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Facilitators, their role in a kaizen event

A kaizen facilitator has various tasks to complete, for example keep the team focus, engaged, and energized.

Various roles are critical for a successful continuous improvement event. One of those roles is the event facilitator. He or she is responsible for leading the event, but that is not the only responsibility.

What are the responsibilities of the facilitator?

Most of the time, the facilitator is also the kaizen or continuous improvement event planner. As an event planner, they organize and prepare all the activities related to the event. For instance, the facilitator works with the event leaders to establish the scope of the event and develop the charter. Also, they identify and gather resources and materials while keeping everything under budget.

During the event, the facilitator has a couple of responsibilities that can make or break the activity. A CI event requires a good coach that guides the team by asking questions. Through these questions, he or she helps the team to see and approach problems using lean thinking. In other words, participants learn lean thinking by doing it.

While executing the different steps of the event, the use of CI tools is common. Because not all team members know those tools, they learned them from the teacher or facilitator. This means that during the event, they develop team skills.

Keep the team motivated

Unfortunately, not everything always goes as planned. Sometimes, participants do not show interest or lose focus during the event. When that happens, it is time to put on a different hat. This time the facilitator will act as a motivator and cheerleader. Accepting change is never easy. Therefore, people need to understand the purpose of the event. Furthermore, why they are participating in the event and what is in there for them.

Even when event participants know those things, keeping them motivated and engage in the activities is a tall order. A good facilitator will take time to learn about their audience before the action starts. Knowing ahead how they learn better and their learning type will go a long way to keep them motivated.

Some parts of a continuous improvement or kaizen event can be bored. Not everybody enjoys sitting in a room for hours or analyze information. The facilitator needs to work hard to keep those individuals engaged and energized. A way to do this is to acknowledge those challenges and the accomplishment of milestones during the activity. Celebrate those accomplishments as all small wins. Keep the audience active by incorporating exercises and having them assisting you in some parts. For example, participants can help as scribers.

Facilitators also manage conflict

Another situation that is inevitable when we are dealing with change is conflict. Some people will be more open than others to accept change or participate in activities that lead to change the status quo. Those groups may disagree on the causes or solutions. When that happens, the facilitator acts as a mediator to help those groups to reach a consensus.

There are a few other things that can cause some trouble. For instance, when technology fails, it must pivot and adjust the training to the new circumstances. The same happens when the original training plan is not working.

Help the team succeed is the most important job of the facilitator

The event facilitator’s most important job is to help the team succeed. Teaching and coaching while focusing on the kaizen’s objective is a critical part of that job. Also, to remove any obstacles to learning and keep the group energized. Motivate and show respect by focusing your attention on whoever is sharing an idea or commenting on a subject. Celebrate small wins and praise teamwork and collaboration. In other words, create a positive and safe environment that invites people to participate and be the best they can be!

CI Basics

Continuous improvement books for beginners

I learned that February is the library lovers’ month. Many of us don’t visit libraries anymore, but still, keep our love for books. In my case, I have a weak spot for continuous improvement books. Books are an excellent way to learn, find inspiration, or have a good time. My CI learning experience includes traditional classroom training, webinars, hands-on workshops, and others. But my favorite way to learn more about CI is by reading books. Perhaps, it is because I can go at my pace, reading, learning, and practicing.

Continuous improvement books

There are thousands of books about CI out there. Although there are real gems, there are also some that are not very good. As a result, finding the right one can be difficult. Some publications are best suited for beginners, while others are for people with some experience.

Here is a list of my favorite CI titles

Gemba Kaizen by Masaaki Imai – This book is an introduction to kaizen and gemba. Although the book contains all the traditional lean jargon, it is easy to read. In addition, includes various case studies including hospitals, product development, ground transportation, and logistics.
Lean Production Simplified by Pascal Dennis – The title says it all, it contains a simplified explanation of the lean system. The book includes a description of various concepts like five S, visual management, standardize work, and others.
The lean turnaround by Art Byrne – If you are an executive looking to start a culture transformation, this is the one for you. It focuses on lean as a strategy to create value and transform the company.
Lean Office and Service Simplified by Drew Locher – If you work in an office or service environment, look no further. The author presents all lean principles and concepts from a non-manufacturing perspective. He describes how to use tools like value-stream, standard work, flow, visual management, and others. In addition, it provides several examples and implementation strategies.
The Toyota Way to Service Excellence by Jeffrey K. Liker and Karyn Ross – The authors explain how to use the lean principles, practices, and tools to provide better services. Moreover, it contains case studies in various service industries. The examples include financial services, telecommunications, health care, and insurance.
People: A leader’s day-to-day guide to building, managing, and sustaining lean organizations by Robert Martichenko, Steve Gran, Roger Pearce, & 4 more – This book is a leaders’ guide to build and sustain a lean organization. It provides guidance for all the tasks, activities, and behaviors a leader needs to transform the organization and get long-term success.
Lean Thinking by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones – This publication is a best seller classic. It goes from the principles to lean thinking to action, presenting how to close the gap between customers and providers. It also has case studies to explain those concepts. One of them is Wiremold Company with Art Byrne as its president and CEO. Yes, you are right, he is the author of the #3 on my list.

You read continuous improvement books, and then what?

The short answer to that question is that you learn, explore, and practice lean. Learn new ways to do things. Second, you explore how to apply those ways within your business. Third, you keep learning by teaching others how to do it. And third, you keep learning and practicing.

The secret to a continuous improvement culture transformation is that lean, or CI, is a system, not a group of tools. The focus should be on the people and the learning process. One common mistake is to spend too much time learning and using tools. Instead, focus on working with the people. The real success is, being able to engage your team in CI. That is to say, do not waste your time reading books unless you are committed to learn and teach.

What else you can do?

To increase your learning opportunities, combine reading books with hands-on workshops and training. For even better results, get a serious professional to help you along the journey. We all need a coach or mentor to guide us through the challenging steps of transforming a culture. Here in Better Process Solutions, we are ready to help. Get in touch!

CI Basics

Lean thinking, what is it?

I mentioned the phrase, lean thinking pretty often. As I indicated before, the term was coined by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones. It is used to describe the process of making business decisions based on Lean Principles.

What are the principles of lean?

Customer Value
Identify all the steps in the value stream and eliminate waste.
Make the value-add steps flow.
Let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
Continuous Improvement

The foundation of lean thinking

This list of principles is the foundation of the Lean system. It is a collection of thoughts, behaviors, or propositions that guide what we had known as Lean Thinking.

All effort directed to improve a process starts with identifying value from the customer lenses. The continuous improvement goal is to deliver the Customer the highest product or service quality, at the lowest possible cost, in the shortest lead time. Consequently, the focus of all our decisions is quality, cost, delivery, and people. In other words, the focus is on those things that the customer value.

Process Improvement and the customer

If the focus is on customer value, then it is logical that the next step is to identify the value stream. That is to say, to identify all the steps from request to delivery and eliminate waste. Waste is defined as those steps that do not add value.

The third principle is to make the value-add steps flow. Eliminating delays, waiting time, and other sources of waste, the flow improves. Therefore, the total process time would be shorter. Once this happens, let them pull value from the next upstream step. That is to say, that your clients will indicate when they need more inventory. Continuous improvement is the repetition of the first four principles. Once you improve one process, standardize, train, and start improving again.

Lean thinking vs. traditional thinking

It is necessary to put aside old behaviors and ways to change the culture by embracing continuous improvement thinking. To make decisions based on customer value and flow is not what you learned in business school. Give your team the power to change things is not common either.

The table below presents various examples of each thinking type, side by side. You will recognize some principles and behaviors that I mentioned in previous posts. For example, to empower the team to improve their workplace versus bringing external resources.

