Get Aligned With OARRs

Effective meetings require careful planning and management. Preparing for a meeting involves more than reserving a room, setting up a few chairs and plugging in the coffee. Thinking through the basics of the meeting will help cement a successful effort when the simple acronym O.A.R.R.’s is employed.

O. Desired Outcomes: If a meeting is needed start by defining specific desired outcomes. Think about what would be created or accomplished as a result of the meeting. A desired outcome is a clear concise statement of the end product in 25 words or less. Describe what will be produced such as “a list”, “a plan”, “an agreement”, etc. Desired outcomes promote clear, focused thinking and work towards a common goal. Take the time to develop desired outcomes and get the group’s agreement to work on them. These outcomes need to be in writing, agreed upon at the meeting and visible for all to see. They address such things as products, such as a list, or knowledge, such as awareness or understanding.

Remember useful desired outcomes are clear concise statements that are brief, specific and measurable, using nouns not verbs, and are written from the perspective of the participant.

A. Agenda: The meeting “road map” that includes what will be discussed, time frame and who is responsible for each item on the agenda. It covers all the topics to address the desired outcomes, plus a section for evaluation. List the topics to be covered during the meeting and process you will use. Estimate the time you need for each topic. Prioritize the agenda items and allocate quality-meeting time to the most important items - not at the very beginning or end of the meeting. Be sure to get the group’s agreement to follow the agenda or change as needed.

R. Roles: Each person at the meeting has a specific function or Role. Someone will serve as a facilitator or guide for the meeting, a recorder captures the content or essence of what each person has to say on the “group memory”—large sheets of newsprint paper or easel pads are used for this purpose, a time keeper keeps track of the time and alerts the group when time is running out in each agenda item, and the remainder of the group serve as the content “drivers” of the meeting and participate fully.

R. Rules: A list of 5-7 group-agreed-upon Rules helps maintain focus of the meeting. These meeting agreements are behavioral guides for the meeting session framed in positive terms, whenever possible. They may include:

• Start and end on time,
• One person speaks at a time,
• Listen with respect,
• Be open to other ideas and perspectives,
• Make decisions by consensus.

 OARRs

If you want to experience team alignment in a meeting, don’t forget your OARRs. Start every meeting by briefly confirming your Outcomes, Agenda, Roles and Rules to get everyone rowing in the same direction.

Lean Administration: Time based Improvement Not Cost Savings

If you are simply using Lean principles to improve manufacturing processes you are sub-optimizing your business and will not resolve the bigger issues. Every business has administration processes that include engineering drawings, invoices, purchase orders, production orders, production scheduling, etc.. Therefore, developing an integrated Lean business system to support the manufacturing processes will benefit any company.

Lean Administration or Lean Office is the application of the LEAN philosophy to the office and administrative processes. Implementing Lean administration will improve the traditional methods and provide more useful, real time information that will allow a business to be run more effectively. This real time data will clearly demonstrate how the company is performing, and be able to highlight any systemic weaknesses or issues.

So how does Lean administration differ from Lean manufacturing? In my experience applying Lean in the office differs because:
        • Business processes are not as well defined.
        • Harder to identify the customer, product, service, and 
          customer value.
        • Waste is harder to see in the office.
        • Traditional focus is on the factory first.
        • Costing based on direct labor.
        • Office lead time not measured.
        • Company has cost based mindset which they associate 
          to less people.

Ever tried to do Lean in administration? Not easy, right? How do you move past these differences? In my opinion by focusing on the process with the improvement measureable based on time improvement can be made. It is important to recognize the difference between cost savings and time. I think we would all agree if we compress the time it takes to service a customer then we save money. However, cost savings don’t necessarily translate to less time.

When an organization can create an environment that allows it to develop a lean business culture it will have the capability to transform itself into a lean business enterprise. This will create the potential for any business to improve its productivity and profitability over the long term.



      

8 Wastes in the Lean Office

The manufacturing process is not the only area of a company that incurs waste on a regular basis. Although most of us focus on the factory floor to identify the improvements needed to increase our competitiveness, many companies find abundant opportunities for waste reduction in the office.

