Expatiation, Innovation, Adaptation, Continuous Improvement and Hyperbole. It’s dictionary time

Posted on March 10, 2013 by whatsthepont

If hear another person loudly proclaim that their incremental improvement to an existing activity, process or product is ‘INNOVATION!’ I will scream (quietly to myself…..). Small enhancements are not innovation.

To be fair the language is a bit confusing and I’m not alone. This article on the British Quality Foundation blog by Paul Sloan draws the comparison with politicians who trumpet every piece of routine spending as ‘significant new investment’. The hyperbole (exaggeration to create emphasis) has permeated the world of improvement, causing confusion which doesn’t do justice to the real innovation some people are achieving. So here are some explanations:

Continuous Improvement & Kaizen,
Adaptation,
Exaptation, and
Innovation.

Continuous Improvement. CI for short does what it says on the tin, an ongoing effort to improve services, products or processes. There is a strong emphasis on the incremental (little changes) in this approach, alongside the importance of feedback from the users of the product or service.

If you fancy jazzing things up (and impressing your colleagues) you could describe this approach as Kaizen, the Japanese for Good Change, (Kai = Change, Zen = Good). I very much like Kaizen. It recognises that the people who do the work are best placed to identify the required improvements and implement them. The emphasis here is that changes are small enough to be implemented by an individual worker or at team level, which has additional benefits linked to employee engagement. Remember that this is not radical innovation or change on a massive scale.

Adaptation. A term from biology which refers to how a living organism changes to become better suited to its environment. The example of how humans adapted to live and hunt in groups, because it was more efficient is often used to illustrate adaptation.

A service delivery example would be the process of paying bills. This has adapted from; face to face, to postal, to the current online processes. You could argue the difference between continuous improvement and adaptation is about scale of the change, but it is a bit subjective.

Exaptation. Another term from biology. This refers to the process of using something that has been developed for one purpose, to achieve something completely different. The classic example is feathers which were apparently developed as a temperature controlling feature that then turned out to be very useful for flying.

A more recent example Dave Snowden described is the car in a plastic bag, which apparently originated during the Bangkok floods. One enterprising individual drove their car into a large plastic bag that had been used to protect new furniture. Now lots of people in Bangkok have car size plastic bags; available for use in future floods.

The act of taking something that was developed for one purpose and using it in a completely different setting is where exaptation differs from continuous improvement and adaptation. A bit like lateral thinking.

Innovation. Looking at my 1970′s Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, ‘sixth edition’ (schoolboy stuff, but it’s what’s shaped me), innovation is ‘bringing in novelties’. Novelties are, ‘new things, strange, hitherto unknown’. The ‘new’ part of innovation is fundamental to what it’s all about, even down to the Latin origins of the word novus = new.

It seems fairly straightforward to me that incremental improvements to an existing activity is not innovation, I hope you agree (or maybe not and it’s just the pedantic schoolboy in me that has resurfaced). If you fancy some more on this topic, links at the end of the post.

Finally, back to the Paul Sloan article where he suggests introducing two new terms; ‘radivation’ for radical innovation and ‘incrovation’ for making improvements to existing products. I know my spell checker is struggling with the concept, I wonder if the rest of the world is ready for the change?

So what’s the PONT?

There is a big difference between something completely new (innovation) and incremental change (continuous improvement).
Understanding and using the most appropriate description helps with understanding.
Hyperbole can creep into all sorts of conversation, beware.

Links: More detailed explanation of exaptation From Dave Snowden . http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/entry/5573/exaptation-managed-serendipity-part-i/

Links to other things I’ve written: Is best practice the enemy of innovation http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/is-best-practice-the-enemy-of-innovation/

Do some organisations kill off new ideas?http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/12/23/idea-antibodies-do-some-organisation-have-an-autonomic-immune-response-that-kills-ideas/

Encouraging innovation with Belbin Resource Investigators .http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/encouraging-innovation-use-some-naive-experts-belbin-resource-investigators-and-send-them-back-to-the-floor/

Photo source: Dog floatation device. For other flood inspired exaptations and adaptations have a look at this site. http://blog.dothegreenthing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/tumblr_lugcvlDfUk1r6pia1o1_500.jpg

Photo source: Car in the plastic bag article from China Car Times. http://www.chinacartimes.com/2012/07/guandong-government-wraps-cars-plastic-bags-avoid-typhoon-damage/

Three Very Different Organisations, Five Common Words. IdeasUK Employee Engagement Network Meeting.

Posted on July 7, 2012 by whatsthepont

Last week I had the great joy of attending an IdeasUK Employee Engagement network meeting in Cardiff, hosted by the Wales Audit Office. The three organisations presenting workshops were incredibly different yet, I picked up on five common themes: Longevity, Trust, Evidence, Belief and Passion.

Question: Are these the key elements of success for any employee engagement approach?

To set the scene, the organisations involved couldn’t be more different in relation to what they do, the numbers and type of people they employ and where they operate:

HSBC, financial services and banking (global);
Ministry of Defence (GEMS Scheme), defence (domestic and global); and
Ricoh Manufacturing UK (Telford), photocopier manufacturing (European wide).

The success of each of these organisations and what they have achieved in employee engagement through their staff ideas schemes was obvious to see through the day. What struck me were common phrases/words/ideas/approaches/beliefs and values that kept popping up, despite them being very different organisations. Here is my take on what I think linked these three very different organisations, and what seems to support successful employee engagement.

Longevity: Each one of these organisations has been pursuing a path of employee engagement for a long time. The MoD started Gems in the mid 1990s and it’s even longer for Ricoh (1986). I think this long-term view is critical in developing a culture where employee engagement is taken seriously and people live the values through their everyday behaviours. Things like the ‘Thank You’ culture in HSBC don’t happen overnight.

Trust: This is mentioned so often that it’s almost a cliché; however the difference between saying it and actually trusting people is huge. It was impressive to see how HSBC trust their staff to interact with an internal social media type platform to share ideas. In the highly regulated world of financial services it would be so easy just to say no, ‘manage the risk’ and shut everything down. I heard the phrase ‘why wouldn’t you trust your staff, they know the job they do better than anyone’ several times during the day.

Evidence: Every single organisation had rock solid evidence of the benefits their suggestion schemes had delivered. These ranged from a 14:1 return on investment through to hundreds of millions of pounds saved. My key learning point was the necessity of having solid evidence when someone questions the effectiveness of employee engagement and suggestion schemes. It’s surprising how many people ‘just don’t get it ‘(see the David MacLeod & Nita Clarke report) so you will need solid evidence.

Belief: You’ve got to believe, because if you don’t, how will you convince anyone else? Everyone I met totally believed in the power of employee engagement; nothing else to say.

Passion: This absolutely stands out for me as the defining characteristic of what makes great employee engagement. Passion is what I saw in all three organisations across the day but if you want one example of what passion inspires here goes…….

Walking out of one of the workshops with Ricoh an individual who works in the NHS turned around and said out loud, to everyone…… “I found that inspiring, I would like to come and work for Ricoh”. Not a bad impact after sitting there for an hour.

It was an incredibly useful session and I would like to say thanks very much to:

Stuart Laws – Ministry of Defence
Rob Bland & Chris Nicholls – Ricoh UK Products
Zufi Yousaf & Michael Davies – HSBC
Anthony Denatale – IdeasUK

I know that IdeasUK are planning to keep the momentum going by publishing a series of blogs about the day. This is part of the pledge I made during the day to help keep things alive through my own blog posts.

So, what’s the PONT?

Longevity is a key feature of successful employee engagement which other organisations would benefit from thinking about.
Evidence of success (and cash savings) is highly necessary if you want to convince the ‘just don’t get it’ crowd.
Passion above all will inspire people to do great things.

Links:

http://blog.ideasuk.com/2012/07/06/i-pledge/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/employee-engagement-kaizen-passion-in-the-west-midlands-ricoh-telford-to-be-exact/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/ricoh-gemba-mat-the-best-of-ohno-circles-gemba-walks-and-employee-engagement/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/gemba-walks-kaizen-the-elvis-way-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/social-media-staff-ideas-better-engagement-a-bank-that-says-yes/

http://www.goodpracticewales.com/Resources/Employee-Engagement

Just to emphasise the point about longevity……

Do car dealers use the lean thinking from the manufacturing process?

Posted on June 8, 2012 by whatsthepont

This is on the heels of recent posts about customer services. This morning, in the pouring rain and a howling gale, I dropped my mother’s car off at the garage for repairs. I hadn’t been there for about 7 years but was instantly reminded of why I stopped – shocking organisation which resulted in hassled staff and poor customer service.

Looking at what was going on I couldn’t help thinking, they could do with some Lean thinking here. A bit of Gemba Mat wouldn’t go amiss either. Admittedly it wasn’t a Toyota dealership, but I’m sure the manufacturers they represent would employ some sort of Lean thinking. Why on earth hadn’t it found its way out here?

This is what I experienced:

Lack of signs. The service department and sales were opposite sides of a main road. There was nothing obvious to say this and I initially went to the wrong place.
Drop off time. I was only offered 8.30am as was everyone else. This had negative consequences.
At drop off time the area around the Garage is highly congested with people dropping off vehicles, commuter traffic and the local kids heading to school.
There aren’t enough ‘service’ parking spaces at the garage. You either need to park on the main highway or in a nearby street.
If you are being collected, your lift will have to park some distance away; a big deal if it’s raining like today.
Everyone booking in at 8.30am leads to long queues and delays at the booking desk.
People are hassled because they are running late, this translates into irritation with the booking clerk.
The booking clerk gets annoyed, and a vicious circle develops with the next customer in line.
Just to add the icing on the cake, the detailed information provided over the phone hasn’t found its way onto the partly prepared paperwork, so they ask you all the same questions again. Fine when you know your vehicle intimately, not so good when dropping off your mother’s car.
Finally, you know that the car won’t be seen until at least 2pm.
Now proceed to work….. “Have a nice day”….. No thanks to the garage.

I know there is a better way.

I’ve experienced it in other garages.

Had the garage taken even a cursory look at the process they would have seen so much opportunity to improve the flow and end up with happier customers and (I’m sure) happier and more engaged staff.

My suggestions to improve:

Multiple booking in slots during the day. Even a morning and afternoon session would reduce the congestion and have considerable benefits.
Better signs – let people know what’s happening and where. All pretty straightforward visual management / 5s activity.
Please use the diagnostic information you get over the phone.

I do find it amazing that this was the customer facing end of a highly efficient manufacturing organisation that uses approaches like lean, yet it doesn’t seem to travel beyond the factory gates. I wonder why?

So, what’s the PONT?

Some systems and processes are set up in a way that they cause blockages which results in an inefficient service and customer dissatisfaction.
Customer dissatisfaction can have a negative impact on staff which leads to a ‘vicious circle’ developing.
There are straightforward techniques like Gemba Mat which help improve processes and flow. They are widely used in vehicle manufacturing and could be adapted and applied by car dealers…….. please have a go.

But there is hope at the end of this tale. I’ve just come across the book featured in the picture. ‘Creating Lean Dealers’ by David Brunt & John Kiff. It was a Shingo Prize winner for research award in 2010 so well worth a read. I’m going to recommend it when I pick up the car, today hopefully.

“Car manufacturing has been transformed by lean over the last 20 years, yet car dealerships have remained virtually untouched – until now. “

Denial and resistance versus self evaluation….. how to approach continuous improvement.

Posted on March 18, 2012 by whatsthepont

This is a tale of good and bad, a bit of a shocker.

It’s all about denial, ignorance and resistance versus balance, self-evaluation and an effective approach to improvement. Let’s start with the bad….

After seeing Gemba Mat in action at Ricoh I was (ever so slightly over) enthusiastic and felt the need to tell lots of people about it. During my evangelizing with one group we were joined by someone who had been a ‘big cheese’ in their chosen field. Before I could finish the individual had metaphorically grabbed me by the throat and started ranting. The gist of it was….

“Things like this could never work in their world of delivering personal services. It would be ludicrous to try to apply a manufacturing technique to their service area. Also, they were sick of the consultants who had tried to force this sort of thing on them”.

Oh dear….. touched a raw nerve here, maybe they had experienced something like office 5s gone wrong which I have mentioned previously.

I didn’t stick around to argue (far too ferocious), but I would have liked to have asked:

Is spending dedicated time thinking about how to improve what you do a bad idea?
Is structuring precious time, to use it to best effect, a bad idea?
Is involving people who know the work best a bad idea?

I’m hoping the answer would have been no to each of these questions, but the individual was pretty set in their ways. A great shame and unfortunately there are a few of these dinosaurs about.

This brings me on to my happy story.

As part of University open day visits with my teenage son I usually like to get lost from the official tour and find a Lab Technician (preferably Arkwright) or real live student to talk to. Sometimes you strike gold and get to talk with someone who offers a real insight into how the place works. This happened in the last visit, and fortunately this is now my son’s favourite place.

My conversation with a final year student went along the lines of:

Me. “how do you find the working in industry part of the course?”

Student. “Great, it’s a real opportunity to address your weaknesses”

Me. “eh? don’t you go to a place where you know you will be good at it and enjoy yourselves?”

Student. “oh no. It’s all about using that experience to develop your weak spots and turn you into a much more widely experienced person. John over there knew he needed to develop his computer aided design skill and deliberately looked for a tough placement that would push him in this area. That company has actually offered him a job when he graduates”.

Me. “stunned silence….” (Hugely impressed)

None of this is made up or stage-managed (they didn’t seem brainwashed either). I spoke with a few of the students and it was a similar story. They were all incredibly focused upon self-evaluation and improvement. They weren’t afraid of pushing themselves into uncomfortable situations either. This was done as individuals, with their peer groups and they weren’t shy about telling the Course Director and Tutors how they thought the course could be improved. It was great that everyone was involved in evaluation, went looking for feedback and did practical things to deliver improvement.

Like I said, I think I struck gold here. The contrast between my ‘big cheese’ experience and the university students’ couldn’t have been more extreme. I just hope teenage son realises what he’s let himself in for. I also think it will be great when these students enter the workplace, what a difference they can make….. if the rest of us old dinosaurs let them.

So, what’s the PONT?

Constantly asking the difficult questions, ‘how did I do, how do I get better?‘, is a good approach to continuous improvement.
Opening yourself up to alternative ways of doing things is pretty good too.
There is a lot to be learnt from some of the new people entering the workplace. Listen and learn from them before they become fully inducted into ‘the way things happen around here’.

Ricoh Gemba Mat, the best of Ohno Circles, Gemba Walks and Employee Engagement.

Posted on March 10, 2012 by whatsthepont

Gemba Mat is an improvement tool which combines the ideas behind Ohno Circles, the Gemba Walk and enhances them through employee engagement. I think it is incredibly effective, not just as an improvement tool but also in how it engages and develops people. I saw Gemba Mat in use at Ricoh in Telford during an IdeasUK networking event. Thanks to Chris Nicholls from Ricoh for allowing me to share this.

The method is beautifully simple, low-cost and something I think could be used in just about any setting, not just manufacturing environments. This is how it works:

The whole process takes 60 minutes;
The observers find a good spot, and place the Gemba Mat on the ground;
The observers then stand on the mat and observe what is happening in the process or activity in front of them;
To help with the observations there are some prompts on the mat (7 factory wastes and 5 facilities),see the attached picture;
Problems observed are recorded on an observation sheet;
There is space for a maximum of 30 observations, and the observation period lasts 30 minutes;
In the remaining 30 minutes the observer is tasked with resolving (closing out) one of the problems (getting a quick win I think is an important part of maintaining momentum);
Remaining problems are considered as part of the Ricoh suggestion scheme;
There are repeat visits to the area to confirm problems have been resolved or countermeasures are in place;
The Gemba Mat exercise can also be carried out at different times of the day or from different observation points to see what problems can be seen.

This is an incredibly effective improvement and engagement tool. The results at Ricoh speak for themselves. They have won numerous international awards for quality and innovation, including awards from IdeasUK. At Telford the results they get for employee engagement in their staff survey are remarkably good.

A few things struck me while I was observing Gemba Mat at Ricoh.

Ritualisation of the Improvement Process. The act of rolling out the Gemba Mat and placing it on the floor is highly significant, a bit like a ritual. It’s almost like saying to your brain, “forget everything else, you are now going into observation mode, to look for problems, and how to solve them”. We’ve all heard about athletes and performers going through rituals or warm ups before they perform. I’m sure there is something similar going on here, all of the thought patterns for problem spotting are brought to the front of your mind when you roll out the Gemba Mat.
It’s a proper tool. The best tools are the ones that just work. They are easy to use; they help you get the job done, no fuss. Gemba Mat is just that, a perfect tool for the job.
People like using it. In an offline conversation one of the employees told me that they had experienced some down time the previous week, “so we just picked up the Gemba Mat and went off to look at what another team did. They found it really useful”. This was a spontaneous act which the whole team got involved in. There were no management ‘drivers’, no external ‘push’, they just did it. If that’s not an example of people being engaged in work, I don’t know what is.

