901 Blogs

How do you handle inputs into your life? Do you process them effectively and efficiently?

2012-01-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

The book A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance demonstrates how to apply lean principles to the individual. It delivers key concepts such as visual management, flow, pull, and 5S. Dan provides these concepts to the individual results in the same kind of benefits: greater efficiency, less waste, and improved focus on customer value. The author, Dan Markovitz is the founder and owner of TimeBack Management, a consultancy specializing in improving individual and organizational performance through the application of lean concepts.

These concepts will be very familiar to people knowledgeable with continuous improvement and more specifically Lean and Six Sigma. However, you do not have to be a practitioner to understand or read the book. When trade terms are used the authors explains them in simple everyday language without losing a beat. Few people other than Dan could have provided a book of this sort. His experience with Lean coupled with many years of providing guidance on individual performance has given him profound insight. There may be others with his depth of knowledge but few that can transfer it into simple, practical and useable information. I found myself reading a “how to” book like a novel. I had to remind myself more than once to bend a corner or mark a page for future reference.

Dan is also not shy about crediting or highlighting others when it fits the application. He spends time discussing Personal Kanban and how he looks at applying it. My favorite part of the book was the part on living in your calendar versus your inbox. That comment in itself added a few more minutes of productivity to my day. His A3, Value Map and Information 5S were absolutely flawless.

Are you going to get 2 hours a day of time saving tips from the book? I doubt it. What you will get is more productivity and feeling better about what and how you accomplished it. It was my New Year’s Day read and I have picked it up every day since then. Not saying you won’t be able to put it down but at this point it looks that way for me.

Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers

2012-01-26T19:44:00.000-08:00

Prototyping is a way to introduce our products or services in a very disarming way. It is a way of saying, “I respect your opinion.” Creating that empathetic connection with others can have a profound impact on your company.

We all prefer to buy products from people that we perceive to be experts in their field. The role of the expert has changed. It is no longer the expert with superior product knowledge; it is the expert that shows knowledge in how the product is used. We have gone from a world of selling benefits and features to a world of listening and collaboration. That connection with a customer clarifies how the product is perceived, not how it may look to us.

Traditional sales approaches in the past center on improving customer experience through techniques that tries to manipulate the customer emotions. In the book Listening With Empathy , author John Selby says,

The new approach is participatory rather than manipulative - teaching you how to shift inwardly from negative to positive moods, and thus become genuinely friendly and helpful. Our Listening with Empathy method will enable you to move through the following four customer-encounter phases with high success:

Phase1 - Preparation: Before meeting with a customer or client, it's vital to put aside any stress, worries, or judgments that may pollute the encounter - and shift your focus toward positive feelings and heart-centered emotions.

Phase 2 - The Moment of Encounter: Right when you meet someone, you need to present an honest, friendly, nonjudgmental greeting, and offer relaxed space. New techniques can help you maintain a bright inner center, emit a friendly presence, and converse with relaxed spontaneity, acceptance, and enjoyment.

Phase 3 - Empathic Communication: When you begin talking business, you need to maintain clear intent to be of service and to enable your customers to truly satisfy their needs. By encouraging an enjoyable emotion atmosphere, you can make sure your customers feel good hands and well taken care of.

Phase 4 - Processing: This fourth phase involves pausing after a meeting to reflect on a recent sales or service encounter and to decide purposefully how to follow up on it. You'll learn to re-experience positive aspects of the encounter and focus on your desire to meet with the customer again.

Prototyping can be a powerful tool but only if you are willing listen and make that connection with your customers. The ability to reach outside of companies and connect with our customers develop a shared outlook of our markets and will allow us to develop new opportunities faster than their competitors. It is a simple fact that the companies that know their customers best are the market leaders. They understand what is important. The companies that don’t, market to the general public and as a result get average results. Our new products, our prototypes are shared experiences. Prototypes should serve as models not just for improved design but for improved connection with our customers.

P.S. The easiest form of engagement is listening. Well, maybe not the easiest.

A Product Marketers perspective on Prototyping

2012-01-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

Matthew Yubas is the author of Getting Your Prototype Made Quick and Easy and a Marketing Consultant for the Small Business Development and International Trade Center. He has developed products for 24 years as an Engineer, Product Manager, and Consultant for startups, small business, and Fortune 500 companies. As an young entrepreneur, he was a co-founder of a software company that developed one of the first personal information management software products.

Matt has launched new products such as software applications, wireless devices, and websites. In addition, he has helped clients in a diverse number of industries that include photography equipment, auto accessories, soy candles, children's clothing, sporting goods, digital art, and home décor. Matthew is the author of several articles, eBooks, kits, and the popular book Product Idea to Product Success: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Making Money from Your Idea .

Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Prototype or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

Matt’s mission is to help inventors, entrepreneurs, and everyday people with ideas. He Says, “You might have an invention that can benefit society and make our lives easier. No one can do it alone. If you haven't taken a product to the market before, you need a coach to help you get over the hurdles and past the many pitfalls. Be persistent, be smart, and gather the right information before you make your next move”. Mark can be found at http://productcoach.com.

Prototyping into a Working Form

2012-01-24T19:32:00.000-08:00

An original idea may be your starting point and Your First Prototype is with Pen and Paper. If or when your idea receives support from others, you will be at a point to take more serious design steps. Most successful product launches start with a clear vision of what they want to accomplish. This is not saying that you will not change or even “Pivot” later on but without that clear vision initially it is very difficult to generate a lot of steam that is required to drive to a successful conclusion.

In the book Innovation Acceleration: Transforming Organizational Thinking, the authors use the term “project pillars” as a way of clarifying your vision. Their example was the "project pillars" for the Palm Pilot.

Fits in pocket.
Synchronizes seamlessly with PC
Fast and easy to use
Costs no more than $299
The authors go on to say:

The company was able to build the world's first successful personal digital assistant. Meeting those constraints required a lot of trial and error, but it provided targets to focus the team’s creative energies. Once you have nailed the general design concept, this approach leads to more innovative outcomes rather than meandering aimlessly from one idea to another. This is a tricky position because you have to balance direct with an open mind.

They outline a design thinking process in the book that I believe can be utilized in designing your prototype. I paraphrase their material and combined with my own into a format for prototypes:

Keep good records – Archive everything. I use to use a box in my room for different design projects. I would tear out magazine articles, copies of book pages, pictures, sketches. I have since narrowed that down and store most of my files electronically that also includes audio and video recordings, links to other material and so forth.

Constantly generate and refine ideas based on customer’s perspective – This is not problem solving. It is one of the reasons that I discuss the Marketing Gateway of EDCA > PDCA>SDCA. It is also why getting a prototype out in front of customer early – even in the pen and paper stage is so important. What we think are great ideas, may not be so great. If you are going to be radical as Clayton Christensen says, “Consider your customers’ deepest values and interest rather than their purchasing behavior”.

Visualization, Mock-ups, Models - This is the most effective way of advancing an idea into reality. This is the heart of your prototype. Remember that verbal communication is often misunderstood. A better way to communicate your idea is to express it in some type of visual form. It can be done through sketches, mechanical drawings, or 3-D computer programs. As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an actual physical representation is worth a million words. If you want to get great feedback on your idea, build a prototype. Nothing gets your idea across better than something people can view from different angles and provide questions and feedback. One of the reasons managers struggle with this guideline is that they fear a lot of craftsmanship and expertise is required to build a prototype, but this is not necessarily true. Prototypes can be inexpensive and basic.

When you see a prototype being used, or played with you'll know you're on the right path. One of my favorite stories and coincidentally again about the Palm Pilot was that the inventor went into a “Shark Tank” (not the TV show or a literal definition) and was completely ill-prepared. Looking around for something to engage his audience, he tossed a wallet in the middle of the table and said it would look something like this. Moments later, he saw them starting to look at the wallet and knew the deal was done when they started passing the wallet around the table.

Consciously Select Solution Paths – You will face issues as you proceed. This is the point where discipline is important. People may give up because the problems seem too overwhelming to solve. In Mark Graban‘s Book Review: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way on his blog, he states:

Maurer also has tips and lessons about rewiring one’s brain for kaizen and changes, including leading yourself and others by asking small questions, such as “What’s the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?”, learning to practice this habit in a kaizen style by starting small…

Mauer also makes a great case for how we start, with kaizen, by learning how to see and address little problems. Then, we are able to see and fix larger problems.

This is why prototyping early is so important. It allows for minor changes early in the process and the ability to undo changes that later may prove to be ineffective. If you can overcome these challenges, it will give you a competitive advantage over other companies, because you will have gained particular knowledge and a distinct product for the market.

Your solution path is very much like an airplane ride. You are continuously off course, constantly adjusting and finally arriving at your destination.

Get Feedback and Involvement from a variety of People - Search for feedback from a diverse group of potential customers, suppliers, fellow managers, employees, and content experts. You may get a lot of suggestions, but only a few might be useful (that's okay; it is a journey). You never know when someone will give you an unexpected insight that would have been overlooked had you not searched out a lot of the opinion of others. The key point is to build something you can receive feedback on and return to rebuild as soon as possible. Moreover, with available technologies today, it's getting easier to make prototypes. But don’t stop there. What about an interactive play? What would a sales presentation look like as a prototype? You could invite customers and maybe even local actors and directors of local theaters. This is play time, use it and get the most out of it from as many people as possible.

Prototyping is meant to be an iterative process. But this is a new practice for most people and organizations. Most people within organizations are implementing orders and maintaining the way a company operates. So how do create this type of thinking and bring it into reality in everyday work? More importantly, how do you learn to experiment?

P.S. Want to get an idea across, or a problem solved in an internal setting. Remember the old game of telephone. – give them a prototype and see what develops.

Marketing with Lean Series – 4 Pack

2012-01-23T13:40:00.000-08:00

Special Offer

It is even more special for a limited time, if you visit the Business901 website and wait 30 Seconds!

Lean Marketing House (More Info): A starting point for creating true iterative marketing cycles based on not only Lean principles but more importantly Customer Value. Recommended 1st reading of series.

Marketing with PDCA (More Info): Targeting what your Customer Values at each stage of the cycle will increase your ability to deliver quicker, more accurately and with better value than your competitor. It is a moving target and the principles of Lean and PDCA facilitates the journey to Customer Value. Recommended 2nd reading of series.

Lean Engagement Team(More Info): The ability to share and create knowledge with your customer is the strongest marketing tool possible. Recommended 3rd reading of series.

Marketing with A3(More Info): Enables sales and marketing to use the Lean tool of A3 as a structured approach for their problem solving, strategies and tactics. Recommended 4th reading of series.

Save when buying all 4

This series of books are about developing a continuous improvement culture in your sales and marketing and re-positioning your customer as the center of your organization. The further we are from our customers’ knowledge base the more effort has to be made to create a larger and larger supply of prospects. The ability to share and create knowledge with your customer is the strongest marketing tool possible. Successful Sales and Marketing are no longer trying to get their message out but developing strategies to get the message in.

Disclaimer: There is no silver bullet introduced in these books.

Lean Engagement Team Book Released

2012-01-15T02:55:00.000-08:00

Sales and marketing can no longer operate in a vacuum. It has become a process output that intertwines across many of the departments within the organization. As companies have become flat, their decision making is increasingly being done by committee. As a supplier, you must mimic your customer decision-making path and as a result your sales and marketing will also be done by committee. Our highest priority is to deliver to the customer content that he deems valuable to his decision-making process.

Lean is the future of marketing and one of the main reasons is the development of Agile under the Lean umbrella. Using the Agile Manifesto as a basis for Agile marketing or Lean marketing is a good start. In summary they are based on these principles:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Content-rich material over elaborate promotion
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Response to changing customer needs over following a plan

The further we are from our customers’ knowledge base the more effort has to be made to create a larger and larger supply of prospects. The ability to share and create knowledge with your customer is the strongest marketing tool possible. Successful Sales and Marketing Teams are no longer trying to get their message out but developing strategies to get the message in.

Table of Contents

The Path
Positioning your organization from your customer’s viewpoint
Only the Customer Determine Value
PDCA from the Outside-In
The iCustomer and iTeam
New Lean Thinking
Lean Engagement Tools
Lean Engagement Team
Marketing Gateway of EDCA, PDCA, SDCA

The book is available as a PDF download on the Business901.com website or on Amazon:

Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [Ring-bound]

Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [CD-ROM]

Why Prototype? Customer Interactivity is the Most Meaningful Part of Design

2012-01-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

Prototypes are becoming a design deliverable with the advent of many sophisticated software applications spurred by Rapid Prototyping, 3D Modeling etc. However, the initial paper sketch is arguably the best tool, at least in the beginning. Prototyping helps us to design better user experiences. However, many of us still forget to include the user! We still dwell on what we can do versus looking at what the user does! Even at the paper stage of prototyping, I encourage you to try to articulate that feeling and function of the design into a model and put it in the hands of the user. Their interactivity is the most meaningful part of design. Do it early and do it often.

From adaptive path blog, Rapid Prototyping Tools:

Making Effective Prototypes

In order to evaluate a prototyping tool or technique, we first need to define what makes an effective prototype. The best prototypes are ones that slipstream right into our design process. We want the ability to quickly take sketches from a whiteboard to something interactive.

Effective prototypes are fast. We want to use techniques that allow for rapid iteration. A prototype should not just be bolted onto the end of a design process. Incorporating the creation of a prototype into your daily design work allows new ideas to emerge and validates concepts quickly.

Effective prototypes are disposable. Just like with any design deliverable, we are creating an artifact intended to express an idea to someone else (stakeholder, developer, user, etc). Once that design idea has been communicated, the prototype deliverable can be discarded. We don’t have to feel the burden of creating a masterpiece that will live on, and we certainly don’t have to work in production-level code.

Effective prototypes are focused. We want to select the interactions of our design that really need to be prototyped. Look for the parts of your design that have of complexity. Look for interaction patterns repeated throughout the user’s experience. Look for the interactions that bring revenue to your product. A prototype that demonstrates these interactions will be the best use of your time and energy.

An informative presentations on prototyping is from Jonathan Arnowitz who happens to be one of the authors of Effective Prototyping with Excel. In the book, the authors discuss how to use use Excel skills to create prototypes especially for wire frames. It is interesting how such a common and widely owned tool can offer such a wide array of solutions. The presentation below labors on wireframes at the beginning but the message soon turns into applicable information for all.

Effective Prototyping Process for Software Creation

View more presentations from Jonathan Arnowitz

Standard Work in my Sales and Marketing

2012-01-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Make no mistake about it; EXECUTION is what we are looking for from standard work.

