TOC, Lean, Six Sigma?

There are many methodologies to chose from when leading a company into continuous improvement project.  From the highly acclaimed Toyota Production System, to Lean, to Six Sigma, to Theory of Constraints, each of them has the same end state in mind, just different ways to get there.   

During the last decade we have seen a trend to start to join the different approaches, to get superior results.   We have even seen new buzz words such as Lean Six Sigma and TOC Lean Six Sigma, and the results of using each one alone or combined have been published in the past

There are also new books that have come out showing how you can get superior results by using TOC, Lean and Six Sigma, such as Epiphanized and Profitability Without Boundaries.  But always remember, no matter what you choose, focus on principles first and then on the tools themselves.

So what are you using to improve your organization today?

How YouTube is Driving Creativity

TED Curator Chris Anderson gave a talk last year to show how the power of crowds and technological platforms can help accelerate innovation.   According to Anderson, this concept is called Crowd Accelerated Innovation, and has three basic requirements:

• Crowd, group of people who share a common interest
• Light, clear open visibility
• Desire, or a genuine interest in something

The talk includes concepts that have also been treated in Wikinomics, Wisdom of Crowds, and Tribes

So, how are you tapping into the Wisdom of Crowds?

How Society Works - 8 Psychological Insights

PsyBlog has published a summary of 8 social experiments performed by Stanley Milgram, trying to understand and decipher social behavior.

From Milgram's famous experiment about compliance through electrical shocks, to how helpful people are with lost children, all of these experiments give some insights into how we behave in society.

How Big Is The World Economy?

Have you ever wondered how big is the world's economy?   Intuitively you know who the big countries are, but it's worth taking a look from time to time.

Having a global view of things, including the magnitude of the companies we interact with, is important to keep things in perspective.

Disruptive Innovation - Interview with Clayton Christensen

Clayton Christensen, the author behind Disruptive Innovation, was featured recently in a video interview from HBR, where he describes the basics of his ideas.

Disruptive Innovation occurs when a particular technology is produced more efficiently and opens the doors to new business solutions that markets can adopt in an easier fashion.   As an example, mainframe computers where once the norm, and only big corporations or big education organizations had them.  But later, a series of disruptive innovations happened over time, and the mainframe evolved into a personal computer, laptop and now into smartphone and tablet computers, every time making it easier for the masses to adopt and use them.

As a result of Disruptive Innovation, companies face the Innovators Dilemma.  This happens when companies  ignore markets that are susceptible to disruptive innovations, many times because they currently have a profitable solution for the markets they are currently serving.  Thus, sometimes the traditional advice of "focusing on the customer" can become counter productive for management.   You could argue that something similar happened to Kodak during the last decade, and as a result they filed for bankruptcy earlier this year.  

How are you dealing with the Innovator's Dilemma in your company?

Free Webinar on Statistical Process Control

Mark Graban, Lean author and consultant, recently held a webinar on Statistical Process Control.

Using Don Wheeler's ideas on Statistical Process Control, Mark shows how to use control charts to improve your role as a manager, emphasizing on the importance on understanding the difference between signals and noise, to clearly identify when real changes in processes are happening or not.

Many people think that control charts should only be used in manufacturing, but is manufacturing the only area in a company that needs improvement?   Control charts can be used in any process that needs improvement, and helps improve managements ability to predict.

It's available for a limited time only, so watch it soon.

The Use of Games In Corporate World

During recent years the use of Gamification in corporate settings has become more common, and companies have begun to use games to improve employee morale, productivity and innovation.  As an employer, you could have this line of reasoning:   if people spend countless hours on social networks like Facebook, why not try to ue that time more productively?  Additionally, recent studies have shown that video games improve your thinking, so why not try something along those lines?

I recently attended a webinar introducing Keas, a leading online game platform that aims to promote health behaviors among employees.  It is similar to Facebook, and allows employees to create individual profiles and teams.   Team members define their particular health goals, and if achieved, both the team member and team get points.   For example, if a team member has the goal of working out for 1 hour in the gym, and they achieved it, they would be earning points for themselves and their teams, and the more points you have, the better chance of winning prizes and recognition by the company.

After the webinar, I received a follow up call for feedback, and I asked the person how a company could ensure that team members don't cheat, just to get the points and win the prizes.   The company representative was in awe of my question, saying that it usually boils down to trust.    I am not saying employees should not be trusted, but in some company settings employees try to "game the system" just to get results and recognition.   As Dr. Deming used to say, this behavior is almost always a consequence of inadequate management, but gaming the system is common when trying to meet sales targets, production targets or inventory targets.

So what do you think?  Should we Gamify the workplace?  What obstacles need to be overcome to do so?

Quality Health Care is an Oxymoron

I recently saw a video of a lecture given by Dr. John Toussant about all the continuous improvement work he has led as CEO of the Thedacare Medical Center in Wisconsin.  In a system where the ultimate mistake is death, and that has around 100,000 mistake caused deaths of patients, continuous improvement makes a big difference.   

Dr. Toussant discusses some of the tools he has used to improve defects, ranging from A3s, Checklists and Standardization.   He also talks about how to sustain continuous improvement efforts, which is one of the biggest obstacles that change agents run into, showing a change framework he developed based on John Kotter's methodology for change.

It is inspiring to see that some CEOs of health care institutions in the US really get it.  Let's hope this thinking spreads as fast as possible.

KM Meets Speed Dating - Spindows.com

Charlie Green, the Trusted Advisor, recently interviewed Clay Hebert, the founder of Spindows, a new Knowledge Management (KM) start up company that uses a "speed dating" approach to collect organization knowledge.