Thanks again to Chris and IdeasUK for the opportunity to see Gemba Mat in action. Follow @ChrisNicholls12 and @ideasworldwide (IdeasUK) on Twitter if you want to find out more, particularly if there are IdeasUK networking events at Ricoh, which are well worth attending.

So, what’s the PONT?

Gemba Mat is an incredibly effective improvement and engagement tool.
Like all the best tools it’s easy to use and just works.
Ritualising the improvement process through the act of rolling out the Gemba Mat and placing it on the floor has an important effect on how people use the tool.

Links to other posts:

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/gemba-walks-kaizen-the-elvis-way-walk-a-mile-in-my-shoes/

http://whatsthepont.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/employee-engagement-kaizen-passion-in-the-west-midlands-ricoh-telford-to-be-exact/

Gemba Mat in action at Ricoh.

Gemba Walks, Kaizen the Elvis way…..”walk a mile in my shoes”

Posted on March 5, 2012 by whatsthepont

This is a prelude to a post on the Gemba Mat improvement technique I saw used an IdeasUK networking event at Ricoh in Telford. Gemba Mat is a beautifully straightforward and effective improvement and employee engagement approach that is worthy of a build-up so I’ll leave you in anticipation.

Gemba is a version of the Japanese term Genba that translates as “the real place”. In the world of Kaizen and continuous improvement it’s come to mean the work place; the factory floor, the hospital ward, sales floor or where a service provider interacts directly with the service user or customer.

The basic idea is that problems within a process or system will be visible, so the best place to go and look for solutions or improvements is the Gemba or workplace. Taking time to carefully look at the work process, as it happens, will help you to see what needs improving. Two things stand out here for me:

Dedicated time is spent focusing upon the work to identify improvements; and
It’s done at the workplace: not in a meeting room, on an ‘away day’, via a focus group or a survey of staff.

The Gemba Walk is just an extension of this idea where people walk around the work place, gaining understanding and looking for improvements.

It doesn’t have to just apply to a manufacturing environment. This post from the IT Managers Inbox gives some clear advice on how to carry out Gemba Walks as an IT service provider. “Gemba is not your desk”. “If you seek solutions to problems that need to be fixed, go to Gemba. If you want to see the work behind the reports, go to Gemba. If you want to show leadership, go to Gemba. Go to where the work is performed and observe and engage with those who do it……Gemba Walk is a technique that can help you deal with the problems that arise every day and be more effective at managing the people who solve them”.

When you sit back and think about it Gemba Walks could be seen as having some similarities with time and motion studies, back to the floor exercises (much-loved by the reality TV people) and MBWA. Management by walking around (MBWA) is often mentioned in the same breath as Gemba Walk (see the Wikipedia article). However I think that the emphasis of these approaches can miss the importance of employee engagement. For me it’s not just about managers seeing something that needs improving, and getting someone else to do it. The real positive for me is the prospect of the people doing the job, getting involved and doing it themselves, a key part of employee engagement. More about this in the Ricoh Gemba Mat post.

So, what has Elvis got to do with Gemba Walks you might be wondering? Well it seemed obvious to me, if you want to understand what someone else is doing “walk a mile in their shoes”. There are probably some more heavyweight scholarly things I could have quoted for this, but I do very much like the idea of ‘doing Kaizen the Elvis way’ (and a link to this Elvis song pleases my wife). The lyrics are well worth a read but the chorus goes:

“Yeah, before you abuse, criticize or accuse,

Walk a mile in my shoes”. .

Just sing it loud next time you are out in the Gemba.

So what’s the PONT?

To improve a process or solve a problem it helps to ‘walk a mile in the shoes’ of the people who operate it.
Managers being visible and walking around the shop floor / work place / Gemba will help their understanding of what happens, and improve their decision making.
Visibility will also help to improve reputation with the troops.

