Actually a post “Learning to Learn” by Evan Durant inspired me to write this. This topic has always intrigued me and have read my share blogs posts, books to satisfy my curiosity. I would like to share my experiences and experiments on this process and learn what others have done. I will briefly explain my philosophy and tools to slay this dragon!

The Philosophy of Learning:

Learning is not possible unless there is creative tension. Imagine a place where everyone agrees, they will never learn new things and grow. For this to be possible you need the right people and right environment. Right people are the one who questions the status quo and are not afraid constructive criticism. This is a tough team to have they will always keep you on your toes. The environment or conditions that will lead to learning  are explained more in detail in my post “The 8 Fold Path”. This is just my opinion but I believe most learning system will be composed of one or more similar building blocks.
The Tools:

Task Standard work & Leader Standard Work: We need to be able capture knowledge at process level and then link it to peoples tasks. The combination of task and leader standard work helps to achieve this. We had started to use this tools out of necessity for standardizing our tasks but learned it can be a effective learning tool when a new person joins a team or even for cross training. Task Standard work ensures all the tasks required to sustain a process are understood and captured thus providing reference point for future improvements. Leader Standard work ensures these tasks are performed by responsible individuals.In case of new person or cross training leader standard work helps the individual to do things religiously on daily basis till becomes a habit that helps him/her to do the job. The right habits helps develop right culture. Thus these tools if used properly can used to help people learn the culture of the organization. They are also good catch-ball mechanisms between the trainer and trainee.

More reading: “Leader Standard Work” , “Task Standard Work”

Gemba Walk: This is yet another catch-ball mechanism and very effective to get whole people on the team to align their thoughts and understanding. We cannot transfer what is there in our mind to somebody else’s  in an instant. We have to reinforce the idea again and again and how it implies in different scenarios till the other person understands its application and corrects any misunderstanding under the observation of the trainer. Every time the learner makes mistake the trainer is there to correct his path and realign their understanding. Several iterations of this during the gemba walks helps  everyone to learn  and align their ideas.

A3 Problem Solving: This is by far the most effective tool in teaching problem solving. It forces the learner to go through the PDCA cycle helping him to learn the systematic problem solving using scientific method. Second, the  catch-ball mechanism by which I mean every time the learner proposes a solution the trainer can send it back asking for  necessary fixes, and this cycle can go on till the best solution is reached.

Internal Training : We used to have weekly 30 min training for all the managers where anyone propose a training topic and present it. Mostly it would be one point lessons and sometimes games to show how one piece flow is better than batch. It was a fun way to learn and also a good opportunity for new managers to learn the skills of teaching in a safe environment.

Whatever you decide is your philosophy of learning or your tools, always remember to standardize the learning process so that any ineffective processes or steps can be improved or eliminated. We cannot learn the learning process without knowing what it is.

This is a simple tool that we used initially for the purpose of documenting sustaining the processes we had setup. It can also be used for aligning   processes to the top level strategy of the company.

Most organizations will have following basic processes:

• Operations
• Supply
• Management
• Customer Relation
• Product Development

These are any processes which have to be done routinely to sustain the business.They may each have several tasks done by different people. For example :

Process : Operations

Tasks :

• Shipping
• Production Planing
• Maintenance

The purpose of the Task Standard work is to standardize the various routine routine tasks required to sustain the processes which run the business

Here is an example showing the TASK STANDARD WORK of the SHIPPING Task:

These actions on the Task standard work will be transferred to each persons Leader Standard Work. Thus any changes made to sustain a task can be integrated each persons day to day work. This also provides the work content of each task and if you have total work content of all the processes recorded then it will help you identify minimum number people required to sustain the organisation.

How many times have you sucessfully implemented change using lean tools only to realize, after few weeks or months, that the manager and other people  have either reverted back to the old methods or have found ways to circumvent the newly established methods.

We learned the hard way that lean transformation cannot be supported and sustained with  traditional management system

Most of the times traditional management is results driven and may not focus on the process. Thus there is no inherent  motivation for the manager to improve the process. Also when lean tools are applied  this type of management does not provide a sustainable system to integrate, improve and sustain changes with daily feedback to realign to solve problems as they arise.

The “Lean Management” provides the framework to drive the lean culture. As identified by David Mann in his book “Creating Lean Culture“, there are 4 elements that makeup the Lean Management:

1. Leader  Standard Work

2. Daily Accountability

3. Visual Controls

4. Discipline

Leader Standard Work sustains the systems integrates the changes made during the transformation process. Visual Control and Daily Accountability helps keep the process and people aligned to solve problems as they arise. The Discipline of the leader ensures that standard work is followed and the whole system works coherently.

I was reading “Audit Vs. leader Standard Work” by Mark Rosenthal and I suddenly realized what potential we have created at our work place.

Over the course of the year we have grown very fond of the audits. Especially for 5S and we are developing audits  for maintaining other lean management systems put in place. So far they worked fine and actually helped us to stay on track and also creating in culture of continuous improvement. So you may be wondering why that is bad?

As Mark explains Audits are snapshot and often people will try to fool the system to be good for the audit but bad on other days when there is no audit. Now I wondered why it was not realized at our place?

The reason for this was simple , we had unknowingly incorporated that in our Gemba Walks. This ensured continuous followup of all the set systems on daily basis. This was an important move,  addressing to issues as we walk through the workstation was part of our Leader Standard Work (LSW). This kept the systems in check on day to day basis, for example an operator was informed about parts without any designated place immediately when it was seen rather then waiting to conduct the audit.

This has inspired me to think of new system where in we will no longer need audits as we will do bit of checking everyday by enabling it through LSW of responsible people.

Some things which helps to achieve this goal :

1. Try to break down big monthly tasks into smaller weekly  tasks , similarly weekly to daily tasks.

2. Use knowledge gained from issues of shop floor modify LSW to fit systems put in place to avoid these issue in future

3. Even if you have to use audits initially , make them stricter , raise the bar up as people start getting better

4. be disciplined to resolve issues  immediately rather than waiting for the next formal  audit

I am hoping to learn more by looking at audits and leader Standard work from this Perspective and ultimately be able to stay away from audits  by taking a bite a day using the Leader Standard work.

After almost a year after writing the job descriptions we realised it was not sufficient to manage process as our shop floor evolved with lean implementation. It just did not provide the information of what needs to be done and when on day to day basis. Effectiveness at a particular job was more dependant on that person and his qualities. Also there was no link between changing processes on the floor and what we need to change in our own schedule to ensure the sustainability of the lean systems.

After reading about Leader Standard Work (Creating Lean Culture ) thought this would definitely be worth a try.

Now how do we implement this? first thing to do was to record what we actually do on everyday  hour by hour and identify Daily, Weekly , Monthly, Quarterly tasks. We decided to record our tasks for one week and then meet to check how we can setup our standard work. Everything was smooth till we met, that is when I realised that  the way I collected was not very efficient to use. It was not a mojor isssue had to manually write the standard work for everyone and then verify from evryone that is what they intended to do. I would suggest to use a template of Leader Standard work which best suits your process. Distribute a blank template to all the people to collect the data and develop the Standard Work. I am providing an example just to give you an idea of what can be used.

This is just the first  phase of implementation where with two goals :

1. Identifying what we are doing right now

2. Getting our team acquainted with the process of developing and using leader standard work

Second phase would be to identify what needs to be done to sustain what we have accomplished and incorporate that in to our Standard work.