Constraints, are they helping you innovate?

‘Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.” - Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Your job has specific areas of responsibility. These will define where your work begins and where it ends. Inputs are provided and outputs are produced. Your outputs are for an internal or external customer. In some cases you may provide outputs for both internal and external customers.

This is your sand box. In this framework of limits is where you will look for problems that need solutions.

But where do you start?

Start with the problems that affect the daily work. What wastes can you identify and eliminate.  Do you want to look for things that can be done better? No. You want to create a vision of perfection and then remove those problems one by one that prevent your vision of perfection being reality. Consult with your internal and external customers; they should have no problem telling you what problems they see inside your constraints that are impacting them.

You may have heard it said that necessity is the mother of invention. In your world the constraints you must deal with will motivate a higher level of problem solving. The goal is to find no cost, low cost solutions to your everyday work problems. It is unlikely you will get any support or resources to make the changes you see are required. This will help kick your innovation abilities to a new level.

The more defined this frame of constraints is, the better.

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What role does innovation play in your job?

For many of us, innovation is just not on the daily agenda. First there are all those important meetings that you must attend. This is followed by priority interruptions. Then the unexpected, but consistently appearing, emergency fire fighting. By now the day is shot and you are staying late to review correspondence, read reports, write reports and prepare for tomorrows important meetings.

You begin to feel like a hamster on a tread mill, running faster and getting to the same place you started the day before. You tell yourself tomorrow will be different, and then it comes, and then it goes with no change.

What would happen if you went to the boss and asked if you could block out a portion of your day to work on improvements for your daily work?  Let me know how this works out for you.

Now you have a block of time to begin the review of your own daily work or not. If you do, ask:

What do you do all day?

Why are these things necessary to do?

                Why is that?

                Why is that?

                Why is that?

                Why is that?

Who are your customers?

What problems do the jobs you perform solve for your customers?

You may have questions of your own, please include them. As you gather answers you are investigating your job. The activities that you do daily as part of the routine are now being questioned.  You are breaking out of your complacency and looking at what has become routine over time with fresh eyes.

With all of this investigation, problems will begin to appear. Choose a problem that affects the daily work and document it as clearly as possible. If others perform the same job as you, review what you see as the problem with them. Ask them to help clarify the problem with you. Ask your boss if the problem has been clearly defined and understood. You may choose to include your customer in the conversation if the problem impacts the outputs you pass on to them.

Why start with what you do? Typically you have the highest level of knowledge and insight into the work. After all you are performing the job.  Making changes to your own work by applying creative ideas will provide the experience of innovating. Implementing many small innovations that impact the daily work will form the basis of a discipline of continual improvement. You will learn how to apply the tools we will talk about in future blogs through firsthand experience.  Your confidence will be bolstered by your own successes. Hopefully your boss will also recognize the effort and improvements you have implemented.

Now you can begin to visualize the ideal solution to that problem you have selected to resolve.

Ask yourself; what would perfection look like?

Please comment on this blog, you can also email me; leanthoughtstarter@gmail.com

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Welcome to the Lean Thought Starter

Is continual improvement the place to start your lean journey?

Many people feel the implementation of a continual improvement initiative, with the promise of low hanging fruit payoffs, is the first step on the path to becoming lean.  Continual improvement is required by many as evidence that the organization is moving forward in the pursuit of perfection.  Yet all too often continual improvement gets confused as a tool for quality problem solving or kaizen blitzes. Management begins to lose interest as the low lying fruit is gathered and initiates a search for the next silver bullet.

Many fail to realize continual improvement is a required discipline, to be applied everyday by everyone as a tool in the pursuit of perfection.  Making perfection the goal, opens the door to creative thinking and innovation at all levels of the organization.

Is it wise to allow everyone to improve upon what they do, to become creative and innovate?  This may be overwhelming to organizations as they are today.  Organizations can however change over time to create a culture of innovation.  A work place where innovation is the job!

Over the coming weeks I will explore this topic in much more detail.  I look forward to having you participate in the journey.

Until then, ask yourself this; what role does innovation play in your job?

You can also email me; leanthoughtstarter@gmail.com