Employee Engagement = Kaizen + Passion in the West Midlands (Ricoh Telford to be exact)

Posted on February 23, 2012 by whatsthepont

A while back when I was writing Kaizen! Toast v Beer, Who Wins? I came across this quote “continuous improvement is the result of continuous involvement”. I couldn’t remember where and ended up searching absolutely loads of websites offering advice on Kaizen, Lean manufacturing and employee engagement, including a few where you can buy it as a motivational poster (Amazon $33.99).

As good as the quote is, I’d like to add in passion, West Midlands style, Ricoh in Telford to be exact.

Recently I visited the Ricoh factory in Telford as part of an IdeasUK networking event. Ricoh in Telford have a very good reputation, which includes their employee engagement. Following the visit three things stand out for me about how Ricoh achieve this success; passion, trust and involvement. These factors are all fundamental to their employee engagement and Kaizen continuous improvement approaches.

Passion. I must admit that ‘passion’ wasn’t something I was expecting to encounter in a photocopier factory somewhere out west of Wolverhampton, but I did, in bucket loads. In fact I met Chris Nicholls the Manufacturing Division General Manager who is responsible for the company value of passion.

Organisational values in my experience are pretty pointless unless they are demonstrated through behaviours, particularly by leaders. Chris and his Continuous Improvement Team demonstrate passion completely. They have passion for continuous improvement, passion for delivering a better product to the customers and passion for helping the employees do the best job they can. This was totally evident in everything they said and did and rubbed off on everyone they encountered, including visitors.

Trust. Trust is a word that is frequently used in relation to employee engagement and continuous improvement. Easy to say, but hard to demonstrate. All I’ll say is that the approach I saw at Ricoh was completely based on trusting people. The expression, “you are the expert in your job, we trust you to do it’” was used on several occasions. It was fascinating watching how trust was demonstrated on the factory floor. People would step in, help others, clean up, move potential blockages and just cover each others backs when they were busy. Total teamwork based on trusting your co-workers. The only other place where I’ve seen this level of trust and teamwork is in a Fire and Rescue Service.

Involvement. Involving people in their jobs as well as a wider continuous improvement mindset across the organisation is key to engagement. Perhaps the most striking example I saw was of one of the warehouse workers who was given an award for the best improvement idea that month. That was great, but in fact he’d had more improvement ideas in total than anyone else on site that year. This was remarkable when you consider he was actually an agency worker on a temporary contract. It’s fantastic that you can get that depth of involvement and engagement from someone who’s with you on a temporary basis. So often you hear the opposite about ‘temps’ being disengaged.

Ricoh in Telford is an inspiring place and Chris Nicholls is putting some material together on the approach to engagement he’s developed there. It’s well worth following what he’s got to say on Twitter @ChrisNicholls12.

Back to the quote, I know it’s not terribly fashionable to like motivational posters (all a bit 1990’s) but I do like “continuous improvement is the result of continuous involvement”. I think it effectively sums up the link between employee engagement and Kaizen quite nicely. Throw in some passion and it would be perfect. Employee Engagement = Kaizen + Passion.

So, what’s the PONT?

Continuous involvement (employee engagement) will deliver continuous improvement (Kaizen).
Passion isn’t a word we use, or a behaviour we demonstrate enough in the workplace. Be passionate about what you do and you’ll probably achieve more.
Trust people to do their jobs. They are the experts.

5s and improvement – divergent views?

Posted on June 27, 2011 by whatsthepont

US Interstate 5 South (I5S). My 5s image, obscure maybe, but I like it.

I recently posted about the use of 5S and visual management in hospitals as a method for organising work and improving processes. 5s has evolved from Japanese manufacturing techniques and being widely applied to all sorts of activities, including public services. It’s an interesting area and I’m learning a lot about how it’s being used and possibly misused.

What’s intriguing how 5S and Kaizen seem to polarise views, a bit like Marmite, people love it or hate it, or here comes salvation or damnation. I wanted to share some of my learning which helps inform what I’m thinking. There are likely to be a few posts on this, so the Interstate 5 South, (I5S)* sign might reappear.

The types of things I’m hoping to cover are:

The links with complexity thinking, using the Cynefin Framework. This is a good
explanation of complexity thinking which is highly relevant to this topic;
Adoption versus adaptation of practice between situations. It’s not just about picking up simple best practice from one place and blindly implementing it elsewhere.
How the continuous improvement approach can help (or hinder) employee engagement
And probably a few other things like Kaizen.

