Discipline 1: Focus on the Wildly Important (Their Thinking – A goal that makes all the difference. Failure to achieve this goal renders any of our other achievements inconsequential.)

Discipline 2: Create a Compelling Scorecard (Their thinking – You are not really serious about the goal until we start keeping score.)

Discipline 3: Translate Lofty Goals into Specific Actions (Their Thinking – Goals will never be achieved until everyone on the team knows exactly what they’re supposed to do about them.)

Discipline 4: Hold Each other Accountable – All the time. (Maintaining commitment to the goal requires frequent team engagement and accountability.)

This is one of the best descriptions of how an execution system should be developed that I have come across. However, the one quality that I have found in successful organizations that can implement a new process is a company that is already committed to continuous improvement.

Continuous improvement companies understand that not everything is right to begin with, it is just the beginning. They realize market conditions, new information that is uncovered, external and internal conditions will all affect the process of implementation. They are not looking for perfection. They know that is will come in time. These types of companies are very adaptable and seek to improve the process in small loops or in mini-PDCA cycles.

As you develop, your Kaizen plan, make sure that you look at two deliverables. One of course is the project or the problem that you defined. The other is the process. If you look and separate the process from the product, it will be much easier to make decisions. It also will allow you to continuously improve the process you use for future Kaizen events.

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Slow down Cowboy! How much time does it really take to plan? From my experience you should use a baseline of around 5% of your projects time in planning. So if you have a project that will consume 400 hours that would be 20 hours. Do you think that is unreasonable? Do you believe that a plan would produce fewer negative consequences or less than 20 hours of non-productive fire fighting?

Now, what happens if planning takes longer? You need to treat your planning process like any other process. Using a standard methodology such as lean and the toolset that it employs will allow you the opportunity to get the most out of your planning cycle. It will allow improving your planning process removing the waste that you have accumulated in it. I have found most companies actually enjoy planning, the collaboration and decision-making that take place during it. What everyone doesn’t like is the waste in planning, so get rid of it!

The first thing you can do is plan the planning process. Take 5% of your planning time to improve your planning. Set objectives, milestones, create key performance indicators and most of all create a standard work plan. You could even have a Kaizen to 5S your planning process. After doing this a few times, planning will become very easy, intuitive and more productive. Consider that if you significantly improve your planning process, you will create considerable down-flow opportunities of greater savings. Try it!

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Related Category: Project Management

Technorati : 5S, Kaizen, Lean, Planning, Standardize, Workflow