Agile Retrospectives = Reflection

In an earlier post I mentioned the similarities in agile and lean from a problem solving perspective.  Lean and agile are also the same when it comes to the learning cycle.

One of the principles of lean that I have learned is Create a Learning Organization through Learn-Apply-Reflect.  This principle helps drive home the importance of reflection.  Many people and organizations do a great job of learning something new and then trying to apply it.  Where most people and organizations fail is forgetting to reflect.  The reflection step is where all the learning and applying comes together to understand how what was learned can best be applied in the organization.  What worked?  What didn’t work?  What should be kept?  What should be changed?

A sign an organization is doing this well, is the reflection is planned and not a reaction because something went wrong.  The reflection is part of the project plan and will is scheduled upfront with no agenda but to learn and improve.

Agile has a methodology and a term it uses for this reflection and learning.  It is retrospectives.

Agile uses planned retrospectives, usually once a week, to take a time out and gather the team to understand what is working and they should continue doing.  As well as what is not working and should be changed or thrown out.  It takes a monumental act to cancel a retrospective.  These retrospectives are ingrained in the methodology and help the agile teams continue to improve on their process and work.

This is a great of example of Lean-Apply-Reflect.  The agile team takes the learnings from the week, apply them and then have a planned reflection time a week later.  The agile methodology does a great job of fostering the principle of creating a learning organization.

Do you have any examples of planned reflection in your organization?

The Answer is Easy…Better Forecasting

Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever sat in a meeting where the discussion is about the high (sometimes low) inventory levels?  Do you frequently hear the answer of, “Once we get our better forecasting tool in place our inventories will be better.”?

This is a strong sign the company has not fully embraced lean thinking.

A lean company would not even have a discussion where forecasting tools are the solution.  A lean company is closely connected to their customers.  The goal is to make one product when one product is bought by the customer.  I know this isn’t easy for all companies, but the discussion would be around how to move in this direction.  Not how a better forecast can be generated.

There is one thing I can guarantee about a forecast.  It is WRONG!

I have never heard anyone say, “Man, I nailed that forecast!  I hit it right on the nose!”

Don’t misunderstand me.  I do believe there is a use in looking forward and understand what is coming.  A company would like to understand if a peak or a valley of the product sales might be coming.  This can help set and adjust maximum kanban levels for that period of time.

A forecast is good to understand directionally where volumes are heading.  Forecasting is not a good basis for your entire inventory strategy.

It is a difficult mindset to change.  When you do and act on that new mindset, the dividends it pays are enormous.

Four Most Influential Lean Books

Recently, I reviewed The Lean Turnaround by Art Byrne.  The book was excellent and really struck a cord with me.  So while writing the review, I paused for reflection about what are the lean books that have influenced me the most and why.  I came up with a distinct list of four books.  Below is the list in order that I read them and why it had such an impact on me.

• The Toyota Way By Jeffrey Liker – This was the first book on lean that I read.  Of course, right?  It is the foundation of everything else.  All the principles clicked instantly with me.  The book showed me that others are doing it a better way.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean By Jamie Flinchbaugh & Andy Carlino – I read this book after learning and implementing lean for about 4 years.  The book took everything I had read from the internet and been implementing and organized it in a way that really made sense to me.  The principles allowed me to organize my thoughts and actions.  This allowed me to become a better coach/teacher/trainer.
• Better Thinking, Better Results By Bob Emiliani – This book was a great case study of how you can transform every aspect of a company.  Not just manufacturing, but HR, Sales, and Finance.  It showed how using lean to become more efficient can free up cash to grow or pay down debt.  Great case study that really reinforced that lean can be done anywhere and should be.
• The Lean Turnaround By Art Byrne – This book reinforces what I learned from “Better Thinking, Better Results” but Art also laid out actions to be taken to have a successful lean turnaround.  Art stresses and demonstrates the importance of having the top leadership engaged in the work and not just supporting the work.  It was the first book I read that is designed for executive leadership.

Deeper reflection leads me to recommend reading these books in this order for anyone that hasn’t read any of them.  It has a nice progression to understanding what lean is and what are some guiding principles to understanding how effective lean is when done throughout the entire organization and finally the need for executive leadership and how to lead a lean turnaround.

What lean/business books have influenced you?

Whitepaper – Comparing Lean Principles & 14 Toyota Principles

In 2010, I segmented a whitepaper (part 1, part 2, part 3) I had written comparing the Lean Principles I have learned from the Lean Learning Center to the 14 Toyota Principles.

