Five Lean Games Every Company Can Benefit From

In recent years, several training simulation games have been developed by academic and industry experts to support the teaching and learning activities of Lean philosophy. Using simulation games to teach Lean philosophy is an effective tool to convey the concepts.

Games use multiple communication means and create engagement. More importantly, they help people to memorize concepts and allow for a more practical experience of lean than traditional teaching methods do. They give participants a chance to practice lean in a risk-free and fun environment, and work in all cultures and at all management levels.

Teaching lean thinking this way is a commonly recognized approach in our community. There are numerous lean games out there – free or requiring payment, physical or online. (Martin Boersema provides a 50-strong list of lean games and simulations here.)

Here are five lean games that every company can benefit from.

Numbers Game – 5S, Place for Everything and Everything in it’s Place

5S is a Lean Methodology using a 5 step approach to achieve and maintain a high level of workplace organization. The 5S Numbers Game is designed to illustrate how valuable 5S can be to your business. This is a no cost exercise that can be done in any setting for any level within your organization. In this exercise you will experience how a disorganized work place can negatively affect productivity and quality.

If you type the 5S numbers game into any search engine on the internet you will likely come up with a number of good hits. The folks at SuperTeams, a Lean Six Sigma training firm have put the 5S numbers game on their web site. They have included a simple facilitators guide to make it easy for anyone to start teach this exercise right away.

I found a nice online simulator you can test out at http://leantools.info/5sgame/.

Drawing a Pig - Standard Work

Standard Work is a foundation of Lean. This fun exercise was originally created by the Minnesota Office of Continuous Improvement as a great way to illustrate the value of Standard Work. Each participant is given a grid and written instructions, or the instructions can be read out to the group. The goal is for everyone to come up with the same drawing at the end based on the instructions. And it's a pig!!

This activity is simple, no cost, and great for everyone. I often use this activity as a teambuilding exercise to kick-off teaching elements of standard work. Paul Levy, former President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston put a simple explanation of this exercise on his blog. Round 1 starts with the audience drawing the side profile of a pig. In round 2 you give standard work instructions to the audience to draw the pig. The final round has the audience draws the pig with standard work instructions with visual template for comparison. Everyone will find it easier to draw the pig in the final round. You’ll also find that all the pigs in the audience look that same at the end.

Ball Game – Teamwork and Problem Solving

This is a simple exercise but it teaches a powerful Lean lesson of team work, direct involvement, and continuous improvement. It involves passing tennis balls within a group where the goal is to perform this action as quickly as possible.

Ralph Bernstein at the Lean Insider posted on the tennis ball exercise with several photos from an event.

Robert Forder loaded a detailed explanation of the exercise in power point on the lean in education forum at LEI.

The Tennis Ball Exercise is a simple, low cost exercise that can be used to teach any one no matter education, language, or culture. It will break the ice, help teams form, and get people involved while teaching the “we can” attitude that so necessary in continuous improvement.

Letters – 1 Piece Flow

Reducing the batch size in manufacturing is a desirable goal: it improves the speed of response to the customer, while improving the ratio of value-added to non value-added work.

In the book LeanThinking, James Womack and Daniel Jones recount a story of stuffing newsletters into envelopes with the assistance of one of the author’s two young children. Every envelope had to be addressed, stamped, filled with a letter, and sealed. The daughters, age six and nine, knew how they should go about completing the project: “Daddy, first you should fold all of the newsletters. Then you should attach the seal. Then you should put on the stamps.” Their father wanted to do it the counter-intuitive way: complete each envelope one at a time. They told him “that wouldn’t be efficient!” So he and his daughters each took half the envelopes and competed to see who would finish first.

The father won the race, and not just because he is an adult.

Red Bead Game

In 1982, Dr. Deming created a teaching tool that he used in his seminars around the world to teach his famous 14 Obligations of Management. Dr. Deming called this training tool, The RED BEAD Experiment or Red bead Game.

When you play the game, each player uses a special metal paddle to draw small red and white colored beads from a large bowl. Each draw of the paddle gets 50 beads. Some are white and some are red. The white beads symbolize the good things that we experience each day as we do our work and the red beads symbolize the problems or bad things that we experience. As each player draws their paddle full of 50 beads each player receives a different mix of red and white beads.

The red bead experiment is deceptively simple because it provides a powerful message that is difficult for many to grasp. In summary, the misconception that workers can be meaningfully ranked is based on two faulty assumptions. The first assumption is that each worker can control his or her performance. Deming estimated that 94 percent of the variation in any system is attributable to the system, not to the people working in the system. The second assumption is that any system variation will be equally distributed across workers. Deming taught that there is no basis for this assumption in real life experiences. The source of the confusion comes from statistical (probability) theory where random numbers are used to obtain samples from a known population. When random numbers are used in an experiment, there is only one source of variation, so the randomness tends to be equally distributed. However, in real life experiences, there are many identifiable causes of variation, as well as a great many others that are unknown.

Mark Graban uses this game to illustrate process variation and learning what the data tells you in his book Measures of Success and associated workshops.

