Lean For Everyone

Guest Post: Going to the Gemba with Grandma

For todays blog I'm sending you someplace else.

I just did a Guest Post at Mark Hamel's blog : Gemba Tales.  In this blog I tell a story of myself, my grandmother and solving the problem of the elusive TV remote.  Going to the Gemba with Grandma

Please spend a little extra time looking over Marks blog.  He's got a great sense of humor and his writing always has an excellent message in it. 

I would highly suggest adding his RSS feed to your reader!

 

 

 

 

 

The below description was shamelessly boosted from his own blog site

… the Blog

The name “Gemba Tales” is borrowed from Mark Hamel’s Shingo Prize-winning, Kaizen Event Fieldbook: Foundation, Framework, and Standard Work for Effective Events. There are 39 Tales within the Fieldbook, all based upon the experiences (some successful, some not) of the author and other lean practitioners and shared for the purpose of providing insight into the application of certain lean concepts.  The purpose of this blog is really no different, just a bigger community for sharing and learning.

 

Are you stressing the system or still playing at the easy level and feeling like a winner?

Playing StarCraft 2 reminded me that you need to fail in order to improve.

What is StarCraft?

StarCraft is about resource and supply chain management.  It's also about destroying your competition while forming allies and alliances. 

It's very similar to the business world except that you get to blow things up. 

UC Berkley even has a class on StarCraft Theory and Strategy.

 

 

I went from unbeatable to WTF just happened and why is everything burning in about 2 minutes

I had been playing StartCraft 2 and kicking my computer generated enemies ass.  I thought I was really good and then remembered that there are 6 levels.

• Very Easy  
• Easy
• Medium
• Hard
• Very Hard
• Insane

I had been playing Medium so I jumped right to Insane.  I lasted about 2 minutes.

It was a crushing defeat.  I felt demoralized and instead of goind back to "Medium" I went down to "Easy".  Easy felt good and I could win everytime.

While it felt less stressful and almost peaceful to know the outcome of every game...I wasn't getting any better.

 

I went back to challenging myself and failing.

I increased the difficulty level back to "Medium" untill I could win almost every game.  After each failure I was able to make changes to my strategy and then try again.  In many cases it was how I would lay out my base or in what order I built up my forces.

In StarCraft there is a build order or tech tree to everything you create but you have options as to when and where to build.  I was optimizing my build process with small incremental improvements.  I was perfroming a kaizen on my game strategy.

I then moved the game setting up to Hard and lost the first 17 games and then started winning.  When I could win almost every game I moved up to the next level.

While I haven't tried insane again I have it flagged as my "True North".  I don't know if I'll ever make it but I'm going to have a fun time failing while getting there.

Stop the Time Suck - Have a Lean 22 Minute Meeting

I'm Confessing My Top 5 Non-Lean Sins

 

I practice what I preach so it’s time for some old school “hansei”

AKA: Critical Self Reflection

 

 

  

 

 

1.  I’m a Piler

     I make piles and then move them around and create smaller piles:  I do this around the house and my office.  I eventually forget why I had some of the stuff  in the first place and then I throw it away.

2.  I don’t do a PDCA when I do home improvement projects

     I have 4 outstanding projects (that are at least 6 months old) where I’ve purchased the materials and I haven’t completed the work.

3.  I don’t have a place for everything

    It's hard to practice 5S and put everything in it's place when I don't know where it goes.  My stuff often turns into nomadic piles. (see #1 above)

4.  I have a small horde of useless computer parts

    These are for “Just In Case” scenarios that never seem to occur.  This outdated and useless technology is a dead end pile of inventory with no value.

5.  I went crazy at Costco

    We now have enough fluorescent lights to last 7 years .  This is the same amount of time it will take to use all the clamshell styrofoam food containers I purchased during the same visit.

I've learned one key item from my My Fitness Pal Kaizen.   When you let the world know that you're working on bettering yourself,  you discover a great deal of support from those around you and from inside yourself.

Related Article:

Lean for Health: Week 3 of MyFitnessPal.com Kaizen

Lean for Balloons: Kaizen for Twisters

This weekend I attended the Fellowship of Christian Magicians convention.  A place where balloon twisters, face painters, magicians and jugglers gather to learn, share and exchange ideas.  Did I mention that I had a fantastic time!!!

I'm a balloonist and love to twist, this past weekend I got to work with some of the best in my trade: Andrew McDonald, John Holmes, Joe White and Steve Raeburn just to name a few.  I even took a class on juggling clubs,  which I plan to become more proficient at.

The seminars and workshops were all a great mix of learning and sharing.  Later in the evening we were all invited to attend a jam session at a local hotel where there was even more activity.           

Lion Head by Andrew McDonald www.macpump.org

During the jam, magicians showed how they do some of their tricks to colleagues and the balloonists were swapping ideas, while trying to improve creations.  A group of face painters showed each other ideas in order to quickly add and remove paint from skin.

We were all sharing best practices of what we learned,  not just in our craft but also how we would deal with large crowds, eager children and the occasional uncomfortable situation.

Andrew McDonald  with his own creation www.macpump.org

 

One of the best treats for me was the key note speaker, Randal Munson, who spoke about Innovation and Creativity. He addressed how to keep it alive where you work and in your everyday life.  I highly recommend hiring him for you next event!!

This was a weekend of continuous improvement for me,  not just for my balloon twisting but also on a personal level.   The interaction, communication and sharing with others has made me eager for more of the same.  Every six weeks a group called the Michigan Twisters meet to share ideas just like this.  You can bet I will be there again soon.

Lean is everywhere...even when you're having fun!

  Fairy by unknown artist

UPDATE:  I've launched my own twisting site at Smiling Bald Balloons

 

 

 

 

Seeing a Kaizen in action. 23 minutes = ROI of $3,000

    I was lucky enough to see this Kaizen video a few days ago and am recommending it to everyone.  It is a great example of how quickly improvements can tested and implemented.

Synopsis-  A company takes a manual packaging process and by doing quick iterative Kaizen improvements over the course of a couple of hours (compressed to 23 minutes) they decrease processing time  from 45 sec. to 14 sec, saving an estimated 200 man hours per yr = $3,000.

The entire video is 23 minutes however if you just watch the first 5 min you will see the process changes dramatically.  By the end of the video, the process has a really nice flow.

Being a good uncle, and Lean practitioner, I required my nephews P. (12 yrs) and B. (8 yrs) to watch the video before I took them to Marvin's arcade.  They tell me they are inventors and innovators so I wanted their opinions on the Kaizen process. 

P. said "It was boring but they thought of things he wouldn't have so it was pretty good and they should build robots to help."

B. said "That it was awesome but they need a conveyor belt and a huge machine to make a lot of them." 

I think I'll have to put them through a little more Lean training and find some "cooler" videos on JIT, Pull and VOC for them to see.  Then I'll ask them if they still think they need robots, a huge machine and a conveyor belt.