The whitepaper explains how the 14 Toyota Principles bring to life one or more of the Lean Principles.  It breaks down each Toyota Principle and shows which Lean Principles are brought to life and how.

The whitepaper is available fore download in the Downloads section of the Beyond Lean.

H&H Color Lab – American Company Growing Through Lean

H&H Color Lab began in the basement of Wayne and Shirley Haub’s residence in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, in 1970. Wayne and his brother, Ted Haub, owned a portrait studio that had just landed its first high school senior contract. With a background in and love for color printing, Wayne chose to install his own color processing equipment in the basement of his home.

Business increased, and so did the need for additional space and employees. What began with Wayne doing everything from his basement has grown to 165 people and 55,000 square feet of space over 40 years later.

H&H customers are primarily school/portrait/wedding photographers.  The offer a wide range of products from photo prints to books to Leather bound albums and digital products.

In 1999, H&H Color Lab started is Lean journey led by Lee Gabbert.  Lee had been with the company for 5 years at the time and was chosen to learn more about lean and teach others at H&H.  They started by reading “Lean Thinking” by James Womack and Daniel Jones.  H&H also decided to get a sensei to help them learn as they traveled the bumpy road down the lean path.

H&H Color Lab started by setting up work cells, going away from a department mentality. H&H moved to smaller batches, moving cells closer to the monuments (that they couldn’t move), standard work, and lots and lots of 5S.

Muda (waste), lead times, late work and quality all had improved. In fact, the gains from lean had now freed up space that was once occupied by manufacturing departments.  It allowed H&H to take the space and use it as a training facility to help customers from all over the United States. Thus, H&H University was born. Roughly 3,000 square feet of space was now designed and transformed into a learning center, working photographic studio with equipment, mock up photography sales room, photography studio work area, kitchen to host all day training, library sitting room with sample products that H&H produce on the book shelves and restrooms. By providing training for customers (mostly free of charge), you truly can engage in a partnership that can grow.

All of this work allowed H&H Color Lab to make a success transition from the “Age of Film” to the “Digital Age”.  Understanding their customers and providing training and education others companies do not, shows how the most important part of lean, focusing on the customer, helps you innovate, grow and thrive.

Here are results that H&H Color Lab have seen from their lean implementation.

	1999	2012	% Change
Late Orders	3,076	25	99% reduction
WIP	10,421	1731	83% reduction
Redo	5.3%	1.3%	75% reduction
% Shipped Late	49.3%	5.8%	88% reduction
Time in Plant	7 days	1.1 days	84% reduction
Sales			22% increase

Lean Says, “Do the Right Thing”

A question that I get quite often is “What does lean say to do?”

My short answer, “Do the right thing for your situation at this time.”

When lean is not understood people think lean has magic answers for them.  This is easy to do when the mindset is lean is a bunch of tools and concepts that just need to be put into place.

They think lean can answer their questions.   Lean does not answer your questions.  Lean helps you to be able to answer your questions.

When lean is understood to be a way of thinking, a set of principles to help guide how you go about solving a problem then it is easier to understand that lean says, “Do the right thing for your situation at this time.”

A popular example is when people think “Lean says I have to have level flow, because I have to eliminate waste.”  If their business does not allow level flow or it does not make sense at that time they can get discouraged and believe lean is not for their business.

Hospitals are a great example.  Early on they tried to implement level flow, but they couldn’t because people getting sick is out of their control.

When it is understood that lean is about creating value for the customer, people have a different lens.  One way to deliver value is to eliminate waste so I have more capacity to do value added activities.  Level flow is one way, but in a hospital there are many other ways.  Once the thinking was understood, hospitals started to embrace lean.

The next you you hear someone ask, “What does lean say to do?”  Answer by saying, “Think in a different way and do what is right for your situation at this time.”

Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2012 – My Flexible Pencil

At the end of the year, John Hunter does a great job of facilitating an annual roundup of business and lean blogs at Curious Cat Management.  The roundup is a review of blogs by other bloggers.  This year I have the honor of participating in the Blog Carnival Annual Roundup.

A couple of years ago, I met David Kasprzak through blogging.  David is a professional that has worked in large companies throughout his career and recently finished his MBA.  During this time he started his blog, My Flexible Pencil.

David covers a wide range of topics.  He discusses observations of business he has from being with his family, like how helping his son pick something out for show-n-tell was a lesson in teaching people how to develop answers not directing them towards an answer.

David also blogs around business issues like continuous improvement, project management and behavior & culture.  At the beginning of 2012 David had a long series of blogs about ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment).  The topic spurred great conversation from many in lean and ROWE alike.  David wrote a few blogs on the similarities and differences of ROWE and Lean.  Then wrote his own thoughts after hearing both perspectives.  I think it is worth reading and developing your own opinion on the subject.

I read a lot of blogs and respond when I have time to as many as I can, but My Flexible Pencil has caused me to sit back, think and respond more than any other blog.  My Flexible Pencil is a great read.

Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2012 – Lean Blitz

At the end of the year, John Hunter does a great job of facilitating an annual roundup of business and lean blogs at Curious Cat Management.  The roundup is a review of blogs by other bloggers.  This year I have the honor of participating in the Blog Carnival Annual Roundup.

A blog that I discovered this year was Lean Blitz written by Chad Walters.  Chad is a student of the Toyota Principles and he does a great job of explaining each principle in a separate blog post.  Each post has an example of the principle that can be seen in everyday life.  If you are not familiar with the Toyota Principles I would suggest checking out Chad’s posts on the all 14 Toyota Principles.

Chad uses his business background to write about lean in business like the overproduction Domino’s Pizza has in their stores with all the pre-built pizza boxes.  He also points out how Domino’s can use standardized work toe fold the boxes in the most efficient way like the worker in the TV advertisement.

Chad also shows how the Toyota Principles can help small businesses in a practical way.

A unique perspective that Chad brings is his experience in working with professional sports teams and organizations.  He does a great job of relating the Toyota Principles to happenings in the sporting world.  The Miami Marlins inability to think long-term in order to achieve their goals is a fantastic post about Toyota Principle #1.

Being a very large St. Louis Cardinals fan, I really enjoyed the post about the filth at Wrigley Field (home of the Chicago Cubs).  Chad uses data sited from studies and then relates it to having a good 5S program in place and using visual management.  The morale increases everyone is happier.  Is this the reason the Cubs can’t win?

Chad talks about other lean concepts such as long lead times and how sporting organizations are losing revenue due to long lead times.  Texas A&M got off to a great start in football this past season and their quarterback, Johnny Manziel played well enough to be in the discussion as a Heisman finalist as the best college football player.  The university had long lead times on the jerseys for Manziel and ended up leaving a lot of cash on the table and fans unhappy when they couldn’t get one.

Chad has created a unique blog at Lean Blitz.  It is a fun and different way to demonstrate lean principles in action in any environment.

Great Direct Observation…A Quirk?

Last season a favorite TV show of mine had it’s final season (House).  This season a new show has started that I am enjoying quite a bit (Elementary).  The common thread in both shows is the main character is enthralled with solving the mystery.  The main tool they use is direct observation.  They are incredibly keen with what they see and what it means.

A trait both main characters share is the lack of social grace.  They can be considered jerks with the way they ask questions.  Yet, people overlook this because they solve the mystery.

I know these are TV shows, but to be that great at directly observing work, do you have to forget about social grace?  Does it allow the person ask more direct questions easier?  I don’t think so.  I may not be Dr. House or Sherlock Holmes but people can observe without losing their social grace.  I just find it interesting how TV portrays people with a keen skill for directly observing.

What are your thoughts?  Do you believe a person can ask questions and directly observe without being a jerk and do it at an extraordinary level?

Directly Observing in a Transactional or Service Environment

One of the lean principles I use is directly observe work as activities, connections and flows.  This sounds like a principle that would be easier to change.  In an environment where the deliverable is physical and moves between physical work spaces this principle is easier to live.  An example would be a manufacturing environment, where a widget is moving from machine to machine.  Is is easier to take the principle literally and go out and directly observe the widget.  A person can see the widget and the changes made to it.

Lean is not just applicable in these type of environments.  Lean is applicable in a transactional office or service environment as well.  This does not mean directly observing work is not possible.  It just means it is harder.

In a transactional/service environment you can sit with the person doing the work and ask questions as they do the work.  You will be able to learn a lot on an individual basis.

What if a group needs to learn and wants to observe?

It is really hard to cram multiple people into a cube or office…believe me, I have tried.  A different way to directly observe the work as activities, connections and flows is by creating a visual map of the process on a wall.  There are many types of maps and ways to map.  That isn’t as important as getting everyone to have a common understanding of what is actually happening.

The deeper purpose of directly observing work is to gain a thorough understanding of what is actually happening.  Not just one person.  Every person that is necessary must have a common understanding.  Reports can’t do that.  Neither can  sitting behind a desk.

There may be other ways to directly observe the work.  What is it you need to know?  What don’t you know/understand about the problem or process?  Once you understand what you need to know then you can determine how the way to gain that common understanding is for your situation.

How have you gained a common understanding around a process or issue?