2007 July :: Reforming Project Management

QnEK, It’s a Community

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Thanks go out to Joe Ely for spreading the word on the Quick-n-Easy-kaizen community. A few people have been sharing their QnEKs. The experience so far has been good. And we're working like crazy to make the experience better. Thanks Kim! There's no guide to using the site. My aim is that it will be quick-n-easy. We'll see.

Please stop by to see what we're doing. Share your latest small improvement; leave a comment on QnEKs others have share; and leave us a comment on your experience. And by all means, visit again in a few days. I've got big plans for the month of August. You won't want to miss out!

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The QnEK Horse Has Left the Barn

Monday, July 30th, 2007

The QnEK Horse Has Left the Barn

Quick and Easy kaizen is said to be the direct inheritor of kaizen teian — a program of continuous improvement at the initiative of the workforce. kaizen teian functions as a suggestion system. The usual approach is to have workers propose their improvements to their direct supervisor. The Japan Human Relations Association (JHRA) took it one step further. In the spirit of respecting the well-trained worker JHRA created an approach where workers report the improvements they adopted without getting approval. They call this Quick and Easy kaizen. Bunji Tozawa and Norman Bodek introduced this approach in their book The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy kaizen (QnEK).

I've been introducing QnEK to clients. It hasn't been an easy introduction. The thought that people would just change what they want to change scares some managers. I understand that. In many companies there is skepticism that workers will make a change for the better. In the situation where people are thrown into jobs — to sink or swim — they might not make changes that are better. Also, in situations where there is no standard work, everyday change might destabilize an already unstable situation.

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Posted in lean, project kaizen, kaizen | 1 Comment »

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4-Hour Work Week

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Reviewed by Ron Pereira at Lean Six Sigma Academy. Ron highlighted a passage on Parkinson's Law: a task will fill the time available. I haven't had time to read The 4 Hour Work Week, but I listened to Michael Port's great podcast with author Tim Ferris.

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“Fail Fast, Fail Cheap” Sounds Like Scrum

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

There is such an urge to get our projects right. Not approximately right. Right, as "Do it right the first time." Projects are not like that, especially design projects. Norman Bodek has been speaking about two principal ways we learn: copying the successful actions of others and making mistakes. If making mistakes is part of learning, then we better be making many of them to produce successful projects. BW SmallBiz agrees: Fail Fast, Fail Cheap, June/July 2007, by Doug Hall.

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