BrainCram

5 S’s: Lean for one! (Part 2)

A good starting point for your personal Lean process is a tool called the 5Ss. This tool is a rough guide for looking at the things you do and reducing them to an absolute minimum.

The 5Ss are:

Sort – Group, classify and organize elements of your work and personal life and process. I recommend the use of David Allen’s Getting Things Done method for this process.

Scrub – Cleaning up your workspace and maintaining a clear area will allow you to more readily focus on the activity you are working on. It will reduce distractions and allow your effort to be targeted entirely on the task at hand.

Straighten – Organize the remaining things that still belong. Hopefully you have been sufficiently ruthless in your Sort as to significantly reduce the amount of stuff you have to straighten.

Standardise – Standardisation is a key element in efficiency. By following a set pattern of activity, you will become familiar and more effective at your tasks. Not everything should be standardised as it can reduce creativity and become somewhat dull. You need to make a choice as to where you want efficiency and where you want interest.

Sustain – Having achieved a level of increased efficiency and enhanced the effectiveness of your Value Stream, that effort shouldn’t be wasted. By sustaining and repeating a standard pattern of behaviour for a few days/weeks it will become a habit and you will reach a level of unconscious competence. It will require discipline but is worth the effort.

This tool will hopefully bring significant rewards in efficiency and effectiveness in a fairly short time.

Dare to Aspire

NB. Lean philosophy suggests that individual activities are undertaken at specific standardised workstations, however, this I believe is overkill for Lean for one.

Personal Kaizen: Lean for one! (Part 1)

No conversation on personal improvement is complete with considering the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Kaizen is the Japanese term for ‘improvement’ or ‘change for the better’. It is most often associated with the Lean process made popular by Toyota and is a generic management philosophy focused on improving processes.

Clearly applicable to the manufacturing domain, there are also clear opportunities to learn individual improvement techniques from Lean processes.

This post is the first of several that will present possible applications of the Lean process for personal development and productivity.

5 Principles of Lean

Value – What is it that is of value you. What aligns best to your personal goals, missions or purpose?

Value Stream – What are the activities and steps you undertake to achieve that flow of activity aimed at achieving value?

Flow – What are the stops, blocks and barriers to the seamless achievement of that value stream?

Pull – Activities should be ‘on demand’ and initiated by triggers.

Perfection – Aim for constant improvement.

So how does this apply?

Value

Much has already been written on the setting of goals. By setting goals we

- Focus on what is important to us.
- Allow our subconscious to identify opportunities that align with our goals.
- Set criteria that enable to make the decisions to move us towards our purpose.
- Identify measures that indicate how we are moving toward our purpose.

By concentrating on the achievement of these goals we implicitly work to increase value.

Value Stream

A Value Stream is a Lean phrase that defines the process, from start to finish that moves a team or person towards Value. As an individual this would be what you do on a routine basis to meet your goals. I have identified simple actions that combine into a process of moving towards my goals and take those actions daily.

Flow

Flow describes the seamless movement towards your goal. Sometimes I find that there are reasons that I cannot take some actions. Perhaps time, family or work commitments stop me working toward specific goals. These are blocks and barriers in the Flow of my Value Stream. I try to ensure flow by identifying key Getting Thing Done Next Actions that can be taken in whatever context I am in. My processes change based on which barriers exist but the aim of my activity is to focus on a steady flow.

Pull

Pull describes the triggers for action. In simple terms, a deadline for some action like paying a bill is a Pull trigger. Too much up front effort can be nugatory and wasteful and exactly the problem that Lean is trying to reduce. With this attitude, we avoid the problems of ‘planning early causing us to plan twice’.

Perfection

Perfection is an ideal but it is your ideal. It is your idea of the person you would like to be. Personal improvement and self-development is in itself a process, a stream of activity and a personal journey. With any journey it does require action and movement. Even if you are on the right track, the train will still hit you if you don’t keep moving!

There are advantages and disadvantages with the Lean process but as an approach, there may be some aspects that add to your effectiveness and performance. As with all tools, they may work for you and they may not. Aim for an implementation that meets your needs, is elegant and friction free.

And as always Dare to Aspire