Gemba
Not Accountable, Not Responsible
Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product. What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product. Why? Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More insipid, however, is that the larger the team, there is a higher likelihood of accountability and responsibility being diffused across the team.
Maintain Forward Tension
One principle in Wing Chun is the maintaining of forward tension. To explain, I’ll draw the distinction between Tension and Energy and show how this principle in Wing Chun can be applied to Change Management.
Tension is a type of Energy
A Wing Chun maxim goes as follows:
Fast Food Congestion
Every system has constraints — sometimes several — minor bottlenecks and major bottlenecks. What makes managing constraints even more challenging is that bottlenecks move: up-and-down the process paths.
Do Not Run From Your Customers
I’ve spoken extensively about the unheralded — but, arguably, the most important — Pillar of The Toyota Production System: Respect for People. Today, I want to highlight an interesting company that appears to have done an amazing job at Participative Management and in eliminating fear and mediocrity in the workplace: Semco Group.
Necessary but Insufficient
Motorola (MOT), the inventor of Six Sigma, is in big trouble. Even though it invented Six Sigma, this is a clear example that shows how Lean or Six Sigma are not a cure-all for corporate woes, but that good leadership and a winning strategy are key in a competitive world — Lean or Six Sigma is necessary, but not sufficient.
It’s the People also, not just the Tools
I spoke at a Lean Six Sigma conference last week, held in Chicago. The conference was packed with Supply Chain, Logistics, Fulfillment, Manufacturing, Transportation, Healthcare, and Service executives.
After the “Place Order” Button
What happens after the customer clicks the “Place Order Button”? For some customers, this is a large black hole. But, wise companies understand that customers need to be informed and aware of the steps after the “Place Order Button” is clicked. In fact, customers want to be involved in the end-to-end transaction. In this article, we’ll discuss how we can better satisfy this critical customer need, thereby ensuring repeat-business, loyalty, and also good, old fashioned, customer happiness.
Visual Mismanagement
A few months ago we adopted our baby girl, Mylie. During that hospital experience, I had an encounter with a faucet fraught with featuritis and one that wasn’t humane and, during that same time, I noticed a piece of visual management in the hospital room that wasn’t effective in its intention to provide or share information. This involved a sign in one of the cabinets, where the sign indicated in text the contents of the cabinet. Below is a picture of what I saw:
Black Holes and Supply Chains
It’s critically important in any transaction to be able to answer the question “where’s my stuff” or “where are we in the process?” This requirement is often referred to as Traceability and Visibility; sometimes, people refer to this overall process as Click-to-Ship.