In the office environment, the 8 classic waste types of the Lean methodology manifest in different ways than we see on the factory floor. Here is a list of the 8 wastes of Lean, and some ideas about how they manifest in the office environment.

Transportation = movement of the work.  Manifestations include handoffs where the work is transferred from one person to another.  Transportation of electronic files is particularly insidious because it frequently results in multiple, varying copies of the work, which must eventually be reconciled.  It leads to other wastes such as defects, overproduction, and processing. Transportation is also an opportunity for a defect when the work goes to the wrong person or fails to get to the right person.

Inventory = work that is waiting to be processed.  Inventory is a common result of multi-tasking and otherwise un-balanced workloads.  Inventory can be found in e-mail or work order in-boxes, to-do lists, product development pipelines, and resource assignment charts.  If a person has three tasks to complete, it is guaranteed that two of them are waiting (in inventory) while that person performs the third.  If you want to be able to see inventory like you do on the factory floor, you must make the lists, in-boxes, resource assignments, and project pipelines visible in your workspace.

Motion = people moving or working without producing.  Meetings are motion in the sense that they are work without producing, unless a decision is made or information is produced during the meeting.  The motion you see of people moving from conference room to conference room and back to their desks is indeed wasted motion, but it’s probably not the waste to target first.  Motion shows up as people search for files they can’t find, in phone calls to track down information, or from unnecessary button clicks to get to the bottom of a work order to update the to-do list.  Most un-productive work takes place inside the electronic system while the person is sitting at his/her desk or while they are sitting in a meeting. 

Waiting = people waiting for information in order to do work.  This is another common result of multi-tasking, and also the primary cause of multi-tasking.  People work on other things while they wait for one thing to be processed and made ready.  Unfortunately, when the one thing finally becomes ready, we tend to finish what we started before getting back to it.  Because of multi-tasking, waiting is difficult to observe.  You must ask questions to discover it, or identify it yourself when you run into it.  It’s perhaps the most common and wasteful waste of them all in the office.

Overproduction = producing unnecessary work or deliverables.  Overproduction shows up in multiple copies of information, producing reports that aren’t read, writing formal documents or content where only the table is read, reply all, working on deliverables that aren’t important, and delivering the same information in multiple deliverables or formats.  Overproduction frequently shows up when managers ask underlings to do things that make the manager’s life easier.

Over Processing = unnecessary effort to get the work done.  Over Processing shows up in additional signature approvals, data entry or data format changes, frequently revising documents or information, or complex forms or databases that require information to be entered repeatedly.  Over Processing often results from the creation of multiple versions of a piece of work, that now must be reconciled into the true work.  

Defects = any work that did not accomplish its purpose or was not correct the first time.  Defects include late work, incorrect information, conflicting information, instructions that must be clarified, insufficient information, partially complete work or information, miss-named files, lost files or information, and anything that must be reworked.  Rework is the pain that results from defects.  Find the re-work and you will find the Defect waste.

Underutilized Skills, Ideas = capabilities of people that are not used or leveraged.  This happens frequently in large organizations where the skills and backgrounds of everyone are not common knowledge.  This can vary from not capturing ideas that employees might have for new products or innovations, to the six-figure salary executive correcting data entry errors in a financial spreadsheet. The biggest crime in this category is not empowering or enabling the people most intimate with a process to improve the process.

Transferring Lean manufacturing concepts to the office may take some convincing. First, office employees must accept the philosophy as appropriate for their work space.  Individuals may find it hard to imagine implementing concepts originally designed for factories into a working office environment.  While they wade through company policy, orders and emails, the factory folks are already steeped in the language of Lean and comfortable with words like “kaizen” and “kanban.” Once office employees increase their confidence level with the Lean concepts, they’ll want to share improvements and ideas with their shop floor counterparts, bridging the gap between the shop and the office, and increasing loyalty, enthusiasm and pride within your company.