If you execute, you can do anything. When a company has a clear mission, and people know how their individual mission fits into the big picture, everyone paddles in the
same direction. —Stephen Cooper

The biggest influence on my ability to execute has been Stephen Covey’s, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It provided me a personal method to perform standard work. A later program developed by Franklin Covey was the The 4 Disciplines of Execution which I still listen to for reinforcement but without the context of the training, I would not necessarily recommend it. The actually four disciplines serve as a great guideline for execution:

Focus on the Wildly Important: Human beings are wired to do only one thing at a time with excellence. The more we narrow our focus, the greater chance of achieving our goals with excellence.
Create a Compelling Scoreboard: People play differently when they're keeping score.
Translate Lofty Goals into Specific Actions: To achieve goals you've never achieved before, you need to start doing things you've never done before. • Using an entrepreneurial
Hold Each Other Accountable-All of the Time: Knowing others are counting on you raises your level of commitment.

These disciplines are what guides my own work and has allowed me to guide sales and marketing teams into higher levels of performance.

As I started my consulting path a few years back, I became a facilitator for the Get Clients Now – 28 Day Program. I always struggled with it somewhat because of the language used, appetizers, desserts, etc. but for the most part it provided a simple and concise action plan for assembling Wildly Important into Specific Actions into a Compelling Scoreboard (The Action Worksheet). When used with teams, it provides an excellent format for providing you a line of sight in daily stand-ups and weekly meetings. It was easily modified for individuals and organizations in Google docs for the teams that I was working with. As we all know, most sales efforts fall short in their ability to follow up which is at the core of the Get Clients Now Program. This outline became the core of standard work for my training programs.

Follow-through is the cornerstone of execution, and every leader who’s good at executing follows through religiously. Following through ensures that people are doing the things they committed to do. - Larry Bossidy

In my previous project management experience, I had found it was a matter of available resources that was the biggest inhibitor to actual execution. In most instances, thinking from a manufacturing or using GCN terminology a cook’s perspective, it was a missing tool or ingredient. When some has all the tools and/or material to do the job, they usually get the job done efficiently and at a high quality level. It holds true for sales and marketing. However, it always seemed to me that many action steps were started without the necessary resources available. The secret to what we needed to document in sales and marketing’s standard work was the needed resources to complete the action step and accept no workarounds.

In Scott Belsky’s (founder of Behance) book, Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, he uses an approach called The Action Method. which has become my management planner of choice. It is extremely simple and highly intuitive for a single person and/or team. I use the paper, online and the app for my iPhone all in combination with very little of redundant work. What the Action Planner does is creates a systems that emphasizes action steps and having the supporting resources available. This is the essence of standard work for the Lean Engagement Team. Making the resources you are utilizing and highlighting what you are missing to the rest of the team, Team Coordinator and Value Stream Manager is the single most important part of the Daily Standup and Weekly Tactical. It allows work to flow.

I have found that most organizations prefer to customize and many still use Google Docs as the reporting method of choice. However, the point is not what tool you use. The point is mastering it so it takes little effort to make your work visible to the rest of the team. This line of sight is what makes teamwork possible. Both of these methods require little if any experience and more importantly can be completed quickly.

The typical daily stand-up goes like this:

State the action item and report did you do it: yes or no
If not, what stopped you? Was a resource missing?
What I am going to do today. Am I missing any resources? Who can help (if so, meet afterwards)?

The biggest problem I have had in these daily standups is that the managers have a tendency to turn them into longer sessions. They want to manage. The idea behind a daily standup is for tactical purposes. It is meant to enable team members to carry out their actions; nothing more, nothing less. Managers if they are participating should be enablers of the actions or in Lean terms the role of servant leadership.

P.S. The Action Planner resembles a simplified version of Kanban system such as the one offered by Lean Kit Kanban (my favorite online Kanban system).

Can the Lean Knowledge Worker cope with Leader Standard Work?

2012-01-06T19:45:00.000-08:00

Leader Standard Work is becoming more commonplace and the standard for the development of a Lean Culture. It is extremely adaptable and found both in trade and professional services. It excels in experienced based professions but it may struggle in what I would call knowledge-based services. The problem is there are more knowledge-based jobs being created every day. The experience based jobs either get automated or outsourced. For more information on that subject, read Dan Pink’s, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.

Since Lean is so intrinsically tied to standard work, many believe Lean cannot apply to their “Knowledge Based” occupation. In fact, it is often resisted in these circles.

When met with resistance, I have found that typically there is a good reason why. As I review most Leader Standard Work for knowledge workers, I still find them heavily laden with specific instructions and very results based focus. In Sales and Marketing (I am considering Sales and Marketing to be knowledge work) , you will see instructions such as make 25 calls, send out 15 e-mails, 3 blog posts a week, etc. On the other hand, I do see slack time allowed under the disguise of daily or weekly Kaizen. So Leader Standard Work can apply to Sales and Marketing, or can it?

Leader Standard Work will fizzle out quickly in the Sales and Marketing arena if you simply try to practice Leader Standard Work through Lean Training, coupled with your experience and try to become more proficient through iteration after iteration. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, it may take years, certainly months, to acquire the skills needed. What stops you is that you not only have to learn new skills but these skills and learning are not stagnant. They are in constant turmoil; developing, adapting and evolving while obsoleting the existing structure.

Many companies may fall short as a result of not creating the internal collaboration structure needed for learning. The organization must develop as a whole and this can only be accomplished by developing their personnel by providing the necessary resources and opportunities. We also need to promote individual differences. Instead of teaching the way to do some things, we may need to step back and determine the key points that are required, as Simon Sinek says the “Why” while leaving the how alone (Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action).

What will drive Leader Standard Work in Lean Sales and Marketing is the “Why” more so than the “How”. The “Why” provides the clear strategic intent which will provide the fuel for Leader Standard Work. This analogy is wonderfully described in David Mann’s Book Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, Second Edition where he uses the automotive analogy to describe the four principles of the Lean Management System:

Leader Standard Work – Engine
Daily Accountability Process – Gas Pedal and Steering Wheel
Visual Controls – Transmission
Discipline – Fuel

When developing your Leader Standard work for Lean Sales and Marketing address these three items;

Clarification – Minimum standard is explicit
Commitment – Level of commitment is expected from the individual
Connection – A path for support through conversation is provided.

Can your Leader Standard Work pass the 3 C Test?

Use the tools of Political Campaign Marketing to turn your Social Media into a Handshake!

2012-01-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

Campaign Marketing was discussed in the Business901 podcasts, What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2 and part 2 of 2. Part one was more of a strategic view and part 2 more tactical. This is a transcription of both of the the podcasts. I find political campaign marketing very relevant to typical business marketing. Political campaigns have more experience in creating touch-points, managing limited budgets and crafting their message to the audience that they are addressing. An excellent primer when developing a social media strategy and turning it into a handshake.

Derek A. Pillie has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana’s Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

After his federal service expired Derek started working at Cirrus ABS, an online marketing and technology development company. He currently manages their business development efforts. Cirrus ABS has added political campaigns to the portfolio of industries they serve since Derek joined the team, and he continues volunteer efforts on behalf of candidates he supports.

Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: How to implement Lean Thinking in a Business

2012-01-05T19:55:00.000-08:00

Tracey Richardson’s How to implement "Lean Thinking" in a Business is my third and final blog review for the John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival. Tracey is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team member, team leader and group leader in the Plastics Department from 1988-1998. She has over 460 hours training in Toyota Methodologies and Philosophy and currently is a trainer for Toyota, their affiliates in North America, and other companies upon request. Tracey experience in Toyota methodologies including: Lean Problem Solving, Quality Circles, Lean Manufacturing tools, Standardized Work, Job Instruction Training, Toyota Production System, Toyota Way Values, Culture Development, Visualization (Workplace Management Systems), Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), Meeting Facilitation/Teamwork, and Manufacturing Simulations.

Tracey also was the 2010 recipient of the Business901 Podcast of the Year! The podcast discussed A3 problem Solving.

Tracey likes to discuss the culture before jumping into problem solving but she takes a look at culture from a different perspective than others. It just about comes across as an attitude (in a very polite way) and there is type of swagger about the whole thing. Why not? When you become #1 in the world such as Toyota did and you are #1 methodology in the world which Lean probably is, why not have that swagger to your discussion? It is not pompous, it is an attitude that what you are doing works! She doesn’t write enough in my opinion because of her commitments as a trainer but her blog is one you should follow, you do not want to miss a word she says. You can also find her answering questions on the Lean Enterprise’s A3 Dojo Website.

What does the word "Lean" mean to you or your Company?

As I travel around the U.S. working with various companies that make a variety of different products, I realize a common denominator throughout them. How do they define the word "lean", as well as the word "culture"? What I have realized is very interesting!

When I first started consulting I felt it was all about the "tools", and that's what companies seem to want, so of course, that's what they got. As I have matured as an instructor/consultant I, like many, I have led and learned at the same time. In my experience at Toyota, especially back when we were led by the Japanese and their questioning approach; we all as new leaders were being led but at the same time leading others, so it was bringing about the "respect for people" and developing the workforce as a team. I can't ever recall in my time at Toyota (Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY - TMMK 1988-1998), that we ever labeled what we were doing in a specific word like "Lean", nor did we really think about our daily actions as a "culture". It was just in the atmosphere. It wasn't until I left Toyota to teach others, that those words started to surface. Somehow we felt the need to give it a name, and as I've experience the last 13 years as a consultant, I feel that can have somewhat of a hindering effect…..

Pathway to creating a "Lean Culture"

As I travel around to various clients they are always asking me, "How do you implement or create a culture like Toyota has"? I tell them that's a very loaded question :). There are so many aspects of creating that culture it's hard to give a short answer or even "wave a magic wand" to say... "Here is what you should do!!". I wish I was that good . How I see it, you really need to differentiate the People side of Lean versus the Tool side. The People side will always be the most difficult aspect of the discipline needed to create this thing called Culture. The tools are just what they are, mostly countermeasures to change some discrepancy in our process. For the tools to be successful, People must understand their involvement or the purpose behind the tools. As I have stated in previous blog posts you must explain from the company perspective the WHAT, HOW and the WHY of any change or expectation within a persons work….

Tracey’s website: http://teachingleaninc.com and email: tracey@teachingleaninc.com

The Difficulty of Mastery = The Difficulty of Lean

2011-12-26T20:15:00.000-08:00

Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us is an excellent description of modern day Lean practices. Just using the example of Mastery from the book will give you an idea on how powerful of a process Lean actually is. I would encourage you to visit the Mastery chapter in Dan Pink’s Drive book for more background. He states that mastery is based on three laws:

Mastery is a mindset
Mastery is a Pain
Mastery is an Asymptote

He also states that flow is essential to mastery: “But flow doesn’t guarantee mastery—because the two concepts operate on different horizons of time. One happens in a moment; the other unfolds over months, years, sometimes decades. You and I each might reach flow tomorrow morning—but neither one of us will achieve mastery overnight.”

In Lean terminology, I can restate these same three laws this way:

Lean is a culture
Lean is grounded in Standard Work
Lean is an Ideal

We also think of Lean in terms of creating flow. But just as flow does not guarantee mastery, flow does not allow us to become Lean. Flow happens along the way of becoming Lean. Many people think they are Lean companies once they have done 5S, Value Stream Mapping or held a few Kaizen Events. The truth is just like mastering anything, it does not happen overnight.

Why does it take so long? Why do so few achieve it? From Dan Pink again: “Mastery is a pain.” That is why it seldom is done. When implementing Lean, most people draw the wrong conclusion and assume it is Leadership. They blame leadership as being shortsighted. This view is not only wrong; it is dead wrong. Our primary problem is not leadership but a long standing culture that is engrained within our organizations. It’s the way we do things. But worse it is also the way others help us do things. The outside forces that surround us to include vendors, customers and for that matter our entire supply chain simply supports the way we have always done things. So, not only do we have to create change internally but externally as well. It is not only a pain but it has to be someone else’s pain. Or does it?

From my blog post, If less than 1% of companies are successful with Lean, why are we doing it?, I stated: What does work is the same thing for both people and organizations. It is the scientific process of trial and error. You don’t get it right at first, you have to break habits, personal habits as an individual and company cultures as an organization. Successful companies do it a little bit at a time. In Lean, we call this scientific method PDCA. We plan, do it, check the results and adjust. It is a purposeful experimentation.

In the book, Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success the authors created a strategic, step-by-step guide to breaking longstanding bad habits introduce a system for adopting-and sticking to-better behaviors. I found the work paralleling Lean in many of its approaches and put Lean practices in parenthesis. Their strategy is based on four simple steps:

Identify Crucial Moments (Identify Value)
Create Vital Behaviors (Map Value Stream)
Engage All Six Sources of Influence (Create Flow – Enable Pull)
Turn Bad Days into Good Data (Seek Perfection - PDCA)

What people forget about Lean is that it is the change agent for an organization. In its simplest form, you first go and see the current state. Second, you visualize your process. You make your process steps visible. You visualize things in a way that reveals your problems, not in a way to hide problems. If you understand what standards are, how the process should work because it's very clear, then whenever we see a variation from the process we react immediately. This allows you to chose one problem from the other and just solves them one by one. This is incredibly powerful, this vision we have with lean systems of increasing our competency, increasing our training without having to take people off line, without having to get to classrooms, but by building it into the way we work. It is this empowering aspect that is not easy. But it may be the only way an organization can master Lean.

Inspiring Innovation thru Standard Work

2011-12-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

Standard work should be an enabler of innovation, not a hindrance. In an upcoming Business901 podcast with Terri Griffith, we will take a look at a few of these principles and find out why it is so important to access where you are at before venturing into the unknown. In the premier show of Innovators Exchange, Tad Milbourn, senior product manager of Intuit Brainstorm, speaks with Terri Griffith, author and professor of Management at Santa Clara University. Tad and Terri discuss her new book, The Plugged-In Manager and the role that a plugged-in manager can play in inspiring innovation. It serves as an excellent preview to the podcast.

In your Organization, who is responsible for Demand?

2011-12-19T19:23:00.000-08:00

Adrian Slywotzky is a consultant and author of several books on economic theory and management. He is best known for his work on profitability and growth, and for pioneering the concept of business design and business model innovation. Slywotzky’s has been a favorite author of mine and his books include Value Migration and The Profit Zone. His latest book, Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It is a must read for this year. It goes right to the heart of many of the issues in business today. An excerpt from the book:

We often think that demand comes from pulling the right levers: more marketing, better advertising, more aggressive sales efforts, distributing coupons, offering discounts. Tactics like these do have their time and place, and they can bring short-term results.

But real demand is not about any of these things. Demand creators spend all of their time trying to understand people. They are acutely aware of how hopeful, jaded, funny, impulsive, unreasonable, irascible, ambitious, distrustful, enigmatic, enthusiastic, frustrated, and unpredictable we really are. They try to understand our aspirations, what we need, what we hate, what gives us an emotional charge—and, most important, what we might really love. By watching how people actually behave in their own worlds, and by talking to them constantly, demand creators figure out how to solve the big and little hassles we all face—and they make our days easier, more convenient, more productive, and simply more fun. They seem to know what we want even before we do. They wind up creating things people can’t resist and competitors can’t copy.

This video is an excellent recap of the book and only about 14 minutes long.

