Lean does not have a prescriptive formula like scrum with its standups, sprints, demos, and retros. Lean is a way of thinking; it’s looking for the easiest and simplest way to accomplish a task.
We’ve all done tasks that had us questioning their utility, like documenting something that’ll never be read by another person. All this does is create “busy work” while detracting from tasks that add actual value.
Toyota has proven thinking lean is the most profitable way to go. Reducing waste in the car industry enabled them to compete and eventually beat the big US companies. It wasn’t done by hiring some consultant to come in and pull a Mary Poppins. Toyota did it by getting everyone involved. They encouraged employees to spot waste and to speak up.
Lean is not just for the car industry it’s equally valuable for any industry or department. The legal industry wastes a lot of time waiting for documents or responses. It’s just something that’s “always been this way.” Any law firm that eliminates the waste of waiting will have an advantage over its competitors.
Information technology and lean go together like peanut butter and jelly. I can’t tell you the number of times I had to document a fix that no one looked at. That was the most frustrating thing when I worked help-desk. I had tons of open tickets and my performance was based on how many I closed. I wasted so much time on redundant technical writing that I could have used to help close other tickets that the memory frustrates me to this day.
Value in IT is fairly simple, if the user is happy then value is delivered. I don’t believe any users cared how detailed my technical writing was, they just wanted was their computer fixed. I am not saying that documentation is a complete waste of time, in fact if used properly can be a fantastic time-saver. For instance, I had to create a set of reports for management and documented the steps which I used every week for reference. This contrasts with documenting and re-documenting commonly used fixes which no one will look at.
To use that time more productively you can make a Kanban board. A word of caution: it’s not just about making a to-do board. Here are some helpful guidelines that you will want to follow to get the most out of your board.
The most famous guideline is to make a board and put it where everyone can see it. There is no point to the thing if you hide it.
The next thing you’ll want to do is limit the amount of work in progress (WIP), basically don’t just put a bunch of tasking into the to-do and doing field. Your team can’t do everything at once. Find a balance where work is constantly moving towards the completed side. If something is stuck in the doing pile for too long, look for a bottle neck. Manage the flow, 5 people can’t do 300 story points a day. Be reasonable and work with your team to find the right balance, work should be getting done and the team isn’t stuck doing overtime every night. Make sure everyone knows what to do and how to estimate a task. They should all know what story points are, what WIP is, and what done is. Not just ‘oh it’s done but just needs one more thing”. Most important is to have fun with it, work with the team and keep improving the process. You won’t get it right over night but with time and effort from everyone it’ll happen.
Use Kaizen making small improvements constantly to remove waste. Look back to see what worked and what didn’t and think on what could use improvement. Don’t pick every improvement idea at once, just grab one or two ideas and see how it works. After a couple of weeks revisit that idea, see if it helped or if it didn’t.
Don’t get so obsessed with commitment to a single idea that you blindly follow it. Work with your team to find waste and remove it, improve your processes and work collaboratively. Continuous improvement by nature doesn’t happen overnight, it takes time but if you keep at it, you’ll see vast improvement.
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