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What's the point of the morning meeting? Paul Akers says it is about building a team. You can not build a team when the leader is talking. The leader must ask employees questions so they talk. When employees talk you are building a team.  What do you ask? Ask them "what bugs you?" Problems are not the employees fault. Management is to blame.

Good video about how to conduct a morning meeting

Pay attention to the critical benefit here: everyone has agreed that email is NOT to be used for urgent or complex issues. This agreement really is significant, because it unshackles people from their BlackBerries during meetings, or product development work, or strategic planning. Or their kids' soccer games. Or dinner. Or sex. Which means that there's now a fighting chance to have some uninterrupted time to, you know, think.

Developing people means challenging people. But just issuing challenges isn't enough. You must also teach a systematic, common means of creating solutions and meeting those challenges.

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.

Wow!  Studying history, everyone is a "process engineer", celebrating improvements, discussing problems, reviewing results This is something to aspire to and emulate.  What could we start with?

This company simply amazes me! I'm going to start with our P&D Innovation team, what about showing these at our next Ops Check-in?

Possibly, I will select one, and put it at the end of the meeting. This is one of the things that I was thinking about for our Tribe of Tweddle Employees Pursuing Excellence. I have to come up with a better name.

The following key points summarize Lean and Lean Metrics: 1) Make Lean so simple anyone can understand it. 2) Fix what bugs you and improve it everyday. 3) Every employee must make a 2 sec improvement everyday. 4) People fail sometimes and solutions may not valid but you learn from that. 5) Create a routine like: start day with Sweep, Sort, Standardize, then improvement time, then morning meeting. 6) Give people time everyday to experiment, train, and teach. 7) Simple metrics -            a) 1 improvement everyday            b) Orders out in 2 hours            c) Less than 1 mistake a week            d) Want customers to rave about us 8) Defects are something the customer sees. 9) Develop the skill and capacity to solve problems by everyone everyday.

Can we also put "Kaizen: FastCap Style" on the list.

Sure, just post it here, and tag it "film festival".

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.

The last reason this works at Toyota is because of the roles and skills of the people. Front-line workers know the true meaning and value of each standard procedure - not only in theory. They have the skills and knowledge to solve problems and an end-to-end process perspective. The supervisors are pivotal in developing these competencies. They check and confirm that the standard procedures have been put in place and that workers are following them exactly. Supervisors can improve processes through coaching, questioning (not ordering), and making front-line workers think and take responsibility. Managers (supervisors, managers, directors, and above) motivate workers by meeting with them to communicate the corporate vision.

Uncertainty may darken the entire horizon, but not everyone is affected equally.   The edge often goes to those who can learn quickly. "For the military," Petraeus observed, "learning faster than the enemy meant deploying lessons learned teams and ensuring commanders are focused on identifying the need to make changes to our big ideas, campaign plans, organizational structures, equipment, and operational bases." For companies, learning faster than competitors can mean incorporating a "What have we learned?" discussion into weekly or daily team meetings. Whatever the size of your organization, don't stop the learning with an observation. Drive to change behaviors.

Give yourself some time, don't be too busy to go to the kitchen of your company, observe and ask "why" as many times as you can to understand better what's cooking there. It is the place where work gets done and the only place where value can be added to business processes: Solve the problem at hand Prevent it from recurrence  It will result in better quality, delivery and lower costs. You'll be surprised how much it contributes to the value delivered to the customer.

The other day, if I had taken the time to take one stair at a time, I probably would have stepped in just as the meeting began and wouldn't have scattered my papers.  If I'd taken the time to consider WHY I was running late and avoid those conditions next time, perhaps I'd have found out more about the root cause of my problem. Do you ever find yourself wanting to "take the stairs 2 at a time" to do a little more in your current role?  What helps you avoid this temptation?  Please share your thoughts with us.

When you find yourself feeling most like you have to hurry, that is the time to take a breath and proceed with purpose and not rush. I find myself giving this advice quite often.

Yes - 5S is very relaxing!

If one of them happens to be a tall table for standing meetings, let me know. I'd like to replace the table in the Creative "War Room" with a taller version and eliminate the chairs. However, I need to find one with roughly the same circumference as the current table since we use it for design reviews.

Brian - I'm game. Let's do it.

I struggle with how to do this in the more "administrative" type departments.

The scene from the movie is funny and the article has some great questions.

And I love the Monty Python metaphor. That gives me the idea to use the black knight scene in the next team meeting to demonstrate how once your future state becomes current state a new future state must be identified and targeted. "None shall pass!"

"Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great." - John D. Rockefeller An essential element in Lean thinking is Kaizen.  Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous improvement or change for the better.  As no process can ever be declared perfect, there is always room for improvement.  Kaizen involves building on gains by continuing experimentation and innovation. The cycle of kaizen activity can be defined as: Standardize process Measure the standardized process Analyze measurements against requirements Innovate to meet requirements and increase productivity Standardize the new, improved process Continue cycle infinitely Kaizen involves every employee - from upper management to operators. Everyone is encouraged to come up with small improvement suggestions on a regular basis. This is not a once a month or once a year activity. It is continuous. Kaizen is based on making 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."

"Don't be afraid to give up the good for the great." - John D. Rockefeller

Four solid concepts - good video.

I re-watched it, and, while I still fundamentally disagree with the first two points (No more visionary speeches and No Couch Meetings), I did find value in his comments of instructing through results and not outsourcing your training. The idea that you cannot outsource your culture, which is a function of your training is powerful.

I was recently working with a customer who works as a supervisor in a distribution operation.  She's new to lean and is tasked with developing her team to work autonomously to meet customer needs and continuously improve processes.  She asked, "How do I teach my team?"  It's a simple question, with a not-so-simple answer.  So, here are some thoughts on teaching others.  Keep in mind, I'm not trained to be a teacher, although I've facilitated many workplace training events.

1.Understanding the Basics. 2.Planning Your Communications. 3.Communicating Powerfully in Writing. 4.Communicating Effectively Face-to-Face. 5.Running Productive Meetings. 6.Delivering Great Presentations.