Welcome to second post on the article Lean Primer. You can find the part one in my earlier posts. This post is dedicated to my opinion of the article.
This was a pleasant read, and I was especially interested in the article since I have done some work with Six Sigma, and I am enamored with the idea of making things easier. I saw some similarities between Six Sigma and Lean, but mostly in processes and not mindset changes. Six Sigma focuses heavily on statistics, where Lean is about transforming the entire way a company goes about doing business.
Even without the mindset changes, there are several Lean methods useful in Six Sigma, such as The 5 Whys (graph pictured above). This kaizen principle is used to find out the root cause of a problem, and is implemented simply by asking "why?" five times when examining at a problem. I have annoyed several people at work using this method, mostly because it only takes about 3 "why"s before people start to understand there isn't a good reason they have been doing things the hard way. It has been my experience that it often takes less than five "why"s to find the root cause of a problem, and I am surprised at how effective the method can be at removing the real issue at hand.
Something else that struck my interest was a comment made on page 20:
"Imagine a customer was observing the work in your office. At what moments would they be willing to reach into their pocket, pull out money, and give it to you?"
Currently, I work in an analytical role, providing ad-hoc reports to our executive team, and this really made me stop and think. While I'm sure what I do provides value, it was tough for me to imagine someone handing me cash just for that beautiful bar chart. Keeping this in the back of my mind has helped me stay on task and guide my actions already.
Along the same lines, I enjoyed the section on higher-value information, found on page 35. Sometimes I a struggle to decide where the focus of the next analysis should be, so I found the ideas of focusing on the unknown and focusing on early feedback quite helpful. I must note that Lean Primer discusses knowledge in reference to process development, but these principles are still useful in my current role. Trying to find the answer to a un-answered questions (which isn't as easy as it may sound), and doing some early high-level initial analysis to verify that this is even worth answering are both ideas I plan to implement at work.
And there you have it! I hope you enjoyed my summary and comments on the Lean process used by Toyota. Not only did I learn about a method for process improvement, but also several things I can implement in my daily job.
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