Quote about Innovation

“Innovation does not happen on a spreadsheet, slide show or product line.

Innovation occurs in the interaction between people.”

 

Quote about diversity and innovation in organization

“The less diverse an organization is – whether in the sense of race, class,

gender or personality type – the less it can empathize with people outside of it,

and the fewer partnerships it can form.”

 

Mike Rother Quote on Lean

The ability of your organization to be competitive and survive lies not so much in solutions themselves, but in the capability of the people in your organization to understand a situation and develop solutions.

- Mike Rother

Continuous Improvement Quote

Highly effective people and teams do embrace solutions, not excuses

 - Unknown

Execution, getting things done Quote

If you wait for the perfect conditions, you will never get anything done

- Eccleslastes

The 5s of dramatic change

1. Stabilize the core business
2. Shock the System
3. Simplify your change process
4. Spark a transformatioin in attitude
5. Spur daily innovation
   

Learn By doing by Fujio Cho, Toyota Motor Corporation

"We place the highest value on actual implementation and taking action. There are many things one doesn't understand and therefore, we ask them why don't you just go ahead and take action; try to do something? You realize how little you know and you face your own failures and you simply can correct those failures and redo it again and at the second trial your realize another mistake or another thing you didn't like so you can redo it once again. So by constant improvement, or, should I say, the improvement based upon action, one can rise to the higher level of practice and knowledge."

"Fujio Cho, Toyota Motor Corporation"

The 3 most common problems in Problem Solving

1- Make the assumption that you know what the problem is without seeing what is actually happening

2- Make the assumption that you know how to fix a problem without finding out what is the real cause of it

3- Make the assumption that the activities you have done to fix a problem are working without checking to see if they are actually working and doing what you were expecting.

These 3 mistakes have the same issue in common, which is you are not going to the gemba to see and Grasp the situation. Remember that there is no better way to understand a situation that by going and see what is actually happening. This is done not only to understand the reasons or causes of a problem, but also to see and confirm that things are happening as they are supposed to work.

Time Management Series Post (3) The True North, your goals

Having a clear set of goals allows you to decide what is really important for you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Simply put if you do not know what is important for you, the chances are, you are going to spend your day performing urgent tasks that do not help you achieve your top goals.

So, How can you truly plan and manage your time?

1. Review your long term goals and priorities in your life
2. Review your long term goals and priorities in your company, department or team.

Knowing this allows you to identify the specific tasks that you need to pursue. The goals help you determine which tasks you should not be pursuing.

Does this activity help me achieve any of my long term goals?

well, if the answer is negative, you know that the activity should not be on your schedule.

Next: Trying to do too many things at the same time

Time Management Series Post (2) Understanding where your time goes

Do you really know where your times goes?
Often people wish there were more hours in the day when the answer lies in spending the time they have more wisely.

If you are able to get a better picture about where you are spending your time, you will see if this time is being spent effectively or if it is being waste in activities that do not contribute to your goals.

A lot of people underestimate how long things really take, if you try to do an experiment to find this out, you will be amazed all the time you spent in trivial stuff and quick phone call, these 2 could add up to 2 hours of your day.

Understanding when your are at your peak can help you schedule your time more effectively, for example if you know that right after lunch you struggle staying awake or you find it difficult to concentrate, do not use this time to read emails or go through complicated documents, instead use this time to group meeting or something different that prompt you to stay awake.

In order to find out where you are spending your time, try logging all your activities for a week. Try to record where you are spending your time. You should identify how much time are you spending on:

• Scheduled appointments
• Telephone calls
• Fire fighting
• Unexpected meetings
• Being interrupted by others
• Report writing and analysis
• Administrative work

Once you have identified all these activities, try to identify patterns in your time usage. You might find very interesting things like : unexpected visitors always come after lunch, or Fridays you are always spending more time on the phone.

Ask the following questions during your analysis:

• Does your time usage match your key responsibilities?
• How’s the payoff? you do not want to spend most of your time on activities with minimal payoff.
• What can be delegated? Remember, your role as a manager is to direct your team

It is important that you have a clear understanding of what your goals are and what you want to accomplish. Having this clear will help you identify activities that you should avoid or in which you should spend less time.

Next: The true North - your Goals

Practical Problem Solving (9) Step 8 = Standardize Successful Processes

Structure successes so that anyone can implement without muri, mura or muda

Share new standards through Yokoten (Yokoten is the process of sharing the success with the entire company. Can the solution found be applied to other area of the company?)

Start the next round of Kaizen to continually strive for the ideal situation

Develop a clear standard for the successful process. This will be your new baseline from which you will have to close the gap to your ideal situation

Ensure countermeasure effectiveness and identify what the checking process will be to visualize a gap/progress. What is the plan to Standardize and Yokoten?

