Innovative Management Tools

Framework Flow – A Friday Afternoon Fun Song

Patrick — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 00:02:09 +0000

Have a great weekend!

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The Framework Trio – A Friday Afternoon Fun Song

Patrick — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 23:54:35 +0000

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Is the Perfect Storm Coming?

Patrick — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 13:45:03 +0000

In this thought-provoking exploration, the looming storm clouds of workforce challenges gather on the horizon. Assuming the role of a metaphorical meteorologist, we dissect the current conditions of the employment landscape with precision. From the struggle to find skilled workers amidst a sea of job-hopping to the evolving expectations of the newest generation entering the workforce, each observation serves as a barometer for the tempest brewing in the world of employment.

As the forecast unfolds, we paint a vivid picture of the challenges ahead. With a current and projected talent deficit and an increasingly mobile workforce, the pressure on organizations to attract and retain top talent intensifies. The risk of high employee turnover looms large, threatening to disrupt productivity and stability. However, amidst the storm clouds, there lies an opportunity for proactive organizations to weather the challenges and emerge stronger than before.

But fear not, for we don't just predict the storm – we offer a roadmap for navigating it. From offering new tools for matching candidates to roles to implementing structured onboarding programs and prioritizing employee well-being, we outline actionable strategies for organizations to stay ahead of the curve. By embracing change, fostering a culture of continuous learning, and investing in the development of their most valuable asset – their people – organizations can not only weather the storm but thrive in the face of adversity.

Article-Perfect-Storm-Coming Download

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The People Side of Lean

Patrick — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 18:28:55 +0000

Deep-Dive-The-People-Side-of-Lean Download

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DIAGNOSE Challenges Survey Intake Form

Patrick — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 23:01:25 +0000

Survey-DIAGNOSE-Top-5-for-a-Flash-Report Download

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PRIORITIZE – Priority Management Activity

Patrick — Sat, 27 Jan 2024 13:34:02 +0000

Multiple, new projects + Limited talent with special skills + Worker shortage = Priority Management Urgency.

With our ongoing surveying of Organizational Challenges (contact me to participate in the 15-minute survey), Priority Management ranks #2 out of the 28 categories polled with an incredible 94.1% of current respondents siting two scenarios that are creating challenges for them:

1) Project teams that launched into action in the past without an adequate plan on how to prioritize resources have created problems and now the company wants to plan a project in a different way to avoid creating problems. Companies realize that a different approach should be considered because the past way of doing things did not ensure success.

2) The same employees are on multiple projects at the same time and need help in prioritizing how to spread their time and talent.

Looking across the talent pool of people who will be on projects, certain individuals are getting pulled into too many directions and need guidance from “the powers that be” to define priorities. If not, burnout is a very real outcome possibility.

Enter the Conversation Framework PRIORITIZE – Priority Management Activity. Designed to guide a group of people through a process of taking a “laundry list” of things to do and assign the tasks to the available resources, based on skills. Having this view of who does what, visually, and with the perspective how overloaded a person might be or where skills gaps exist, BEFORE launching into the project is priceless information and help create a better roadmap for project success. The same activity could be used to review the myriad of open projects and who is involved in each one to spot overload for individual contributors.

Conversation Frameworks – Guiding the Power and Ideas from Within.

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Going Lean, Part 6: Avoiding Implementation Setbacks

Patrick — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 23:55:37 +0000

I’d like to focus this blog’s message to those who have already launched their Lean efforts in the last two years. Undoubtedly you have seen some “successes” and also some “failures.” I intentionally put these words in quotes because I believe that they are relative terms that are interpreted differently by people.

To some people, making any forward progress with Lean or moving into a more proactive mode is considered a success. To others, making small advancements isn’t enough so they consider the progress as a failure, disappointment, or not meeting expectations. You will always be able to find people on both sides of the fence.

Because somebody in the organization will feel that this “Lean thing” isn’t delivering to the promises, the best thing an organization can do is make sure that those things that typically drive lackluster results are avoided. By reducing implementation “setbacks” you will also reduce the pool of naysayers.

If you’ve been reading this series of blogs on Lean, the Top 5 drivers of Lean implementation setbacks will not be a surprise to you. However, it merits taking the time to pull these ideas together one last time. But before I get into that, I’d like to tell you a story about one of my clients.

I was asked into a small (35 employees) plastic injection molding manufacturer to do some Lean Kick-Off work. They had been talking about Lean for about 4 years, but never got anything going. The company was privately held.

