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Here is the next addition of tips from the Facebook page:
Lean
Tip #1741 - Focus On Your Highest Priorities
Every
day, organize your to-do list with the five highest priority items at the top,
and have your employees do the same. Having an unorganized task list keeps you
from tackling the most pressing items and dampens corporate morale when little
seems to have been accomplished. Just make sure that your daily “top five” list
is doable – you may need to break down your larger deliverables into smaller
tasks.
Lean
Tip #1742 - Hold More Efficient Meetings
Communication
is the number one success factor in keeping your operations flowing smoothly.
With that in mind, hold a daily huddle with your team of employees and share
everyone’s top five priorities for the day. Keep the meeting brief though:
Anything longer than 10 minutes might be wasting more time than you’re saving.
If you’re having trouble finishing in less than 10 minutes, try standing
instead of sitting.
Lean
Tip #1743 - Make Process Control More Visual
Visual
control systems include signs, displays and devices in your operations’
workflow that help you identify the current step in a process, the schedule for
the next task in a project or any current problems in the process. Visual
controls vary for every setting, but the interface of your visual control
system should be intuitive and help employees work more effectively.
Lean
Tip #1744 - Don’t Try a Solution before You Really Understand the Problem
You
might start out believing you know where the problem is in your processes. You
might already have a solution in mind. However, if you start out by changing
processes without analyzing the problem, you may find that the problem isn’t
what you thought it was. You may even make it worse.
Bring
together people with different perspectives on the problem in your process.
Talk about what everyone thinks is going wrong and listen to their ideas about
solutions. It’s likely you’ll get insight you didn’t anticipate so you can make
better solutions.
Lean
Tip #1745 - Management Must Model the New Rules
This
should go without saying, but nothing will undermine the effectiveness of but
nothing will undermine a new business process faster than management not
following the new rules. The rules are either there for everyone, or they’re
there for no one.
Once
management starts to “cheat” on the new process, people take it as a sign that
the process is no good, and everyone will look for ways to cheat. Chaos will
result as everyone is looking for shortcuts and doing things the way they want
them done (often the way that sloughs the most work off their desk and onto
someone else’s).
Lean
Tip #1746 - Look for Quick Wins
Tremendous
work goes into the process of planning for, designing, and implementing new
practices. The team, the sponsors, and you will need some quick wins to help
you look for—and even sometimes wait for—the long-term results that will unfold
from your efforts. Set achievable interim goals to gain quick wins, and they
will keep you going, providing crucial momentum that enhances the likelihood
you will ultimately realize the full benefits that come from continuous process
improvement.
Lean
Tip #1747 - Plan for Long-Term Continuous Improvements
The
greatest benefit can come from a continuous process of improving the way work
is done. It takes time for people to learn and solidify new practices,
recognize that their world does not end because certain old ways of working
have been eliminated, and to appreciate the benefits that change can bring.
Lean
Tip #1748 - Keep Track of Successes
Success
stories can be useful when you’re trying to shore up stakeholder support and
bring along reluctant members of the team. They serve as evidence that you’re
on the right track with your overall plan, and they remind everyone that all
the hard work pays off in the end.
Lean
Tip #1749 - Give the New Process a Chance
A
new process takes time to show its value. A new process will seem harder to
many employees at first because it’s different, and it may seem slower for a
while as everyone is learning their new roles and responsibilities. You have to
stick to your new process long enough for everyone to learn it thoroughly and
follow it smoothly before you can truly assess its impact.
Lean
Tip #1750 - Implement Standard Work
Standard
work is one of the most powerful but least used lean tools to maintain improved
process performance. By documenting the current best practice, standardized work
forms the baseline for further continuous improvement. As the standard is
improved, the new standard becomes the baseline for further improvements, and
so on.
Lean
Tip #1751 – Measure the Effectiveness of the Process.
Ask
yourself how you can measure things such as service levels, productivity or
throughput. Match these metrics to your processes and ensure they are measured
during regular intervals. Set targets for each metric and inform your staff on
what is expected in terms of performance. Re-visit these metrics and increase
the targets as your business grows and operations change to encourage
continuous improvement.
Lean
Tip #1752 - Display Metrics to Reinforce the Process Improvements
Metrics
play an integral and critical role in process improvement efforts by providing
signs of the effectiveness and the efficiency of the process improvement
itself. Posting “before and after” metrics in the work area to highlight
improvements can be very motivating to the team. Workers see their hard work paying off. It
is important to keep the metric current because it will be one of the first
indicators if your process starts reverting.
Lean
Tip #1753 - Define Your Current Processes.
To
understand where you want to be, you have to understand where you are today. By
obtaining a step-by-step description of each process, including all the people,
documentation and systems involved, you can get a better idea on how to improve
the processes. This activity is best tackled by involving everyone using with
the process. It can be a great way to
team-build and set a future vision for the company.
Lean
Tip #1754 – Determine Customer Value.
Now
that you understand how your processes are currently working, you can
brainstorm ways to make them better. A key question to ask at this stage is
whether each activity is value-adding? Value-adding activities are the
activities that your customer wouldn’t mind paying for as they are either part
of product/service delivery or are considered to be necessary ‘overhead.’ If
you were a customer, would you want to pay for it?
Lean
Tip #1755 - Strive to Continuously Improve.
Business
process improvement is not meant to be an ‘overnight’ fix that occurs in
singularity. It requires the continual and aligned effort of your entire team.
Make improvement activities fun and reward your staff for their effort. Collect
suggestions, identify change champions and celebrate your successes. This will
help build a culture of continuous improvement.
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