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Su Daily Kaizen potete leggere un articolo dal titolo: "Another Post on Lean Management".

Questa è la versione tradotta in italiano con il traduttore automatico di Google.

Last January our senior leadership team (a group of about a 100 folks) gathered for our bi-annual meeting. Going into this meeting we had all just heard a talk from James Womack (at our annual leadership conference) where he issued us a challenge to become the best Lean healthcare organization in the world. During this meeting our CEO and leadership team laid out their expectations for the Lean management system at Group Health. Many of us were really excited, because we have worked a long time to get this far in our journey. I think the majority of the folks in the room quietly wondered why this was important and what this meant for them and their teams.

This week our senior leadership team gathered for the first time since this last January to discuss the current state of the organization and to talk about the pressing need to increase the rate of improvement within the organization. A major focus of the expectation setting and discussion in the room was fastening the pace of putting in place a Lean Management system. It was amazing to see how different the conversation had changed in just a matter of six months. There were dozens of more people in the room that were deeply immersed in changing their management processes and very few if any folks in the room that were not at least trying new things. People were no longer asking why or what, but instead asking how!

Being a Lean consultant I have had dozens of conversations with leaders over the last couple of months asking to either come and provide consultation to them on the management system work they have underway or to help them get started. I love doing this work. I thought I would use this posting to share some of my thoughts that I shared with these folks as well as to share where I see many of them struggling. I am not going to use this post to spend time describing what a Lean management system is. There are plenty of good sources like David Mann’s book Creating a Lean Culture that you can get a more articulate description then I can provide. Here are some of my thoughts:

* First, I tell leaders that the best way to implement a Lean management is through the context of an improvement campaign. They need to first start by defining improvement targets and standards and then deploy those standards down in their organization by engaging staff in the improvement of their processes. I have seen several leaders get excited and then march out into the gemba and proclaim to staff that “we are moving to a Lean culture.” This is an excellent way to create skepticism from the start. After all Lean is an improvement system that is a means to an end and not the other way around. The best way to put the new system in is to support the improvements and sustainability of those improvements you are trying to create. If you don’t have an improvement campaign, create one.
* One of the biggest mistakes I see leaders make it trying to ease into a new management system. They are trying to manage the amount of change that their management teams are going through. While their intentions are solid I think their actions have the opposite effect and will create a huge amount of frustration. Without quickly moving to put the new system in place and asking the managers to adopt new behaviors they find themselves in the situation of having to manage parallel management systems. The old system that is centered on supporting upward in the hierarchy and the new system that is focused on supporting improvement at the frontline. This is confusing to frontline teams as well as mid managers who suddenly don’t know what to do and end up having two jobs. Don’t make this mistake, take the leap and move quickly.
* When asked by leaders how I think they are doing with their management system there are several things I look for to answer this question. First and foremost I ask them to show me how they are spending their time compared to how they were spending their time in the past. If their days are still ruled by the tyranny of the Outlook calendar as opposed to the needs in the gemba it is pretty obvious that they need to re-commit. Second, I look to see if they are clear about the standards and targets for improvement and if the expectations have been translated down through their function. If they are still operating in a world of variance reporting and tracking metrics without standards it is pretty obvious that they need to re-commit. Finally, I look for evidence at the frontline that the teams know what is being asked of them, why they are doing it and that they are engaged in improving their own processes. The best way to see this is to visit their visual system and see if they are tracking their own data, that it is up to date and that it is clear what processes they are working to improve. If there is no visual or it is being maintained by management it is obvious that they need to re-commit.

I could probably write another five blog posting on this subject, but will stop for now. Please add to my list or argue with the points I have made.
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Stefania - Staff di QualitiAmo

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