During my first meeting with the general manager, he told me that he had two priorities – reduce set-up time and install robots on the production lines. I asked if I could interview the employees in groups to hear what their priorities were. He agreed and I took a few hours to interview the staff in groups.

One priority that came through in each interviewed group was a revamp of their scheduling process. Their business required being flexible to meet the needs of the customers. However, the line supervisors and set-up people were extremely frustrated with a schedule that changed daily, sometimes hourly. Even more frustrating to them was that the schedule was changed in the computer, but the set-up people only printed the schedule at the beginning of the day and then worked from that, unless somebody told them that a change had occurred or supplied them with an updated schedule. They spent many hours a week setting up a mold and the production run only to find out that the schedule had been changed and they needed to change the set-up. Hence, the long set-up times they were experiencing.

Another priority that came up was in a small, five-person department. This department was so small and “off the radar” that they often were “forgotten.” This group took plastic pieces and did secondary work to them – labels, subassemblies, etc… Their biggest challenge was that they would run out of glue. Yes, I said glue. They had a special glue that affixes labels extremely well. However, this glue needed to be refrigerated until used and it costs $18 per small bottle. But here are a few more details: The refrigerator was not in their department. It was in the plant manager’s office, and they didn’t like to bother him by going in and out several times a day. Consequently, they would wait until he was out of his office and then they would go in to get the glue. Sometimes they went in to get glue and there was no more because they hadn’t told the manager to order more. In these cases, they would have pulled the parts, collected the labels, set the jigs, and then went to get the glue, only to find out that there was not enough or any at all. To get more glue took up to five days without paying expedite fees, so they put everything back and waited for the glue to arrive. Then they started all over again pulling the parts when the glue arrived. Everybody was frustrated, but nobody took the initiative to fix the problem until after having the interview, hearing the story, and putting a reorder card system in place in the refrigerator. Such a simple solution for a problem that was creating an amazing amount of waste.

I wanted to share these stories with you because having a disconnect between what management believes is important and what employees believe to be important is one of the Top 5 drivers of Lean implementation setbacks. The Top 5 list follows.

Lack of Management Support

It starts at the top. If management isn’t fully on board with Lean, it will manifest itself in the areas under that person. Management needs to eat, live, and breathe the Lean principles and show the employees that everybody will be expected to embrace Lean, be held to the same standards, and make decisions in the Lean spirit.

If there is no Lean Champion in the company to help guide, train, and measure, the implementation will stagnate down the road because nobody is watching the progress and holding people accountable.

If management doesn’t recognize efforts at all levels of the organization, or allow supervisors and managers to recognize people, there will be less and less effort put into the Lean initiatives.

Lack of Management Focus

If your management team doesn’t have a vision or direction for the company, how can the employees move the company forward toward its goals? Management needs to be very clear of what is to be accomplished and why.

Don’t create an activity just for the sake of being able to say that you are “doing Lean.” Have a purpose and goals. I heard of one company that was in its third year of 5S (cleaning and organizing work areas). They had no clue why they were doing 5S because it wasn’t tied to their strategic business plan. In fact, they didn’t even have a business plan. They wanted to be able to say that they were “going Lean” and 5S seemed like an easy place to start. That is true, but activity needs to have a purpose.

I like to create focus by having people learn the 15 forms of waste and find ways to reduce or eliminate waste throughout the organization. Waste reduction will positively impact the bottom line, it is hyper-focused, and it will send a very clear message to the employees that they and their time are valuable to the company. It also frees up their time to consider the larger change projects that management might have in mind.

Lack of Empowerment, Responsibility, Accountability, Expectations, and Recognition

OK. I know I threw several words in this group, but they are all important and closely related. If employees are empowered to make decisions and changes, Lean initiatives will flourish. Lean is top down in vision and direction and bottom up in changes and behaviors. It takes both to get long-term, world-class results.

However, before you can empower employees, they need to know their area(s) of responsibility and how they will be held accountable for their decisions and actions. If you allow Lean to be everybody’s job implicitly and nobody’s job explicitly, your Lean initiatives will have setbacks down the road.

And please don’t forget to set clear expectations for the people. Explicit expectations far outweigh implicit expectations. As a company, if you’ve turned your Lean initiative into a program, instead of a way to run the business, you’ve set the expectation that people should also treat it as a program that may go away in the future. This counters long-term thinking and decision-making.

And last, but not least, make sure there is a recognition program in place to show your appreciation for the work that people do. People will repeat those actions that get positive attention and reinforcement.

