure?

By Pascal Dennis

Why do we learn from more failure than success?

Seems to me, it's because failure illuminates more of the design space than success.

Supposing we're testing the structural integrity of say, a hard hat, by dropping a heavy weight on it.

If we test to the standard, (say 20 kg) and the hard hat remains intact, you've learned something about what sort of blow it can sustain.

But suppose we keep dropping heavier & heavier weights, and vary the angle of the blows - until the hard hat shatters.

Our analysis of the fragments, breakage pattern, of the slow motion video and so on, will teach us far more about the nature of hard hats.

That's why experienced labs & design teams test to failure.

A caveat, as my colleague, Al Norval, suggests, is that we fail quick & fail often, so as to minimize hassle & transaction cost.

A second caveat: our failures are controlled & buffered so nobody gets hurt!

These same principles apply in strategy, product & process design and problem solving.

That's why we say 'problems are gold'.

We have to be comfortable, of course, with experimentation & ambiguity. Which means we need a strong foundation built on the fundamentals.

The fundamentals – Value & Waste, Standardized Work, Visual Management etc. – anchor us, so we feel comfortable with the inherent instability of rapid experimentation.

In my experience, the best leaders teach the fundamentals, then create a sense of free-wheeling energy & opportunity.

"Let's try some stuff -- and see what happens!"

"Holy cow, who would have thought...!?"

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Reprise: The Fog of Big Company Disease

By Pascal Dennis

Last time I talked about Big Company Disease and suggested that a key symptom is The Fog…

(It’s fun capitalizing it, and reminds me of a goofy same-name horror movie.

A pal & I have had great fun making up horror movie titles related to, ahem, other atmospheric emissions.)

Joking aside, the Fog is deeply frustrating and debilitating. Here are some symptoms:

Your purpose is unclear. You're not sure who your customers or suppliers are.

You don't know if you're ahead or behind.

You can't see your biggest problems.

So you spend a great deal of time in the "spin cycle".

Life becomes unpleasant so you naturally look for someone to blame.

You buffer the chaos with capacity -- your time.

Eventually, you burn out.

The leader’s most important job, in my view, is making the current condition visible – by gradually dispersing the Fog.

Visual management, standardized work and other core Lean tools are terrific enablers.

Lean principles & thinking are even better.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

Lean – Where are We Now? - Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Last time, I invoked nature’s sigmoid curve and asked:

1. Where on the curve are we now? Are we still in the state of accelerated growth – or has Lean leveled off?
2. If the latter, how to create a new sigmoid curve? What are the obstacles and possible countermeasures?

We had a fine response, as usual – thanks. Seems the consensus is that Lean is levelling off and approaching a plateau, and I would agree.

If so, how do we get a new sigmoid curve going? How do we avoid the fate of numerous other worthy “improvement” paradigms (e.g. TQM, Business Process Reengineering et al)?

In my view, the key to generating a new upswing for Lean is two-fold:

1. Double down on the principles and thinking behind Lean, and
2. Extend Lean thinking upstream and downstream of Operations

I’ve written a book & blogged extensively on number 2.

What about number 1?

Increasingly, Lean is taught as a set of tools and practices – each worthy and helpful in their own right.

Visual management, 5 S, standardized work et al are splendid, effective practices – necessary, but not sufficient.

For a start, they’re unlikely to seize the imagination of, say, a Chief Information Officer, Chief Marketing Officer, or Chief Medical Officer – or of a CEO, for that matter.

I spend much of my time coaching such folks. They see the tools of Lean as ‘Operations’ stuff – helpful, but not transformational.

But the ideas & principles underlying Lean are as profound as those underlying medicine, law or engineering, or any great profession.

I was trained as a Chemical Engineer and learned the principles of heat transfer, mass transfer, fluid mechanics, unit operations and more.

It was understood that my job was to apply these principles in ever more complex situations – hence their power.

Lean principles are as powerful and as eternal, in my view.

We need to teach them as such, and challenge ourselves to apply them in more & more challenging and complex situations.

How well we do this will determine Lean’s trajectory over the next few decades.

(It’s the challenge to which we at Lean Pathways have dedicated ourselves.)

Our nemeses in this great endeavour?

Arrogance, complacency, fear – the eternal trifecta.

Should be an interesting decade.

Best,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio