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Is Iowa the only state with a concerted, identified effort to improved quality, cost, and service, even having a “Lean Day Proclomation”?  Just read a post from Jamie Flinchbaugh on Mark Graban’s blog.  Jamie will be speaking at the Lean Government Exchange in June in Des Moines, IA.  Glad to see Iowa government continuing to be a leader in this arena.  I’m starting to develop a fire for what I can do to contribute to the application of lean in both government and healthcare, because I see huge opportunities to improve quality and cost in these arenas.  Glad to see my friends at PDG Consultants as a primary contributor to the event as well.

Some of the results of the lean efforts in Iowa Government can be found here.

Seems to me that “Depression 2.0” never happened, and probably isn’t likely to.

On the Forbes DigitalRules blog, Twenty Reasons for Optimism.

On the Value Acceleration blog, Mitch has noticed busy airports and cities.

And what’s fueling the turn around?  Innovative people like Jeremy Parker, who’s story is told on Mark Cuban’s blog.

I like Tom Peters’ synopsis:

Oracle and Methodist got me thinking about how much is working and moving in the U.S. economy, though you sure as hell wouldn’t know it from the press and its pundits—or the President’s schedule-of-gloom.

We are getting the tar beaten out of us, to be sure, but the "American narrative," circa 2009, does not begin and end on Wall Street and/or Detroit.

Pick up the ball and run with it, small businesses and entrepreneurs!  Yeah, I know Oracle and Houston’s Methodist Hospital aren’t exactly small businesses, but it seems that small businesses and startups fuel growth, and grow themselves.

Anyone else notice things picking up?  I know I’m plenty busy.

(side note: I’m calling this “a” Friday roundup as opposed to “the” Friday roundup, because it would only be “the” Friday roundup if I did it all the time.  But I’ve only done it one other time.)

Dan Roam of "The Back of the Napkin Blog" discusses a new book on his blog called Problem Solving 101 by Ken Watanabe.  The book was originally written in Japanese, but after great success in Japan there is now an English version selling in the US.  Here’s a brief snippet from the book’s web site:

Problem Solving 101 started out as a simple guide to teach Japanese schoolchildren critical thinking skills. But it quickly became an adult bestseller, thanks to the powerful effectiveness of Ken Watanabe’s problem solving methods.

I have not read the book yet, but the web site provides some sample videos on basic problem solving techniques which could be applied not only by the Japanese schoolchildren, but certainly any organization looking to improve/establish/teach methods to improve their operations.

All of this reminds me of one of my favorite Saturday Night Live segments from Weekend Update, which featured "financial expert" Oscar Rogers and his analysis on how to correct the economic crisis.  While his process is humorous given the enormity of the problem, there certainly is validity to his process.  Here’s what he had to say, followed by the clip from Hulu.  Enjoy!

"Take it one step at time.  Identify the problem.  FIX IT!  Identify another problem.  FIX IT!  Repeat as necessary until it’s all FIXED!" -Oscar Rogers

This post was inspired by my wife and "On being nimble versus visionary" over at the Learning About Lean blog.

Now is certainly a time in the business environment to be flexible.  To be adaptable.  To grab opportunity when others sit back and watch.  And the airport shuttle guy in the airport in Mexico was the ultimate example of this.  Here’s how the conversation went:

Me, looking for flight arrival information because we are waiting for passengers on another flight, approaching a man who is clearly affiliated with a shuttle service to take people to hotels:  "Where could we find flight information?"

Him, determining that my needs don’t directly match his services, but realizing there may be an opportunity for a different business opportunity to occur: "Where would you like to fly to?"

Wow.  In a span of about 2 seconds this man determined that although I wasn’t looking for his driving services I had created a market for him to provide other services and he immediately switched his business model to "I am now a travel agent"!  It would have been interesting to see if I had carried that conversation farther how he would have met that set of needs.

As referenced by the "On being nimble versus visionary" blog entry, a financial manager made this comment in an email:

"We stand resolved that the ability to react is now more important than the ability to predict."

The service provider in Mexico certainly realized this.  Without being able to predict what market needs might be walking off the airplane, he was ready to react and grab opportunity.

And this doesn’t have to be limited to small organizations (i.e. the Mexico shuttle service).  Zappos.com has numerous stories of delivery exceptional customer service outside of their "core" competency of providing shoes.  Here’s just one where people called customer service looking for the closest pizza delivery service!

Photo credit, Emery Way

About to go on a rant…a rant about marketing speak.  I guess this isn’t the first time I’ve done this.  I guess what is probably frustrating for me is that seemingly a lot of people swoon and end up in a trance at the horse and pony show a lot of companies produce.  "Yes, oh great company [read, marketing organization], I do need a real-time collaborative knowledge management portal…I’ve never used those phrase in my life until now, but I’m sure I need that."  You know what?  What people really need are easy-to-use tools that provide information that people can take action on and make improvements to their organizations.  Maybe I’m just too pragmatic in my approach.

