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Kanban, which was originally modeled after a Toyota Production System, means "billboard" or "signboard" in Japanese. Scheduling systems like Kanban help to eliminate wasted resources, help people make more efficient use of their time, build stronger and more robust businesses, and improve current designs. This way, future businesses are able to reap the reward of previous experiences, solutions, and expertise. 

The answer to why Kanban is so effective in helping people and businesses DO THINGS BETTER actually has more than one part. We'll be listing a few of these parts below.

We know that a Poka-Yoke approach is a much more effective approach to preventing mistakes and errors. But, sometimes, we see the approach of providing a "do not" sign only, which by itself, is not effective. But, coupled with a process or system that prevents the human from making mistakes or the error from being made, then that's a great balance to warning the person as well as preventing the person from making the mistake in the first place.

Real Kaizen thinking is based on making these little changes on a regular basis: always improving productivity, safety and effectiveness while reducing waste.  The western philosophy is often summarized as, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, the Kaizen philosophy is to "do it better, make it better, improve it even if it isn't broken, because if we don't, we can't compete with those who do."

The same goes for the four basic questions around the daily accountability process - the process by which leaders facilitate effective follow-through. The follow-through that I am referring to is about the countermeasures necessary for what some refer to as (team-based):

And so we look for innovative, unique, breakthrough improvements and overlook seemingly mundane, simple ones. Here's how simple it can be. A few weeks ago, I was in Derby , England, at Pride Park, home of the Derby County Rams. While in a conference room overlooking the football pitch (or soccer field, for Americans), I watched one of the groundskeepers painstakingly but quickly laying out orange cones very precisely on both ends. Once I saw what he was doing, it was so simple yet effective.

The FMEA Tool (Failure, Modes, Effects, Analysis) is a powerful tool available to a Lean Six Sigma practitioner. The tool is extensively used where a safety critical environment exists, such as the aerospace or automotive industry. The tool allows a team the ability to design quality and safety into processes or products on the front end of the environment, eliminating potential problems before they occur.

Four kinds of behavior account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness.

Intrinsic motivation has a better chance of changing your habits because you don't need a justification to work on your habit. You don't need a reason to eat healthy foods if you have healthy meals that you find delicious. You don't need an app to remind you to workout if you're looking forward to it every day.

The heart of most effective continuous improvement is experimentation. Experimentation is the mother of all learning methods. It drives learning throughout an organization based on what is real, not based on theory or opinion. Whether you use PDCA, DMAIC, 8D, A3s or any other method in the alphabet soup of continuous improvement, there is a backbone of experimentation whose spirit you can follow, or fail to.

Within virtually any serious lean transformation effort, there are moments of truth. The "truth" represents not the orthodoxy of lean tools and even systems, both extremely important, but lean principles themselves. Violate the principles and fail that moment of truth. Do it consistently and the lean transformation will be nothing more than a lean charade. Effective lean leaders must be unbending when it comes to principles. See figure below for the lean principles as identified in the Shingo Prize Model. So, why do lean leaders waffle on lean principles?

In this article, he shares a simple and effective application of Kaizen and the Kaizen frame of mind to a common activity in business meetings: drinking coffee.

Great post on how to use data to dig for root cause.

The most effective leaders are those who can cut through the clutter to focus on what is most important. When individuals and teams are confronted by multiple issues, they often try to take them all on… at once. Because they are overwhelmed, they make progress on none of them. The result: inertia and a lack of change.

A thought provoking article. This has caused me to re-think how I might more effectively conduct my own 5S audits.

How do Lean organizations develop their employees if Lean considers expenditure of resources other than for creation of value to be wasteful? First, a true lean organization isn't obsessed with waste. If anything, they are obsessed with value.  Waste is anything more than the absolutely minimum required to add value to a product or service; waste is not just anything that doesn't create value. I can't imagine much value can be delivered without the right skills and capabilities in the organization. Therefore, I don't think there is any conflict between developing employees and waste elimination. Second, a lean organization thinks about the total system, and thinks long term. There is a constant pursuit of the knowledge between cause and effect. All of that means that there is a strong understanding of the performance impact (effect) of more talented and skilled people (cause). Third, people think too narrowly about how they develop their people that they think it all must cost dollars, because it is all about training. I'm not suggesting that you should stop training; I've rarely seen an organization that is over-trained. What I'm suggesting is that the increase in developing people come from coaching and experimentation. These two sources of development are very powerful when done consistently and for the long-term.

Lesson 1: The critical importance of the simple act of walking. When you get bogged down, distracted, or even discouraged rediscover the power of going to see. Lesson 2: Never walk alone. What is the benefit if only you see the current state and think of a better way to create a future sate? Always walk the value stream with the people who touch it. It will be their efforts who are needed to improve it. Lesson 3: Expand your focus. Many look primarily at the steps in the value stream and ask how to remove the waste. You must ask about the support processes to get the right people to the right place in the value stream at the right time with the right knowledge, materials, and equipment. Lesson 4: Reflect first on the purpose of the process. Focus on what problem the customer is trying to solve and ask whether the existing process, now matter how well, run, can effectively address their problem. Pay special attention to the way people are engaged in the operation and its improvement. Lesson 5: Make work fulfilling. There is nothing worse than seeing good people trapped in an unfulfilling process that they lack the power to improve. Lesson 6: Stability before full panoply of lean techniques. The process must be capable (able to produce good results every time) and available (able to operate when it is needed).

One of the most important learning's I took from the experience was how effective rapid prototyping and hands on experimenting could be in an event. The Sensei went from team to team throughout the event and kept telling us to stop brainstorming and start "trystorming (actual simulation or creation of the idea)." This meant putting away the flip charts and sticky notes and getting out on the floor and getting our hands dirty. Having the 3D, tangible "mock-ups" allowed the teams to quickly understand each others ideas and iteratively improve the solution in a way that would not be possible on paper. Simulations became real and many of the bugs of standard work could be worked out in advance prior to a "down stream" implementation.

Visual Management Systems should be simple, obvious, efficient, and effective. Thus was the case at a recent visit to a Mexican Restaurant in Utah called Cafe Rio.

Deploy a daily accountability process. Effective lean management systems include the use of tiered meetings to review team performance versus targets, plan for the next 24 hours, and identify issues, barriers and countermeasures. It drives shared understanding of process performance, foments dialogue, and "pulls" suggestions.