The 8 Common Wastes in an Office That Cause Downtime

Applying Lean to office processes is an often misunderstood concept. Many efforts at lean office often fall by the wayside since measuring improvement is nearly impossible. It is important to analyze the office processes themselves to determine how to apply lean appropriately. The best way to accomplish this is to first understand how the seven wastes of manufacturing apply to office processes to identify improvement opportunities.

To identify and eliminate the waste that plagues your office, learn to identify the 8 wastes in their manifestations.  Here is a list of the 8 common wastes of Lean, and some ideas about how they manifest in the office environment.

Defects & Inspection

This is work that you thought was complete but requires to be touched again due to not meeting the customer's needs. Inspection is the same as review and this is in the flow because our internal customer doesn’t trust that we can deliver what they want. This leads to more reworking of defects, but we have to fix the process to produce a good product.

Examples:

•       Order entry errors

•       Design errors or engineering change orders

•       Invoice errors

•       Lost files or records

•       Bad or Missing information

Over Production

This is the act of producing more than what the customer wants instead of providing what they need or actually paid for.  This is a fast way to lose customers as it requires more time and resources, something that is in short supply.

Examples:

•       Producing reports that no one reads or needs

•       Making extra copies just-in-case

•       Producing more to avoid set-ups

•       Entering repetitive information on multiple documents

•       Memos or email to everyone

Waiting

A period of time delay spent while expecting something to happen or ready for something to happen. Waiting waste is idle time created when material, information, people or equipment is not ready.

Examples:

•       Waiting for approvals or signatures

•       Attendees not all on time for meeting

•       Slow system response time

•       Delays in receiving information

•       Printer or computer break-down

Non-Utilized People or Knowledge

People’s skill, abilities, and knowledge are not effectively or appropriately used. This happens frequently in large organizations where the skills and backgrounds of everyone are not common knowledge. The biggest crime in this category is not empowering or enabling the people most intimate with a process to improve the process.

Examples:

•       Bypassing procedures to hire a favorite candidate

•       Start using software without prior training

•       Not providing opportunity for professional development

•       Limited authority and responsibility for basic tasks

•       Inadequate business tools / training available

Transportation

This is where you have to take the product you are working on and move it somewhere.  That act of moving does not change fit, form, or function.  We are usually taking it to the boss to drop it off on their desk be reviewed, so we can rework it later.  I see a pattern developing here.

Examples:

•       Moving product in and out of storage

•       No signs identifying areas or departments

•       Multiple hand-offs or approvals

•       Bad area layout

•       Excessive filing of documents

Inventory

Inventory is a common result of multi-tasking and otherwise un-balanced workloads.  It can be found in e-mail or work order in-boxes, to-do lists, product development pipelines, and resource assignment charts.  If a person has three tasks to complete, it is guaranteed that two of them are waiting (in inventory) while that person performs the third.  If you want to be able to see inventory like you do on the factory floor, you must make the lists, in-boxes, resource assignments, and project pipelines visible in your workspace.

Examples:

•       Excessive office supplies

•       Files piled up between desks

•       No storage space because its filled with stuff not needed

•       Batch processing transaction & reports

•       Obsolete files or office equipment

•       No sufficient cross-training

Motion

Excess motion primarily refers to people having to walk to office equipment or (even more importantly) having to walk to find people. Meetings are motion in the sense that they are work without producing, unless a decision is made or information is produced during the meeting. Motion shows up as people search for files they can’t find, in phone calls to track down information, or from unnecessary button clicks to get to the bottom of a work order to update the to-do list.

Examples:

•       Looking for items without a defined place

•       Searching for files on computer

•       Employees not working to a standard method

•       Poor work area layout

•       Sorting through materials

Excess Processing

Excess processing often results from the creation of multiple versions of a piece of work that now must be reconciled into the true work.  It shows up in additional signature approvals, data entry or data format changes, frequently revising documents or information, or complex forms or databases that require information to be entered repeatedly. 