Thinkers50 2011 Ranking: Adrian was named among the 50 leading business thinkers.

Timeboxing using Pomodoro!

2011-12-14T19:34:00.000-08:00

The quickest drivers of time management is visualization, focus and clarity. What I talked about the other day is to have an action step with your reference material in hand, Evolution of Standard Work in my Sales and Marketing and Even Seinfeld used Standard Work. Be able to complete the task without having to look for anything. This will help both clarity and from the visual aspect since the supporting material is right there. Amazing how you can just reach for something and get side tracked sometimes.

The other area that is neglected is focus. So how do you focus? There are 2 areas external distraction and internal – self-inflicted. In your home office, make sure there is a door. Open means you can be disturbed and closed means you can’t. You want to focus – close the door! Don’t have your e-mail or Skype pop up if it distracts you. Give yourself 10 minutes an hour, every two hours or something that you do that. Leave other members on the team know that you check and accept messages at the top of the hour for 5 minutes during your time zone of focus.

From Wikpedia:

When I want to get a task done, I use The Pomodora Technique . A time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. This technique uses a timer to break down periods of work into 25-minute intervals called 'Pomodoros' (from the Italian word for 'tomatoes') separated by breaks. Closely related to concepts such as timeboxing and iterative and incremental development used in software design, the method has been adopted in pair programming contexts. The method is based on the idea that frequent breaks can improve mental agility.

There are five basic steps to implementing the technique:

Decide on the task to be done

Set the pomodoro (timer) to 25 minutes (I use a tomato timer by the way)

Work on the task until the timer rings; record with an x

Take a short break (5 minutes)

Every four "pomodoros" take a longer break (15–20 minutes)

The above is the technique as described in literature. You may find a slightly different time works for you but the secret is to go full bore –a sprint than take a break. The reverse analogy of the tortoise and the hare. It actually works very well. Try doing it for a call session of two hours broken into 4 pomodoros. But make sure you don’t have to get up to reach or touch anything during that time. Let team members know that if they want to call you do so at the top of the hour. You may have to lengthen the break for 10 minutes or to handle outside distractions. But it is important that you do the sprint.

I actually use this technique in writing all the time. The first 15 minutes I just force myself to write and don’t stop. I stop for a minute and start again. If I slow up I just press the space bar at a slower rate. I do this twice equaling 30 minutes. The next 30 minutes after a break I edit what I wrote. Then I go back and start over. I repeat this over and over. I will typically edit it one or two times more but you get my drift. A great book on the subject of overcoming writer’s block is Accidental Genius. A mind map is located on the Business901 Mindmap page.

Related Book: Pomodoro Technique Illustrated

Even Seinfeld used Standard Work

2011-12-08T06:35:00.000-08:00

If you want execution, keep it simple!. From a business stand point, there are many more success stories, that are founded on simple, focused ideas, than complex ones. Lean Sales and Marketing is a very simple concept, it is a learn be doing approach. If you can master this, you will be successful in sales and marketing. It can be taught in 3 steps:

Go and See the USER.
Form a vision of where the USER wants to go.
Visualize the USER’s decision process.

In practice, Lean Sales and Marketing is essentially a knowledge transfer system; it's a training system on how to define knowledge gaps and close them. How you learn or develop this new skill is the same way you are taught to become proficient at anything. It is how often you do something, not how much you do. As a result, the best way to learn is keep it simple (clarity), do it often (repetition/iteration) and make it manageable. In the Lean sense, make standard work visual and uncomplicated.

A great example of making something simple is the Seinfeld calendar. On the lifehacker blog , he described the calendar that Jerry Seinfeld used to make himself write:

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing; I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."

The idea is to have a calendar for each action step. Write the task above it and start building your chain.

And yes, there is an app for this called Streaks!

This daily action builds habits. I encourage the Lean Engagement Teams that I work with to create daily habits through their reports used at the daily standup meeting. Going through their action plan and either answering a yes or no or maybe a number they start creating a daily plan something very simple. The secret is not to break the chain. After doing this for a while it becomes a habit and something you enjoy doing. It is like a checkmark on a checklist or moving the card on a Kanban to the “Done” Column. You could even equate it to a batter on a hitting streak and use an app.

Integrated approach of Lean, Six Sigma, and TOC to deliver results in Healthcare

2011-12-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Bahadir Inozu, Ph.D., the Chief Executive Officer and Dan Chauncey, the Director of Deployment Services for NOVACES joined me in this podcast to discuss an integrated approach for using three industrially based methods, Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management to transform hospital operations. They have just published a book, Performance Improvement for Healthcare that explains how using the right tool for the right problem at the right time from a systems perspective, the authors show how to deliver faster results and greater return on investment.

Scales to any size organization and aligns easily to varying needs
Shortens traditional execution time from adoption to results
Optimizes the utilization of resources required to accomplish the desired goals
Breaks organizational constraints and maximizes organizational efficiency
Sustains the gains and defines a path to self-sufficiency
Achieves a global impact through strategy alignment and focused project selection
Shows how to integrate Constraints Management with Lean and Six Sigma to create a “best of breed” approach
Explains how hospitals can deploy or re-energize their performance improvement program specifically for what’s most important for their particular organization

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About Novaces: A management consulting firm that provides performance management, continuous process improvement (CPI), and project management services to both public and private sector organizations. NOVACES helps its clients build capabilities in today's most effective methodologies to achieve breakthrough operational and financial results.

GE CMO sheds her view on Design Thinking

2011-12-02T19:48:00.000-08:00

In a rare interview, GE's SVP and Chief Marketing Officer Beth Comstock talks to Behance's Scott Belsky about what it takes to keep great ideas alive in a big company. Offering essential insights for creative leaders, the conversation touches on the power of passion and storytelling in getting ideas off the ground, why we should make heroes out of failures, and the challenges of driving change amidst bureaucracy.

Beth Comstock: Make Heroes Out of the Failures from 99% on Vimeo.

As I end the week and ready for next weeks series of Blog posts, you will find this interview quite timely. Her discussion is quite interesting when viewed on the future of Design in business and how we look at value, a step removed from the customer. I do not think organizations are expecting designers to design business models but with the acceptance of the Business Model Generation Template by Alex Osterwalder it is becoming quite clear that it may be something to consider.

Thoughts from this conversation: Every organization says that they are customer centric but few are. They are still selling features and benefits. As the next stage of development into user-centric organizations takes place, it will take quite a jump for organizations to bridge that gap. If they think they had trouble at customer centric levels, look out. When organizations start shifting that direction the Business Savvy Designer will have a great opportunity. It is already being seen and driven not only the BMGen Template but the understanding that the supply chain has shifted to favor the customer. We live in a world of excess supply and the value in use concepts are becoming ever more the driver of design and business.

The host of the program, Scott Belsky is the founder of Behance and author of the book, Making Ideas Happen. This next week when I discuss Standard Work for Lean Sales and Marketing teams, you will see how it has influenced my thoughts about project management. The methodology is based on boiling down projects to the most basic elements with an emphasis on action. The approach is called The Action Method. and is my task management planner of choice. It is extremely simple and highly intuitive for a single person and/or team. I use the paper, online and the app for my iPhone all in combination with very little of redundant work.

Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain

2011-11-27T19:58:00.000-08:00

The Supply Chain has matured to the point where many things are understood and acted on very quickly. Few of us are making substantial changes anymore and even fewer can use their existing supply chain as a marketing differentiator or as an instrument for increased revenue (unless your Amazon).

Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain the way it committed to the Supply chain? I have been addressed this issue in blog posts (Can Service Design increase Customer demand? and Is Lean and Six Sigma a waste of time?) and other discussion groups and have found it baffling to me that most Lean practitioners resist this thought and either ignore it or try to tie sales and marketing to internal improvements. You would think most practitioners would be eager to apply their skills and Lean to the demand side. Unleashing the power of continuous improvement to the immature field of sales and marketing should not frighten anyone, it should inspire them. Addressing the demand side of the equation is the single most important improvement effort and game changer that can take place at a company today.

What is holding organizations back? Why would you not leap at the opportunities? I believe it stems back from the fundamental way that continuous improvement and quality has been developed. It has developed from the field of engineering which is laden with logical, step by step thinking processes. We find a problem define the solution and so on. It has worked very well on the supply chain side but the demand side is anything but logical and seldom follows any pattern. Value Stream Mapping the demand side may identify numerous waste opportunities but which one would you remove? Why should 50% of your marketing fail? is not folklore it is a true statement. It just does not match up to the logical thinker.

Can you apply continuous improvement or Lean to the supply chain? I think that you must. However, you must fully commit to it and be willing to develop new skills. These skills are already being practiced in disciplines such as Service Design and with a toolset familiar to Design Thinkers and explained in Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset. It will not be the same engineer that led the quality revolution; it is the Designer that must lead on the demand side. The designer understands collaboration, open innovation and co-creation. He knows that it not only functionality but it is also about design which incorporates the look and the feel. These attributes are the differentiators in products and services.

Will your organization change to meet these new requirements? Will you fully commit to applying continuous improvement on the demand side? Will you hire designers or engineers in the future? Will that baton be passed from the engineer to the designer?

Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business

2011-11-24T20:40:00.000-08:00

USERS, NOT CUSTOMERS

Forrester predicts that by 2012 half of all consumer purchases will either be transacted online or driven by online research and word of mouth. To succeed in the digital marketplace, it’s no longer customers that matter most, but users—anyone who interacts with your company digitally. Keep users happy, and customers follow.

The Business901 Podcast guest, Aaron Shapiro CEO of digital agency HUGE in Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business, shows why today’s most critical driver of success is usability excellence.

"Today’s most successful companies organize their business around users and building user satisfaction," writes Shapiro. To make users your growth engine for your customer base and for your entire organization, Shapiro introduces a comprehensive approach to refocusing every aspect of your operations on users including sales, marketing, HR, and organizational structure.

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Based on his experience helping some of the world’s biggest brands evolve to meet the challenges of rapidly changing technology and evolving consumer habits, Shapiro outlines the seven things every company needs to change in order to survive in a digitally driven economy. Shapiro's analysis also includes a study of the Digital Leadership Set - companies in the Fortune 1000 that most effectively utilize digital across all aspects of their business. These companies, including Best Buy and Zappos, attract customers by providing appealing digital experiences. And they're rewarded with rising stock price and performance. You'll learn how digital leadership has brought huge profits to companies large and small including:

You don’t need to be a techie to master a user-first management philosophy. You just need to accept that the people who interact with your company online are what's most important.

Do you understand where demand comes from?

2011-11-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Maybe the better question is can it be created? Most of us believe it is though better or more marketing or sales. Where it really comes from is understanding your customers better! That should come as little surprise to the readers of this blog.

My recent posts:
Deming was just simply wrong about variation…
Why won’t Lean commit to the Demand Chain the way it committed to the Supply chain?
It’s the Who, not the Why @simonsinek
Can Service Design increase Customer demand?
Work on demand, ‘It’s the demand side, stupid’

In the recent book, Demand: Creating What People Love Before They Know They Want It by one of my favorite authors, Adrian Slywotzky, he explains how what he calls Demand Creators think. He outlines the process in a Six step process:

Make it Magnetic: It’s not the first mover that wins; it’s the first to create and capture the emotional space in the market.
Fix the Hassle Map: Map the hassles and fix them. This will provide a path to explosive potential demand.
Build a Complete Backstory: Till this in place and all the dots connected in the hassle map, demand simple does not happen.
Find the Triggers: Always experiment, always search to turn fence sitters into customers.
Build a Steep Trajectory: Continuously innovate.
De-Average: Constantly improve product fit for varying customers.

The author goes on to say that the Demand Creator is always in search of the next hassle map for the customer. However the most important trait is when confronted with – Where will tomorrow’s demand come from? They don’t point to anyone, they simply look in the mirror.

Author’s page: Books by Adrian Slywotzky

I highly recommend this book. It demonstrates each point through at least 2 case studies. An example is on Finding the Triggers: For Zipcar, it’s density--and just a short walk to the car. For Nespresso, it’s taste and trial in a fancy boutique. For Netflix, it’s waiting 1 day for a movie to arrive instead of 6. Smart companies recognize that each product has its own trigger--and that discovering these triggers is the key to creating demand.

Evolutionary Change thru Kanban

2011-11-23T18:55:00.000-08:00

David J. Anderson is credited with the first implementation of a Kanban process for software development, in 2005. David leads a management consulting firm focused on improving performance of technology companies. He has been in software development nearly 30 years and has managed teams on agile software development projects at Sprint, Motorola, Microsoft, and Corbis.

David was a founder of the Agile movement through his involvement in the creation of Feature Driven Development. He was also a founder of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), a founding signatory of the Declaration of Interdependence, and a founding member of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium. He moderates several online communities for lean/agile development.

He is President of David J. Anderson & Associates, based in Sequim, Washington, a management consulting firm dedicated to improving leadership in the IT and software development sectors. Last year he authored the defining book on Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.

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Kanban is becoming a popular way to visualize and limit work-in-progress in software development and information technology work. Teams around the world are adding kanban around their existing processes to catalyze cultural change and deliver better business agility. This book answers the questions: What is Kanban? Why would I want to use Kanban? How do I go about implementing Kanban? How do I recognize improvement opportunities and what should I do about them?

As a pioneer in the agile software movement David has managed teams at Sprint, Motorola and Corbis delivering superior productivity and quality. At Microsoft, in 2005, he developed the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement methodology – the first agile method to provide a comprehensive mapping to the Capability and Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI).

David can be found at AgileManagement.net

Lean Marketing Lab to Open!

2011-11-20T07:43:00.001-08:00

The virtual world of the Lean Marketing Lab will open its doors. A gateway for this online community has been created to further the cause of Lean in Sales and Marketing. Reviewing this slide presentation will give you the background on the project. Hope to see you at the Lean Marketing Lab. – Joe

Lean Marketing Lab

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Related Information can be found at Business901.com

In Lean Marketing start with Journey Mapping vs Value Stream Mapping

2011-11-16T18:30:00.000-08:00

Value Stream Mapping is process most consider an exercise for finding and removing waste. It is a foundational Lean Tool that typically gets introduced early in a Lean Transformation. A Systems2win Excel template is depicted below: In Sales and Marketing you will utilize a Value Stream Mapping process on a project by project basis but it is typically limited for an internal process. It is a difficult correlation for customer facing experiences and as a result seldom used. The preferred method of mapping the customer experience is through a journey map. I prefer two styles one just a basic Excel Template that is very similar to a typical Swim Lane chart commonly used in Lean.

From Smart Cities - A guide to using Customer Journey Mapping

Another being a more circular method demonstrated by the Lego Wheel. Lego uses tool called a ‘customer experience wheel’ to map an existing experience. “We understand what is and what is not important to the customer in that experience and then we design a ‘wow’ experience to improve it.” Though I like the wheel better I have not found a program that could make it easy for me to draw and distribute. The advantage of creating this map utilizing the Excel template is that you can easily add notes and drill down further down into a process by adding columns and rows. Drawing in Excel is rather easy once you understand how, Become Proficient Drawing with Excel in 30 minutes! and remember you can do MATH, CHARTS and everything else you already know about Excel. If you want more information on how to create a journey map below is an excellent slide show describing the process. If you want to learn more about Value stream Mapping, drawing in Excel or Swim Lanes, I would recommend downloading the trail templates at Systems2win.com.

