I'm coming to this party a little late but I agree and disagree with Michael Wood. I agree that you should always be looking at how to streamline and align the business but we have a tendency to get deeply rooted in the ways we do things. With LEAN we are empowering the people who really do the work and depending on them for the solution versus having another department come in and make recommendations. With LEAN to be successful you have to have a buy-in from the top down and the bottom up. Then you have to have someone who constantly monitors the environment or department to make sure that they follow their changes and that they are meeting on a regular basis to determine if more changes can be made or if they need to tweek what they implemented. I compare LEAN as a grass roots method. One of the most eye-opening tools that comes out of LEAN is the Value Stream Map. When you set down with a group of individuals and have them create a VSM you will see light bulbs go off within the team. Until they map out what they are doing they have a tendency to overlook just how much work they are really doing.
Mike
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Michael WoodProject Manager / Business Analyst / Business Process Improvement Guru| Independent ContractorGig Harbor, Wa, United States
Mike, I guess I am guilty of presupposing that solid GAP analysis mapped to good workflow models makes the LEAN part inconsequential because once the stakeholders have true buy-in the labels don't matter and the solution seeks its own optimized level. Guess I am just spoiled by HELIX. Saving Changes...