Examples:

•       Multiple signatures

•       Unused or unnecessary information collected

•       Re-entering data

•       Different software working on same document

•       Expediting

•       Unnecessary or excessive reports

My best advice for finding and eliminating waste in the office is to find what bugs you.  Hunt down the rework, the overtime, the stress and frustration, and you will quickly begin putting your fingers on the waste and its causes. Address the causes of the waste.  Eliminate them.  In doing so, you will not only make your business more productive, but it will be a much better place to work.

Three Styles of Communicating and Meetings

Communication is essential for effective functioning in every part of an organization. Although marketing, production, finance, personnel, and maintenance departments may receive direction from corporate goals and objectives, communication links them together and facilitates organizational success.  Meetings are a common means of communicating in organizations.


Although the reasons people meet are varied, meetings generally fall into three types:

• Information-giving meetings are used to disseminate information.
• Information-sharing meetings are called in order to exchange ideas.
• Information-creating meetings are generally used for planning and problem solving.

The three basic types of meetings can be related to three basic styles of communicating:


Bull's-eye style
The bull's-eye style is essentially an information-giving approach.  The sender of the information is concerned with delivering a specific message. If the message hits the intended mark, the sender is satisfied.  The sender is not especially concerned with obtaining feedback from listeners or readers; he or she is concerned only with conveying a message.


Ping-pong style
A communicator who uses the ping-pong style is concerned with the questions or responses the receiver may have. The communicator has a message to deliver, but the success of that delivery is at least partially dependent on the understanding of the listener or reader.  Too, the message may be further shaped or defined by the responses the recipient provides.  This style of communicating is often used in information-sharing meetings.


Spiral style
The spiral style does not represent a complete communication transaction.  Rather, the communicator sends a message and engages the recipients in an ongoing consideration of the message and its numerous implications. The sender of the message considers nuances, which may be as important as the original thought.  Spiraling means reading between the lines and provoking new ideas related to the initial communication prompt, which is continuously being reshaped.  The spiral style is common to information-creating meetings.


In today's business environment, finding better ways for people to communicate will propel organizations forward. Strong minds fuel strong organizations. Meetings planners have an obligation to their stakeholders (meeting organizers and the participants) to plan meetings that appeal to all
learning styles.

Save you Inbox with 5S for Email

Email has become an all too convenient way to communicate. Some much so for many of us that our inboxes are overflowing with new messages. There have been hundreds of productivity related strategies written about for dealing with email. I have even shared some of those myself. There must be a better way.

In Lean manufacturing we utilize 5s to improve the workplace organization. 5s is a systematic method of identifying, organizing, cleaning, maintaining, and improving your workspace. It is often referred to as the foundation or building block of a Lean transformation and aims to create a structured and disciplined approach to continuous improvement.

In this post I am going to show you how you can use these same concepts that you use to manage your workspace to save your inbox.

Step 1: Sort
First things first, it’s time to get rid of all of the messages that are old and obsolete. Be aggressive in this step. Don’t keep messages that you know will never be returned. If there are attachments that need to be saved or printed, do so now. Get rid of as much as you can.

Step 2: Set-in order
Straighten the inbox, as in "a place for everything and everything in its place." Find a place for all of your e-mails. The easiest and most obvious way is to create folders based on tasks or other buckets of work where emails can be neatly filed for future use. Put e-mails you need to act on in the proper folder. The goal is to remove as much from your inbox as possible.

Step 3: Shine
Since we’re talking about computer applications, there really isn’t the necessary cleaning activities that would be required in a physical workspace. Shine in 5S is cleaning to prevent future cleaning. E-mail 5S shine is to get rid of e-mails and prevent them coming back. Block spammers who make it into your inbox to prevent repeat offenders. Unsubscribe to newsgroups or other e-mail marketing rather than deleting them. Don’t reply to informational e-mails with "Thanks" and certainly don't CC everyone.