Too Much at Once

The big ideas are great, but remember that people have daily tasks and responsibilities. When companies try to do too much at once, it’s just too much for the people to manage on top of their daily responsibilities. Very often the same key people become overloaded with too many projects at the same time and not enough time to get everything done. This leads to burnout and potentially losing the person. This is especially common in smaller companies where the resource pool is limited. Instead, focus on smaller, key improvements that will drive other results.

Too Much Management-Centric Focus

As we saw in the plastics company story, it is important to be aware of and in tune with what the employees feel is important to change from their perspective. They have their challenges to overcome and are looking for somebody to help them resolve their problems. (That low-hanging fruit that they see every day.) The company could have pushed forward with robots, but they would still have run out of glue – only at a faster pace. Management could have continually measured and cracked down on reducing set-up times, but as long as the scheduling problem existed, set-up times would suffer.

The moral of the plastics company story is to have management-centric ideas (big picture, strategically motivated ideas) in mind, but first address the employees’ day-to-day challenges. Employees will have little to no time to devote to big projects/changes as long as their daily routines pose challenges for them. Why did the company talk about robots for years without taking action? Key players in the departments could not get their heads around such an undertaking with all the other things that were consuming their time.

Focus on your change agents – your employees – first if you want to avoid a Lean progress setback.

Implementation Setbacks: Top 5 Setbacks

#1: Lack of Management Support

#2: Lack of Management Focus

#3: Lack of Empowerment, Accountability, and Recognition

#4: Too Much at Once

#5: Too Much Management-Centric Focus

Final Thoughts on Lean

Always remember that Lean is 20% equipment or technology and 80% people. Most people get that reversed. Getting people to change old habits, behaviors, and actions is not easy. Employees will be cynical, mistrusting, and scared at first if changes are forced on them without their input. However, they will be eager to change things that frustrate them, are wasteful to them, or inhibit their productivity. Management needs to step up to the plate and build trust through actions, not speaking.

Good luck on Lean.

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Going Lean, Part 5: Keeping the Momentum Going

Patrick — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 23:46:10 +0000

If you are in the group of readers that has implemented Lean principles in your organization, I say, “Congratulations” to you. I hope that your Lean Journey has given you the results you had hoped for – and perhaps more results than you had once thought possible.

If you’ve been on your journey for more than three years, you have most likely discovered how to keep the momentum going throughout the organization. For those of you who have not yet discovered how to build and maintain momentum, let me offer you some ideas and advice.

Appoint a Lean Champion

Once you’ve made the commitment to Lean, you should consider appointing a Lean Champion within your organization. What is a Lean Champion? This is a person who eats, breaths, and sleeps Lean for your organization. This person looks for opportunities for improvement and works with employees to make changes. This person tracks your Lean results and communicates them to the management team and the employees. This person facilitates improvement sessions (those soft skill Conversation Framework tools) and trains employees on what Lean is for your organization. The Champion is a driver for Lean but is NOT responsible for its success. The entire staff is responsible for its success. The Champion guides the people down the path to success.

At first, your Champion might start out in this role part-time. However, as the Lean momentum spreads throughout the organization, most management teams realize that the Champion must be able to dedicate his or her full attention to the Lean initiatives.

If you need to appoint the role of Lean Champion to a person who has another role in your organization, make sure the expectations are explicitly clear for this person. Avoid adding the role and responsibilities to a person’s current workload and turning the Champion role into an “as time permits” job. If you give the role to somebody whose main passion and first job is something else, they will most likely favor the position they had first and turn the Champion role into an optional role. This will give the employees the message loud and clear that Lean is optional.

One very important aspect of the Champion’s role is communicating successes and failures. People want to be part of something exciting and productive. When the Champion announces successes and gives credit where credit is due, then others become more willing to join in.

If you are serious about Lean, consider appointing or hiring a Lean Champion. The money saved through the improvement initiatives will easily pay for the additional headcount. By appointing a Champion to the staff, you give people the message that Lean is a long-term way of running the business, not an “as time permits” program or “program of the month.”

Eliminate Waste Throughout the Organization

There are 15 forms of waste to reduce and/or eliminate. They are:

Authorizations
Conflicting Department Goals
Inventory
Order Processing Time
Overprocessing
Overproduction
Purchasing Reorders
Scrap, Rework, and Corrections
Searching
Transportation
Underutilized Employees
Waiting Time
Redundant Activity
Wasted Money
Poor Product Design

Please keep in mind that while many of these forms of waste sound as if they only apply to manufacturing or operations, they can be brought into the office and administrative areas quite easily. The office area or an organization that sells services has its own kind of “production line.”

