TPS and Agile

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Over the years, our Lean Pathways team has had the pleasure of working with software developers – a fun, capable and creative group.

For some years now, the software world has been using the Agile methodology to increase throughput while reducing defects and lead time.

In my experience, Agile and the Toyota Production System (TPS) are entirely simpatico.

In fact, it seems clear to me that Agile is a child (or perhaps grandchild) of TPS.

Core TPS principles and methodologies like visual management, team huddles (scrums), rapid experimentation and total involvement are central to Agile.

As you may recall, I am not interested in ‘theology’ – only in what works and lasts. TQM, TOC, BPR and Agile are all true, and all congruent with TPS.

All roads lead to Rome.

The clear and present danger for TPS/Lean, and Agile, is superficiality.
(Superficial systems generally attract opportunists seeking a quick hit.)

A set of connected principles and methods become a Way (do in Japanese) when they connect to your deeper being.

If our work is to last and attract new practitioners (e.g. Millennials) we need depth, which means connecting with TPS/Lean roots, and committing to years of practice.

Thereby, we’ll attract practitioners (deshi in Japanese) who’ll further develop the Way, and attract future deshi.

Best regards,

Pascal




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

Lean Means Don’t Be a Dumb-Ass
Scatter - Our Nemesis
The Biggest Weakness is Contemporary Business Culture?
What Makes a Great Sensei?

TPS and Agile

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

The past few years our Lean Pathways team has had the pleasure of working with software developers – a fun, capable and creative group.

For some years now, the software world has been using the Agile methodology to increase throughput while reducing defects and lead time.

In my experience, Agile and the Toyota Production System (TPS) are entirely simpatico.

In fact, it seems clear to me that Agile is a child (or perhaps grandchild) of TPS.

Core TPS principles and methodologies like visual management, team huddles (scrums), rapid experimentation and total involvement are central to Agile.

As you may recall, I am not interested in ‘theology’ – only in what works and lasts. TQM, TOC, BPR and Agile are all true, and all congruent with TPS.

All roads lead to Rome.

The clear and present danger for TPS/Lean, and Agile, is superficiality.
(Superficial systems generally attract opportunists seeking a quick hit.)

A set of connected principles and methods become a Way (do in Japanese) when they connect to your deeper being.

If our work is to last and attract new practitioners (e.g. Millennials) we need depth, which means connecting with TPS/Lean roots, and committing to years of practice.

Thereby, we’ll attract practitioners (deshi in Japanese) who’ll further develop the Way, and attract future deshi.

Best regards,

Pascal


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

Beware INITIATIVES
Point, Flow & System Improvement
Andon – Putting Quality at the Forefront
Lean Outside the Factory - Reverse Magic!

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

TPS and Agile

By Pascal Dennis

The past few years our Lean Pathways team has had the pleasure of working with software developers – a fun, capable and creative group.

For some years now, the software world has been using the Agile methodology to increase throughput while reducing defects and lead time.

In my experience, Agile and the Toyota Production System (TPS) are entirely simpatico.

In fact, it seems clear to me that Agile is a child (or perhaps grandchild) of TPS.

Core TPS principles and methodologies like visual management, team huddles (scrums), rapid experimentation and total involvement are central to Agile.

As you may recall, I am not interested in ‘theology’ – only in what works and lasts. TQM, TOC, BPR and Agile are all true, and all congruent with TPS.

All roads lead to Rome.

The clear and present danger for TPS/Lean, and Agile, is superficiality.
(Superficial systems generally attract opportunists seeking a quick hit.)

A set of connected principles and methods become a Way (do in Japanese) when they connect to your deeper being.

If our work is to last and attract new practitioners (e.g. Millennials) we need depth, which means connecting with TPS/Lean roots, and committing to years of practice.

Thereby, we’ll attract practitioners (deshi in Japanese) who’ll further develop the Way, and attract future deshi.

Best regards,

Pascal

Pascal Dennis Bio

What is Breakthrough?, Part 2

By Pascal Dennis

Breakthrough comes in different flavors.

Those of us who've grown up in manufacturing tend to think in terms of Operational Excellence - whose objective is Efficiency.

We seek to enhance flow in our major value streams by reducing waste (muda).

Our breakthrough activities typically focus on Manpower, Machinery, Methods and Materials.

Taiichi Ohno, our Godfather & founder of the Toyota Production System (TPS), famously declared:

"All we are trying to do is reduce the time between the customer ordering the product and our getting paid."

The system Ohno developed is justly famous, revered & imitated.

But is that all there is to Breakthrough?

Efficiency is a splendid capability, and often sufficient in itself. But is that all there is?

Don't wish to be misunderstood. TPS, in my view, is one of the past half century's grandest achievements.

But in his travels, your business nomad has learned that there's always another mountain range.

Apple, for example, has repeatedly shown that Effectiveness - doing the right things - can trump Efficiency.

The IPhone, IPod and IPad are not terribly well made. (How many drops before your IPad stops working?)

Do the corresponding value streams flow?

But the Design is so elegant, it doesn't matter.

In this case, getting the right things done, trumps doing things right.

In summary, the topography of business is complex & dynamic. There's always another mountain range.

Lean thinkers need to reflect on what we don't know, which far exceeds what we do know.

In upcoming blogs I'll dig into other kinds of breakthrough.

Best,

Pascal