The MLC is a great resource for learning with a fun mix of attendees and information sharing.
We had old members and first timers from a variety of industries.
It was about 30% consultants this time (which is understandable considering the topic) and the rest were a mix of Banking, Manufacturing, Healthcare, IT, Financial planning and even an ex NUMMI person.
I personally was delighted to see Bonnie R. Fahoome from The More Program who came out to see how the MLC can help Michigan's entrepreneurs.
Debra gave an nice overview of how to conduct an assessment and shared documents on how to perform them.
The documents were very helpful to anyone who has never done a lean assessment. It broke down the grading system to 4 levels. I've listed them below however the documents are comprehensive and proprietary so I can't post them :(
- 0 -I think you can guess what Zero means-
- 1 Stability
- 2 Flow
- 3 Pull
- 4 Integration
Probably one of the best reasons to join the MLC is to get access to this type info.
Most interesting to me is that during a lean assessment the use of tools rarely even comes up. This makes perfect sense since lean culture or the desire for change is the real indicator for long term success.
Several of the consultants also shared documents and examples that they have used in the past. Murray Sittsamer from The Luminous Group brought some nice examples from his workshops and assessments that allowed us to compare and contrast to Debra's.
We had some lively discussion (no yelling just lively) but the best part was that there were people from so many different backgrounds everyone had something to bring to the table. We didn't all agree on some items...but you still had some great takeaways.
Jon Wetzel (That's me) presented how to use lean outside of the work to improve the rest of your life as well.
- Using lean all day devotes more time to learning its concepts.
- An hour gained in your home life….is yours to keep!
- Lean can be implemented faster at home because you have 100% leadership “buy in”.
- As people feel these successes at home they will become lean champions for the work place.
What better way to learn lean than by teaching people how to use its tools and methods to save time doing the laundry, simplify cutting the lawn or even losing excess weight.
This gets people excited about lean and gives them the opportunity to practice it all day long. That's 8 hours at work and 8 hours at home ( and hopefully 8 hours sleep).
At the end of every MLC training event we do a "What worked? What didn't? and What do you want?
Everyone participates, there's immediate feedback and notes taken for changes to make. The MLC learns how to have a better event for next time...they practice what they preach!