By regularly initiating waste reduction and elimination efforts throughout the organization, you will build momentum for years to come. So much of our internal processes are waste. Therefore, taking small improvement steps every few months keeps people engaged in the process and builds their waste elimination skills.

Within the Conversation Framework universe, we have a tool specifically designed for the Lean Journey. IDENTIFY- Waste Analysis Activity guides a group of people through a process analysis with the specific goal of identifying where any of those 15 forms of waste exist. For a short video on this Conversation Framework, please follow this link: A Conversation Frameworks Process Trio - MAPPING, SNAPSHOT, and IDENTIFY - Innovative Management Tools.

Create a Process Analysis Strategy

Very often we venture into continuous improvement projects after we’ve hit a crisis moment – a process has failed, or a customer has complained loudly enough to merit an investigation into the problem with corrective actions as the goal.

What I would propose to you is a much more proactive strategy. Instead of subscribing to crisis management or reactive, problem-solving management, subscribe to proactive continuous improvements or situation handling before problems arise. Identify the top 15 to 20 processes in your organization. Then place them on a review schedule throughout the year. When a process’s review is due, gather the process players and perform a process analysis to see where the process is working well and where it needs help. Confirming where processes are running well is a great way to give praise to the employees.

If, for some reason, a process issue comes up prior to its scheduled review, move the process analysis up and deal with the problem. However, take more than a cursory glance at a process by asking a few people “How are things going with process x?” as your process analysis. Invest a couple hours and really put the process under the microscope, get feedback from ALL the process players, and then make improvements. People need to understand that continuous improvement is their responsibility, not an optional activity, so make sure they get involved.

The bottom line: create a proactive schedule and drive improvement initiatives. Don’t wait until the crisis dictates a review.

Improve the Planning Process

Projects very often fail because of a lack of planning at the onset of the project. When there isn’t enough planning done up front (and I am talking about a few hours, not weeks or months), it is usually done later at a much greater cost because it involves undoing and redoing work that has already been done.

Therefore, set a planning process and policy in place for everyone in your organization to follow – no exceptions. This includes management. Their projects are usually (and rightly so) much farther reaching (strategic) in nature. This means that up-front planning becomes critical for minimizing waste. (see diagram for cost analysis)

Proper Planning Upfront Lowers Rework Costs

Another reason for planning at the management level is to model the behaviors and skills that you expect in your staff. If an employee plans a project poorly and wastes time and money, there are usually consequences. Make sure everyone is held to the same standards.

Celebrate Successes

It is very important to continually celebrate successes, show results, and build a great “cause” and culture within the organization. It may sound simple, but so many organizations fall short in this area. Whether you feel the need to celebrate the small successes, or not, somebody in your organization will have worked hard to complete a project. Many times, this work is above and beyond their regular job duties. Therefore, by not expressing your gratitude and celebrating the success, you run the risk of making people feel that their work has gone unnoticed, unappreciated, and expected. (Ever heard of the quiet resignation?)

Nothing will diminish future efforts faster than a feeling of being underappreciated.

So what to do, specifically? Plan your communication strategy. Don’t leave it to happenstance because it will look last-minute, insincere, and forced to your staff. Know what means the most to the people and plan your communication efforts accordingly.

Another thing to make sure you do is to recognize people for their contributions regardless of their position. I’ve seen organizations where the supervisors and managers were not allowed to be recognized for their good ideas. “It’s their job to think of these ideas,” was the rationale. When speaking to the supervisors and managers in these environments, they felt slighted. In some cases, they withheld good ideas from management out of spite. Not a good scenario for any organization.

Last Thoughts

When building momentum for Lean in your organization, accept and plan for having a different momentum in each area or department. Allow for these differences for they represent the varied dynamics of your organization. If you try to control or stifle a fast-paced department, you are defeating the purpose of employee-based improvement initiatives. However, if you have areas or departments that are slow to embracing the Lean principles, help them, guide them, and nurture them into action.

Long-term momentum comes when every area is involved and contributing to the proactive improvement of the organization.

Finally, be conscious of how improvement projects compete for time with your employees’ other tasks and responsibilities. Any momentum you’ve built can be slowed down or stopped completely if employees are involved in too many projects at once – taking them away from their “normal” job. It is a balancing act in many cases. Finding balance and not overwhelming employees is very important.