Unfortunately, I think too many people pour money into things that don’t actually solve the problems that they have in the first place, or that will really deliver the business results that they need.  [Side bar: I guess I’m guilty sometimes, too…I almost made the plunge into a time-share that we could not realistically taken advantage of…but they key is: almost.]  Scott Whitlock has an example (if his blog hasn’t moved yet) about pouring good money after bad.

The VP at one of my clients tells a great story every time I bring other potential clients in to see there company.  "Give me the $2 million you were to spend on the ERP package you were going to buy, I’ll kick you in the shins because that’s how implementation would have felt, and then go buy Thrive instead."   (for obvious reasons I’m a little biased in why I like this quote).  While blunt, his point is of course that unfortunately many organizations do fall for the lure the dressed-up sales speak thrown around big systems.  Of course, we all know how Kevin Meyer feels about this as well.

I have a lot of feelings about ERPs, but here’s my current favorite visual about enterprise applications (from Go Big Always):

So what do people need?  Well let’s start with why in the world would you collect data to begin with?  People want to know where the problems are.  We need to know that something went wrong (or that things are going well).  We need feedback.  We need to know where the opportunities lie.  And then people want to be able to manage the process of improvement and see results later that they did indeed reach the desired target.

I guess if you do this through integrated and browser-based portal rationalization systems that non-intrusively collect data from disparate sources and provide real-time, resource multiplying, supply chain enhancing solutions, then more power to you.

"We’re cutting R & D."

"We have money right now, we’re just not spending any of it." (something I heard from a potential client of mine in the last few months)

A VP I was speaking to at a large manufacturer said a mistake their organization made in 2001 was to not invest capital in the future, and they’re still recovering from that.

A client of mine I spoke to last week said a company he used to work for cut back spending in R & D about 10 years ago and never recovered from decision.

Mark Perry says recovery is on its way:

But I hope that if people hear this news, that they’re not just waiting for it to happen.  Recovery requires action, which won’t happen in the form of a handout.  And there’s no better time to take action than during a down economy.

Get back to work.

Was reading Jim Womack’s latest newsletter yesterday from LEI (linked newsletter content is blank right now, there was a snafu sending out email newsletter also, will probably be fixed later).  In it he discusses the challenge of developing lean leaders, both in the “real world” and through the education system.

Where do the lean managers (the Sandersons in John’s book) come from who can teach the rest of us traditional managers (the Porters) to manage in a new way? In sum, how do we all learn (or relearn) to manage so we can manage to learn? Books are a great start, but how do we learn through practice (the only real way to internalize new methods), particularly when our boss is stuck in outmoded ways of managing?

It really got me thinking about how I learn, and when I have done my best learning.  When have I gotten the most VALUE in my learning process?  In some respects, I think of my best learning as the “trial by fire” method of learning.  I learn best when pressure demands that I learn something new.  I consider myself to be a lifelong student–I love learning and I’m always doing it.  But no longer in a classroom.  Enter…

Just-In-Time Education

Today, I don’t learn something unless I need it.  As soon as I need new information (customer demand), I find a way to get it (through suppliers, like the Internet, books, friends, etc.).  This provides me with the highest value possible out of what I’m learning.  What does this eliminate?

• Overproduction/obsolescence: I no longer learn things that “expire” or I never use.  I would guess that probably 99% of what I learned in college I no longer use (or have never used, for that matter).  This isn’t necessarily a problem with the education system as much as it is a statement on: I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up!  Now I learn things relevant to the task or situation at hand.
• Rework: ever learned something, only to have to learn it again when you actually needed it?
• Inventories: having a ton of information just sitting around in your head taking up space.
• Extraneous “motion”: spending a whole lot of time learning things that are providing value to me as the “end product”.  I was a great test-taker.  I’m not saying this to brag, the reality is I could apply formulas to situations on a piece of paper and get a correct result.  But I didn’t understand squat about how this formula had any bearing on reality.

Womack discusses the shift in lean education from “batching education”, which I’m sure causes the afore-mentioned problems for other people also, to developing lean leaders:

Peter has converted a classroom-based program teaching abstract operations knowledge in big batches into a gemba-based learning process in an organizational context.

How do other people do their best learning?

What?!  Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a stretch.  But bear with me.  Maybe I was desperately searching for a way to include this cool video, but if nothing else, you’ll get to see a really cool video.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

In lean manufacturing, people talk about "lowering the water level" by minimizing inventory.  This exposes the "rocks" of waste that exist on the shop floor.  You know who they are.  There are seven, right?  Oh wait, is it eight now?  Is it TOM D WIP or WORM PITT, TIMWOOD, or DOTWIMP?  I think And when your ship "S.S. Operations" starts encountering those rocks, it hurts!

But it’s all about risk/reward.  So you lower your inventory levels.  It may feel like greater risk because you’ll expose quality problems, excessive transportation, rework labor.  But the rewards can be so much greater.  Increase profitability.  Increase customer satisfaction.  Take market share.

