The Adjourning Phase or Police Time, Right?

Ahhh, the big sigh of relief!  You've survived another kaizen event.  You just had your Friday afternoon report out to the powers that be, maybe over a box lunch.  The team came up with a catchy name.  You shared the new process, the lessons learned, the team building that occurred and the all important kaizen newspaper and next steps.  You hurriedly clean up the hundreds of post it notes in hopes of getting out on time, which feels like a half day at the end of an event. Then off for the weekend.

This often feels like the end, but it's really the beginning.  The beginning of the cultural change if you really what to improve the overall business.  I've led kaizen events in a lot of different industries and departments within these industries.  Shop floor events tend to have shorter kaizen newspapers than an Engineering R&D event in the high tech industry spread across three continents.  So there are always different amounts of action items to follow up on.  The question again is, what's your role and how can you be most effective?

You have transitioned yourself from Director to Instigator to Teacher to Coach.  What's left?  One of the most common roles I've seen post kaizen is the Cop.  We've all done it.  We've got the kaizen newspaper in one hand and the baton in the other point out what hasn't been done and trying to beat the team into submission for not doing something they agreed to do while hyped up on the kaizen high.  While this approach may yield results in the short term, I contend that it's not effective in the long term.  Eventually, you will find it more and more difficult to get people to sign up for any extracurricular activities.

The team doesn't need a cop, they need a Cheerleader.  The kaizen event is the inflection point or the intervention for change.  The change must now be sustained in order for it to become the new norm.  Without encouragement and discipline, it won't stick and you'll be back in six months doing it all over again.  There are lots of one offs, what ifs and standard practices that drove the old behavior.  These distractions and the nay sayers make it very easy to slip back to the old ways.  This is where you need to continue to work with the team and remind them why they made the decisions they made and what the goal is.

Be sure to highlight when accomplishments are achieved and milestones are completed.  While the teams need to do most of it for themselves, remember they have gone back to their day jobs with all of its workloads.  You may need to jump in and help out a bit.  Help the team to program manage some of the tasks.  You should not own the list, that's the teams responsibility.  However, you can help coordinate the activities and do some leg work.

Kaizen events are fun and exciting.  They highlight the need for change and move mountains in a short period of time.  However, they signal the start of the change and your role as the Cop or the Cheerleader can make or break the success of the whole Lean Transformation.

The Performing Phase

We're finally on to Performing!  But how do you know?  What's the sign?  In moving from one phase to the next, it's less of a binary switch and more of a gradual shifting over.  In the Norming phase the team is working well together but relying on you as to how and what they should be doing.  In the Performing phase the team is becoming self sufficient and self confident.  Again your role and approach will change.  You will now shift from being a teacher to a coach.  As a teacher you train others how to do things they don't know how to do.  As a coach, your team knows what to do.  Your role is to enhance the performance of what they know how to do.  You will provide the tips, tricks and words of wisdom to help them become more effective and efficient.

In this phase of the project, the team is at a point of conscious competence and there are several things going on to which you need be aware.  First, while the team, "gets it", they haven't developed the experience and muscle memory to handle all situations they may encounter.  You cannot let your guard down and need to watch the team and help them work through the one offs, every project has, that could get them discouraged and delayed.  While you may not be required to be fully active with the team during this time, you do need to be fully attentive and engaged.  This is often the time when you as the facilitator are getting really exhausted and it's easy to go sit in the corner and catch up on email and become quickly disengaged. 

There's a second effect going on during the transition from Norming to Performing.  This has to do with the cultural change you're driving and the team you need to help foster the growth.  Watch your team during the shift from Norming to Performing.  This is where you will start to see the combination of those who get it and will lead it.  It's sort of an unintentional interview process.  If one of these folks is on the team, they will assume your role and start leading the team.  If you're trying to grow a lean organization, this is where you can find new recruits.  This was how I was tapped at Toyota to become a Kaizen Circle Instructor.

One more phase, and I won't wait a year to write it!

