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