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  Muda also comes in three categories, the first of which is muda that doesn’t directly add value but also cannot be easily removed if the system is going to continue working properly. When faced with this muda, the goal should be to work to minimize it slowly as a precursor to removing it completely. The second type of muda is that which has no real value, whatsoever, and you should work to remove it directly once you’ve become aware of it. Finally, the third type of muda doesn’t directly add value but is required for regulatory purposes of one type or another. While it may be annoying, this type of muda is unavoidable in most instances and the best that you can do is ensure you are always updated to any relevant policies.

  Chapter 2: Creating a Lean System

  Lean leadership

  With so much emphasis placed on improving efficiency, the Lean process naturally puts a lot of emphasis on team leaders who should be working hard to directly inspire their teams to adopt the Lean mindset. In the end, many Lean systems live and die by the leadership involved, which means it is important that those who are put in charge of leading the Lean transition are able to not only explain what’s going on but are truly committed to the work that is being done as well. Some of the things that Lean leaders should strive to emphasize include:

  Customer retention: When it comes to customer retention, Lean leaders need to take the time to consider not only what their customers want at the moment, but what they are likely to want in the future as well. Additionally, it is important to understand what a customer will accept, what they will enjoy, and what they will stop at nothing to obtain. The Lean leader should also work to truly understand the many ways the specific wants and needs of their target audience throughout the customer base.

  Team improvement: In order to help their team members be their best, Lean leaders should always be available to help the team throughout the problem-solving process. At the same time, they are going to need to show restraint and refrain from going so far as to take control and just do things on their own. Their role in the process should be to focus on locating the required resources that allow the team to solve their own problems. Open-ended questions are a big part of this process as they will make it possible for the team to seek out a much wider variety of solutions.

  Incremental improvement: One of the major duties of the Lean leader is to constantly evaluate different aspects of the team in order to ensure that it is operating at peak efficiency. The leader will also need to keep up to date on customer requirements, as this is something that is going to be constantly changing as well. Doing so is one of the only truly reliable ways of staying ahead of the curve by making it possible to streamline the overall direction of the company towards the processes that will achieve the best results.

  In order to ensure that this is the case, the Lean leader will want to make time in their schedule to look at the results and then compare them to the costs as a means of discovering the best ways to use all the resources available to them at the given time. This will include things like evaluating the organization as a whole in hopes of making it more efficient and reliable. It will also involve evaluating the value stream to ensure that it satisfies the customer on both the macro and micro level.

  Focus on sustained improvement: It is also the task of the Lean leader to ensure that improvements that are undertaken are seen through to the end as well. This will often include teaching the team members the correct Lean behaviors to use in a given situation and also approaching instances of failure as opportunities for improvement and innovation.

  Three actuals

  Lean leaders typically use a different leadership style than many of their peers, largely because being a Lean leader requires an understanding that the best way to analyze a situation is to physically be in the space where the situation occurred. Once there, the Lean leader needs to consider what is known as the three actuals, the broadest of which is known as Genchi and is the issue that led the leader to come to the place in question. Genbutsu is the idea that it is important to view what is being created or provided in action before making any moves. Finally, Genjitsu says it is always best to gather as much information as possible before making a decision one way or the other.

  Creating a Lean system

  In order to create a Lean system that lasts, the first thing you will need to do is consider the absolute simplest means of getting your product or service out to the public and put that system into effect. From there, you will need to continuously monitor the processes you have put in place to support your business in order to ensure that improvement breakthroughs happen from time to time. The last step is to then implement any improvements as you come across. While there are plenty of theories and tools that can help you do go on from there, the fact of the matter is that creating a Lean system really is that simple. Many of the chapters in this book will consist of deep dives on various tools that will make this process as easy to set up and as most likely to stick as possible.

  There’s more to business than profits: When using the Lean system, the end goal is to determine the many ways that it might be possible to improve the efficiency of your business. While an increase in profits is often a natural result of this process, this should not be the primary motivating factor behind undertaking a Lean transformation. Instead, it is important to focus on streamlining as much as possible, regardless of what the upfront cost is going to be since you can confidentially expect every dollar you spend to come back to you in savings.

  There are limits to this, of course, and at a certain point, the gains won’t be worth the costs. To determine where this line is, you can use a simple value curve to determine how the changes will likely affect your bottom line. A value curve is often used to compare various products or services based on many relevant factors as well as the data on hand at the moment. In this instance, creating one to show the difference between a pre- and post-Lean state should make such decisions far easier to make.