There are several resources online where you can purchase a Red Bead Kit.

Indeed, as lean coaches, we must always look for new ways to improve the learning experience, and I have personally found that using games and simulations works quite well.

Note: Ron Pereira at the Gemba Academy has put together a number of videos with these exercises.

5S NUMBERS GAME | |5S Workplace Productivity 

Watch This One Piece Flow vs. Mass Production Envelope Stuffing Lean Thinking Simulation

Lean Tennis Ball Simulation with Practical Problem Solving & Quick Changeover

Merry Christmas - The Neverending Christmas Card Factory

I know Christmas is over but there is still something to learn from making Christmas cards.  The following video explains Lean thinking principles from kids making cards for their families.




Now this video is not too different than many others that explain the difference between the traditional push and a better pull manufacturing process. But I liked the use of children in this video. I think it is particularly important that we teach our young people in this better way of thinking. If we could successful educate the next generations of leaders we may imagine a time when a traditional push operation is a thing of the past.

5S Factory Game Teaches the Basic Benefits in a Fun Exercise

5S is a prerequisite for most other Lean tools.  Well-implemented, 5S can open up entry points into flow and pull, equipment reliability, standardized work, and value analysis. 5S is a process and method for creating and maintaining an organized, clean, and high performance workplace.  It enables anyone to distinguish between normal and abnormal conditions at a glance.  5S can be the foundation for continuous improvement, zero defects, cost reductions and a more productive work space.  The 5S methodology is a systematic way to improve the workplace, processes and products through employee involvement.

The five S’s basically stand for seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu and shitsuke. Have I lost you? I hope not. Let’s briefly go over these five terms in English for better understanding.

1. Sorting: The first “S” stands for sorting, this essentially means to get rid of unnecessary items or tools and to prioritize the items that are used so they can be stored more efficiently and within accessible areas.

2. Straightening: The second “S” is for straightening or setting things in order. The main objective here is to organize the workspace to be most efficient and productive by locating tools and equipment most often used in easy to access areas. Not only does this better utilize the space within the work area, but it also helps to save time that may be lost in trying to locate specific items or tools.

3. Shine or Sweeping: The third “S” focuses on cleanliness. Having a clean and tidy workplace encourages others to also keep the area clean and helps contribute to a more productive and effective work environment.

4. Standardizing: The forth “S” helps with standardization, the goal with this strategy is to keep workstations that do the same jobs more uniformly organized. For example, if an employee does a particular job and there are multiple work stations doing that same job, the employee should be able to move effortlessly from workstation to workstation since they all function in the same manner.

5. Sustain: The fifth “S” is for sustaining the practice. This step basically includes the monitoring and sustaining of the four previously mentioned 5S tactics. The focus should be to move forward with the 5S methodology and not fall back into old ways and habits that are potentially not as beneficial and effective for the organization.

Insite Solutions recently created a game to help people learn Lean and 5S principles.  The seen is a factory setting where you need to drive a fork truck to pick up certain loads.  As you can see from below it is very difficult with the disorganized work space.  You are timed for which you earn points for completed loads and loose points for hitting objects.

In the next step of the game you go through the factory and red tag items that aren't needed or don't have a home.  This makes the area less crowded.

Then, the game makes your organize the work area by changing the layout and tapping the floor where items are to be stored. 

Finally, you create walk ways, add visuals for ease of communication, and create storage locations by grid.  This makes moving through the factory very easy and quick. Picking the orders are simple because everything is easy to find.

I think this game illustrates a wonderful real world example.  Frankly, one the that I see on a daily basis.  This is a great learning tool for anyone in manufacturing and of course if is fun, too.

The Practice of Lean and the Marshmallow Problem

At the Northeast Shingo Prize Conference I had the pleasure to meet Mike Rother, author of Toyota Kata.  If you haven't read his book or reviewed his material online you are missing some valuable learning. During Mike's presentation he talked about Lean as a practice of continuous learning through discovery and experimentation. This is what Mike explains from his research on Toyota as Kata. He used a familiar example of the Marshmallow Challenge to explain the differences in how we solve problems. Mike makes the point that those who are constantly discovering, learning, and adapting (kata) meet the challenge to solve problems more effectively.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the Marshmallow Challenge Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the "marshmallow problem" -- a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow.



The Marshmallow Challenge is a remarkably fun and instructive exercise that encourages teams to experience simple but profound lessons in collaboration, innovation and creativity. Mike Rother teaches that these lessons are essential elements in the practice of Lean. As a Lean practitioner I think Mike is spot on.


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Change is Difficult

To survive and thrive, we must be prepared at a minimum to modify, adjust, adapt and then adopt.  It's a little like trying to go up the down escalator. Stand still and you can be assured of moving backwards, farther away from your goal.  Change is necessary if organizations want to continue to improve and grow, but change instantly raising resistance from some people.

Here are four common reasons people resist change:

It's unknown –One of life's greatest fears is the unknown. It causes us to resist those things for which we cannot easily discern an outcome.