As a starter, here are two You Tube clips that illustrate very different perspectives:

Toyota 5s is a series of images showing how the 5s approach has been successful applied to their manufacturing process. Even the Cleaners Trolley gets the full 5S treatment. Not much you can argue with here, a hugely successful company and loads of clever people have written books and produced videos about how good their approach is. That’s all good, but how well does the approach travel? Is it relevant to other industries and practices?
Office 5s Gone Wrong This is a view on the potentially disastrous implications of blindly applying 5s in a non manufacturing environment, a Marketing Department. It’s hilarious and pretty close to reality if you believe this newspaper report about HMRC in North Tyneside. Putting tape around the pencils and staplers (and bananas!) on your desk apparently happened in some big public sector organisations. If you want to get into it a bit deeper into this Mark Graban posted the video with a transcript available on his blog post. If you want to learn more about 5s his leanblog is worth a look.

So, what’s the PONT?

5s does work well as an improvement approach for lots of processes
in lots of environments, particularly manufacturing..
There are some situations where its application needs careful consideration. You need to think about your own contex, why you are applying the tecnique and what you want to achieve.
Over zealous application of 5s, or any other improvement technique, can have disastrous consequences. (see office 5S video & HMRC article)

*You might be wondering about my 5s image, sorry it’s a bit obscure. All of the standard 5s images are just so serious and technical and to be honest they put me off. Anyway, I like Interstate 5 South, the picture reminds me of happy days on road trips in the US.

Kaizen! Toast v Beer, Who Wins?

Posted on June 18, 2011 by whatsthepont

Wales shaped Toast, how good is this. Genius!

I love You Tube, it a great resource for sharing and learning but sadly not widely used by public services (in many organisations it’s blocked, like most social media). I’m also quite interested in beer, so this grabbed my attention, particularly when you throw in Kaizen.

Amongst the dozens of You Tube videos on Kaizen, these two really caught my attention, Kaizen Toast and Kaizen Beer! Both practically explain the principles of Kaizen but from slightly different angles. I thought it would be a bit of fun to compare them and see which one wins, so here goes.

As the enlightened know, we will need some quantitative data and some contextual narrative information for this. The numbers are accurate, but not always believable, the narrative is believable, but not always accurate. If we put them together we will get something accurate, believable and overall convincing.

Toast v Beer Kaizen – Metrics Table (17 June 2011)

Indicator	TOAST!	BEER!	Why use this indicator?
Views	59,177	5,129	More might mean better?
Likes	19	9	User feedback, excellent
Dislikes	5	2	More customer feedback, even better
Comments #	13	4	Level of feeling & opinion generated
Comments +\-ve	40\60 ish	90\10 ish	Hmm, hard to judge what they mean
Duration	5.12 min / 30 mins	9.30 min	Too long = boring (potentially)
Awards	Shingo	No	Someone else thinks it’s good

Well, Toast looks like the winner, but let’s consider the narrative behind the
numbers.

Toast Kaizen, is produced by the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership and is presented by their Shingo Prize recipient Bruce Hamilton. The video gives an introduction to Toast Kaizen, applying Kaizen to a familiar setting, the kitchen, and a familiar process, making toast. If you want the full 30min version (available in 11 languages) you’ll need to buy it ($99). A quality You Tube video which Kaizen enthusiasts and learners will no doubt enjoy.

Beer Kaizen! , this is a very funny take on the world of Kaizen, focussing on a ‘work activity’ I can really understand, drinking beer with my friends. The 9.30 mins flew by and I think I actually learned a lot about Kaizen. My personal beer distribution system is now worthy of a Six Sigma Black Belt. Even an untrained operative (kids friends), or reluctant/resistant workers (my kids) can now successfully serve me up a beer. Actually the video is a homage to the Toast Kaizen video, but it does the trick very cleverly.

So what’s the PONT?

Hopefully you’ve picked up a bit of learning about Kaizen by watching those videos. Lots of things on YouTube are great resource, it’s not all keyboard cat (excellent though it is!).
Humour is used in both of these videos, a great way of getting learning transferred.
Different things work for different audiences (beer for me), I think that both videos are winners, nice one guys.

Brains Beer Tapas, more Welsh genius.

What's the PONT

Bridging People and Ideas……

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