The Journey Mapping Guidance Cabinet Office[1]

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A good post on discussing some of the pros and cons of different types of Journey Maps can be found at Visualizing the customer experience using customer experience journey maps. You may also want to consider viewing the Lean Marketing Game presentation. It is based on extending the journey map through out your organization.

Is Zappos the next Toyota?

2011-11-10T18:52:00.000-08:00

Toyota has led us through the turn of the century and beyond establishing “Respect for People” as one of the most important ingredients of the Toyota Production System and Lean Thinking. This has led to establishing a culture of Servant Leadership versus the more traditional command and control type organization. This type of thinking in conjunction with Kaizen (continuous improvement) is the bases of Lean Culture.

However, the age of process and improvement methodologies is starting to fade as the customer experience comes to the forefront. The methodologies of Service Design and Design Thinking are moving at a rapid pace. Lean due to its core concepts of going to Gemba or viewing things from the customer perspective is the one process methodology that is in position to readily adapt to these new forces. The Lean Startup and Agile Movements are excellent examples.

Customer Experience is at the forefront of not only marketing but organizational structure as evidence by the corporate shifts such as IBM to a more Customer-Centric structure. Zappos may be the shining example and the organization to emulate in this new culture.

What about this? Is Zappos to Customer-Centricity what Toyota and Lean was to the process movement?

I have just competed reading The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW. Joseph Michelli takes you through the Zappos company culture revealing what occurs behind the scenes and showing how employees at all levels operate on a day-today basis while providing the leadership methods that have earned the company $1 billion in annual gross sales during the last ten years. Michelli breaks the approach down into five key elements:

Serve a Perfect Fit—create bedrock company values
Make it Effortlessly Swift—deliver a customer experience with ease
Step into the Personal—connect with customers authentically
S T R E T C H—grow people and products
Play to Win—play hard, work harder

Not exactly PDCA, but it may be the future of organizational culture.

This could serve as another example for the new Customer-Centric organization approach. It was highlighted in another book on a similar theme by Joseph Michelli, The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary. The principles are:

Make it Your Own - objective is to get a lower level associate functioning in an entrepreneurial fashion
Everything Matters - you have to get those DETAILS right.
Surprise and Delight - create dedicated professionals .
Embrace Resistance - look upon criticism as an opportunity to learn from the person doing the criticizing
Leave Your Mark - contribute positively to our communities, and our environment.

Again not exactly PDCA, but it may be the future of organizational culture. What do you think?

Lean Canvas for SALES EDCA/PDCA/SDCA

2011-11-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

SALES PDCA is the framework I use for the process that takes place in the customer groups. It is nothing more than a standard PDCA cycle except the SALES part of the framework is where the sales team gets its directions and coaching from the team coordinator and value stream manager. Within the actual PDCA stage the sales team is empowered to make their own choices and determine their own direction to accomplish the goals of that cycle. This framework is introduced in the Marketing with PDCA book.

Continuing with my Lean journey and the development of the Lean sales and Marketing platform, many of the PDCA cycles became standardized and SDCA was introduced. Graham Hill had mentioned the concept of EDCA (Explore-Do-Check-Act). Graham was the head of CRM at Toyota Financial Services. He stated that:

Marketing in highly competitive markets is about exploring new propositions on the innovation fitness landscape. The environment determines where to start and complex marketing environments need EDCA. EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, SDCA = Standardize, marketing operations are all about moving along the EDCA>PDCA>SDCA pathway.

Out of this was the further refinement into three separate distinctive cycles of SALES EDCA, SALES PDCA, SALES SDCA. Viewing your value stream/marketing cycle in this manner creates endless opportunities for improvement. It is also much easier to handle the team concept of sales and marketing with this thought process. The sales and marketing team is a cross-functional group whose number and expertise are derived from the decision-making path of the customer. You must first have established directives for a particular marketing cycle and a structure to match it. Are you looking for creativity (EDCA), problem resolution (PDCA), or tactical execution (SDCA)? Once you have established the objectives, you choose a team structure to match it. Without this process you may have creative teams working on tactical execution or on the other hand a problem-solving team working on a creative solution.

The question remained how do we make this knowledge explicit? Several years ago, I would have just framed this as an A3 report and placed the SALES on the left side and the ECA/PDCA/SDCA on the right side. However I have decided to use the terminology of a canvas versus an A3n following the concept developed in the Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder. The BMG Canvas has its roots in Design Thinking which provides a better conduit for focusing outside the organization.

Lean Canvas for SALES EDCA/PDCA/SDCA

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In the upcoming week, I will blog about the individual Lean Canvases and Standard Work templates. But for now this slide show will serve as the introduction to the concept.

Drawing with Excel in 30 minutes!

2011-11-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

Using Microsoft Excel as a drawing tool is a surprise to most of us. When we think of using Excel, we think of creating a spreadsheet and maybe if we are adventurous creating a graph. But there is a hidden power contained in Excel, the ability to draw. One of my most popular blog post of all time, Draw your Value Stream Map in Excel includes a You Tube video of the rendering of a Excel drawing depicting Transformer (You remember the Children’s heroes). If you need proof take a look at these drawings from The Spreadsheet Page:

It turns out that Debbie is an artist, and she uses Excel as her primary drawing software (now that's odd!). The figure below shows an example. The image on the left was scanned from a catalog. The image on the right was created by Debbie, using Excel's drawing tools. The drawing consists of hundreds of individual shapes, combined together

.

According to Debbie, "Most of my drawings do not take longer than two hours or four hours max to get the outlines done and the fill colors put in. I often use photographs that I've scanned and inserted into Excel, then I use the drawing tools to change the photographs into drawings. As you have already noticed I've become quite proficient at drawing on Excel, so it doesn't take me as much time as it did when I first started, now that I've figured out all the tricks.

I have a tendency to use other more “graphic” software packages in lieu of Excel but I am amazed at the simplicity of using Excel once you start. Why should I care? Most of the tools of Lean are visual in nature. In fact, one of the sayings that have been very common in Lean is “If you’re not visual, you’re not Lean.” However, in Lean and with any continuous improvement methodology metrics are important. So, if you want to be successful you cannot divorce the visual aspect and the metrics. Excel offers the marriage between the two. Listen to the advantages described by Dean Ziegler of Systems2win:

Can you become proficient in only 30 minutes? Watch these Systems2win videos to learn how:
Types of Drawing Objects
How to Select Objects
How to use Excel as a drawing tool

Data Driven Problem Solving Program

2011-11-08T18:35:00.000-08:00

Steven C. Wilson, one of the leading Lean Six Sigma trainers in the state of Iowa has released a new program, Data Driven Problem Solving. The entire program can be downloaded as a PDF and MP3 on IowaQualityTraining.com.

Data Driven Problem Solving includes a 100 page book with over 4 hours of audio. In addition, a copy of Lean Six Sigma for Leaders book is included. The Data Driven Problem Solving program is a result of material covered in a 2-day workshop presented by the author Steven C. Wilson. It was created to support the training both before and after the class. It provides many of the questions people had about problem solving utilizing DMAIC. They need not fully comprehending the tools of Six Sigma. With an understanding of Data Driven Problem Solving, it will allow more participation in your organization’s problem solving efforts.

Data Driven Problem Solving uses activities based approach and is comprised of multiple separate sessions, which follow the Six Sigma DMAIC approach without the need of the typical Black Belts, Green Belt hierarchy associated with Six Sigma organizations. It is presented in a unique question and answer format providing information about how to use and implement a problem solving methodology in an organization.

Topic that are covered:

Process Improvement Basics
Roles and Organization – Teamwork
What is Our Quest? – The Define Phase
How is the Current Process Performing? – Measure Phase
What are the “Deep Dive” Causes of a Problem? – Analyze Phase
What will We Change? – Improve Phase
Are We There yet? – Control Phase

About: Steven C. Wilson is the host of Quality Conversations and can be found at Wilson Consulting and Training Services, Inc (WCTS, Inc – www.stevencwilson.com). Wilson has over 20 years of experience applying quality improvement tools, methodologies, and principles in a variety of industries that include automotive, healthcare, logistics, distribution, education, and numerous manufacturing venues. He has dedicated himself to the cause by training/coaching over 600 Six Sigma practitioners in over 70 companies with an emphasis on getting results. Wilson possesses a very engaging style of leadership, training and consulting, and provides an experienced eye for companies on the road to organizational improvement.

Program is also available on Amazon:
Ring Bound:Data Driven Problem Solving
CD Format: Data Driven Problem Solving

Work on demand, 'It's the demand side, stupid'

2011-11-07T18:33:00.000-08:00

Working on supply side economics is not putting people back on the payrolls. Commentator Robert Reich has another idea: Work on increasing demand for goods and services here at home. Listen to this audio:

I am not arguing political issues, I am just trying to build supporting evidence for why supply side solutions are not working in the economy and are not working in marketing your product and services. It’s just simply about the Demand!

Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs

2011-11-04T19:35:00.000-07:00

True service innovation demands that you shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. To achieve this shift in your business--one that takes you from making educated guesses to building a clear model to guide service innovation—Lance Bettencourt instructs on the finer points of how to rethink your approach to the customer's needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. Among the numerous key ideas and practices are:

Insight on understanding the different types of clients you serve—and how your products deliver value to them
Ways to design specific frameworks for discovering service innovation opportunities for new, improved, and supplementary service products
Practical guidance on staying focused on the "fuzzy front end" of service innovation
The fundamental elements of a winning service strategy

We did not get to all of these points in the podcast with Lance. You would have to read his book,Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services to find all of them. But we did begin the conversation discussing Job-Centric Innovation, an idea that Lance is an expert on.

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After several years on the marketing faculty at Indiana University, he began his career as an innovation consultant with Strategyn. His book is a melding of his personal skills and passion for services and innovation. He is currently an independent innovation speaker and trainer, providing executive education to many of the world's leading companies.

Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!

2011-11-03T19:45:00.000-07:00

In The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing edited by Robert Lusch and Stephen Vargo they present the case to use SD-Logic as a foundation versus a total integrative marketing method. I believe that Lean viewed through the lens of PDCA as a knowledge creation platform can serve as the vehicle for implementation of this Logic. The principles of SD-Logic cannot be implemented in various silos of an organization, just as the basic principles of Lean cannot. It requires a cultural and fundamental shift within the organization placing the customer and user experience becoming the center.

Let me start by listing the foundational principles of Service Dominant Logic described in the before mentioned book:

The application of specialized skill(s) and knowledge is the fundamental unit of exchange: Service is exchanged for service.
Indirect exchange masks the fundamental unit of exchange: Micro specialization. organizations, goods, and money obscure the service-for-service nature of exchange.
Goods are distribution mechanisms for service provision: "Activities render service; things render service"
Knowledge is the fundamental source of competitive advantage: Operant resources, especially know-how, are the essential component of differentiation.
All economies are services economies: Service is only now becoming more apparent with increased specialization and outsourcing; it has always been what is exchanged.
The customer is always a co-creator of value: There is no value until an offering is used—experience and perception are essential to value determination.
The enterprise can only make value propositions: Since value is always determined by the customer (value-in-use), it cannot be embedded through manufacturing (value-in-exchange).
A service-centered view is customer oriented and relational: Operant resources being used for the benefit of the customer places the customer inherently in the center of value creation and implies relationship.

My premise is that if you are Lean Zealot and understand Lean as a knowledge Creation machine versus a waste reduction machine these principles are not only compatible but harmonious. There is little or no difference.

I asked Dr. James Womack this question in a podcast:

Joe: Most people don't think of Lean as, a capturing knowledge mechanism. Do you?

Dr. Womack: Well, of course. That's what the whole idea is. It's an experimental process that you try things. They are right. Deming most famously captured it in PDCA. But again, Deming didn't exactly think of science. Hey, let's give Galileo a little bit of credit.

Now look, it's by design and experimental process. By the way, Kaizen is nothing but an experiment. There's a plan based on grasping the situation, I hope, which is to say what is the issue? Then you do it, and that's to run the experiment. You can run a valid experiment because you have baseline data on how the current state works. So then you change something in a future state, and you measure the difference and decide whether that's a good or bad result and whether to standardize it or not.

The entire idea here is to capture knowledge in books of knowledge and the product development system in a progression of A3s which, of course, we talk about a lot at LEI. But A3s are really nothing but a way to put an experiment in context. You put PDCA in context and so they become their own book of knowledge as time moves ahead. If you're not trying to learn something and not trying to cumulatively learn something, so you don't have to do the same experiment over and over, as I often see in companies. Well then, you need some sort of a way to write it down. To standardize it so you can sustain it as well as discover it.

I find a striking resemblance in the Economic Pyramid model (on right) of Pines and Gilmore (The Experience Economy) and the Toyota Supplier hierarchy (on left) depicted by Liker and Meier (The Toyota Way Fieldbook).

Lean offers a guiding light for implementation of Service Dominant Logic or maybe a more correct and broader term would Customer (User) Experience Centric Platform. This change is occurring and Lean can be part of the solution for many companies. It is a platform that is well understood and readily accepted. But with that understanding emanates a platform of internal focus based on a waste reduction mentality. This focus may actually hinder the growth of the Lean Methodology into the higher culture that it professes to emulate.

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 2 of 2

2011-11-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

In the Business901 podcast, What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2 we looked at a more strategic view. In today’s podcast, we looked at the tactical practices and how they related not only to a political campaign but to a typical marketing campaign.

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Job-Centric Innovation is Rethinking Customer Needs

2011-11-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

Service Innovation requires that shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. In the podcast, Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs, my guest Lance Bettencourt discusses how to rethink your approach to the customer’s needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs

His book, Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services lays out a road map for developing a winning service strategy.

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2

2011-11-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

Looking for immediate business? Is it taking too long to build a brand? Many of us look toward marketing to be our silver bullet, but seldom is it. We sometimes tire waiting for that marketing message to take hold and search for the latest and coolest gimmick to grab our prospects attention. Though I consider myself on the leading edge of these trends, I have come to appreciate that slow and steady wins many of the times. Driving home that consistent message is far more productive than being on the leading edge of every new marketing angle.

In my research I have also come to appreciate, What political campaigns can teach business. Few marketing processes do a better job of creating immediate business. With these thoughts in mind, I pursued Derek A. Pillie a leading political analyst for a Business901 Podcast. The interview lasted over an hour. Part 1 is a strategic view of political campaigning and part 2( Will post tomorrow) is from a tactical viewpoint.

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Derek has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana's Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

Does the Customer Experience mimic the Employee Experience?