According to Hebert, there are three big issues with the traditional approach to knowledge management:

1. Quality, as KM is usually considered a clerical task and is not given major importance
2. Speed, as knowledge gathering usually happens at the end of projects, not during the actual execution where lessons learned are fresh in people's minds
3. Search, as some knowledge management search features are lacking and if available, they are not very effective

Although  Spindows is still not available to the public, it's a good idea to subscribe to their waiting list and test their platform once they go live.

Questions No One Knows The Answers To

TED Curator Chris Anderson released an educational video that encourages us to always stay curious, as children usually are.  He shows us how to maintain curious by trying to answer two mind boggling questions about the universe.

When comparing ourselves to the vast and infinite universe, you may conclude that some of the things that trouble us today, are simply not important at all.

The No Ass@&%# Rule Decision Tree

Bob Sutton, Stanford professor and author of the bestseller The No Asshole Rule, published a decision tree constructed by his students, of how to deal in a simple way with employees that are just "certified jerks".

So how do you deal with jerks in your company?

The Life Of An Analyst

Elisabeth Fosslien, has shared a fantastic set of diagrams describing the life of an analyst.

See the other great diagrams she has built here.

Employee Buys And Saves Company

Bill Waddell shared this great video recently about a manufacturing employee that was able to purchase a plant that was closing its operations, and now has become profitable.

Like Steve Denning talks about in his Radical Management book, when companies focus on delighting customers, it's no coincidence that they become successful in the long run.

The Death of Field Sales - Ballistix Video

I have been following Justin Roff-Marsh's work about re-engineering the sales process for some years now, and he his ideas have never ceased to impress me.    Self proclaimed as the "sales contrarian", Justin's ideas about how to significantly improve a company's sales without major investments are a must read for managers.

He began his work applying Theory of Constraints concepts and direct marketing concepts to re-engineer the sales process, but over time, his ideas have evolved and cover not only focus on how your sales process should be designed and managed, but also on what measurements, systems and other aspects must be in place for superior sales performance, and will be included in his upcoming book, 

His latest video presentation is called The Death of Field Sales, where he discussed the general ideas of his model and the lessons learned throughout the years.

Enjoy!

Ohno's 100th Birthday

Masaaki Imai at recently shared a profile of Taichii Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System, describing  his major ideas and thoughts.

Ohno was without a doubt one of the most important manufacturing thinkers of the last century, creating a unique management methodology, the Toyota Production System, that can be only in a very small percentage of companies worldwide.

The Dollar Shave Club - An Unrefusable Offer

It seems some guys have created an "offer you can't refuse" when it comes to buying razor blades.   Called the Dollar Shave Club, you pay a monthly fee to get razors delivered home:  a low cost proposition with no hassle for the customer.

I have not tested the program yet, but it seems like a great example of thinking out of the box, and finding new ways to create value for customers.

What Is School For - Stop Stealing Dreams

Seth Godin, best selling author and marketing expert, has published a free e-book called Stop Stealing Dreams, where he expresses his ideas on on how schools should work, based on today's world and realities.  The general focus of the book is best described using his own quote, "Our kids are too important to sacrifice to the status quo".   

Many other authors and thinkers have criticized the current school system, and personally I like Alfie Kohn's work the most.   There was also an interesting Oscar winning documentary some years back, that exposed the significant problems with the current american education system called Waiting for Superman, which is also definitely worth a view.

What A Giraffe Can Teach Us About Change

Jamie Flinchbaugh, Lean expert and author, has shared an interesting video that one of his clients uses to "set the stage" for change initiatives.

Although it is a humorous animation, it explains in a simple and effective way the reaction that many of us have when going through changes.

Top 10 Counter Intuitive Psychology Studies

All of us that are involved in change efforts know that it understanding human behavior is critical to success, and psychology plays a major role in helping us understand why we behave in certain ways.

Covering topics from cognitive dissonance to multitasking, PsyBlog shares their top 10 counter intuitive psychological findings, with additional links to explore in detail.

The Basics of Kanban - LSS Video

The Lean Six Sigma Academy has again shared some of their introductory videos on Lean Manufacturing, this time, focusing on the basics of Kanban.  

Even if we know it continuous improvement efforts should focus on creating a culture of problem solvers, knowing the appropriate tools to do so if a very important step.

Want to Know More About Toyota Culture?

Mike Rother, the author of Learning to See, recently published a book called Toyota Kata, that provides an insider's view of the specific behaviors (or Kata) that take place in Toyota, and that make its culture, workplace and environment unique.   It is these specific Kata, that make it so difficult to emulate Toyota's success.

There was also a recent interview with Mike Rother explaining the basic concepts about the book.    His book is an excellent resource to understand better how things go on inside Toyota, and it is definitely worth its weight in gold.

Want To Sell Your Expertise by the Minute?

I ran into a new online application that allows you to sell your expertise online and charge by the minute.   You connect with your clients on a video conferencing application, that integrates with Facebook, LinkedIn and even your website.

It's called MinuteBox, so check it out.

Vertical vs Horizontal Marketing

Seth Godin, marketing extraordinaire, talks about the shift from Vertical Marketing to Horizontal Marketing.

Vertical Marketing is when you are in charge, and you decide what markets to target with your and what ads to run.    Horizontal Marketing, is when you focus only on building great products, and then you let the market decide what to do with them.

The latter, of course, is much scarier than the former.