It's challenging – Change stretches us out of our comfort zone.  Some of us like to be stretched more than other people do.

It's uncertain – When we change, we are often introducing untested waters.  We prefer certainty.

It's unpopular – The resistance to change is universal.  Change invites animosity and tension.

The behavioral change can be the most difficult part of any change. We have all heard the adage "Old habits die hard."  Whether or not we like to admit it, we often are creatures of habit.

Try this experiment. Cross your arms. Now look at how your arms are crossed.  Which arm is on top? Now quickly re-cross your arms so the opposite arm is on top. Keep them crossed as long as you can.  Is that as comfortable? Probably not. Does that make it wrong? No, just different.

Crossing your arms is a very simple task, yet when you tried to do it differently, it felt uncomfortable.  In fact, for some, it may have been so uncomfortable that you couldn't even concentrate.

Yet, if you were to cross our arms differently for three weeks, the "new" way would start to feel comfortable. Many people won't take the time or will feel they can't stick to it that long. Would you ever slip back to crossing your arms the other way? Yes, especially when you are under stress or facing problems.

Dan Heath of Fast Company says that change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.  In the following video (which is also transcribed), Dan explains why changes in behavior requiring self control are so difficult:




We are so ingrained in the way that we do things that to do it a new way, or to stop doing something, causes us to feel uncomfortable and even exhausted. We equate uncomfortable with wrong, instead of different, and there's a tendency to go back to what was comfortable.

Change is one of the most difficult things for humans to readily accept.  Charles Darwin said "It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change" which holds true for culture change. There are several factors that will help any organization make the change they make lasting.  Change agents need to recognize, understand, and interpret resistance to change and develop skills to manage it effectively.  Successful initial implementation and ongoing maintenance of process improvements requires overcoming the resistance to change.

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Lean Exercise on Continuous Improvement using Tennis Balls

During a recent training event we had a team building exercise to break the ice and get to know each other as part of the introductions. This was a simple exercise but it taught a powerful Lean lesson of team work, direct involvement, and continuous improvement. I am always looking for great exercises to use in various settings and thought I would share this with others who could use it. This exercise involves passing tennis balls within a group where the goal is to perform this action as quickly as possible.

When I went to do this post I did a quick search on the internet for “The Tennis Ball Exercise” and found a couple people had already commented on this exercise. Since it makes no sense to redo what others have already done I will share their work instead.

Ralph Bernstein at the Lean Insider posted on the tennis ball exercise with several photos from an event about 6 months ago.

Robert Forder loaded a detailed explanation of the exercise in power point on the lean in education forum at LEI about a year ago.

The Tennis Ball Exercise is a simple, low cost exercise that can be used to teach any one no matter education, language, or culture. It will break the ice, help teams form, and get people involved while teaching the “we can” attitude that so necessary in continuous improvement.

Draw a Pig to Learn the Importance of Standard Work

So you might ask what does standard work and drawing a pig have in common. Well, the activity of drawing a pig can be used to teach the importance of standardized work. I learned of this activity a number of years ago during a standard work seminar. It was described in the AME Target Magazine in fall of 2005 in an article called “Wabash National’s Lean Turnaround Experience..

This activity is simple, no cost, and great for everyone. I often use this activity as a teambuilding exercise to kick-off teaching elements of standard work. Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston put a simple explanation of this exercise on his blog. Round 1 starts with the audience drawing the side profile of a pig. In round 2 you give standard work instructions to the audience to draw the pig. The final round has the audience draws the pig with standard work instructions with visual template for comparison. Everyone will find it easier to draw the pig in the final round. You’ll also find that all the pigs in the audience look that same at the end.

This training is unique in proving a picture is worth a thousand words and the importance of standard work in the elimination of variability from unit to unit. It can be a great ice breaker or team building exercise even if you aren’t specifically teaching standard work.

The 5S Numbers Game

I was recently asked about some fun ways to teach 5S by the management of a plant looking to teach this concept to their team. There are probably a number of ways to do this. The simplest exercise is the 5S Numbers Game. This is a no cost exercise that can be done in any setting for any level within your organization. In this exercise you will experience how a disorganized work place can negatively affect productivity and quality.

If your type the 5S number game into any search engine on the internet you will likely come up with a number of good hits. The folks at SuperTeams, a Lean Six Sigma training firm have put the 5S numbers game on their web site. They have included a simple facilitators guide to make it easy for anyone to start teach this exercise right away.

There are some other exercises I have seen that involve two kits, one kit not organized in 5S methodology and the other kit organized with 5S. The goal is to contrast the time it takes to do a set of tasks in the organized kit versus the disorganized kit. This could be done with Legos where you build an object (house, airplane, or car). The disorganized kit may have difficult instructions to follow, a disorganized layout, and extra parts to contrast a clear, well organized layout and instructions in the other kit. This can also be done with extra tools you find in your facility. Create a disorganized tool box and an organized tool box and then time the team or teams on how long it takes to get specific tools.

What are some of the fun ways you have taught 5S to others?