  Treat tools as what they are: When many new companies switch to a Lean style of doing things, they find it easy to slip into the trap of taking tools to the extreme, to the point that they follow them with near-religious fervor. It is important to keep in mind that the Lean principles are ultimately just guidelines and any Lean tools you use are just that, tools which are there to help your company work more effectively. This means that if they need to be tweaked to better serve your team and your customers, then there is nothing stopping you from doing just that. Your team should understand from the very beginning the limits and purpose of the Lean tools they are being provided and, most importantly, understand that they are not laws.

  Prepare to follow through: Even if you bring in a trained professional to help your team over the initial Lean learning curve, it will still ultimately fall to you, as the team leader, to ensure that the learned practices don’t fall by the wayside as time goes on. It takes time to take new ways of doing things and turn them into habits, and it will be your job to keep everyone on until everything clicks and they start operating via the new system without thinking about it. Likewise, it is important that you make it clear just why the Lean process is good for the team as a whole and for the individual team member as if they are personally invested in it, then it is far more likely that they will stick with it, even if the going gets tough.

  Chapter 3: Setting Lean Goals

  In order to eventually make the right changes to your business, the first thing you need to do is ensure that you set the right goals. In order to make sure that your goals will put you on the right track, you need to ensure they are SMART which means they are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.

  Specific: Good goals are specific which means you want to be sure that the goal you choose is extremely clear, especially when you are first starting out, as goals that are less well-defined are much easier to avoid doing in favor of activities that provide more positive stimulation in a shorter period of time. Keeping specific goals in mind will instead make it much easier
for you to go ahead and power through whatever task you are currently undertaking.

  When you aren’t quite sure if the goal you have chosen is specific enough to actually improve your chance of changing for the better, you may be able to figure it out by running through the who, why, where, when, and how of the goal. Specifically, you are going to want to consider who is going to be involved with you when it comes to the completion of the goal? What exactly is it that is going to be accomplished? Where will it be taking place, why it is important that you ensure it is completed as quickly as possible, and how exactly you can expect to go about doing it. Once you can answer all five of the big questions, then you know you have a goal that is specific enough to generate the type of results that you are looking for.

  Measurable: SMART goals are those which can be broken down into small, easily manageable chunks that can be tackled one piece at a time. A measurable goal should make it easy to determine when exactly you are headed off track so that you can self-correct as quickly as possible. Measuring your progress will make it easier for you to keep up the good work.

  Attainable: Perhaps more important than anything else, if a goal that you set is unattainable, especially the first goal that you set using this system, then you are going to unknowingly be wasting valuable time and energy while creating negative patterns that end in failure. What’s more, you will end up reinforcing fixed mindset ideals, making this a bad choice any way that you look at it. This means that when it comes to setting goals, you are going to want to have a clear understanding of the current situation and anything going on with the business that would make it less likely to succeed as far as that goal is concerned.

  Realistic: A good goal is one that is realistic, in addition to being attainable, which means that you can expect success without something extremely unlikely being required to push reality into your favor. An ideal goal is one that is going to require a good amount of work to achieve, while still remaining not too difficult as to become unrealistic. Additionally, you are going to want to shy away from goals that you can meet without putting any real amount of effort as goals that are too easy can actually be demotivating as it then becomes easy to continue putting them off until they eventually fade into oblivion.

  Timely: Studies show that the human mind is more likely to actively engage in problem-solving behaviors when there is a time limit involved in the successful completion of the task in question. What this means for the goals you are setting is that if you have a firm completion date in mind for when you want to have reached your goal, then you will work harder in the period leading up to that date. This means that you are going to want to pick completion dates that are strict enough to truly motivate you to do whatever it is you have in mind, while at the same time, not being so strict that there is no realistic way that you can complete the task on time. The goal here is to throw a little extra hustle into your step and not force you to keep a grueling schedule, thus, ensure that you can always meet the schedule you set for the best results.