Step 4: Standardize
Standardize how you handle e-mail. This step is critically important as you will need to set rules for yourself to keep your e-mail account clean. Some rules you may consider:

• Set a maximum number of e-mails in your inbox and once that number is exceeded, complete another sorting and sifting cycle. 
• Check e-mail at certain times of day rather than playing whack-a-mole with every new "you've got mail".
• Spend a set amount of time on e-mail checking.
• Agree to limit who is Carbon Copied (CC) so that extra inbox material is not created.

The key is to set rules for yourself to keep things organized.

Step 5: Sustain
The final step in the process is setting up a quick audit process to make certain your rules are being followed and your account is staying in good shape. In the beginning, this audit may need to be more frequent to force the discipline to adhere. Overtime, it will become a learned way of working and you will be the envy of all your coworkers.

By applying 5S, the management of emails can be simplified and restructured. This will enable you to add value to your day and minimize the time spent on dealing with emails. You will no longer look at your e-mail workspace with dread and you will be far more responsive in replying to other’s requests. At the very least, this exercise is a great way to apply one of the cornerstone Lean tools to the knowledge world. Give it a try.

Lean Meetings: A Better Way

Have you been to a meeting lately that seemed to take forever, drifted off the original objectives and agenda, and left you none the wiser of what was really achieved? By applying Lean thinking you will never have to have that experience again. Lean meetings give Structure, visibility and with a little discipline have the ability to drive improvement. 


Here is a great video from The Association of Manufacturing Excellence (AME) Western Australian Region explaining the improvement of meetings using Lean.



My friend Matthew E. May just posted an article where he explains how to hold Lean meetings.  He says Lean meetings has two key differentiators from traditional meetings:
First, meetings aren't necessarily scheduled.
Second, very little discussion occurs.

Matt, shares a method of transforming your meetings with 3P's:

Purpose: Determine why you're meeting, define the purpose.
Process: Determine the best way t accomplish the goals from above, create a plan.
People: Determine the participants and the roles required for a successful meeting.

So now that you have seen a better way to meet this advice will make it easier for you to start transforming meetings in your organization.



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Personal Kanban Kaizen

A couple of months ago I talked about a kanban for personal management. This concept had two desirable elements:

1) Visualizing your work
2) Limiting your work.

In my previous visual task board I found prioritization meaningless. Tasks are either important or not. If it is important then put it on the list. If not then don't waste time or space pretending that you'll get to it, because you won't.

Dan Markovitz from TimeBack Management and I had several discussions on the set-up of a personal kanban. We discussed how to determine the size of WIP. The WIP limit shouldn't be determined by the number of items, because one large task/project consumes as much time (which is your critical resource) as eight small tasks. Unlike a production line where the cycle time is both known and constant, knowledge work is inherently more variable. So it's tough to determine the appropriate WIP level.

We also talked about using the calendar as kanban. By designating dates and times for specific tasks and projects, you've essentially created a production schedule for your work, with the calendar (and the calendar alerts) acting as a kanban that pulls work forward.

I decided to try to create my own kanban system following these steps:

1) Establish Your Value Stream – The flow of work I chose was Backlog, This Week, Today, and Done.

2) Establish Your Backlog – I put every task onto a post-it-note, if the task had a due date I put that on the note as well.

3) Establish Your WIP Limit – I limited my Today column to 3 (good place to start) and therefore limited my This Week column to 15

4) Begin to Pull – I moved tasks into the next two columns and got to work.

Below you can see the result on my new kanban:

I have been using my kanban system for a little while and I want to share some things I have learned thus far:

1) For really small tasks I still keep a todo list with paper and pen.
2) This Week column allows me to plan out my week.
3) A WIP of 3 has been working for me for tasks around 1-2 hours in length.
4) The size of the task is not too important. Smaller tasks make you pull faster. For larger tasks I try to break them up into workable chunks.
5) The current board is not portable which I need.
6) Adding color to this system would help distinguish different types of tasks.

While looking at various ways to improve my kanban system I came across this presentation on kanban designs the inspire flow.

In the next version of my kanban I will attempt to address some of the previous short comings. Just as in Kaizen in your organization, having tried a quick and easy manual version of this kanban I found what works and what doesn't.  Now making those improvements will be even easier.

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