Hello everyone,
I am pleased to announce the launching of the A3 Dojo Website brought to you by the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI - lean.org). The web address is:
http://www.lean.org/a3dojo/
I will share the introductory message posted by John Shook in regard to the site and all it has to offer. I was asked to assist within the site as a Problem Solving coach or sensei. There will be lots to learn from the site, from others, as well as articles and resources shared by myself and others on the faculty at the Lean Enterprise Institute. I look forward to being a part of this online resource, and getting to know many of you by solving one problem at a time :).
Here is John's intro to the site:
Welcome to this MTL-mini site within www.lean.org a destination for thought leadership in lean management in general, "managing to learn" and the A3 process in particular.
The goal of this site is to narrow the gap between reading about how to create an A3 and actually doing A3 management. This site within a site is meant to be a shared space for A3 thinking, a place for you to engage with others on the nitty-gritty daily challenges of your specific problems. Even for you to create an A3 and own it in the process.
This mini-site emerged out of the 2008 publication of Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead. Managing To Learn (MTL) has been successful as a book. It has had strong sales in 14 languages, led to the creation of effective workshops, and inspired much dialogue and enthusiasm in the lean community. I hope it has also led to effective problem-solving, decision-making, organizational alignment, and managing to learn.
Yet the broad interest in A3s has led to a potential managerial hazard: a reductionist approach to the A3 tool. A narrow, short-term, instrumental use of the tool which prevents people from using it in the generative, people-developing, evolutionary manner in which it evolved. We found the same problem with value stream maps. People often mindlessly copy, as Jim Womack said, "getting the words right but not the tune." What is needed is for people to understand the deeper purpose of the A3 management process and to make this tool their own through practice.
Let me quote from a column I wrote introducing the A3 process:
"The challenge isn't in teaching how to write an A3 but in how to use the A3 as a managerial process. If the A3 was presented as a narrow tool, the deeper and broader aspects of the overall process would be lost. I really didn't want to just introduce yet another narrow tool. It has long been my view that using tools for tool's sake (where everything is a hammer looking for a nail) is one of the very biggest problems in 'Leanworld.'" ...
"The most fundamental use of the A3 is as a simple problem-solving tool. But the underlying principles and practices can be applied in any organizational settings. Given that the first use of the A3 as a tool is to standardize a methodology to understand and respond to problems, A3s encourage root cause analysis, reveal processes, and represent goals and action plans in a format that triggers conversation and learning. A good A3 has sound problem-solving -- science -- embedded inside, but it achieves much more, exemplifying this great quote by a great scientist: "
Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks, but an accumulation of facts is no more science than a pile of bricks is a house." - Henri Poincaré
In this space we will be engaging the support and dialogue of the lean community - a network of fellow practitioners, who range in their own journey from just beginning to highly-experienced. We hope you will share your problems and solicit the input of people who are facing similar problems, or who have learned something from experience that can help you.
Over the coming weeks you will read columns from individuals with A3 experience and advice. You will be able to share your work in progress and ask for coaching from others. You will be exposed to helpful resources for your ongoing work. Please join in this conversation and help us to improve the dialogue and practice of this important managerial way.
On this side of the dojo, I will be joined initially by my experienced colleagues David Verble, Tracey Richardson, and Eric Ethington. Eventually, we will be joined by others. And, hopefully, by you.
Please come join us!
Until next time
thetoyotagal
Tracey Richardson
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
What does the word "Lean" mean to you or your Company?
As I travel around the U.S. working with various companies that make a variety of different products, I realize a common denominator throughout them. How do they define the word "lean", as well as the word "culture"? What I have realized is very interesting!
When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the "tools", and that's what companies seem to want, so of course, that's what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the "respect for people" and developing the workforce as a team. I can't ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY - TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like "Lean", nor did we really think about our daily actions as a "culture". It was just in the atomsphere. It wasn't until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I've experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect.