Momentum Builders: Top 5 Builders

#1: Appoint a Lean Champion

#2: Eliminate Waste Throughout the Organization

#3: Create a Process Analysis Strategy

#4: Improve the Planning Process

#5: Celebrate Successes

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Going Lean, Part 4: Finding Long-Term Lean Success

Patrick — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 23:29:07 +0000

How can you enjoy long-term Lean success? Well, the first thing to do is to define two key concepts. 1) What does “long-term” mean to you and others in your organization. Is the end of the month long-term? How about the end of the quarter? The end of the year? Two years out? Five years out? Most companies have such a reactive culture that they often have trouble going out past an 18-month window. 2) What does “success” mean or look like to you?

Let’s compare that to the Lean experts and perfectionists, the Japanese. The Japanese culture is such that senior management is urged to make decisions that will create a stronger company for the next generation. Yes, that’s right. The next generation. Their long-term vision is 20 to 30 years into the future. Since it would be extremely difficult for us to jump from a next quarter or next year mindset to 20 years out, I suggest that you take whatever your current definition of “long-term” is and double that. Once you have that defined, you have something to put in front of your organization that will help create a long-term mindset.

Top Five

Now that you have a long-term target for people to focus on, here are the top five things that you can do to drive long-term Lean success.

#1: Align the Management

Aligning the management of the organization means making sure that each member of your management team understands the Lean goals, supports a Lean way of running the business, has the necessary people skills to inspire and empower the employees, and is an effective leader in their area.

If you haven’t already heard of our Conversation Framework, SYNCHRONIZE – Directional Efficiency Activity, I invite you to watch the following video: SYNCHRONIZE - Directional Efficiency Activity - Innovative Management Tools

If you haven’t read Jim Collin’s book Good to Great, you should. It’s a fascinating read. It’s a comparison of companies over several years to see what made some of the companies remain “good” while others soared to the top of their industry, making them “great.” One of the first things that Collins talks about is how great companies get the “right people on the bus and in the right seat.” Having the wrong people on the bus and/or in the wrong seats creates a cascade of issues that challenge the organization. Having the right people on the bus and in the right seats opens opportunity for greatness.

#2: Align the Infrastructure

Aligning the infrastructure means many things: 1) setting and managing expectations across the organization; 2) clarifying roles and responsibilities across the staff; 3) making sure policies and procedures don’t conflict with each other from one department to the next; 4) having a recognition strategy that permeates the organization at all levels; and 5) developing policies that promote efficiencies and minimize waste.

While this sounds like a lot to do, once you have your long-term focal point established, aligning the items listed above should be undertaken by the managers and supervisors. It should not be bottlenecked at the top management level. Top management needs to guide, review, and potentially approve changes, but other levels must be involved in the change process.

#3: Walk the Walk

Management needs to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. Employees see what management does and if the message from their actions is unclear or contradictory to the verbal message, employees will more often than not follow the action message. For example, if a manager is urging people to find and ferret out waste, but then he or she is seen being very wasteful, the employees will not believe waste elimination to be a priority. If managers tell their supervisors to let the employees make more decisions, but the manager doesn’t give that same responsibility to the supervisor, the supervisor will be reluctant to delegate decision-making.

Employees have many perceptions of management. Some are founded in evidence, while others are without facts or adequate information. For example:

Management produces a lot of waste
Management is often the bottleneck to progress and change
Management doesn’t recognize employees enough
Management tends to micromanage on pet topics
Management always wants the big homerun, not a lot of small hits
Management focuses too much on the month or quarter – forcing quick fixes or pivots and elevating stress

Now this certainly isn’t intended to be a slam on management. It’s simply to show that perceptions are very strong and very alive in organizations. Employees don’t see everything that management does, and people often make judgments with very few facts.

So, what does this mean to Lean? Managers need to be very conscientious of their actions, their messages, their philosophies, and their decisions. It’s not that management needs to justify everything they do to the staff. Management needs to know when to communicate to the staff so that perceptions are accurate.

#4: Think Long-Term

I touched on this at the beginning of the article. To help you properly plan your Lean Journey, you should know what you can expect in the first three to five years of lean implementation. In the first year, finding low-hanging fruit (waste) is easy to find and eliminate. Targeting the easy items is smart for building momentum.

In the second year people become better at identifying waste because they hone the skill of looking for it. The low-hanging fruit is gone, so they have to learn how to scour the tree for the fruit.

In the third year the perception is that all the fruit is gone. Consequently, waste elimination activities get increasingly more difficult. Unfortunately, what happens in many instances is that the organization gives up and stops the Lean efforts. Mistake.

What Lean experts have found is that the third year is the most difficult and that after this point, organizations get more creative, more innovative, and more sincere about their Lean efforts. Lean has become the way to run the business and the “homeruns” are gone. Now people accept that it will be small hits and they start looking for smaller hits. Management support, empowered employees, and aligned infrastructure all contribute to the Year Four (and beyond) success.

