DailyKaizen

I am currently working with a group of managers to help them transition their current batch and queue process to one that is going to do work in real time. The current process is designed around accommodating silos and maximizes the efficiency of specialists. We plan to transition the process so that it is designed around product families and relies on the flexibility of generalists. It has taken the managers about a month of intensive analysis and training to begin to understand the advantages of the new model.

The other day we were out on a process walk and one of the managers was explaining the model to staff. The managers have been really nervous about how these changes will be received by staff. After the manager got done explaining one of the staff members smiled and printed out an email that they had sent to the CEO’s suggestion program over a year prior. In the email the staff member explained that the current silo based model was inefficient and provided poor service. The staff member further explained that the organization needs to become more flexible and to do this it needs to develop generalists and organize around product families.

The manager was very surprised yet delighted. All I could think about was how much easier it would have been to convince management if we had only done the process walk a month earlier!