I guess my point is many companies today misuse or even misunderstand the word "Lean". I suppose in order to practice what I teach, I too, must use a continous improvement approach to enhance my efforts to be the best instructor I can be in the minimal time I have with a specific company. In otherwords, how can I best translate my 23 years of experience in a manner of a couple of days? The Japanese call it "sharing wisdom". What I have learned is the more you call it "lean" or some word to label what you are doing, it tends to create the "add-on" feeling versus - "this is how we just do business"!
When I start my training sessions, to get a finger on the pulse, I ask each participant to define the word Lean and Culture. It's been amazing to see that a very high percentage of companies define it "only" as elimination of waste, or "do more with less" mentality. Which by definition can be a correct assessment of lean, but in my experience the KEY element they are excluding is ___________? Take a guess? How about PEOPLE--engagement, involvement, and development. To me, its the common thread I see missing in the vocabulary of companies trying to implement Lean, especially LEADERSHIP. The paradigm shift in thought that Im trying to embed in my sessions today is - #1 - Without people the tools with NEVER sustain longterm. #2. If you try to label your daily work as "lean" then it can be seen as the add-on.
What Im trying to say in a simplistic way... lead by actions. I spoke of this in a previous post go here http://thetoyotagal.blogspot.com/2011/01/pathway-to-creating-lean-culture.html If I lead in such a way that fosters the thinking and development of people by simply being "on the floor" and "asking the right questions", then by default many times - Lean and Culture HAPPENS, and guess what?? We don't have to call it anything but HOW WE DO BUSINESS.
Hey, its simple, its not easy!!
As Nike has said all along - Just Do It! No need to label, we surely didn't at Toyota. It was an expectation of our job, not a choice. Now go ask questions at the Gemba and involve those people!!!
Until Next time,
thetoyotagal
Tracey Richardson
traceyr@gmail.com
When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the "tools", and that's what companies seem to want, so of course, that's what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the "respect for people" and developing the workforce as a team. I can't ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY - TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like "Lean", nor did we really think about our daily actions as a "culture". It was just in the atomsphere. It wasn't until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I've experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect.
I guess my point is many companies today misuse or even misunderstand the word "Lean". I suppose in order to practice what I teach, I too, must use a continous improvement approach to enhance my efforts to be the best instructor I can be in the minimal time I have with a specific company. In otherwords, how can I best translate my 23 years of experience in a manner of a couple of days? The Japanese call it "sharing wisdom". What I have learned is the more you call it "lean" or some word to label what you are doing, it tends to create the "add-on" feeling versus - "this is how we just do business"!
When I start my training sessions, to get a finger on the pulse, I ask each participant to define the word Lean and Culture. It's been amazing to see that a very high percentage of companies define it "only" as elimination of waste, or "do more with less" mentality. Which by definition can be a correct assessment of lean, but in my experience the KEY element they are excluding is ___________? Take a guess? How about PEOPLE--engagement, involvement, and development. To me, its the common thread I see missing in the vocabulary of companies trying to implement Lean, especially LEADERSHIP. The paradigm shift in thought that Im trying to embed in my sessions today is - #1 - Without people the tools with NEVER sustain longterm. #2. If you try to label your daily work as "lean" then it can be seen as the add-on.
What Im trying to say in a simplistic way... lead by actions. I spoke of this in a previous post go here http://thetoyotagal.blogspot.com/2011/01/pathway-to-creating-lean-culture.html If I lead in such a way that fosters the thinking and development of people by simply being "on the floor" and "asking the right questions", then by default many times - Lean and Culture HAPPENS, and guess what?? We don't have to call it anything but HOW WE DO BUSINESS.
Hey, its simple, its not easy!!
As Nike has said all along - Just Do It! No need to label, we surely didn't at Toyota. It was an expectation of our job, not a choice. Now go ask questions at the Gemba and involve those people!!!
Until Next time,
thetoyotagal
Tracey Richardson
traceyr@gmail.com
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