#5: Empower People

If you come from an organization where the standard modus operandi is to have decisions made in the upper echelons of the organization, the simple thought of having your individual contributors making decisions as often as possible can be a scary thought. If you don’t have the proper checks and balances, expectations, accountabilities, training, skills, vision, communication strategies, and defined roles in place, it is a recipe for disaster. The shift to empowering people starts with getting this list of items in place. As the items get into place, the scary factor diminishes and makes way for a very powerful culture shift.

Long-Term Lean Success: Top 5 Focus Areas

#1: Align the Management

#2: Align the Infrastructure

#3: Walk the Walk

#4: Think Long-Term

#5: Empower People

[I have published other blogs on Culture Shift, moving from a reactive, problem-solving culture to a proactive, situation handling culture. I invite you to look for those blogs for more detail and insights or click on this link: Creating a Culture Shift from Problem Solving to Situation Handling - Innovative Management Tools]

Instead of doing a rehash of what I’ve talked about in this blog for a summary, I thought I’d put Lean into another perspective. Many people follow the Covey Principles. Those of you who do follow Covey know all about trying to find ways to keep people in Quadrant II. So much of what I’ve talked about over the last few articles is helping find ways for employees to be in Quadrant II and being effective, proactive employees. As managers, we need to create opportunities for our employees to stay in Quadrant II as much as possible. Once there is management support, clear direction, positive role models, empowerment, and infrastructure in place, people rise to the challenge and do some very incredible things. In the next blog of this Lean Series, I will talk about Keeping the (Lean) Momentum Going.

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Going Lean, Part 3: Lean Tools and Strategies

Patrick — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:26:29 +0000

In the previous Lean Series blog (Part 2), I talked about how to get Lean started in your organization. One of the first things to do when embarking on your Lean Journey is to educate your staff on what Lean is and what Lean isn’t. Aligning your staff to a common understanding is extremely important.

However, once your people know what Lean is, the next logical questions are “How do we do it? What tools and strategies are needed to help us start enjoying successes?” As explained in previous blogs, Lean suggests getting people to change their work habits in ways that will improve both workflow and the bottom line of the organization.

While it may seem cliché, I will use the analogy of the toolbox. A carpenter can’t do all the jobs he is asked to do if he doesn’t have the proper tools. And if a job calls for a pipe wrench, will he try it with a screwdriver? Of course not. To be successful, he needs lots of tools. But even more important is that he knows the purpose of each tool and how to use it effectively.

Managing people and implementing Lean is no different.

There are some specific Lean tools that are described in all Lean books and often referred to as the “hard” tools. 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Kaizen, and Kanbans are some of the basics. There are also advanced concepts that are used in world class Lean implementations.

The other tools and strategies that help drive Lean success are often considered “soft” tools. Many of these tools fall into the area of people management and let’s not forget that Lean is 80% people and behaviors. The soft tools are easily understood, but tricky to implement, and are, therefore, too often underutilized.

Top 25

Twenty-five of the most critical soft tools that help the Lean Journey success and put structure and organization around the conversations that need to take place, using frameworks to align the people (in alphabetical order):

#1: Barrier Analysis

Barrier Analysis is looking at what barriers exist that prohibit an improvement initiative from moving forward. In other words, it means figuring out what has made an initiative become “stuck” and then coming up with a plan to eliminate those barriers or obstacles.

#2: Brainstorm Management

Brainstorm Management is making sure that brainstorm sessions aren’t classified as a “waste of time” by the participants. This is done by putting structure and process to the session without losing the creativity. It is also important to allow ideas and input to come from everybody in the session, not only from the dominant personalities in the group.

#3: Collaborator Skills

Knowing what skills your employees possess, compared to what skills are needed for their position, and identifying where the skills gaps exist (potentially leaving your department vulnerable) is vital knowledge. On the flip side, your staff may possess skills that are not being tapped into simply because you didn’t know that the people had the skills. Having a profile of each employee can help managers make duty assignments with more ease and certainty during the Lean Journey.

#4: Communications Management

Communications Management is so underutilized today. We assume that people know how to talk and communicate with one another. That isn’t the problem. People talk all the time (sometimes too much) but they frequently talk about the wrong stuff. Communications Management is understanding how, why, with whom, and with what vehicles staff members communicate critical information with others in the organization. It is making sure that communication bridges are in place where needed and minimizing unproductive, inefficient, or ineffective bridges.