It takes time to get used to this type of thinking. However, practice lean thinking every day, everywhere, by everybody is worth it. Above all, your customers will notice the difference, and your business bottom-line will be better.

Culture Transformation Journey

Where should be the focus of continuous improvement?

While transforming the company culture from traditional to continuous improvement, where should be the focus?

The most common errors while implementing continuous improvement is to focus on one small area. Do it in such a way, you are impacting only a portion of your business and not the entire enterprise. It is common to focus on the most visible parts. For example, start with areas with labor-intensive processes or warehousing, where most of the inventory resides. There is nothing wrong with using one problematic zone as the initial focal point. This way, you can earn a big win and use it to promote the initiative. But, focusing on one area should not a permanent strategy.

Focus on one area only affects the impact of the transformation

Your goal is to deliver to your customer the highest quality, at the lowest possible cost, in the shortest possible time. To achieve this goal, you need to focus on your customer needs, ensure flow through the value stream, and create quality products or services. You need the help of all the different components or teams to make this happen.

Focusing on one area, regardless of how problematic it may be, have the immediate effect of perpetuating the silos mentality. You want to promote collaboration and to have people from different departments working together to achieve common goals. Impacting only one department does not improve collaboration, not even when you have a cross-discipline group.

Focusing on anything less than the entire enterprise is missing the opportunity to achieve real changes in flow, quality, and costs that would position your business in a better place than most of your competitors. Let’s face it everybody is happier when the company’s financials are better, and a big impact on those numbers only happens with the participation of all departments.

A narrow focus does not change the culture

If you want to have a permanent change in how things are done and create a new business model, you need to change the culture. This type of change, by definition, has to impact everybody. If you recall, Culture change, lean thinking & people’s development are some of the key elements for a successful lean implementation.

While focusing on one department only, most probably, you are picking a couple of tools or principles only, ignoring those that will help to develop your team. Lean is not about tools; it is about the people. Using new tools for process improvement to obtain quick results is not right. You need to be in the look for people’s development, including your own. When you focus on the team, provides the right environment to learn, explore new ways to do things, and communicate without hesitation, the improvements will come along.

The team needs a common purpose

Knowing how their work connects to the value the company provides to the customer gives your employees clarity to connect their actions with the final results. The new culture will create a team of problem-solvers, people that think differently and are motivated to create.

Conclusion

Continuous improvement as a strategy to improve quality, lead-time, or minimize cost will give you additional benefits when it is implemented in the right way. Other benefits include an increase in customer satisfaction and employee engagement and flexibility to face an unexpected crisis. Implementing this strategy across the house leads to better results.

Start by knowing your current status in detail. What are those big-time issues that are affecting your bottom line the most? Identify your business strengths and weaknesses. Select three to five key objectives, establish a goal, and develop strategies to close the gap. Choose them wisely, use your resources on the most pressing issues. You can impact different areas like quality, cost, delivery, safety, or people development. Break down the strategy into bite-sized plans. Do not forget to include how to deploy the implementation throughout the entire business.

Daily & Events CI

10 Rules to practicing continuous improvement

While doing kaizen, obviously you are seeking to improve a process, but if you are focusing on the results, your heart is in the wrong place. Continuous Improvement heart is the people; therefore, you should focus on their learning experience rather than the savings or productivity gain. What are the ground rules for practicing continuous improvement?

Ground rules for practicing continuous improvement

When I facilitate kaizen events, I like to be clear about the expectations. A number of those expectations are directed to leadership because, as stated before, they need to learn and model the new behaviors. Kaizen is a learning activity, where curiosity, creativity, and the desire to learn and do new things are the main ingredients for success. The following are ten ground rules for practicing continuous improvement.

