Reforming Project Management » kaizen

Lean Project Implementation Is Not Adoption

Hal — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 03:18:11 +0000

I was speaking today with the COO of a large construction firm that has been on a journey to deliver their projects on a lean basis for the last 8 years. We were speaking about the usual comments senior people make about lean. He said, "Don't paper the projects; you need to change your practices to deliver a lean project." In other words, going through the motions won't make the project lean. But what will make it lean?

You need to change your practices to deliver a lean project.Doing a project lean is not an implementation issue. Rather, it is about adopting a different set of behaviors. Behaviors are an individual issue. Each person has to decide that they will approach their work differently. This is the bad news. It's also the good news. Why? There's really nothing to implement. My colleagues (and clients) might disagree. So be it. The fundamental issue is for people to approach their work with a new attitude and a new commitment.

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Project Blogs Never Been Easier nor More Useful

Hal — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:06:14 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

About seven years ago I speculated on this weblog a use for blogging on projects. It was a naive post at the time. I didn't have real conviction about it. I never encouraged my clients to have a try. Well, times have changed, or maybe I have changed. Project collaboration and up-to-date communication is valued more than ever. The technology just got so simple that there's no work to do to create and maintain a project blog.

Send an email and the project update is made

Posterous is a blogging and social media platform that works from your email account. You can use it from your desktop or your mobile phone. Just send a message to post@posterous.com and the rest is magic! The subject of your email becomes the title of the post. Anything you attach — photos, Powerpoint, recordings, documents — are handled by Posterous and presented elegantly on your blog. You can set up your blog so every member of your team can post. That would be very useful for keeping everyone up to date on progress, particularly when geographically dispersed. Just send an email and the project update is made!

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Project Kaizen Reading

Hal — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:19:31 +0000

Project management can get stuck…focused on just getting the work done. Great companies do more on their projects. They use each project to advance the strategy of the company. How? With kaizen. Take some time to read about it. Your projects and your team members will be better for it.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The kaizen Way kaizen starts at home…with everyday changes in how we live our lives.
Small Change: It's the Little Things in Life That Make a Big Difference! All kaizen begins with oneself.
The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary Extraordinary is just the accumulation of everyday changes.
All You Gotta Do Is Ask These authors share the secret to successful improvement programs.
Chasing the Rabbit: How Market Leaders Outdistance the Competition and How Great Companies Can Catch Up and Win, Foreword by Clay Christensen Steven Spear shares the four key practices that separate the best from the rest. MUST READ.
kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking – The Scientific Thinking Mechanism The master of Toyota's improvement approach only recently published by Norman Bodek.
gemba Kaizen: A Commonsense, Low-Cost Approach to Management Massaki Imai's ground-breaking book on the practices that create the never-ending habit of improvement.

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Post tags: Project and Program Management, Project management, Toyota

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Lastest Discussion of 8th Waste

Hal — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:38:39 +0000

Over at NWLean there's been quite a riff on the 8th waste. Eventually, the contributors concluded that recreating knowledge is the one true 8th waste. While it's hard to argue with any of the writers' arguments, getting at the roots of that waste is where we can begin to take effective action.

Waste in production, services, healthcare and construction are pervasive and seemingly intractable. Ohno and others noticed that. We've also noticed that the opportunity for waste reduction is right in front of us. All we have to do is tap the ingenuity of the workforce. The key question for me is, "What gets in the way of doing so?" It was that question that led Greg Howell and I to observe participants in the construction process.

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Learning from The Elegant Solution

Hal — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:45:41 +0000

Two years ago I read Matthew May's book The Elegant Solution. It's a description of how to create an organization that day-after-day is recognized by the innovation that it creates.

The book is based on the time Matthew spent with the University of Toyota. I've reread the book to prepare for a Study Action Team™¹ that I am leading for a hospital that is being designed and constructed. Toyota is best known as the world's best manufacturer. But even more important to their long-term success, Toyota knows how to do projects.

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Ease into (Lean Project) Cold Water — Not!

Hal — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 04:20:40 +0000

Our inclination is to ease into new situations. We take baby steps thinking that it is the safe way to engage in something new. Two of my sons just went sky diving. There's no reasonable way to ease out of the plane…particularly when you are jumping tandem. There's no reasonable way to ease into cold water. How do I know? I've tried it. I suspect many of you have tried it too!

"…incremental change promotes a parochial outlook and attitude"

Lean practices are as shocking as cold water. There's no sense easing into lean. It only extends the pain. We know that lean thinking is superior to conventional wisdom. What most people don't know is how to engage in the new lean practices. Jump in!(...)
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Newest Kaizen Book — by Shigeo Shingo

Hal — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:15:47 +0000

This is not a book review. That will come later. I'm only sharing the news that there is a new Shigeo Shingo book: kaizen and the Art of Creative Thinking. Norman Bodek gave me the chance to review an early version of the book. I'm quite impressed. I've wondered for quite some time if there is a systematic behind Toyota's success other than PDCA. We now all know the answer. Shingo developed an approach that helps everyone to be more creative. And that approach is readily learned.

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Norman Bodek Invents Ninth Waste

Hal — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:14:21 +0000

People can't seem to leave Ohno's Seven Wastes alone. Norman Bodek, godfather of lean, made the latest addition. He calls it "Saying No." Norman chose to share this in an article for Industry Week in The Ninth Waste — Saying, "No". Norman is in his best story-telling form.

Mystery solved: the godfather of lean gave us the eighth waste.

Norman claims that managers are generally resistant to change. That it is in their resisting change that they say, "No," to suggestions for improvement from employees. It may only take a few "No's" to shut down employees from making proposals for improvement. Read the article.

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QnEK, It’s a Community

Hal — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:49:17 +0000

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

Hal — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 02:19:18 +0000

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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“Fail Fast, Fail Cheap” Sounds Like Scrum

Hal — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:52:26 +0000

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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Did BW Get it Wrong about Toyota?

Hal — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:17:09 +0000

Is Toyota paranoid? They are according to BW. Staying Paranoid at Toyota, BW July 2, 2007 claims Toyota has become paranoid. They point to the following quote by Katsuaki Watanabe, Toyota President:

"The scariest symptom of 'big-company disease' is that complacency will breed."

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