#5: Curriculum Development

Organizations need to train their employees. Having a curriculum that flows from level to level and addresses all five areas of skills development is crucial to a learner’s success. Skills and training needs to pushed to the lowest levels of the company so that the best decisions can be made during the Lean Journey.

#6: Customer Service

Without customers we have no reason for staying in business. We all strive to have superior customer service, but do we know what our customers really think about our organization, our products, our services, our policies, our delivery times, and countless other topics? By analyzing the customer experience from multiple angles, organizations can identify areas in need of improvement as well as identify reasons that explain why customers come back again and again. Many of these improvements can reduce or eliminate waste.

#7: Decision Analysis

Decision Analysis is anticipating the impact a decision will have on the company and its staff. The main drive behind this is to make sure that decisions that are made (or will be made), with a positive impact in mind, remain positive as the decisions make their way through the organization.

#8: Delegation Management

Delegation Management is a way to put a process in motion that enables managers (possibly micro-managers) to effectively delegate to their staff without feeling a loss of control. The process also creates check points to make sure that the delegation isn’t simply “dumping.”

#9: Departmental Positioning

Departmental Positioning helps formalize a departmental identity by way of capturing the text, messages, and content for a Departmental Communications and Positioning Guide. By having a single go-to document that aligns the department employees, serves as an educational tool for internal roles and responsibilities, and helps new employees come up to speed faster during their onboarding time, miscommunication and misunderstandings are minimized. When attached to an Organizational Positioning Guide along with other departments, the complete picture of how the various pieces fit together becomes clear.

#10: Directional Efficiency

Directional Efficiency is all about having everybody in the boat rowing in a synchronized fashion. It helps senior management, a team, or a department identify how well aligned they are and where they have areas for improvement. The boat moves along faster when everybody is rowing together.

#11: Employee Awareness

Employee Awareness helps employees get to know each other across a variety of topics that might not typically come up in the office. Nothing too personal but digging into topics that help show more similarities among the team/group than differences. Helping people realize that we have more in common with our co-workers than we thought builds respect, comradery, and appreciation for each other.

#12: Intentional Isolation

Intentional Isolation is a strategic effort to differentiate the company from its competitors in ways far beyond price and delivery. Those are important factors, but there are many other ways to be different in the market and create unique experiences for the customers that both embrace Lean Principles and gain market share.

#13: Internal Restructuring

Internal Restructuring is needed from time to time because of growth, staff changes, and organizational clarity to get to the next level. While often done in a vacuum and on a sheet of paper, making it a more collaborative activity with the senior management and key employees helps build trust, respect, and loyalty.

#14: Organizational Positioning

Organizational Positioning is the parent to Departmental Positioning. It helps formalize an organizational identity by way of capturing the text, messages, and content for an Organizational Communications and Positioning Guide. By having a single go-to document that aligns employees, serves as an educational tool for marketing and future initiatives, and helps new employees come up to speed faster during their onboarding time, the organization has a foundation document that aligns the staff. When complemented with Departmental Positioning Guides, the complete picture of how the various pieces fit together becomes clear.

#15: Planning and Preparation

Planning and Preparation is taking the time up front to determine what it would take to reach specific organizational goals, launch new projects or initiatives, or make significant changes in concrete, tactical terms. This planning helps to understand the readiness before launching, minimizing the need to regroup (and rework) later on, both of which waste time, resources, and money.

#16: Priority Management

With certain projects, the laundry list of things to do seems to go on forever while the resources available (and their skills) seem to be on the short side. Aligning the tasks to complete with the resources and their skills, taking into account deadlines, milestones, and dependencies can be a daunting task without a structured approach to tackling the list of to-do items. Streamlining tasks and priorities is a cornerstone of Lean.

#17: Process Analysis

Process Analysis is taking periodic snapshots of a specific process to ensure that the process is as efficient and streamlined as possible. It is a way to engage process players in the change process and use their improvement ideas to better the process. There is no better way to get their buy-in for changes than inclusion. Major processes should be reviewed every six to eight months to introduce the concept of continuous improvement, reinforce the mindset that change is allowed and expected, and make sure that current processes are properly aligned to the company’s goals and needs.

#18: Process Development

Process Development helps develop a new process (or formalize a really loose, informal process) from scratch. During the Lean Journey, there are many opportunities to think outside the box and try something new. As we know, efficiency comes from having processes in place for people to follow, but how do you go from an idea to a formalized process? For some people this is a difficult task and does not come naturally. Helping people go from concepts or ideas to specifics and creating a step-by-step process is important.