2011-10-31T19:35:00.000-07:00

After reading The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW it really got my mind spinning. So much has been written and said about Zappos that I can’t say the book surprised me but it did allow me to gain a deeper understanding of the internal workings. More so, the book really generated my interest on the relationship of employee and customer experience as demonstrated in my blog post, Is Zappos the Next Toyota?

Does the customer experience have to mimic the internal company culture? Is that not what Zappos is all about? Reviewing my latest readings and blog post on organizational culture, When Efficiencies and Innovation no longer work, is Customer Centricity the answer?, I would have to say that to be true. So how would you create that fun game type culture? Of course, I turned to Gamification which has been used primarily to focus on marketing and extending the customer experience.

If have to mimic the internal structure to the external, should not Gamification apply internally. I turned to my favorite Gamification resource, Amy Jo Kim and reviewed a recent slide deck of hers that was based on 7 Core Concepts for creating Compelling Products.

Know your players: design for their personal & social needs
Build fun/pleasure/satisfaction into your core activity loop
Design for 3 key stages of your player lifecycle
Build a system that’s easy to learn and hard to master
Use game mechanics to “light the way” towards mastery
As players progress, increase the challenge & complexity
Embrace intrinsic motivators like power, autonomy & belonging

Beyond Gamification: 7 Core Concepts for Creating Compelling Products

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Do you think you can get Human Resources in on this? A recent podcast of mine, Games maybe your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent may give you some additional thoughts on this subject. But if you want to create the customer experience, than maybe you need to start designing the employee experience.

Can you think of a few ways this might look and apply at your company?

About Amy Jo Kim: Presentation is from Amy Jo Kim, an adjunct professor of Game Design at USC’s Digital Media school, recently named top US-based game design school. She’s also the author of Community Building on the Web (2000), a design handbook for digital communities that’s used worldwide at game studios & universities.[Email Amy].

Mass Customization is not Mass Customization

2011-10-28T19:45:00.000-07:00

Mass Customization is doable with the right design. So many of us think in such broad terms that may lead us to believe that mass customization is that we respond to every customers whim. I think that stops us from completely understanding the concepts of co-creation and co-producing. As Joe Pine so eloquently puts it in this video, “A customer does not want a lot of choices, he just wants what he wants!”

So, are you in the right product/market fit? You may not be if request of your customers cause you anguish and a great deal of stress. Maybe all these request are there for a reason other than the fickleness of your customers.

Given choices customers seldom choose what you want them to choose. You could even be offering choices or asking before decisions because you are too soon to sell rather than diagnose. There can be other reasons to include that your product or service stinks or is not well described to begin with.

The importance of playing in your customers playground or where your product/service is being used is so important. It might even be worth your time to even go a step further sometimes and observe the customer of your customer’s. Try to design a sales and marketing campaign form that view. Would that be going to the Gemba of the Gemba!

Mind Maps on Leadership and Teamwork for the Lean Agile Crowd

2011-10-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Looking for DIY Teamwork and Leadership training? Start with these books (since they are all fables, they make for great listening) Patrick Lencioni Library (Five Temptations of a CEO; Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive; Five Dysfunctions of a Team; Death by Meeting). If you are a Lean Startup, Agile Software Development or even a Lean Enterprise this information is readily digestible by anyone in your organization and coincides with these disciplines that you will wonder where Patrick received his Lean training.

If you feel like this is an endorsement of these products, it is! I have used these mind maps as examples and referred more people to the books and materials than to any other single source. This is my collection of mind maps created from listening or reading to the Patrick Lencioni business series of books.

Patrick Lencioni Mind Maps

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Is there a compatible future for Lean and MRP?

2011-10-26T19:32:00.000-07:00

There seems to be an element of distaste from Lean Supply Chain people about MRP. Not being a Supply Chain expert it is really not for me to comment. But I did ask Carol Ptak and Chad Smith to address a few of those issues in the Business901 podcast, and in the podcast, Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP. Below is an excerpt from the podcast on one of those questions:

First of all, we owe Lean a huge debt of gratitude to getting some critical elements in front of industry. One thing that I think is very important is the Lean crowd, I think, unfairly gets branded as anti‑technology. I think that that's unfair because, up until now, technology hasn't worked for Lean very well. If you look at the basic rules of MRP and how it works, it doesn't work well for Lean. If you look at the Toyota Production System, even the critical points in the Toyota Production System about technology, I think, Liker's book, I think it's point eight.

It says, "Use only thoroughly tested and proven technological methods for your people and processes." Well, up until now, there haven't been thoroughly tested or proven technological processes.

So it's forced the Lean community, it's forced the TOC community back into manual systems. And those manual systems are breaking down. They're too intensive. And for larger corporations, you really lose a lot of visibility across an enterprise. In fact, for larger companies, Joe, the idea of enterprise Lean really doesn't exist. And why? It's because we have limitations with technology.

Now, what Carol and I are doing here is we're saying, look. Let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. Let's not just throw out the promise of technology and jump all the way back to manual re‑order point systems. Let's figure out how we have to change the formal planning logic to create new rules that then foster new tools that both the formal planning crowd and the Lean crowd can embrace.

And so far, we've heard really good feedback from both sides of the fence here that says, "Yeah, this seems to solve the things that we need to see" and from the Lean side, it also seems to be right in line and actually even facilitate their objectives.

Below is a transcription of the entire conversation:

Introduction to Demand Driven MRP -

Carol Ptak and Chad Smith were asked to co-author the new Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning 3/E. Carol and Chad were on previous podcasts with me, In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much! and Can MRP be a Demand – Driven Tool?. They can be found at the Demand Driven Institute.

This past week I had a good time applying a few of the DDMRP concepts to sales and marketing. Exercises like this helps me stretch my thoughts a little.

Related Information:

Hansei in Lean Marketing

2011-10-26T15:08:00.000-07:00

Lean Sales and Marketing is built upon the philosophy that there has been a subtle shift to knowledge as the way to engage, develop and retain your customer base. The sales and marketing team must act as a vehicle to cultivate ideas not only within their four walls but more importantly from their customers and markets. If this is true, how do create new knowledge? How do we learn? Most studies show that we learn best by doing and by being forced to resolve our perspective with those of others who disagree with us. This means that you have to encourage contradictions and be willing to push the envelope with your customers.

This is a strange paradox. Disagreement with your customer can hardly be seen as a positive mechanism for sales and marketing. However, it is the embracement of this understanding that will move your sales and marketing efforts to a higher level of performance.

Can you disagree with a customer? Can you purposely cause tension? You must! You must move away from the comfort zone and create a healthy tension and instability in your sales and marketing process.

The next step in the process is surprisingly easy but difficult to do. It is the process of reflection or in Japanese, hansei. There are three key components of hansei:

Recognize that there is a problem – a gap between expectations and achievement – and be open to negative feedback.
Voluntarily take responsibility and feel deep regret.
Commit to a specific course of action to improve.

The first step, acknowledge that there is room for improvement is not that difficult. However, putting a number to it may be a different story. When we create a performance gap we identify 2 things, one where we are at now and where do we want to go. Of course we may not get there overnight but there will be limitations. You have to determine what is realistic to achieve. A simple but effective way of looking at it is, “From what to what by when”.

The second step can simply be stated – don’t look for excuses. Take responsibility, feel a little humility and move forward. Without this, you will never fully release from the past and it may be much more difficult to bring fresh ideas to the table.

This is your action plan to move forward. However, without step 2, you will seldom be passionate about step 3. It will just be another effort and ownership will be limited. Ownership cannot be done without an emotional attachment.

The steps of Respect first, Reflection second will drive the 3^rd step of Kaizen or continuous improvement. This is the process and culture of PDCA in your marketing cycle. It is the embodiment of tension, a performance gap to send you off on a new path. This path acts as expanding spiral of co-creation of knowledge with your customer that will be truly valued. THE ABILITY TO SHARE AND CREATE KNOWLEDGE WITH YOUR CUSTOMER is the strongest marketing tool possible.

Few companies will take this path. Few companies will take the time to develop the level of respect required. Even fewer will use hansei and look at performance gaps releasing their own pre-determined reasons. Few will ever practice continuous improvement in sales and marketing.

Will you?

Fantastic Conversation on the Multiverse

2011-10-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Every marketer and gamer should watch this!

Joe Pine seeks to do nothing less than redefine our known universe -- a bold goal which manifested itself in The Multiverse, a 3D framework he created. By examining the fields created at the intersection of three axes (space/no space, time/no time, and matter/no matter), Joe introduces us to eight realms for creating value by innovating experiences. Physical virtuality, for example, involves designing things virtually and then making them a reality, such as the way 3D bio-printers manufacture human tissue and organs. Through Joe's eyes, we see the future and it is mind blowing!

From a San Diego TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

Is Continuous Improvement Continuous?

2011-10-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

In the LinkedIn, Association for Manufacturing Excellence Group there has been a discussion started about this presentation where they suggest that a standard is more like a target condition, and that the only way to maintain gains is to keep improvement moving forward. Their thoughts, hence the slideshow is that PDCA is better served by retiring the Wedge practice of standardizing to hold the gains in place.

Retire the PDCA wedge

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My question though is continuous improvement really continuous? I found as a trainer that it was important to stop and take a breath. I never used the incline and the wedge but a staircase approach sometimes even with landings. Having that dwell time for everyone to catch up and before moving on was always important not only for the team (group) but for me as a trainer to evaluate things. It was also a good time to celebrate along the way.

An example is the in the Toyota Supplier hierarchy depicted by Liker and Meier in the (The Toyota Way Fieldbook. Viewing the stages such as described in the blog post, The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota we would see a natural progression through the stages of the supplier. A supplier starts working with Toyota at the stage of developing Mutual Understanding. They base this on the key elements of Trust, Mutual prosperity, Respect for People and Genchi gembutsu (actual part, actual place). It ultimately ends in Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) and Learning through PDCA. I am leaving out a significant portion of development in the five other steps but it suffices to say that there is a continued progression through the stages based on an increase of knowledge and sharing between the two parties.

I adhere to the Toyota principle of setting audacious goals and striving for them. Becoming a top supplier as depicted in the Supplier hierarchy is one. I try to do this with showing a large PDCA as my overall vision and incorporating the staircase. The individual steps of the staircase are just an individual mini-pdca. We could go into a greater discussion of Hoshin, Lean Culture and transformation but I like to keep things pretty simple. So, I simply view PDCA or continuous improvement as the culture of Lean. Is my reasoning in line with the "new thoughts" or am I stuck in the mud with a wedge holding me in place?

I encourage you to join the conversation at this LinkedIn group: Association for Manufacturing Excellence Group!

Scaling the Customer Decision Making Process

2011-10-19T20:59:00.000-07:00

In yesterday’s blog post, I made a statement that I find a striking resemblance in the Toyota Supplier hierarchy (on left) depicted by Liker and Meier (The Toyota Way Fieldbook) and the Economic Pyramid model (on right) of Pines and Gilmore (The Experience Economy). It deserves a better description.

If we were to view the stages such as described in the blog post, The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota we would see a natural progression through the stages of the supplier. A supplier starts working with Toyota at the stage of developing Mutual Understanding. They base this on the key elements of Trust, Mutual prosperity, Respect for People and Genchi gembutsu (actual part, actual place). It ultimately ends in Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) and Learning through PDCA. I am leaving out a significant portion of development in the five other steps but it suffices to say that there is a continued progression through the stages based on an increase of knowledge and sharing between the two parties.

In the The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage, Pine and Gilmore discussed the Progressions of Economic Value and corresponding to a level of Progression of Value Intelligence which I have combined in the above diagram. They so masterfully compared it with the statements:

If you charge for stuff (noise), then you are in the commodity business.
If you charge for tangible (data) things, then you are in the goods business.
If you charge for the activities (service) you execute, then you are in the service business.
If you charge for the time (experience) customers spend with you, then you are in the experience business.
If you charge for the demonstrated outcome (wisdom) the customer achieves, then and only then are you in the transformation business

When you hear discussion in Lean Marketing about mirroring the Customer Decision process it is sometimes difficult to see how it will scale to larger companies. These examples are the basis for such activity. It is sales and marketing responsibility to define them and to close the knowledge gaps that exist from one stage to the next. These gaps are readily apparent between each stage and typically well-defined. Review the blog posts, The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota and Profiling the customer by knowledge gaps.

How to close the gaps is not readily defined in most companies. Sales and Marketing have seldom viewed their efforts from a perspective of knowledge gaps and with the ultimate goal of developing open innovation and co-creation platforms. As the New Economy unfolds whether Economy is prefaced by Experience, Transformation, User-Centric or Customer Centric, sales and marketing’s role will be defined by their ability to learn and share knowledge with the customer.

Political Campaigning – Strategy Update

2011-10-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

In a recent Blog post What political campaigns can teach business, I discussed how using a similar strategy could be one of the most productive methods of creating immediate business. One of the most important processes of getting anything done is always clarity and keeping your organization updated. Turning strategy into tactics into action requires empowerment armed with that clarity. Look how David Plouffe’s campaign manager of President Obama’s 2008 presents a slideshow on the state of the race and the resources needed to win battleground states.

Plouffe’s does an outstanding job of a strategic overview, mapping the process, breaking it down to its simplest structure. His appeal to the emotional side is excellent and a lesson in motivating your constituents to get out the vote and raise more money.

How do your managers address your virtual audience? Would this work to motivate a sales force? Your distributor network? Your referral network?

Summary of the 6-part blog Series using DDMRP

2011-10-12T21:36:00.000-07:00

This is part of my blog series on using the principles of Demand Drive MRP and its five primary components and applying it to marketing. This particular blog is the summary of the series.

These five components work together to dampen, if not eliminate, the unnecessary nervousness of traditional MRP systems and the resulting bullwhip effect in complex and challenging environments. In using this approach, planners will no longer have to try to respond to every single message for every single part that is off by even one day. This approach provides real information about those parts that are truly at risk of negatively affecting the planned availability of inventory. Demand-driven MRP sorts the significant few items that require attention from the magnificent many parts that are currently being managed. Under the demand-driven MRP approach, fewer planners can make better decisions more quickly. This means that companies will be better able to leverage their working and human capital as well as the significant investments they have made in information technology.

The above is from the Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning 3/E. written by my recent podcast (Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP) guest Carol Ptak and Chad Smith of the Demand Driven Institute.

This exercise of taking the 5 components of DDMRP provides an interesting and innate view of the Lean Marketing perspective. I think specifically it assists in explanation of how to scale the Lean Marketing principles. So often in this world of one to one marketing or marketing singularity we forget to view the enterprise foundational need for marketing to our core customer base. There is so much talk about innovation and early adaptors and they certainly have a role in your marketing structure. However, the core customer group of an established customer is that 68% majority found in the middle of the diffusion curve.