Practical Problem Solving (8) Step 7 = Check both Results and Processes

Evaluate results and processes, and share it with members involved





Assess the overall results, and the processes used to achieve the results (Did you use a good process?)





Three key viewpoints need to be considered when assessing the overall results:

your own, the customers, and the Company's

Asking the following questions will help you do hansei on the problem solving process and the assessment process

–Did I learn from the process?
–Did it lead to customer and stakeholder satisfaction?
–Did we produce results or develop processes that will help the company?

Understand the factors behind the success or failure to accumulate knowledge and know-how. Please value processes as much as results, only constant results can be considered results (repeatable)

–Do not assume the outcomes of a project. See them first hand for yourself before evaluating.
–It is not enough to know what happening. Insight and improvement come from knowing why.

Next: Standardize Successful Processes

Practical Problem Solving (7) Step 5 and 6 = Develop and Implement Countermeasures

This is the part where you are really to get to solve the problem, so without preconceived ideas develop as many potential countermeasures as possible. Utilize your network of team members for ideas to get diverse opinions from inside and outside the company. This is an opportunity to seek bold and creative ideas.



Narrow down the ideas that are the most practical and effective. A helpful tool called a criteria matrix may be useful to look at items such as effectiveness, cost, risk, feasibility, etc.

Select the countermeasure to implement based on the overall evaluation of the proposed countermeasures.

Build consensus with others (Nemawashi) to achieve an increased level of speed and smoothness. Explain purpose, Target and overall problem solving process of Countermeasure.

Implement the Countermeasures

Create a clear and detailed action plan. When creating the action-plan, be sure to clearly identify the four W’s and two H’s of the countermeasures.

Who, What, Where, When, How & How much?

A helpful Tool called a Ghant chart should be used here to monitor overall effectiveness of your planned activities using the PDCA.

Helpful Hints: Identify an effective countermeasure that directly addresses the root cause. .

Ask yourself :

will this countermeasure truly fix this root cause?

Ask yourself

could this countermeasure create a new problem ?

Don't rely on past experiences. Involve all stakeholders

Make sure to follow up on the countermeasures to see them through. In order to accomplish this, check progress regularly and thoroughly communicate by reporting, informing and consulting with all your stakeholders.

Do not forget to also share negative news quickly since the news may influence what they are doing and they may need extra time to resolve issues.

Avoid potential risks and prepare contingency plans for unforeseen changes.

Never give up. If you cannot achieve the expected results, try other measures. No matter what difficulties we may encounter, through ‘trial and error’ we must always make the best attempt and strive to take the next step forward.

Next Step: Monitor both results and processes

Practical Problem Solving (6) Step 4 = Root Cause Analysis

First of all you have to confirm the situation of the problem occurring. Ask the following questions:



Do problems occur continuously or sporadically?

Do problems occur cyclically?



Without prejudice or preconception, consider as many potential cause factors as possible. A helpful tool for this may be the use of the brainstorming fishbone to help put your causes into categories.

Example: you can use the 4M: Man, Machine, Method, Material.....you can even add a fifth one Environment.



Confirm with facts through Genchi Gembutsu




You have a cause when you can show there is a link between the existence of your problem and the existence of another occurrence or condition.


The best way to demonstrate a Cause / Effect relationship is to remove or block the cause. If the problem goes away you have found a Cause of the Problem. This is how you check if you have found the root cause of the problem


Pursue and specify the root cause by repeatedly asking “Why?” and building a chain of Cause/Effect Relationships to the root cause

Stop when you believe you have reached the root cause and check to see if it this cause is effectively counter measured will it address all the causes up the chain?

When you are in the middle of this investigation listening to others, please beware of clarifying whether you are hearing an "opinion" or actual "facts". Example: It is cloudy outside, so it will rain today. The fact here is that it is cloudy outside, the opinion is that "it will rain today"

Next: Developing Countermeasures

What is a Process?

A series of actions (or activities) that transforms inputs (or resources) into a desired product, service, or outcome.

There are different types of work processes within the workplace.

•There is the process flow a “part/vehicle” follows throughout a sequence of defined work areas within production.

•There is a “standardized process” a team member follows that creates value-added work within a particular work station in order to ensure repeatability.

•In administration there are “standard operating procedures” that are followed in order to create a consistent output.

Practical Problem Solving (5) Step 3 = Target Setting

This step seems to be easy, but you should not fall on the trap. This step is very important, because you do not want to set up unrealistic goals, or set the expectations too high. Remember that Problem Solving is helping us improve continuously and at a steady pace.

