Friday, January 08, 2010

Lean Resolutions

Pat Wardwell, COO of the Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership suggests ten New Year's resolutions for Lean leaders. The summary:

1. Set aside time each week to actively and openly nurture the Lean journey in your organization;
2. Get out of your office and walk the value stream at least once per week;
3. Resolve to use your eyes and ears more than your vocal chords when on the shop floor;
4. Ask 5 different people who work for you "what can be improved" at least once a week;
5. Participate in an improvement project team meeting, training session or kaizen event at least once per month;
6. Ask to be shown an implemented improvement idea from all areas reporting to you at least once per month;
7. Read at least one new Lean article or book a month;
8. Attend a conference, plant tour or participate in a webinar or podcast on Lean topics once per quarter;
9. Vow to visit at least one external customer or supplier each quarter;
10. Develop your own "Manager's Standardized Work."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it, but these resolutions incite a vague cynicism when I read them. I guess if I were someone working with this Lean leader, I would be thinking - "well, there he(she) goes, checking off his #4 resolution for this week." It just seems these resolutions are a natural part of leadership in general. It's analogous to having to remind me of 1st year anatomy or something. If I'm making sense.

nonlocal MD

Tim McMahon said...

Paul I enjoyed these so much that I asked Pat to contribute them to my site. You can check out the full letter here:
http://leanjourneytruenorth.blogspot.com/2010/01/ten-new-years-resolutions-for-lean.html

Tim McMahon
A Lean Journey Blog

Ralf said...

Sometimes the most effective action looks so unspectactular.

Not doing it alone, meaning exchanging the personal experience with others will add extra value to it.

It will be like when you have a garden and walk through it every other day. You look closely at your roses and see things you only can see when inside your garden. You realize that you only can create what you imagine when you are "part" of it.