Understanding Lean Transformation (1 Day Class)

Objectives:
Through instruction, small group discussions and exercises, workshop participants will:

• Learn the five basic dimensions of organization change
• Gain insights into key elements of a lean organization and the Lean Transformation Model
• Reflect upon your own organization and/or project according to the LTM
• Use key questions to begin creating a framework to guide your organization’s transformation 

Overview:

We are all trying to transform. At the company level a transformation is a very big experiment indeed, at both the macro level and the very granular level of the daily/hourly/immediate work itself.

To transform the way people think and behave within an organization to be more of a problem-solving mindset is no easy task and varies from industry to industry, company to company, person to person. It requires discipline, investment and a belief that we can make things better.

Workshop Description

Successful transformation calls for a situational approach that is based on innovating key dimensions of any organization through addressing a series of questions. These questions are fractal—meaning that the same questions apply whether working at the macro enterprise level or the level of individual responsibility as you dive progressively deeper into each dimension. But, while the transformation model that has emerged through years of experience is situational, the nature of the questions represent a clear point of view: if an organization fails to address each question, and without a sense of how each relates to the others, the transformation is headed for trouble.

Effective total transformation entails transforming five fundamental dimensions, through continuously addressing key questions associated with each:

1. What is our purpose, what value to create or what situational problem are we trying to solve? 
   Have you made the purpose or mission clear to everyone? Does everyone know their value to create? Does each person know their specific, situational problem to solve?
2. How are we improving the actual work? 
   Have you defined the work to be done? Is it being improved? How, by what means, to what end?
3. How are we developing capability? 
   Do you have the necessary capabilities? Have you defined them? What is your approach to capability building? How are you developing people?
4. What management system and leadership behaviors are required to support the new way of working? 
   Have you designed the management system and do your leaders exhibit the needed behaviors (to develop capability to do the work to accomplish the mission)?
5. What basic thinking, mindset, or assumptions underlie this transformation? 
   Do you understand the current basic thinking (mindsets, assumptions, as well as values) and grasp its impact on the organization and its culture? What are you going to do to change the basic thinking and culture in desired directions?

By tackling each dimension through addressing questions, we avoid the pitfall of prescriptively giving solutions as is typical of most consultancy approaches to transformation. Thus, we can have a dynamic approach to transformation in which each organization creates its own unique approach, one that helps them achieve their unique purpose through practical utilization of the deep wisdom embedded in the lean practices that have evolved over decades of rigorous PDCA.

We have learned that tackling the five dimensions through continually and thoroughly addressing these questions is both necessary and sufficient for a successful enterprise-wide transformation. 

Come explore the components of the Lean Transformation Framework, see examples of what others are doing and reflect upon some potential gaps to close within your own organization. 

Who should attend:

• Senior leaders
• Improvement deployment leaders
• Strategy officers