  Policy Deployment

  Also known by the name Hoshin Kanri, policy deployment is a way of ensuring any SMART goals that are set at the management level ultimately filter down to the rest of the team in a measurable way. Making proper use of policy deployment will essentially ensure that anything you are planning to put into effect doesn’t accidentally end up creating more problems than it ultimately solves. It will also help to ensure as little waste as possible is generated as a result of things like inconsistent messaging from management or all around poor communication. The goal in this instance should not be to force various team members into acting in a specific way. It is about generating the type of vision for the business that everyone can appreciate and understand how it pertains to both the team and the customers.

  Implementing the plan: Once all of the relevant SMART goals have been finalized, the next thing you will want to do is to group them together based on which members of the team will ultimately be tasked with solving them. Keep in mind that the fewer number of goals, the more likely it is that they will be acted upon in a reasonable timeframe. If your goals cannot be generalized in such a way, it is important to instead begin with the ones that are sure to make the biggest difference overall and work down the list from there.

  Regardless of what goals you ultimately settle on, it is important that you take special care to ensure that there are no goals that do not have one person specifically assigned instructions to keep tabs on the overall progress while providing status reports when needed. This person should also be someone who can be counted on to make it clear to the other team members how important the goal is for the business as a whole and how it will make things easier in the long run.

  Consider your tactics: Those who will be responsible for making the goal a reality should, in turn, be the ones who decide how the goal can best be completed by the team as a whole. However, this process should still include back and forth interaction between all levels of the team just to ensure that the tactics and the goal align properly. Tactics are likely to change as the goal heads towards success, which means it should be studied from time to time to ensure they remain appropriate for the goal in question.

  Moving forward: Once the tactics have been agreed upon by all parties, it will then be time to actually put them into practice. This will be the stage where the team can really take over, though quality goals should still require buy-in from relevant parties. During this period it is important to ensure all communication from management is on message, to properly ensure that actions and broader goals will continue to align.

  Review from time to time: It is important to keep in mind that once the action is in progress, the team leader will need to change the action as needed. This means that they will also be monitoring things as they proceed, hopefully, according to plan. Remember, Lean systems are always being improved upon, which means your goals and their implementation should be no different.

  Chapter 4: Simplifying Lean as Much as Possible

  All of the products and services that are generated by your business have a mixture of three different value streams that can ultimately be used productively if you take the time to understand them fully. These include the concept to launch stream, the creation of customer stream and the order to customer stream. In order to ensure you are getting the greatest overall value out of all of the processes your business finishes, it is important to look at a value stream map as it is an excellent way to ensure you are maximizing efficiency at every turn.

  The average value stream map will include everything that ultimately comes together to generate value for the customer including activities, people, materials, and information. To properly visualize a value stream, you will want to follow the Plan/Do/Study/Act process, also known as the Lean cycle. To get started, you will want to plan out the task ahead by focusing on one goal at a time. From there, you will want to make a list of everything that will need to be done in order to ensure the task is finished successfully. This is then followed by the step of following through, the results being studied, and acted upon as required.

  Create your own value stream map

  A properly constructed value stream map is a vital part of the process as it will allow you to see the big picture by mapping out the entire flow of resources from their disparate starting points all the way through when they come together and eventually make it into the hands of the customer. As such, it then makes it far more of a manageable task to determine the points in the process that are bottlenecking the overall efficiency of your business’s process and thus, taking the first steps towards adopting Lean processes.

  While one person can certainly work through the following steps, the value stream maps that prove to be the most effective are often those created by the entire team, so that those who are the most knowledgeable about each step will be able to give their two cents as well. Your initial value stream map should be thought of as a very rough draft and should be constructed as such, which
means planning it out in pencil and expecting lots of rewriting as you go along.

  Consider the process: The first step in this process will be to consider exactly what it is you will be mapping. For businesses that are first starting out with the Lean system, you will want to begin by considering the various processes that are ultimately going to prove to be of the greatest value to the team as a whole and then work down the list from there. If you still can’t decide where to start, then you will want to turn to your customers, consider what they have to say and start with the areas where you regularly receive the most complaints.

  What is known as a pareto analysis is an effective tool at this juncture as it can make it easier for you to find the right place to start if you aren’t sure where your efforts will be best put to use. It is a statistical analysis technique that can prove especially useful if you are looking at a few different tasks that are sure to generate serious results if only you could decide which one to use first. The goal, in this case, is to focus on the 20 percent of your business that, if nurtured, could ultimately generate 80 percent of your total results. Your initial value stream map may focus on only a single service or product or on multiples that share a significant portion of the process.