Archive for Lean Thinking
Critical and Creative Thinking benefits the Problem Solver
Posted by: | CommentsBelow is a presentation that I gave recently to the Plantmix Asphalt Industry of Kentucky. It was during the winter training school and focused on using both Critical and Creative Thinking benefits the Problem Solver. It also included how to prevent the failures of most decision processes. This an hour long presentation. What are your thoughts? Any improvement ideas?
Related Information:
Quality through Individual Actions Presentation
Lean Marketing House
Marketing with PDCA
Lean Engagement Team
Marketing with A3
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: How to implement Lean Thinking in a Business
Posted by: | CommentsTracey Richardson’s How to implement "Lean Thinking" in a Business is my third and final blog review for the John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival. Tracey is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team member, team leader and group leader in the Plastics Department from 1988-1998. She has over 460 hours training in Toyota Methodologies and Philosophy and currently is a trainer for Toyota, their affiliates in North America, and other companies upon request. Tracey experience in Toyota methodologies including: Lean Problem Solving, Quality Circles, Lean Manufacturing tools, Standardized Work, Job Instruction Training, Toyota Production System, Toyota Way Values, Culture Development, Visualization (Workplace Management Systems), Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), Meeting Facilitation/Teamwork, and Manufacturing Simulations. 
Tracey also was the 2010 recipient of the Business901 Podcast of the Year! The podcast discussed A3 problem Solving.
Tracey likes to discuss the culture before jumping into problem solving but she takes a look at culture from a different perspective than others. It just about comes across as an attitude (in a very polite way) and there is type of swagger about the whole thing. Why not? When you become #1 in the world such as Toyota did and you are #1 methodology in the world which Lean probably is, why not have that swagger to your discussion? It is not pompous, it is an attitude that what you are doing works! She doesn’t write enough in my opinion because of her commitments as a trainer but her blog is one you should follow, you do not want to miss a word she says. You can also find her answering questions on the Lean Enterprise’s A3 Dojo Website.
What does the word "Lean" mean to you or your Company?
As I travel around the U.S. working with various companies that make a variety of different products, I realize a common denominator throughout them. How do they define the word "lean", as well as the word "culture"? What I have realized is very interesting!
When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the "tools", and that’s what companies seem to want, so of course, that’s what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the "respect for people" and developing the workforce as a team. I can’t ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY – TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like "Lean", nor did we really think about our daily actions as a "culture". It was just in the atmosphere. It wasn’t until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I’ve experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect…..
Pathway to creating a "Lean Culture"
As I travel around to various clients they are always asking me, "How do you implement or create a culture like Toyota has"? I tell them that’s a very loaded question :). There are so many aspects of creating that culture it’s hard to give a short answer or even "wave a magic wand" to say… "Here is what you should do!!". I wish I was that good . How I see it, you really need to differentiate the People side of Lean versus the Tool side. The People side will always be the most difficult aspect of the discipline needed to create this thing called Culture. The tools are just what they are, mostly countermeasures to change some discrepancy in our process. For the tools to be successful, People must understand their involvement or the purpose behind the tools. As I have stated in previous blog posts you must explain from the company perspective the WHAT, HOW and the WHY of any change or expectation within a persons work….
Tracey’s website: http://teachingleaninc.com and email: tracey@teachingleaninc.com
Related Information:
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: Graham Hill at CustomerThink
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011: The 99 Percent Solution
LabWorks Opens in the Lean Marketing Lab
The importance of PDCA in Marketing
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: Graham Hill at CustomerThink
Posted by: | CommentsGraham works in innovation, service design, value co-creation and private equity with DesignThinkers, Optima Partners, Loyalty Factory, and Nyras Capital. Graham was formally the head of CRM at Toyota Financial Services and can be found at the Customer Insider Blog on the Customer Think website. I am honored this year to be part of John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival and equally honored to introduce Graham to this audience. 
For several years now, I have been developing concepts and practicing Lean Marketing in conjunction with Six Sigma, and the Theory of Constraints. Lean was always the guiding light but it was not till I started to get involved in Service-Dominant Logic, Service Design and Design Thinking that my thoughts crystallized. In fact, it strengthened and reinforced my Lean Thinking. Lean has developed as the architecture in software over disciplines such as Agile, Scrum and Kanban. Lean has similarly developed as my architecture for sales and marketing. Graham Hill did not start me down this path but he has certainly reinforced my thinking with his comments and articles he presents. I remember few doors that have been opened such a vast amount of knowledge and learned experiences than Graham did when he used 3 tweets to say:
Marketing in highly competitive markets is about exploring new propositions on the innovation fitness landscape. The environment determines where to start and complex marketing environments need EDCA. Complicated ones often start with PDCA ½.” EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, SDCA = Standardize. Marketing Operations is all about moving along the EDCA>PDCA>SDCA pathway.
Another comment of Graham’s that reinforced my journey into Design Thinking and Service Design:
I was taught and used Toyota’s approach to lean, to improve all aspects of Toyota’s and its dealers’ customer-facing business. Toyota doesn’t see lean as a collection of tools (unlike many so-called lean experts), but rather as an organizational philosophy to engage the whole organization in creating more value together with customers. Toyota’s approach to lean is much closer to design thinking than you may think.
You can read the entire explanation on this blog post, Asking the right questions about Lean?
The real value that you derive from following Graham is his cutting edge thoughts and practices that he exhibits in his Customer Insider blog, such as:
Seven Simple Steps Towards Better Collaboration: In an earlier post on CustomerThink I described Ten Principles that Drive Effective Collaboration. And why just implementing collaboration technology would not improve collaboration. Worse, how it would make you into an ‘Expensive Old Organization’; with all the costs of the new technology, but none of the desired benefits. If simply implementing new technology isn’t the way to increase collaboration, what is? Fortunately getting started with collaboration is much easier than you might think. In fact, you are probably doing some of it already.
What’s Your Platform for Value Co-Creation?: A couple of years back I wrote a speculative blog post at CustomerThink entitled How Customer Co-Creation is the Future of Business. In many ways my prediction was right, Customer Co-Creation IS the future of business, but not exactly in the way I had imagined.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been with us for over 20 years. It is built around using customer analytics to improve marketing, sales and service touchpoints. And it works very well. Or at least it does for companies. But it doesn’t offer much of any value to their customers. And as a result, its effectiveness has started to fall.
Customer Experience Management (CExM) was created about 10 years ago as an antidote to the blatant one-sidedness of CRM. It still uses the same customer analytics, but it applies the insights generated to improve all the…
Social CRM: What’s Right, What’s Wrong, What’s Next? Inside Scoop with Graham Hill: CustomerThink Founder/CEO Bob Thompson interviewed Graham Hill in a discussion about Social CRM.
P.S. In the world of Social Media, I can think of few people that have a more engaged following especially from an individual that uses it to serve his purpose (not meant in a selfish manner) in lieu of having a social media presence. You can tweet him @grahamhill.
Related Information:
Carnival page on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
Blog Carnival Annual Roundup: 2011: The 99 Percent Solution
The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing
Value can no longer be defined as What a Customer will pay for!