Practice Respect at all times, respect the people and their ideas, one person speaking at a time, listen to what others have to say, be on time, no finger-pointing, there are no bad ideas.
Tune your mind to a new channel: Lean Thinking.
Keep an open mind, be curious, ask Why, What if, How could we?
Challenge the status quo, ask Why five times, and find the root cause.
No excuses! Think Yes, we can do it if _____.
Look for low-cost, rapid, and simple solutions.
It is ok (and encouraged) to disagree, but it is not ok to be disrespectful.
The meeting room is a safe zone where there are no titles, all ideas and opinions have the same value, and it is ok, to be honest.
Correct what you see wrong, but there is no need to be perfect!
Win or learn, here you do not lose!

Additional key notes

These rules exist to ensure the right environment to encourage participation exists. Kaizen is not classroom training; it is learning by doing. Create the environment to drive fear out of the door and let in creativity and curiosity. Every team member deserves to have the opportunity to learn and be part of the activities that will change their work environment and processes.

Culture Transformation Journey

How does the job environment affect the cultural transformation?

The main ingredient for a successful lean implementation is creating a continuous improvement culture. Changing behaviors and beliefs is never easy. For instance, the previous culture determines how difficult it will be. The work environment is the result of the company culture and management styles. Certainly, that environment will determine how the employees react to the cultural transformation.

Job environment and engagement

According to Gallup, just 33 percent of American workers are engaged by their jobs. Also, 67 percent is either actively disengaged or “just showing up.” Engagement and productivity are affected by various factors. The way the employees feel their supervisor treats them is one. Other factors are how much they trust leadership and communication styles. Employees want to feel valued and respected. Moreover, that their ideas count, and their work is meaningful.

The objective of the culture change is to shift from traditional thinking to a lean thinking approach. To be successful, the relationship between leadership and associates will be the biggest hurdle. Leadership defines the organizational culture. For that reason, the first key element for a successful implementation is the buy-in and support from them.

Understand how the previous job environment shaped the company culture

Before you start planning the implementation, you have to understand how the previous culture shaped the work environment. The team mindset is closely related to the job environment and employee satisfaction.

Do you know how your employees feel about the company? How do they feel about their supervisors? What they think about how leaders make decisions? Do they feel that they matter? To change their mindset, you need to get honest answers to those questions. Getting the truth can be difficult and painful, but it is a necessary step to know how your employees feel and create the appropriate implementation plan.

The right environment to transform the culture to continuous improvement

Leadership needs to change their traditional business behaviors and adopt servant leadership. If they don’t, no matter what you do, the implementation will fail. Most importantly, the true mission of the transformation is to develop your people first. If you are not committed to making it happen, then do not bother trying. The worst thing is to announce changes and promise new ways and then not deliver.

If you are serious about adopting Lean thinking and use continuous improvement, find the right way to motivate your team. A good start is to have an honest and open communication of why you want to change. Have a heart to heart conversations to gather information. Identify the team interests, how they perceived their benefits and company policies, and how clear they have their responsibilities.

It takes a lot of continuous work to change the culture. After those conversations, everybody needs to turn the page. Then, start working together to create a better future and shape new mindsets.

CI Basics

Do you still think that continuous improvement is not for you?

Some companies have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic much better than others, at least for now. Over the past few weeks, I have seen and shared through my Twitter and Facebook accounts examples of how lean companies have handled the crisis. The common denominator for all of them is they keep the focus on the same things, people, and customers. They also use different continuous improvement tools to learn and adapt to the new normal in record times. How did they do that? Using lean thinking and not taking their eyes from the basic principles.

The term “lean thinking” was coined by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, it is used to describe the process of making business decisions based on the Lean Principles. Womack and Jones book, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation presented and talked in detail about those principles.

Customer Value
Identify all the steps in the value stream and eliminate waste.
Make the value-add steps flow.
Let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
Continuous Improvement

Since the first principle is to define value from the customer point of view, it is logical to start the crisis response looking at how value changed for internal and external customers. As a leader, you are responsible for your employee’s health and well-being while they are working. To provide a safer possible workplace, revise the value stream to identify how it needs to change, how the flow will be affected and corrected, and finally implement the changes. While doing this, keep the communication with your employees and customers to make sure that you are adapting to their new needs and priorities.