Other companies that keep venturing to the extremities of the curve will continue to compete on price and availability. The organizations that align themselves with similar cultures if so desired will give themselves the opportunity to establish that structure that we identified in Profiling the customer by knowledge gaps. Surprisingly when we go to scale, these factor are seldom different. Establishing your presence through increase knowledge transfer will allow you to dig deeper within the structure of any company. It may take you longer to dig the hole but every shovelful will make it that much more for your competition to overcome.

Effective knowledge transfer seldom occurs without effective collaboration and in today’s world having the right tools in place plays a vital role. Dr. Graham Hill addressed this issue in a blog post, CIO view: Ten principles for effective collaboration where he said:

Companies should start to develop their collaboration capabilities before purchasing collaboration technology. This will ensure that the technology really fits the style of collaboration that has already been developed. The pace of business is getting faster and faster. Today’s competitors may not even have existed a few years ago. Improving effective collaboration is one of the few insurance policies that companies have in these hyper-competitive times.

I encourage you to read Dr. Hill’s entire post. It provides an excellent groundwork for the role of tools in collaboration.

The other blog posts in this series on DDMRP:

Demonstrating Social Media using an Elephant

2011-10-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

Great lesson on using social media. It is not about the tools but more about the connection. We have all heard this before but the Antwerp Zoo give us the perfect lesson through the birth of a baby elephant.

They do it so well that at the end of the video, you hardly remember a single social media tool used.

Preview of Political Campaign Marketing Podcast

2011-10-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

At the end of the interview for my upcoming podcast with Derek Pillie, a fifteen veteran of the political campaign trail, we went over a few additional thoughts.

Systems2win will exhibit at the Dallas AME Conference

2011-10-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

Systems2win will exhibit at the AME, Association of Manufacturing Excellence, Dallas 2011 International Lean conference to be held October 24-28, 2011. Systems2win is a supplier of Lean and Six Sigma software tools and will be highlighting their Value Stream Mapping, A3 Management tools and their Standard Work template.

Dean Ziegler, founder and owner of Systems2win says, “Along with the Value Stream Mapping, A3 and Standard Work Management templates, we will also be highlighting our recent Multi-Language Excel templates. Now with a simple click of a button, every Systems2win Excel template can switch between English and another language." Dean also added, "Our software actually provides a learning platform that strengthens your Lean experience. It is not an additional step in the process; it is part of your Lean journey.”

Systems2win booth will display their collection of Lean and Six Sigma software that are bundled in the following groups:

Lean Tools
Value Stream Mapping
Kaizen and Project Tools
Six Sigma Tools
Free Training Tools

Also, in the booth will be yours truly providing a High Level Overview of the product! Stop by and say hello if you are there!

These bundles have been created to provide an organized structure in supporting the above process. In these bundles, the Lean Management tools of Hoshin Kanri, Standard Work, A3, Fishbone, SMED, 5S, Setup Reduction, Balance Scorecard and more are supported. In addition, the training tools provide not just introductory Lean material but a comprehensive Lean and Excel learning tools that are embedded in the templates providing you help and assistance on exactly what you need, when you need it. They are also designed so that a training course can be developed separate from the templates. An overview of the tools:

About Systems2win: Systems2win provides business process improvement tools and training to companies all over the globe. People are provided with easy-to-use fill-in-the-blanks Excel templates that come with self-help online training to improve the speed and reduce the cost of every step of your project. Systems2win templates were originally developed during 14 years of manufacturing systems consulting by the founder of Systems2win, Dean Ziegler, CPIM. The Systems2win templates and online training has been field proven, and continue to be continuously improved by hundreds of Systems2win clients.

Get Clients NOW! Workshop – Special Offer

2011-10-05T12:02:00.001-07:00

On October 10th, I will be starting my rendition of the Get Clients NOW!^TM -28 Day program. This started as a basic referral, networking type program and with the influence of Social Media, I had introduced a special session on how use social media to extend the conversation. My Achieving Expert Status and Marketing your Black Belt has been an outgrowth of this program.

The bottom line is that if you want immediate business you must institute an action plan to maximizing the creation and leveraging of your touch-points with prospects and customers. The truth of the matter is that the principles that are contained in this program are the same basic principles that is still make marketing successful today. Some of the tools have changed but that is covered rather easily in the session. The basic ideas are

Planning out a program that you can implement immediately.
Recognize Short-term improvements needed and develop actions to correct.
Review Long-term improvements and develop actions to correct.
Simplifying (not just automating) what works and ridding yourself of what doesn’t work.

Get Clients NOW! program

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This program is not just a coaching program. It is a learning program for a Professional Service firm or individual that is highly intensive and requires work on your part. The special offer for this session only is that you will receive the following at no additional charge:

Get Clients Now Book
The GCN Six-Month Marketing Guide
Membership to the GCN Answer Center for 1 year
Lean Marketing House Book
Marketing with PDCA Book
Marketing with A3 Book

You must supply a valid email for these to be sent.

Business901 October 10th G.C.N. Program

This link is the only thing stopping you from getting more clients!

Offer Ends Friday!

These are timeless principles that can be utilized over and over again.

Related Information:
Achieving Expert Status
Marketing your Black Belt

Answers to Sustainability

2011-10-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

I was participating in a discussion on LinkedIn and came across an article, How to Sustain Front Line Process Improvement Activities from the Harvard Business Review and like most of us, if it says sustainability we take a look. It has to be the most difficult part of any continuous improvement process.

I found the author of the article, Brad Power handling the comments masterfully and engaging in a great dialogue with the commenters. He is actually researching sustaining attention to process management and is currently conducting research with the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Our podcast centered on Brad’s research of sustainability and his findings so far may not be unique but the structure he puts to his information is. Also, I think you will find out as much about researching and the questions you ask as you will sustainability. At times I wondered who was being interviewed.

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Brad Power is a consultant and researcher in process innovation. In his latest consulting engagement, for over a year he's been helping a healthcare insurance company reengineer its interactions with providers and members to reduce cycle times. And for the last three years he's been researching why few companies sustain their attention to process management — how they can make improvement and adaptation a habit (even fun?). He's been collaborating with the Lean Enterprise Institute on his research. You can see some of his research insights in his blog posts at The Harvard Business Review at bradfordpower.tumblr.com. He's interested in hearing stories of companies which embarked on a process improvement program and either kept going, or didn't, and why.

Customer Experience more powerful than the Supply Chain?

2011-10-03T20:25:00.000-07:00

During the past few months I have been spending time understanding the Service Design concept. The history according to Wikpedia:

The earliest contributions on service design (Shostack 1982; Shostack 1984), the activity of designing service was considered as part of the domain of marketing and management disciplines. This design process, according to Shostack, can be documented and codified using a “service blueprint” to map the sequence of events in a service and its essential functions in an objective and explicit manner.

In 1991, service design was first introduced as a design discipline by Prof. Dr. Michael Erlhoff at Köln International School of Design (KISD), and Prof. Birgit Mager has played an integral role for developing the study of service design at KISD in later days. In 2010, 23 service design professionals published the first comprehensive textbook This is Service Design Thinking: Basics - Tools - Cases , edited by Marc Stickdorn and Jakob Schneider.

Wikpedia goes on the give a brief description of Service Design:

Together with the most traditional methods used for product design, service design requires methods and tools to control new elements of the design process, such as the time and the interaction between actors. An overview of the methodologies for designing services is proposed by (Morelli 2006), who proposes three main directions:

Identification of the actors involved in the definition of the service, using appropriate analytical tools
Definition of possible service scenarios, verifying use cases, sequences of actions and actors’ role, in order to define the requirements for the service and its logical and organizational structure
Representation of the service, using techniques that illustrate all the components of the service, including physical elements, interactions, logical links and temporal sequences

Where Service Design has made an impact in my thinking though is its obvious connection to two areas. One in the ability to involve customers through co-creation or open innovation and the other as it relates to The Experience Economy popularized by the book of that name by Pine and Gilmore.

In the 90’s business processes was all the buzz and Lean, Six Sigma led the way. They have continued gaining popularity but and this is a big “but” may soon lose out to the methodologies of Service Design and Design Thinking.

Why? Lean and Six Sigma cannot move away from that supply chain mentality. They are continuously bogged down in the internal world of product delivery. They continue to think the more efficient you become the better company you become. They relate everything to customer value but seldom is that referenced to an external customer.

What’s different about Service Design? In the Service Design context they put the customer experience at the center of the organization. Many product companies have been using this concept with Apple being the shining example. Design is the differentiating factor.

When viewing the customer experience perspective from The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing framework that states, value is not created till your product/service is put into use creates a different spin. It obsoletes the supply chain and operational excellence as the primary reason your product is purchased. Many efficiency experts are simply at a loss to explain this and struggle to comprehend this concept.

I am not saying improvement of a process is not a good thing. But to do it without improving the customer experience will provide little value and may even prove to be “invaluable”. More information on this can be obtained in a recent blog post: Will Lean always internalize the customer?

In love with your products more than your customers?

2011-09-30T20:10:00.000-07:00

Only the customer can determine value. Your product or service has zero value in it. You cannot build value or even create it through clever marketing. Value is only created when a customer puts it into use. This is Service Dominant Logic Thinking (Vargo and Lusch (2006).

If you take this they approach and view your product or service as enabler of customer value a different world opens up for you. Companies like John Deer, P & G, Crayola and Mar’s M & M’s have re-invented themselves by understanding value in use. Each of these companies has taken it a step further and included their customers in the co-creation of products.

When we think about co-creation, we have a tendency to think only in the terms of innovation. Most of us are not ready for that step. In fact, it is a rather large one. However, Janet R. McColl-Kennedy Professor of Marketing UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Australia recently published a paper where she discussed the 7Cs of Co-Creation:

Co-operate (compliance)
Collate (sorting, assorting, synthesizing)
Combine complementary skills, knowledge, expertise
Connect eg with family, friends, service providers, support groups
Co-learning
Co-produce (self-service, co-design, new service development)
Cerebral activities (eg positive thinking, reframing, emotional regulation)

These as not earth shattering revelations but better yet they allow you to start working with customers in the co-creation space. Something as simple as a checklist designed around these 7 Cs could enable you to review sales and marketing material or presentations. If you start asking questions like:

Does this comply 100% with what the customer requested?
Can we sort our information to make it more meaningful?
Can we group our material differently for the different customer departments?
What complementary skill does the customer have that will facilitate the problem solving?
Who do we need to connect with internally or externally (downstream or upstream)?
What can we learn together that will assist to move forward?
What changes may be required to our product/service that provides better use?
Is the customer using our product/service differently than intended?
Does the customer modify our product/service?
How could we reframe our proposal/offer to allow our customer to change it?

Changing our mental model and making that great leap to co-creation is mind boggling for most. Starting simply by starting to ask the right questions around are existing procedures and content, the perspective begins to change. It’s a lot like dating. Start slow; ask the right questions, listen and the next thing you know, you just might be walking down the aisle.

Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP

2011-09-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning the blueprint for the future and revitalization of formal planning in the 21st Century? Some people think so as Carol Ptak and Chad Smith were asked to co-author the new Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning 3/E. But more impressive are the full houses of practitioners that Carol and Chad are talking too. The one simple reason for that is that they understand the problem.

Carol and Chad both were on previous podcasts with me, In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much! and Can MRP be a Demand – Driven Tool?. These podcasts were my most quotable ones this past year. For example Carol Ptak, said in her podcast said:

A lot of people have focused on the fact that the Economic times right now are really bad. What a lot of people are missing is the fact that the world around us has fundamentally changed.

A we see now across the world is that we have excess capacity when you add to that the Internet where we get on the Internet we expect to have an experience like Amazon, or order it is going to tell me instantly when I’m going to get it. If you don’t provide it at the price I want to pay and the time I want to pay then I can just go someplace else. Why can I do that? That’s because I have all this excess capacity out there.

So what companies are seeing today is volatility like they never had to manage before and at the same time they no longer have the reliability of understanding what the customers are going to demand and when they’re going to demand, because customers are increasingly fickle.

So what we’ve got is the perfect storm that has come together of excess capacity and incredible product variety.

The two of them did not disappoint me. These two people are have rewritten the book on MRP and if you don’t think MRP or even your Lean Supply Chain could not learn from this podcast, think again.

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Carol has written several books on MRP, ERP, Lean and Theory of Constraints. She is the Past President of APICS International and former Vice President and global industry executive for manufacturing and distribution industries at PeopleSoft. Chad co-founded Constraints Management Group in 1997 after working under the tutelage of Dr. Eli Goldratt for several years. Constraints Management Group specializes in demand driven supply chain and manufacturing solutions for a variety of industries. Clients have included Boeing, Unilever, IBM, LeTourneau Technologies and Roseburg Forest Products.

What is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP)?
Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning is an innovative multi-echelon pull methodology to plan inventories and materials. It enables a company to build more closely to actual market requirements and promotes better and quicker decisions and actions at the planning and execution level.

Systemizing the transfer of knowledge at the execution level

2011-09-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is part of my blog series on using the principles of Demand Drive MRP and its five primary components. I would recommend reading the blog posts in order for better understanding:

This particular blog focuses around Demand-Driven Planning or in the marketing sense, systemizing the transfer of knowledge at the execution level.

As discussed earlier in this book, the world of push and promote is dead. The holdovers of that era, both rules and tools, must be stripped away, greatly changed or enhanced, or completely reconstructed. Instead of making things too complex or too simple, it is time to define a planning suite of rules that meet at least two requirements. First is to take advantage of the sheer computational power of today's hardware and software. Second is to take advantage of the new demand-driven approaches. When these two elements are combined, then there is the best of both worlds: relevant approaches and tools for the way the world works today and system that promotes better and quicker decision- and actions at the planning and execution levels

Even in the marketing sense the two requirements outline by the authors make a great deal of sense. The new set of rules computational power have given us metric after metric to analyze, distribute and even sense the marketplace. What we have not done very well is understand how to use them in a productive manner. We have even created demand-driven approaches, (outlined in the previous blogs in this series) that allow the empowerment of teams at the execution level. How do you create a plan around this? It seems on one hand that we have metrics but on the other we empower teams to do whatever they want.

In traditional planning, we do little except set targets for where we want to go and then create the plans around them. We may go ask sales and even customers some projections but the planning exercise typically turns into something like we want to increase revenue by 10% and how are we going to do that. In addition most sales cycle’s evaluations are built around either how quickly we can accelerate the process through the funnel or how we can increase prospects by stuffing more into it.

Using the ideas created through Demand Drive planning, we could start with a more definable solution based on our knowledge gaps and the high, medium, low touch points that a customer requires (Ref: Profiling the customer by knowledge gaps) in our prime markets. Planning then takes on real meaning as no longer are we taking an arbitrary set of numbers but instead real action on how we can improve in our buyer relationships.

Our planning though must be customer centric versus prospect based. Your core customer may need high or low touches and you may not have a relationship where you are striving for anything except best price. It is where you are, not where you want to be. But what you have just done is defined a performance gap in sales and marketing performance that you can develop a plan around. As you review it, you will look to other similar and dissimilar customers to combine or create their own lanes and supporting processes.