Chaku Chaku doesn't apply here

It’s probably because of my tool and die background, but Chaku Chaku and SMED are a couple of my favorite lean concepts. In the manufacturing environment they often involve making some tool or fixture and any excuse to fire up the welder and make chips on the mill is a good thing.

Chaku chaku means load load and it is often applied when creating cellular arrangements of work centers. Typically, the orientation of a part is critical during the setup for an operation. The part needs to face a certain way, be rotated against a stop and be fully seated and clamped. Whatever those things are, there are usually several steps and they require some degree of dexterity and thought (more on this and SMED in a later post). However, the removal of the part does not require any huge cognitive power or dexterity. Therefore, identify the simple tasks, like unloading a machine, that can be quickly, cheaply and reliably automated. Then leave the higher level thinking to the workers and set up the system so that more of their time is spent actually thinking.

Once the easy stuff, unloading, is automated, the team member can load several machines instead of just loading and unloading one machine. Now they are providing more value to the company, doing more interesting work, able to spend more time inspecting and they get a better understanding of the value stream since they are involved in multiple steps within the process. I always picture it like this:

Load = Duck and Unload = Goose. When chaku chaku is applied, you get Duck, Duck, Duck, Duck, but no Goose (which is usually a good thing!)

‘Yeah, but I don’t make widgets and chaku chaku just sounds funny so I know it doesn’t apply here.’

Okay, so let’s think about what chaku chaku is trying to do. First, it’s separating tasks into the categories of high skill and low skill. Then it is removing the burden of the low skill tasks from the team member.

“Do you do any simple, mind numbing, repetitive tasks?” So eliminate them! There should have been a huge red flag going up as you asked yourself, ‘so you think we should automate all those tasks? Isn’t that just automating waste, which hides it?’ Yes it is, and I’m glad you’ve been paying attention and no that’s not what I was getting at.

Optimize your process by eliminating waste. Then when you’re left with value added and necessary non value added tasks, figure out which one’s truly require your intelligence to perform. This is often the decisions and the analysis. Identify and isolate these items. Look at the other items and see if there are easy ways to standardize and automate them.

The automation can be a simple macro that pulls data from multiple spreadsheets giving you more time to analyze the data. This can be applied to when you log onto your companies online HR vacation system or IT help desk ticket system. Chances are, you’re already logged into the system, so why do you have to fill out who you are, your id number, cost center and mother’s maiden name? Why can’t this information be auto filled and give employees more time to explain what they want? I’ve seen programmers apply chaku chaku by automating their tests, giving them more time for crazy stuff like coding and use case development.

Chaku chaku enables the knowledge worker to focus on, well knowledge. Yea, it’s a funny name but the concept is powerful and can greatly improve the productivity, engagement and satisfaction of your team.

Andons don't apply here

Anyone who's part of a lean transformation in manufacturing will be familiar with andon systems. Andon systems are visual control systems that enable team members to signal for help or assistance without leaving their station. This keeps the value stream intact and brings support staff to them. Andon systems are usually made up of lights, sounds, displays and other technology to highlight an issue at the line. Let me now shamelessly plug Industrial Andons, www.IndustrialAndons.com, the largest manufacturer of wireless andon systems in the world!

Often times, off the factory floor I hear remarks like, 'andons don't apply to us, I guess you think we should have stack lights on our cubicles'. As much as I might like to sell light stacks to cube farms, no that's not what I'm saying.

The important point is not to focus on the tool but to understand the question that the tool was created to answer. The question andons answers is: How can we enable our team members to get assistance without disrupting their work? In other words, what is our escalation plan?

When I first worked with my Japaneese sensei, he would drive me nuts by saying things like, 'I see no andon here' while standing in the middle of the procurement department. It took me a while to realize what he was really saying. He was referring to the simple tool as a way to get me to think about the question that needed answered. It's sort of like Yoda speak from Star Wars, 'hmmm, only once you have andon will your problem of escalation be no more'.

So, the philosophy of an andon system, or escalation process is universally important. The manifestation of the solution will depend on the application. As you walk through any part of an organization, just ask yourself, is there is a standardized process for someone to signal that they have a problem and how it is addressed?

And then try to work in Yoda quote just for good measure.