Improving the process is an activity that never stops. Every day new information comes out that makes it necessary to change something on the process. Lean companies can face this challenge easier than others because they developed people to become problem-solvers. They focus on the problem cause and possible solutions using PDCA, 5 Why, and other tools. It is better to have an army of problem-solvers than just a few people, or worst, just you.

The heart of the lean system is people involvement, a highly motivated team continuously seeking the best way. To keep the heart healthy, you need to maintain a respectful, free of blame, and honest work environment where the team feels they are being cared for, and their feelings and ideas matter.

I don’t know if lean or continuous improvement is the antidote against the economic crisis, we are living in. Based on my experience, I know that it is better than traditional management, and it works for any industry, of any size. Industries with a small profit margin, like restaurants, will benefit from this type of thinking more than anyone. Changing the decision-making process and how you conduct business is a better route to become profitable and flexible.

If you keep doing what you always did, you will get what you always got. Henry Ford

Culture Transformation Journey

What are the key elements for continuous improvement success?

The answer to the question of what the key elements to a successful lean implementation are depends on who you ask. Most people will say that discipline and determination are key. Others will include skills, passion, know your goals, and luck. If you are convinced that lean is the strategy you will use to frame your business decisions, you must know the keys to a successful lean implementation.

One of the key elements is leadership buy-in and support

The fundamental part of a successful lean implementation is creating a continuous improvement culture. However, you need to ensure that the entire leadership group is singing the same song. In other words, to change the culture, you need leadership buy-in and support. Leadership defines the organization’s culture. Therefore, if they don’t change their attitudes and behaviors, success is a dream. If you are the owner or top leader, you are the person who needs to drive the change. Also, you will need to align purpose, process, and people.

More key elements for success

The objective of the transformation is to change from traditional thinking to a lean thinking approach. Changing the belief system and behaviors is not easy. A fundamental part of the culture change is to care more about people’s motivations, viewpoints, and how to develop their skills.

Communication at every stage is crucial. People need to know what, why, how, when, and who. If the current culture is not good with communication, this will be the start. The team is now your ally. You will work to facilitate their work and develop their skills. The more they know, the more engagement and willingness to help will be. They need to know what the problem is and what you want to accomplish with a continuous improvement strategy. Set the tone by including them in the decision-making process. For example, ask for help to establish the baseline and stretch goals for the implementation.

For effective improvements, your team will need to have the right tools. An early step is to identify which tools make sense for your operation and train the team. You can find a responsible person who works with you to design the roadmap to growing the CI culture and identify the tools to support it. A good start is to review how the current leadership culture has shaped the work environment. Define the gap between that and where you want to be. Knowing the current environment, you can create a motivating climate for the lean journey. You will design a toolbox with the basic tools you will need to support the lean implementation journey.

Consistency and frequency is also critical

You would think that there is no need to clarify the frequency of continuous improvement activities. Unfortunately, it does need an explanation. A common mistake is to believe that it is ok to base the implementation of CI events only. CI events are good, but you need to promote CI thinking every day. Lead by example every day by looking for waste and ways to eliminate it. Why are we doing this? How can we improve it? Use the culture change to promote daily improvement activities and events as training opportunities.

Consistency is very important; you cannot change the framework to make decisions every time something is not working. Regardless of how challenging the problems are, keep using lean thinking. Leadership is responsible for creating and modeling culture. Your employees will be watching and will do what you do, not what you say. If you go back to your old ways, they will too. When problems arise, go where the action happens, go, and see. Observe and ask why, ask your team for ideas, try something new, and measure the effect. Make from every situation an opportunity to learn, and always celebrate the wins! Continuous improvement is everybody’s job, every day, everywhere.

Summary

In summary, the following are the five key elements for a successful continuous improvement or lean implementation:

Leadership buy-in and support
Culture change to lean thinking & people’s development
Effective Communication every step of the way
Use the right CI tools, create your own toolbox
Continuous improvement everywhere, every day, by everybody