Our data selection should be defined in a micro and macro level. I would encourage that the micro level data be set up to rather autonomous, simple and very easily understood by the team. However, the most important data would be contained in the visual task or Kanban board. At the macro level this information can be mollified and monitored but it takes a strict discipline to allow the team to continue to work autonomously. Should that information be shared outside of scheduled meetings? I would if it is tactical in nature but only through the team coordinator. Adding data to the routine either at the micro or macro level should be decided upon at the monthly strategic session and that discussion should be centered around what we are not using as much as what we want to add. The addition of more metrics or data collection should always be subordinated to whether it increases your organizations ability to share and create knowledge with your customer.

Games are invading the real world

2011-09-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

Games are invading the real world -- and the runaway popularity of Farmville and Guitar Hero is just the beginning, says Jesse Schell. At the DICE Summit, he makes a startling prediction: a future where 1-ups and experience points break "out of the box" and into every part of our daily lives.

PS3 Games - E3 2012 - Guitar Hero 5

Carnegie Mellon University Professor, Jesse Schell, dives into a world of game development which will emerge from the popular "Facebook Games" era.

Lean or Six Sigma which fork in the road do you take?

2011-09-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

People will see my comments floating around the Internet on the subject of Lean Six Sigma. I am not an expert and probably take too much liberty in the application of them to even proceed but it was important to me to basically post my view.

There will always be a strong debate between Lean and Six Sigma people about using the 2 terms jointly. I am not positive of the lineage of it but I believe Michael George at the time of the George Group (later to be Accenture) coined the term. I assume he viewed the two methodologies as compatible and more effective in conjunction with each other versus separately. I am not even sure that many (Case in point being that many of today’s “Lean” consultants were trained as Lean Six Sigma Black Belts) disagreed at the time except for the very traditional Lean stalwarts.

Dr. Mikel Harry, credited as one of the founders of Six Sigma states that Six Sigma is not a culture and was developed as a quality tool to gain breakthrough performance for an organization. I adhere to that statement and think Six Sigma offers great opportunities for an organization and provides a very precise and workable structure in achieving this. I am not against the hierarchy of belts and the formalities of DMAIC, DFSS, etc. Many organizations need this type of structure to be successful. I am avid defender of Six Sigma in the Lean circles many times to the chagrin of others.

Lean was developed by the MIT group under Dr. James Womack from a study of automotive companies and more specifically the Toyota Production System. Its approach is based on continuous improvement with a direct correlation to PDCA and Dr. Deming’s philosophies. Lean made its first inroads in many companies and gains in popularities (IMHO) because of the ease of entry into the methodology. Removing waste and improving flow was Lean’s mantra in the 90’s and the tools of 5s and Value Stream Mapping soared in popularity. However, as Lean continued developing tools of A3, Hoshin and Standard Work became common place. But even more so, the culture of PDCA and the spirit of Kaizen started to take hold.

Six Sigma was the methodology of choice for many manufacturers as a result of the significant strides that GE and Motorola had made. Later, Lean seemed to gain and Six Sigma wane in popularity. Lean became the path to a customer as an enabler of some quick wins. You could then take the deep dive with Six Sigma when you wanted to get “serious”. As Lean continued to steamroll and Six Sigma still continued with somewhat lackluster performance many organizations and consultants dropped the attachment to Six Sigma and became “Lean”. Popularity does create a crowd. This may not be an entirely accurate description but it serves as a basis for my views and the following comments.

What makes Lean Six Sigma work? When you first start using any methodology, you are typically introduced through the tools. Using Lean initially versus Six Sigma makes perfect sense, it is an easier introduction. And why reduce variability on non-value activities? But sooner or later you get to the fork in the road. One path says Six Sigma and the other path is this thing they call culture (Lean). So do you want to take the deep dive with a breakthrough structured approach (still has a steep incline) or do you want to try and instill a culture of empowerment. There is not a right or wrong answer. You can take either. Where I disagree, is that you can take both.

Six Sigma has always been about structure and tools. It is very, very good and does an outstanding job when applied properly. In Six Sigma thinking, you can use Lean tools initially and get to 95%. To finish the job, you use Six Sigma. And as a result, Lean Six Sigma was developed. If your organization grew out of the Motorola and G.E. world it seems like a perfect fit.

If you adopt the Lean mentality and the spirit of Kaizen (continuous improvement is not an event) you become immersed in the culture of Lean, as Dr. Balle wonderfully described in the Zen Story about the mountain. Summed up in the blog post: Lean Tools and Culture as it Relates to Zen

Have you ever played yourself in a game? On a basketball court or even a simple game of checkers, sooner or later you have to pick a side to win. It is inevitable. This is the ultimate wedge between the two methodologies and can simply be stated. Six Sigma is a structured methodology and Lean is a cultural driven learn by doing approach. That is not to say that Six Sigma does not have its prototyping options and that Lean is not without statistical control (it did evolve from Deming). But it is saying that they are both on two completely different paths that you must choose between.

If you take the path of and see Lean as Lean, Six Sigma does not make sense and is not a compatible technology. There is a significant culture difference and approach. If you take the path of Six Sigma, you view Lean as only a set of tools nothing more and why not, Lean has a great toolbox. If you take the path of Lean you still can be just as efficient and just as effective as Six Sigma, you just do it differently.

I make no qualms about stating that I believe and follow a Lean philosophy. Lean works in my world much better. PDCA which is basically form a hypothesis, test it and adjust is what sales and marketing is all about.

I support the idea of Lean Six Sigma without hesitation. What I have trouble understanding is how you can be philosophically aligned in Lean thinking and practice Six Sigma. So I believe you must ask yourself; Which fork in the road do you take?

Lean Marketing Board Game Introduction

2011-09-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

Following The Lean Startup Principles of Build, Measure, Learn, I am introducing a MVP version of the Lean Marketing Board Game which surprisingly is not based on the Lean Startup but instead my book the Lean Marketing House. I really don’t teach Build, Measure, Lean and the Pivot, I just stick to the old PDCA cycle. Now granted my Plan–Do-Check–Act (Adapt maybe) do resemble the Build, Measure, Learn – Validate theories of Eric Ries but even though we beat to same drum, we go about it slightly different.

The main difference being is my adaption of viewing Lean as a knowledge building platform and using Service Design or Design Thinking Principles that put the customer at the forefront versus the product or service. My thinking is also firmly rooted in the Service Dominant Logic theories that your product/service has little or no value without the customer. The value comes in the use of your product/service by the customer. Your marketing should be centered on that side of the fence versus internally.

I have put a presentation of the initial steps of the Lean Marketing Board Game in place. My Minimum Viable product, I hope you enjoy.

Lean Marketing Game

View more presentations from Business901

The game will be included in my upcoming Lean Marketing House 28-day Program.

Will Lean always internalize the customer?

2011-09-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

I was in a recent LinkedIn discussion that referred to Sales and Marketing customer as being the internal organization and their role was to optimize the throughput of the observation. The sales and marketing role was further explained in the terms of takt time based on optimal production of the organization. The goal of sales is to keep the factory optimized?

I respectfully disagreed based on this reasoning.

You can (maybe) do that if you have excess demand. You can then try to improve efficiencies. However, most of us live in a world that supply exceeds demand. It is not about getting rid of waste. We have excess capacity. Tell me a company that won't accept more prospects into their sales funnel or are refusing orders. In sales and marketing you have to drive revenue. I believe that the role of continuous improvement and Lean lies in this area versus the area of waste.

I have a problem understanding applying takt time in relation to sales and marketing. Theoretically, it sounds great but in actuality how does it apply with Takt Time= Net Available Time per Day / Customer Demand per Day. Who determines the acceptable and projected Takt Time for sales and marketing? Is customer demand determined by the capacity of the operations? Or is it by market share?

How can you have takt time without customer demand? Can an internal measurement be relevant to sales? If it is the measurement that we force sales to use, it is not a Lean process. We are pushing in lieu of pulling. Pull comes from the marketplace and is one of the principles of Lean. Holding sales and marketing to an internal measurement that has little if any meaning to the marketplace or the customer confuses me. The fundamental question could be what the marketplace demand is and what our percentage of that market is. That leads into the questions of retention and acquisition. Setting targets in those areas would drive the process of sales and marketing, innovation and hold operations accountable to a realistic level.

The metrics we have been traditional using are based on an economy with excess demand. Since we live an economy that has excess supply, fundamental beliefs must change. Sales and Marketing does need a process for improvement but it is one that must be created from the marketplace and I actually believe the principles of Lean are best suited for that journey.

Another wayward thought or the truth about Process Improvement in Marketing?

I came across a blog post by Brad Powers (a recent podcast guest) on the Harvard Business Review, How Marketing Can Lead Process Improvement. In reading the post the communication with customers seems to be orchestrated. As a result, the examples discussed seem archaic and more an extension of a command and control function than one of empowerment. It left me wondering if there are examples of sales and marketing teams that are being empowered.

Just calling something continuous improvement does not mean that it is. Continuous improvement is not a series of pilot tests and deployment. Rather it is empowering your workforce to practice it every day. In modern organizations it is the practice and the power of continuous improvement that is driving results. Factory workers, Software Programmers and Health Care professionals, to name just a few are being empowered as problem solvers and knowledge workers. I would think that the sales and marketing structure should be leading the way versus being the laggards.

There is not a more important function in sales and marketing than the ability to share and create knowledge with your customer. In the 3 examples given in Brad’s post, I see the key terms optimize, experiments, research versus words like cooperation, co-create, community and surprisingly “value”. I see that heads of marketing need to spend time with employees rather that interact with customers. What’s wrong with spending time directly with customers?

There are companies doing this. A good example is many of the gaming companies that interact regularly with their players. They are highly influenced by the top players and not only seek their opinions but join in and play with them. The players I have discussed this with are amazed at the access they have to top management. Other examples include SalesForce, BMW, Lego, Kraft and P & G.

A customer does not realize any value from your product/service till he uses it. When you view your product/service as an enabler of value creation versus the center of value than you can see how increasing knowledge flows between you and your customer is at the center of sales and marketing. Value is an input to your company not an output. There is only one person that determines the value of your organization and that is the customer. I think many continuous improvement methodologies have hijacked the term customer. It is not an internal person. The customer is the person that purchases and uses the product.

When viewing Lean and PDCA as a knowledge creation vehicle versus a waste reduction tool, Lean becomes applicable to sales and marketing. Without this understanding, I see little hope for Lean in the sales and marketing process.

Using Design Thinking for Growth

2011-09-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

Using Design Thinking for Growth is a transcription of a the Business901 podcast, Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant. I am not sure if it was the title or the timing of the podcast (it was released around the 4th of July) but this podcast did not reach the listenership that I had thought it would.

Great thoughts on how Design Thinking may be to Business Growth the way Lean and Six Sigma has been to quality.

Using Design Thinking for Growth

In a recent blog post, It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean anymore! I introduced a few thoughts from Tim Ogilvie, CEO of innovation strategy consultancy Peer Insight new book Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers. I would encourage you to visit that post before reading the transcription or listening to the podcast and leave the diagram up or print it out as the discussion takes place.

Recent Posts:
Podcast: Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant
How new is Service Dominant Logic and does it apply now?
Asking the right questions about Lean?
Service Design Thinking

Problem Solving before Lean

2011-09-16T19:20:00.000-07:00

This mindmap predates my commitment to Lean Thinking and particular to the PDCA and A3 processes. This Problem Solving mindmap is still useful as an effective reminder of a few of the errors that we me make during the problem solving process. A good reminder even for a member or the facilitator of a problem solving team.

Core Concepts of Gamification

2011-09-14T20:50:00.000-07:00

Outstanding presentation from Amy Jo Kim, an adjunct professor of Game Design at USC’s Digital Media school, recently named top US-based game design school. She’s also the author of Community Building on the Web (2000), a design handbook for digital communities that’s used worldwide at game studios & universities.[Email Amy]. This presentation was delivered at Casual Connect Seattle, July 2011.

A few of the highlights of the presentation and how they compare to sales and marketing:

“What are your social engagement words?” As I reviewed the list, I started to think how I (we maybe) use the words in the acting stage versus the interacting stage. Look at the content that you create to include letters, marketing materials, emails, even your phone calls and your presentations. Decide where the words you use fit in the matrix. Are you spending your time in expressing and competing blocks or in exploration and collaboration?
When you review your customers’ lifecycle are you keeping them engaged at the level that is currently required?
Within the lifecycle is your engagement loop building positive emotions?
Does your sales and marketing efforts (mechanics) create the emotions that drive action and engagement?
Does the customer see his progression of the knowledge he has gained or the knowledge transfer that has occurred?
Are you lighting the way for your customer to learn and master your product or service?
Are you allowing them to dig deeper challenging your knowledge and product or service?

My mind map from the presentation:

Feel comfortable that Gamification will not turn the world upside down. It only provides us a structure to develop customers’ experiences around. Many of us may already be doing it. Most of us probably have a long way to go. So are you a Newbie, Regular or an Enthusiast at Gamification?

Mindmap of the Five Dysfunctions of a Team

2011-09-09T11:15:00.000-07:00

This is a five part afternoon series depicting the mindmaps that I have created on the books of Patrick Lencioni. His website and company, The Table Group offers additional information on these subjects.

This Mindmap was constructed during the listening of the book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series). From an Amazon reviewer:

This book is helpful to anyone who serves on a team and specifically helpful for team leaders. You will see yourself and your team in this book. More than that, you will find specific steps you can take to make your team better. Through a real life fable, Pat leads you through the steps you need to take to move a team from dysfunction to health. You will find a clear model as well as examples that are as relevant as your last meeting.

As I read this book I discovered:

1. A vocabulary I can use with my team to discuss dysfunction.
2. A self-analysis that will get the discussion started.
3. A clear model for implementation.

As a team leader, this book challenged me to:

1) Lead selflessly
2) Take risks
3) Encourage conflict
4) Embrace the power of meetings
4) Direct my team around a common theme

This book is simple, practical and filled with wisdom. Highly recommended.

Mindmap on the 4 Obsessions of Extraordinary Executive

2011-09-08T11:15:00.000-07:00

This Mindmap was constructed during the listening of the book, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable where the author explains how healthy companies can make themselves smarter, but unhealthy organizations squander intellectual advantage through infighting and cross-purposes.

Will we handle privacy and recycling?

2011-09-08T07:40:00.000-07:00

Following publication of his book "Shaping Things (Mediaworks Pamphlets) ", American Science Fiction author Bruce Sterling share his views and visions at LIFT France 09 about the future of Design, the broad concept of an "Internet of Things", and reflects on two important issues: Privacy and Recycling. Bruce has been a regular speaker at LIFT events.

Interesting concepts and Bruce shows a real passion for his subject. His book was written six years ago and it is amazing how many of the ideas are still prevalent today.