#19: Project Definition

Important projects deserve time to properly scope the work to be done so that time, money, and resources are not wasted down the line. Without a clear objective, scope, and approach spelled out, the project team cannot align their time, energy, and talent to make the project a success. Additionally, without a clear scope, team members can’t define deliverables, secure project buy-in, or define tangible returns for the organization.

#20: SWOT Analysis

SWOT...a four-letter word for some companies that brings up images of wasted time, too much data to work with, and nothing concrete that comes from the grueling session. However, when done well, under focused, timed, and controlled conditions, the results are amazing and very actionable. SWOT can be done at both the org and department levels with interesting results through collaboration and structure.

#21: Task Management

Task Management is looking at who wears what hats, how many hats, and if the hats are the best fit for the person. It is comparing and balancing workloads across employees. It is used to ensure that employees are placing the proper priority to the various tasks under their area of responsibility. Just like Process Analysis, Task Management is something that could/should be done every six months to make sure that how people spend their time aligns with the changing dynamics of the organization.

#22: Team Management

Team Management is very important. I explain Team Management as working with groups of people who are called “teams” by the organization and helping them define their purpose, their product, their goals, and their processes so that the team enjoys success. Great teams don’t happen by chance. They are created through planning, preparation, dedication, and intentionality.

#23: Time Management

Time Management is almost a misnomer. While we can’t “manage” how time advances, we can manage what we do and when we do something to be more effective and efficient during our day. When people get caught up and accustomed to doing tasks that do not add value, that goes against Lean principles. Helping people understand how they spend their days through a lens of value and intentionality, advances in Lean are possible in small, but important steps.

#24: Vision/Mission/Values Statements

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” Now multiply this by every employee going on their own path forward, and you can see why having a unified vision statement is important. Coupled with the “why” we are going in this direction (the mission) and what we hold to be our morale compass (values), and organization can move forward with less wasted time, more focused efforts, and a better understanding of the organization. This provides a north star for everyone, moving forward more effectively and efficiently in their Lean Journey.

#25: Waste Elimination

Waste Elimination, while it comes last alphabetically, is at the top in the Lean focus. Looking for and eliminating the 15 forms of waste that exist in organizations and processes is the first and easiest thing to do. Go for low-hanging fruit across the company. No department is immune from having waste embedded into processes. This is not any one person’s fault. The waste has likely been there since the inception of the process. This is not a blame game of who inserted the waste. Instead, it’s an intentional effort to ferret out and get rid of the waste. Additionally, people want to work smarter, not harder, and with less feeling of wasted time and effort. Several small waste eliminations can add up to big impacts and savings.

There are two Honorable Mentions to comment on.

Details Management

The devil is in the details. We’ve heard that over and over. And organizations are not immune to the need to pay attention to details. Whether it is worn carpet in the entryway, a cracked window in the warehouse, a grumpy receptionist, or a customer-unfriendly return policy, these things create perceptions for your staff and your customers. Left unattended, the perception turns into reality, and once a reality in your organization, people might begin to believe that management doesn’t care, so why should they? And so the downward spiral begins…and all counter to Lean Principles that call for small improvements and actions.

Product and Services Management

Organizations are expected to reinvent themselves, their products, and their services on a regular basis, if they want to stay competitive in the marketplace. That reinvention can be quite an expensive investment, depending on the extent of the changes. However, before abandoning a product and beginning development on something totally new, organizations should first look at their existing products and services from all angles to see where smaller, more manageable updates can be made, while still pleasing the customer. By analyzing products and services from 20 different perspectives, organizations may be able to update a product or service without being forced to undergo a total redesign. Small improvements that can have a big impact. The Lean way of thinking.

Some people try to hit a homerun with every improvement initiative. These tools and strategies help uncover and overcome issues – sometimes homeruns, but often singles and doubles. But who defines whether an issue is a homerun or a single? The manager? Hopefully not. It should be the employee because he or she has to live with that issue every day. A single to the manager is often a homerun for an employee.

In conclusion, remembering that Lean is about making small, incremental changes, the tools and strategies outlined in this article help do exactly that. But you first need to learn how to use the tools and be able to identify when a tool needs to be brought out of the toolbox. Should you want help learning more about these tools, that I call Conversation Frameworks, let me know. I’d be happy to provide more information and details.

Additionally, an Organizational Challenges Survey exists to help understand how widespread the challenges are in the company, impacting performance and hindering the Lean Journey advancement potential.

Lean Tools and Strategies: Top 25 “Soft” Tools (not Lean-specific “Hard” Tools)