The wingsuit base jumpers could ride safely away from the shear cliffs.  But where’s the reward in that?  They have chosen to decrease the space between them and problems, and have increased the reward of having a significantly better experience.

Not the best analogy?  Okay.  Whatever.  Enjoy the video.

John Shook at Lean Enterprise Institute says lean is "just what the doctor ordered" for 2009 and is hoping for a better year.

Brian Buck expects creativity and innovation to arrive on the scene.

Jon Miller talks about how Tom Vilsack might bring lean to the federal level (hooray!).

Kevin Meyer suggests Toyota could use some of its lean knowledge to energize the rest of the automotive industry.

In the lean software arena, "Mastering the Recession with Lean, Agile, and Scrum."

And have you seen all the lean people that are now on Twitter?  Brian Buck and I surmised it must be some kind of New Year’s resolution.  Regardless the cause, there’s any obvious effort to get the word out about the value of lean, and Twitter is another tool to spread the word.  Here are the lean tweeps I’m currently following (I’m sure there are more): @brianbuck, @evanjmiller, @GembaPantaRei, @gerrykirk, @giladl, @GotBoondoggle, @leanblog, @lssacademy, @matthewemay, @mglombard, @Paulflevy, @RalfLippold, @Rwilliard, @shmula, @superfactory, UPDATE: @lizguthridge

If you aren’t creating value for customers…if you aren’t eliminating waste…if you aren’t respecting your people, this won’t be your year.  This is true now more than ever, as consumers and business get more picky about where they’re going to put their resources, and as the personal savings rate has actually gone up (this is a good thing since it had gone negative, but indicates spending will be tighter!).

Don’t think lean is drawing attention?  Check out the search terms people are using lately.  This is drawn from the Google Keyword Search Tool.  I just checked out "lean manufacturing" as an example.  In the month of December, there was an 18% increase in the interest in the term "lean manufacturing" over the average of the previous 12 months (the totals of the entire result set were 109,459 for December versus 92,808 for the average).

And this is just the term "lean manufacturing".  What about all of the other arenas like healthcare, software, and others?  Even just the term "lean" has a WHOPPING 50% increase (2,740,000 for December versus 1,830,000 prior 12-month average).  Granted, "lean" in this case might include people looking to improve their physical fitness, but regardless this is a huge jump.

Where are people conducting these searches?  For that info, check out this cool tool.  It gives you a "heat map" of where these searches are being conducted (US data only).

Principles that started in manufacturing have spread to so many different arenas.  And why not?  Look at how Tom and Mary Poppendieck describe the principles within software development:

The seven principles of Lean Software development are:

• Respect people
• Eliminate waste
• Defer commitment
• Create knowledge
• Deliver fast
• Build quality in
• Optimize the whole

Sound familiar?  Manufacturing, healthcare, education, services, construction, government, and software development have all found how valuable these principles are.  Granted the tools and practices probably look different from one to the next, but the principles are constant.

(side note…I’m now going to use the phrase "deferring commitment" instead of "procrastinating"…it sounds a lot better! )

Maybe we should organize a big "lean-fest" or lean tweetup to exchange ideas across industries and share best (or better, as some are now saying) practices (maybe the Lean Global Network is already doing this?).  A nice, central-US location might be nice.  Say…Pella, Iowa (street view from Google Maps)?

Hopefully making for some more useful conversation, I’m starting to find some more lean people on Twitter.  I’m starting to connect with people around the world that I otherwise would never meet.  Here they are in no particular order:

• Mark Graban: http://twitter.com/leanblog.  His focus is on healthcare and you can also read his blog here: http://www.leanblog.org
• Ron Pereira: http://twitter.com/lssacademy.  He’s on the manufacturing side of things and also covers six sigma.  Keep up with him here: http://lssacademy.com.
• Michael Lombard: http://twitter.com/mglombard.  His interests are in both lean manufacturing and green building.  He’s also active on http://www.thegreeniuses.com.
• Gilad Langer: http://twitter.com/giladl.  He’s into manufacturing.  His blog is here: http://manufacturingintelligence.blogspot.com/.
• Gerry Kirk: http://twitter.com/gerrykirk.  He keeps the discussion going on lean’s use within software development.
• Paul Levy: http://twitter.com/Paulflevy.  Another lean person in the healthcare world.  He keeps a blog going here: http://www.runningahospital.blogspot.com/.

Are there more?  I’m sure they’re out there.  We could get some groups going…would really like to do this on FriendFeed though (see below).

I can be found here: http://twitter.com/scottsorheim.  I try to stay on the manufacturing side of things, but am generally interested in all things lean.  I, of course, develop software (primarily for manufacturing, but even that scope has crept a bit) and am interested in what’s happening in that arena as well.

What I’d really like to get going, though, is some more active participation on http://friendfeed.com.  I think it’s a much better place to share information and have conversations.  Maybe there’s already some lean stuff happening there, and I’m just not aware of it?  Please let me know if that’s the case.  I’m here: http://friendfeed.com/scottsorheim.