The New Names of Marketing are still PDCA

2011-09-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

There is a changing emphasis on customer interaction and the importance of embracing uncertainty in your organization. In an interview in the MIT Sloan Management Review with Michael Schrage on Value-Creation, Experiments and Why IT does Matter, he stated:

“The cost of experimentation is now the same or less than the cost of analysis. You can get more value for time, more value for dollar, more value for Euro, by doing a quick experiment than from doing a sophisticated analysis. In fact, your quick experiment can make your sophisticated analysis better.”

Later in the interview, in answer to the question, "Can you summarize the three things you think companies need to get good at?" Michael Schrage also stated:

The most important thing I would urge companies to do would be to experiment, by crafting good business hypotheses. I can now look executives in the eye and say, "The cost of experimentation is now the same or less than the cost of analysis. You can get more value for time, more value for dollar, more value for euro, by doing a quick experiment than from doing a sophisticated analysis. In fact, your quick experiment can make your sophisticated analysis better

The second is to promote greater collaboration, interaction, and diversity—not politically-correct diversity, but diversity of skills and points of view.

And the third is to think more clearly about innovation. It’s no longer about creating new features and functionality. We have to move away from the notion of innovation being about greater creation of choice. Instead, it’s about greater value from use.

To paraphrase from an outstanding book, Everything Is Obvious: *Once You Know the Answer:

Most of us (marketers) have more data than we know what to do with. The real problem that exists is what we are doing causing increased sales or what we are measuring is the correlation between the two.

Differentiation between correlation and causation can be extremely difficult. The authors recommend running an experiment. Without an experiment they conclude that it’s actually close to impossible to ascertain cause and effect, and as a result measure real return.

They view experiments not as a one-time exercise that either yields the answer or doesn’t, but rather as part of an ongoing learning process that is built into the process.

Iterative Cycles seems to be the buzz word these days: Just look at the new books:

All of them focusing on iterations but they are fundamentally just PDCA (Plan–Do–Check–Act). Test a hypothesis, improve on it and test it again. Marketing is about moving along the cycles of EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, and SDCA = Standardize. Sometimes you may not uneven use a full cycle but rather use more of a game environment half-cycle version of Inspect and Adapt (IA). These iterative process are responding to the ever increasing world of uncertainty that we live in.

Iterative cycles are best handled through team interactions. Decisions made in isolation seldom have a chance of success. And isolation means your organization, not an individual. You have to gather outside influencers from the markets you serve. To do this, the team must be empowered and schooled with the new toolset. You can find these new sets of tools by researching subjects like: Design Thinking, Cynefin, Value Networks, Open Innovation, Co-creation, Lean Startup, Service-Dominant Logic, Q-Storming, Game Storming, and Kanban.

The tools used in sales and marketing are certainly changing. Gone are the days of being trained in cold-calling and the art of closing and in are the days of iteration, open innovation, co-creation and collaboration. Funny, I did not even mention social media?

How to give great service mind map

2011-09-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

Entrepreneurial phenomenon Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of the much-loved Zingerman's Deli, shares the secrets to providing world-class customer service. Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a beloved deli with some of the most loyal clientele around. It has been praised for its products and service in media outlets far and wide, including the New York Times, Men's Journal, Inc. Magazine, Esquire, Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, and Fast Company. And what started out as a small deli has grown to a flourishing restaurant, catering service, bakery, mail-order operation, creamery, and training business. – says Amazon of the Book

These 2 mind maps were created from the audio version of Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service. I think this book or audio should be part of any employee introduction and would recommend a trip to one of their Deli’s to see if they really walk the walk (Hint: they do). Zimmermann's also offer one of the best mail order catalogs on the planet.

Mindmap on the Five Temptations of a CEO

2011-08-31T11:15:00.000-07:00

This Mindmap was constructed during the listening of the book, The Five Temptations of a CEO, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series). This message is very simple but is still an engaging story and serves as a strong reminder that we so often need.

re-think privacy and recycling

2011-08-28T19:40:00.000-07:00

Some great thoughts on application and a nice “How to” video on asking questions and how to work with a client in this new framework. Your thoughts?

Lean Agile Software Train, part 1

2011-08-25T19:41:00.000-07:00

Dean Leffingwell author of Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Agile Software Development Series) was the guest on the Businss901 podcast. After reading this book, I thought it was an outstanding contribution to improving the agile team and environment. One Amazon reviewer categorized it as “The organization of the book builds "tactical" topics one-by-one with the three main levels of the enterprise: starting with the team, then discussing the program level and concluding at the enterprise portfolio level. "But no need to retell the whole book here -- it's easier to read it. It's a great read for anyone looking for systematic and efficient ways of improving software development at scale.”

I talked to Dean so long that I divided the podcast into two parts. The 2nd part will publish next Tuesday and it is the portion of the podcast where we take the deep dive into building the Lean Agile Software Enterprise. This podcast is short, it is under thirty minutes and touches more upon Dean’s experience with organizations rather than his mastery of Lean Agile Software Requirements.

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About: Dean Leffingwell is a consultant, entrepreneur, software executive and technical author who provides product strategy, business advisory services and enterprise-level agility coaching to large software enterprises.

Mr. Leffingwell was founder and CEO of consumer marketing identity company ProQuo, Inc. Dean has also served as chief methodologist to Rally Software and as business consultant to Ping Identity Corporation and Roving Planet, Inc. Formerly, he served as Vice President of Rational Software, now IBM’s Rational Division, where he was responsible for the Rational Unified Process and promulgation of the UML. Previously, Leffingwell was co-founder and CEO of software tools company Requisite, Inc., makers of RequisitePro for requirements management, which was acquired by Rational. Mr. Leffingwell was also the founder and CEO of RELA, Inc., and publicly held Colorado MEDtech.

Info on Dean:
Dean’s Website
Dean’s Blog
Dean’s other Book(Amazon): Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises

Is your marketing firm having this conversation with you?

2011-08-24T19:45:00.000-07:00

Essential concept in the new way of thinking about Marketing the SD Logic, is that customers are always co-creators of value... It's the way that the customer sees value, whether it's in the physical good, or if it's in a service or a combination of both of those and if they don't see benefit to them they're not going to engage with you.

So, is your marketing firm having this conversation with you? If words like SD-Logic, Service Dominant, Co-Creation, Value in Use, Customer Decision Making Process, Experience Economy, etc. are not just part of your normal marketing conversation, you may need to re-consider your marketing communication efforts.

Mind map on Crucial Conversations

2011-08-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is one of my all time favorite mind maps and I really do use it many times before having a conversation on the phone just to remind me of a few key points. I actually have found myself reviewing while talking on the telephone. The book, Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Second Edition is literally the definitive guide on the subject.

I find few people invest the time it takes to improve on creating effective dialogues. We will send people to learn many techniques but when is the last time you took a class on “How to have a Conversation”. The book starts out with a self-assessment of yourself. In an engaging manner, this was an audio book for me, the authors use examples and exercises to learn the techniques described. How many of us know the magic of making it safe for others to express their true feelings and desires?

P.S. This is an excellent book for any facilitator.

Other books:
Crucial Confrontations: Tools for Resolving broken promises, violated expectations, and bad behavior
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (J-B Lencioni Series)

Lean Engagement Team

2011-08-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

The next book in the Marketing with Lean Series will be the Lean Engagement Team. It will concentrate on the development of a sales and marketing structure that can support customer engagement through out the organization. This structure will be self-organizing at times and provide for customer touch points deep within the organization. The book will also contain chapters on Co-creation, Design Thinking and provide a framework for organizing sales and marketing teams.

Lean Engagement Team

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The book is approximately 60 days away from completion. Anyone that purchases the Lean Marketing House Trio on the Business901 website will receive a free download of this book when it is released. I would recommend reading the others before this one anyway.

P.S. Don’t think you need a Sales Team quite yet? Read McKinsey Quarterly: We’re all marketers now

Mindmap on Writing Well

2011-08-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

Not all the time do I get the opportunity to create a Mindmap on an audio book but there have been a few special ones that I have. It usually occurs on the 2nd listen since I typically am listening to them while I am driving or walking the dog. Well this one has been listened to more than a couple of times.

This particular book is a timeless classic and has been one of my favorite ones for many years. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction, first published in 1976, has sold almost 1.5 million copies to three generations of writers, editors, journalists, teachers and students. I recommend it to any inspiring writer or blogger.

Most of my writing and podcast are geared towards a learning experience for me. It may sound somewhat selfish but I have found that is the best way to immerse myself in a subject. Another of Zinsser’s books, Writing To Learn was the basic structure of how my blog and podcast has developed.

About: William Zinsser, a writer, editor, and teacher, is a fourth-generation New Yorker, born in 1922. His 18 books, which range in subject from music to baseball to American travel, include several widely read books about writing.

P.S. I own the hard copy of both books.

Grow Revenue thru Lean Sales and Marketing

2011-08-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

At Agile Cincinnati last week, I had the opportunity to present the Lean Sales and Marketing presentation, It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean Anymore! The reason I choose this title is that so many identify Lean with waste reduction where I view Lean and PDCA from the aspect of knowledge creation. The first part of my slide deck discusses that and the new thinking that social media has brought upon us. That part was delivered with a hint of sarcasm. After setting the stage, my tone change dramatically after the slide, “Why Lean!”

It's not your grandmother's lean anymore!

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Technorati Tags: Lean,Lean Sales and Marketing,Agile,Agile Marketing,PDCA

Special thanks to the group at Agile Cincinnati. They engaged the speaker through out the discussion and made my part very simple. An enjoyable experience.

Resources I used:

Books:
This is Service Design Thinking: Basics - Tools - Cases
The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion
Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers
Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated
The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage
The Toyota Way Fieldbook
The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions
Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers

Websites:
Value Co-Creation: Wim Rampen Slideshare
McKinsey Quarterly: We’re all marketers now
Forrester: Welcome To The Era Of Agile Commerce
Scott Brinker: 8 things every marketing technologist should know
Janet R. McColl-Kennedy: Co -creation of Value and S-D logic

The Present and Future of Co-creation

2011-08-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Nick Coates of Promise Communities explains the fundamental rules that make co-creation possible. He shows how an idea that has been around for decades is being put back into the spotlight by communication technologies, and tells the audience what to expect for the future of this re-emerging discipline.

I think Nick presents some definitive examples and even a few of the flaws of co-creation. I think your understanding and comfortability with the notion of co-creation will increase as a result of this video. Still a wide range of interpretation around the subject

Operational Excellence in Government

2011-08-04T05:17:00.000-07:00

In a recent Business901 Podcast, Operational Excellence in Government, is it Possible?, Hundley Elliotte one of the authors of Building High Performance Government Through Lean Six Sigma: A Leader’s Guide to Creating Speed, Agility, and Efficiency discussed what it takes in government to achieve operational excellence utilizing Lean Six Sigma. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Operational Excellence in Government

Hundley M. Elliotte is the global lead for the Process Performance group within the Accenture Process & Innovation Performance service line. He has more than 15 years of consulting experience, focusing on managing business value, setting strategy, identifying customer needs, and identifying and implementing improvement opportunities in diverse business sectors. Previously, Mr. Elliotte worked for more than a decade in the corporate sector, holding sales, marketing and general management positions with a leading pulp and paper manufacturer and with a plastics company. He is based in Atlanta.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 223,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.

Read Chapter One, “Building the Anatomy for High Performance”

Read about the Accenture Institute for Health and Public Service.

Learn more about Michael George’s Strong America Now program.

A Beginning Step to Co-Creation

2011-07-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

You are what you charge for. And if you're competing solely on the basis of price, then you've been commoditized, offering little or no true differentiation. What would your customers really value? Better yet, for what would they pay a premium? Experiences.

Joseph Pine co-author of the book The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage, explains this process in this video. Another video, The Experience Economy Birthday Party provides another excellent example in story form.

I have written two other blog posts, Does your Value Proposition speak of the Customer Experience? and Changing the shape of your marketing funnel! that expands on some of these thoughts.

The Experience Economy description is an excellent introduction to co-creation. It takes us away from the basic thoughts of products and services and moves us into the world of differentiation and uniqueness based on what the customer truly values. And it is not our product and service anymore that the customer values. It is the USE of our product and service and the resulting benefit of it. Till we start thinking that way, the step to co-creation is probably unobtainable.

Will the Mvp crush the Lean Startup?

2011-07-28T20:35:00.000-07:00

This seems an appropriate post this week since there was big hullabaloo about a certain App that claimed certain features and did not deliver. If they intended it to be a minimum viable product (Mvp), let’s just say there was more MINIMUM than viable in the product. Though it was discovered and bantered about the Lean community it raised a bigger issue for me. With all the talk of iterative use, fail often and early and MVP being battered about especially in the Lean Startup (term trademarked by Eric Ries) are we forgetting one of the foundational pillars of Lean. That pillar is Respect for People.

The reason I mention the Lean Startup is that I find few in that community firmly rooted in Lean Principles. They look at Lean as meaning a waste reduction process. That reduction meaning their time to market and their time spent on developing product. In fact, at a Lean Startup event in Grand Rapids, Michigan recently, l saw presenters advocating the use of fake web fronts and click buttons into blank spaces all to “test” customer’s responses.

When I think of the term Lean, three things come to my mind: Customer Value, PDCA(Kaizen) and Respect for People. I believe that these are key components of Lean and TPS. Without these the TPS house crumbles. Lean is about delivering Value in the eyes of the customer. Lean is about PDCA not just Do and Adapt. Lean is about Respect not Use.

I believe Eric Ries has made an outstanding contribution to Lean in general and to the field of innovation and startups. In fact, I am a big advocate of his methods. However, the big M (minimum) may cause his house to be short lived as demonstrated by one stray APP developer as he pleaded Kaizen, Iteration and Beta after accepting money and obviously delivering less than a viable product. I feel strongly about the Lean culture that has developed over the years and continues to grow and even take its own life forms such as Agile and the Lean Startup. But as most of us know, it is important to understand and respect our roots. It only makes a stronger in the long run.

To my knowledge this APP Developer has no affiliation with the Lean Startup. My reason for the connection is to demonstrate the bad side as visibly as possible.

Operational Excellence in Government, is it Possible?

2011-07-27T19:36:00.001-07:00

When I first listened to Mike George’s Stong America Now program, I thought it was a joke that hardly made any sense. However, I have learned to investigate things that rub me the wrong way initially and many times I have found a little gold in the outcomes.

One of those outcomes was the opportunity to interview Hundley Elliotte one of the authors of Building High Performance Government Through Lean Six Sigma: A Leader's Guide to Creating Speed, Agility, and Efficiency. What I liked about the book was it really removes the issues about can it be done, it is already being done. In the podcast, we discussed these places and also discussed the how in applying Lean Six Sigma to any public organization.

The authors paint a very clear picture of the role of Lean Six Sigma in Government. It is a very well written book without the statistical jargon so often found in Lean Six Sigma books. I even found certain parts of the book remarkably useful for the private sector.

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Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 223,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.

Read Chapter One, “Building the Anatomy for High Performance”

Read about the Accenture Institute for Health and Public Service.