I have developed a scoping tool to enable businesses to benchmark themselves against what we believe is required to to enable continuous improvement into their culture. The tool will be free to download as it supports us to achieve our goal to save 10,000 businesses, enable 100,000 leaders and enlighten 1,000,000 people.

In order to reach your goal and to be a business that continuously improves you need to know where you currently are. The scoping template aligns with the ‘Your Way’ methodology as they both focus on influencing the desired behaviours and application of the GIVE Model throughout. The scoping tool tells you where you are and the complete methodology supports you to improve this score.

Process
For each process you work or for each value stream you will need to complete a separate template. The template is separated into 4 levels of staff, those that work the process, the team leaders, area/senior managers and directors/owners as in the majority of businesses we have worked this is how they can be grouped. You score each statement from 0-4 dependant upon what you see when visiting the area and speaking to the relevant level. ensure you utilise the comments field to note what you see.

Output
Once you have completed the template you will be provided with a score and a ‘Your Way’ level identifying where you can focus on to improve and work towards developing your CI culture.

You can download your free copy of the template here:
Download Scoping tool - Your Way V1.1

I hope you manage to use this template and it helps you to move forward as a operation, I would welcome any feedback on this tool as we continuously try to improve what we do to GIVE you the support you need.

On with the improvement

Lee

Have you introduced Lean or a form of continuous improvement where you are? Do you have a performance board/hub/short interval control board or anything else that you call the place you visualise your teams process performance. If so, do you know how effective it is?

Answer the following 9 questions in relation to your visual management to see if you can improve on it?

1) What is the purpose of the team?
2) What do the customers need from the output the team/business produce?
3) How does the visual management support the above two questions?

4) How effective does the team plan?
5) How does the team perform against this plan?
6) How does the visual management visualise the above 2 questions?

7) What things get in the way of the team producing their outputs?
8 ) What are the team doing about the above obstructions?
9) How does the visual management highlight the above 2 questions?

How did you do? Did you identify any further opportunities to improve your visual management? Is so, give them a go.

Also have a look at our GIVE model this is the DNA that makes up our methodology. GIVE MODEL

On with the improvement

Lee

 The only real failure in life is the failure to try…

Although the above is true with life, with Lean there are some things that can help you avoid failure. 

We have been made aware of many businesses over the last few years and witnessed in our early days as employees of large companies, struggling Lean transformations, this has allowed us to develop our 21 step “Your Way” methodology and understand how to avoid failing and for ourselves that failing was part of the learning process. However we don’t want you to fail, we want you to use our experience to deliver a lean transformation effectively and successfully, where you are the enablers to your achievement of YOUR goals.

4 Things you can do to help prevent failure:
Compelling need to change – For most change to be successful and for people to buy into it, there needs to be a reason to change. I have seen these be created by management rather than waiting until something is serious enough to necessitate change. So to prevent the “why do we need to change?” question being asked. Have a think about the “What’s in it for me” for individuals at each level, if things change how will it help them? And develop a need to change if there isn’t one already in this economically challenging environment,

Senior leadership commitment and role modelling required behaviours – If you are in a senior position, you need to change too. The shop floor or the office or the workshop are generally a mirror of the effectiveness of the manager. If you think the office/warehouse etc can improve then so can you. To introduce Lean and other Continuous Improvement methodologies successfully generally require managers to Go & See the work taking place, to fix problems where they occur rather than from behind a desk etc.

You definitely need a practise what you preach mentality a one off is not good enough it needs to be consistent and the behaviours repeated at all levels

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”

Aristotle
Engagement of the people doing the work – It is commonly known that the people who know most about a process are the ones who do it each day. So why are they not utilised more to be empowered to make the changes, this may require workshops with representatives from each step of the Value Stream. Engage the people who work the process, empower them to develop their improved standards and working practices and create a mechanism to enable them to continuously improve.

Standardise the principles and not necessarily the tools – A lot of consultancies have developed successful lean approaches however they are not always transferable to each team in each company they engage with therefore:

Before taking an off the shelf solution and letting consultants “do to”you. Understand fully the principles behind Lean & Continuous Improvement.

We see these as:

To identify waste → To visualise waste → To remove waste

Have a look at the GIVE model (GIVE Model) I created this to give you an approach to help you reach your goals, if you need further support try out “Your Way” methodology here: “YOUR Way” it is not tool based it is a series of 21 questions that enable you to reach your goal by identifying, visualising and removing waste as well as influencing the desired behaviours required to sustain the improvement.

Thanks for reading & remember if you want to join the other 2500+ people you can follow us on Twitter here:

http://twitter.com/leansecretsuk

On with the improvement

Lee