Start with the prioritized problem at the point of occurrence.

Make the commitment about solving the problem

Set a measurable, quantitative, concrete and challenging target.

Be specific with the target, clearly identify how much and by when

Remember that with this process you are taking care of specific issues one step at a time, this will contribute to reduce your GAP to your ideal situation.

The following are some common mistake in Target Setting:

• Confusing "What to do" with the target
• Confusing the "Method" with the target
• Confusing the "Ideal Situation" with the target

These are some examples of good target setting:

Why do we set the target in step 3 and not in step 1 or 2?

Setting the target at step 3 can establish how much of the problem (GAP) we can address in step 1 by solving the problem to tackle. If we solve only one portion of the overall problem by solving the problem to tackle it the require us to decide how many other problems we have to tackle to reach the ideal situation.

It also narrows the focus for Root Cause Analysis therefore recognizing the impact of the countermeasures.

Next: Root Cause Analysis

Practical Problem Solving (4) Step 2 = Breakdown the problem

Break down the process in manageable pieces to solve one at a time as each may contribute to your overall GAP


In this step you have to use the 4W: What, where, when and who. These constitute the contributing factors to your GAP


Something very important to keep in mind in this step is not to ask WHY or to jump towards causes that might be causing your problem.






Use Genchi Gembutso so that you can look at what should be happening. This will also allow you to confirm the facts and determine the Point of Cause.



The point of cause is where the problem is happening withing the process. So remember that if the process it is not defined, you should try to visualize it, Where there is an output there is a process.



Some tools that help you visualize the What, Where , When and Who are Pareto Diagrams, Tree Diagrams, Pies and Scatter plot diagrams.



Now that you know where the Point of Cause is, you have to prioritize your problem.



These are some questions that will help you set a priority for your problem:

•Level of Importance

–Does this effect my group/department KPI’s?
–Does this affect a department hoshin item?
–How long has this problem existed?
–What impact does this have on team members?
–What impact does this have on the company?


•Level of Urgency


–Who does this problem affect?
–Does it affect the groups KPI’s?

•Potential for Expansion


–What will happen if I ignore this problem?
–Will it stay the same?
–Could it get worse?



(Next: Target Setting)

Practical Problem Solving (3) Step 1 = Clarify the Problem

During this step the person or team that is solving the problem should basically do 3 things.



a) Clarify what the current situation is

b) Clarify what the Ideal/Target situation is and

c) Visualize what the gap between the two is. (here is where you need to quantify What is Happening and What Should Be Happening also know as WIH vs. WSBH)



Visualizing the Current Situation, Target and Gap:





A very important question that you and your team need to ask is:


How does solving this problem align with company expectations?

This is a very important question, since you do not want to spend resources in doing things that are not align or are contributing to the overall goals of the company. For this reason is it so important that everybody understand the vision and the plan that the company has in order to achieve the vision. Please see the post about Blue Sky.

During this step please consider the following questions that will help you clarify your problem:

- Why am I looking at this problem?

- How does solving this problem relate to the purpose of my work in my current role?

- What is my Ultimate Goal in solving this problem?

- How solving this problem will add value to your company?

Next: Break down the Problem

Practical Problem Solving (2) 8 Steps for problem solving

The 8 steps of the practical problem solving are a more detailed application of the PDCA cycle:

the 8 steps are:

1 - Clarify and validate the problem

2- Breakdown the problem and identify any deviations from your target

3- Set an improvement target

4- Perform the root cause analysis

5- Develop the countermeasures

6- See the countermeasures through (implement the countermeasures)

7- Monitor / Check / Control the results and the processes

8- Standardize Successful processes and adjust accordingly

As you can see steps 1 to 5 are activities that we do within the PLAN of the PDCA. The other steps are the DO = implementing your countermeasures, CHECK = Monitor your results and processes and ADJUST/ACT= Standardize successful processes and adjust accordingly. (Please see diagram)

Next: Step 1- Clarify the Problem

Practical Problem Solving (1) What is a problem?

During the next posts we will be covering the 8 steps of practical problem solving.

Let's start by defining what a problem is.
According to Toyota, PROBLEMS are the GOLDEN EGGS of KAIZEN.

A problem is not a negative word, on the contrary, a problem is something that it is nice to have, because a problem is an opportunity, an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to get better at something. As Taiichi Ohno once said, no one has more trouble that the person who claims not to have a trouble.

Problems are disguised Kaizens, that we need to aggressively uncover. If we do not uncover them they could lead to increasing cost for the company.



A problem is the deviation from the standard, the gap between the current situation and your goal or target. Please see diagram




Next: 8 Step Problem Solving Methodology