Why Does Toyota Share What They Do With Others?

Comment on LinkedIn post (over the years I have lost trust LinkedIn will honor links into LinkedIn - at times they work often, over the years, they are blocked), so I am not linking to the source.

Why would Toyota allow competitors to see their plants?

"Deep down, they know that the Toyota Production System (TPS) techniques that visitors see on their tours--the kanban cards, andon cords, and quality circles--represent the surface of TPS but not its soul. Toyota isn't worried about giving away any important secrets on a plant tour."

I agree it is true that other companies are not going to copy Toyota's ideas so successfully they would put Toyota at risk.

I think more than that though those that made such decisions early on cared about making the world a better place. Some companies in the USA talk about that but very few care about it. So it is easy to think anyone saying they care about making the world a better place is just making a false claim, likely as a marketing ploy.

When Toyota started doing this the life experience of those making decisions for Toyota very clearly knew the benefits they/Toyota gained from learning from others. Those people and companies helped make Toyota more successful and helping Japan recover from the devastation of World War II. To those that experienced this, it is easy to understand putting helping others above the potential risk of losing some competitiveness by helping competitors.

I do agree those making the decisions of keep sharing what is going on in Toyota now see how little they have to fear based on decades of sharing and seeing how little others have learned and applied what they share - so they have very little to fear.

Toyota has a much bigger risk now of losing focus on what makes them special (respect for people, systems thinking, long term thinking, continual improvement...) than they do from others. By making visible many aspects of how they operate they create a system that reinforces that they continue.

Using a very simple example, it is a lot easier to keep your house clean if you have guests over frequently. If you are going to get lazy it is easier to do if you just don't let others see. If you are letting others see most of us will take care to clean better. 

This is just one tiny aspect but I think there is real benefit if you are an executive concerned about maintaining high standards that you open yourself to others. When people are thinking about just skimping on things some there is extra reason to not do so. Also constantly reinforcing your message by having it repeated to visitors over and over, it keeps those ideas top of mind. Obviously this idea is vastly oversimplifying things. But I do believe there are significant system thinking reasons that Toyota's sharing benefits them and helps keep the company focused (much less important than many other things they do but still a benefit).

Related: The Top 21 Executives at Toyota Getting a Raise to a Combined US$14.9 Million (2015) - Long Term Thinking with Respect for People - The Toyota Way – Two Pillars

Learning from Gemba Walks

comment on: What’s the Right Way to Do a Gemba Walk?

Well said. Both "treating people as individuals and showing them respect" and "learning how they wish to influence outcomes in their lives and work" are very important. I also think one of the keys that makes gemba walks valuable is for the person doing the walk truly seeking to learn; a curiosity about the nature of the work at this particular gemba seems present in those that make it a valuable process (that curiosity continues and grows it isn't satisfied on a walk instead it is stoked to encourage more learning).

Related: Deming Wanted Managers to Understand the Systems They Managed and to Visit Where the Work was Done - Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno - Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

The Management System is the Key

Comments on: Lean is All About People – Or is It?

I think there are a number of necessary conditions and without them even whatever people think is the most important don't make the difference. The interactions between the components are extremely important. Rather than the analytic view to focus on individual pieces I think the key to a good management system is a focus on the organization as a system. That requires an organization that is: customer focused, continual improving with a respect for people.

Related: How to Create a Continual Improvement Culture - Give People Enough Rope (and the Right Rope) to Achieve - Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability - Engage in Improving the Management System

Follow up comment (to another comment made on the blog):

But it doesn’t offer a very easy handle for people to grasp. The so-called lean system is actually a set of systems, quite complex when you map it out.

I agree. It is helpful to make things simple to appreciate and understand – bearing in mind of course:

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

I think too often people (in relation to management ideas) demand that things be made more simple than is possible to adequately understand the systems involved. This of course leads to problems. A huge value provided by people like Russell Ackoff is their ability to help explain what is needed in fairly simple terms. Still understanding how these ideas are being expressed in our management systems and how to apply the concepts to our management systems is still a challenge.

Good lean thinking (lean manufacturing…) efforts do a great deal to help this process. Even when they oversimplify (which I think is often) they get closer to appreciating the overall management system than nearly any other management framework. I believe it is possible to make things “more simple than possible” more effectively than other instances of making things “more simple than possible.” I think one of the big differences between the best lean efforts and the others is the increased value placed on deeper understanding and thinking systemically.

I do believe you often have to start with overly simplified explanations and concepts as you introduce management improvement concepts to new organizations. This is often done, and it is sensible. The problem I see is alms never is it understood this is what is happening and there is no effort to build the capability of the organization to grow the management system into one with people that gain a deeper understanding of the tools, skills, ideas and concepts.

Avoiding Difficult Problems

Response to: Toyota is Admired for Good Reason… But About Those Rotating Job Shifts…

Thanks for another good post. It points out that while Toyota does many things very well they have opportunities to improve. And I am sure they agree they have a huge number of things to improve.

I agree, this rotating shifts seems like something important to try and improve. One of the things that happens in many organizations is that working on things that are going to make lots of people mad are often avoided. This rotating shift work seems like something that is likely to make people upset.

Even if you worked on improving it, likely during those PDSA cycles many people would be annoyed. And if you were working on it, you could get blamed, you could be tarnished as someone people didn't like it and didn't appreciate "you doing this to them." If, on the other hand, no one is making significant efforts to improve, even if people are annoyed it is at some amorphous policy and usually doesn't stick to 1 person.

If the dis-satisfaction does accumulate toward 1 person (say the plant manager) that person then often will push through and deal with it - or assign someone to deal with it and stay on them to make sure they do the difficult work (even if doing so will make that person's life much more difficult).

Now I would hope Toyota is better managed than that and doesn't shy away from important work just because the people that would take the lead have strong reasons to avoid working on that task.

There are often so many things to improve that it isn't too hard to shift the focus away from something that no one wants to take on. Sometimes though things are so important they must be taken on. Usually those would be more direct and obvious problems. Systemic problems that cause great damage but in a less visible way (such as rotating job shifts) are less likely to be addressed.

Coping with this issue (of avoiding unpleasant, systemic and long term rather than acute problems) is one of the things that separates great corporate culture from decent or bad corporate culture.

If there are fairly obvious or fairly easy improvements those would likely be acted on. There are, rarely, but still sometimes, instances where those vocal or politically powerful individuals who would lose out in a fairly obvious improvement will prevent action.

I am pretty sure Toyota doesn't have fairly easy improvements on this issue, that they must realize is important, that they are just not getting to. I am a bit less confident that Toyota isn't avoiding trying to find solutions using a PDSA type effort because it would be really hard and risky work for whoever takes it on. Also Toyota can try to rely on the good will built up through their many efforts to expect enough employees to say that they will accept the suffering caused by this policy for the good of the everyone.

I am not convinced there are not ways to improve the situation. And I am pretty confident it is important enough to try. And I believe (though I might be wrong) with a concerted effort of knowledgable people improvements that would make a big difference in the quality of life could be achieved. I am not so certain those people involved in leading the effort would be seen in great lights though even if they "succeed." People are much more likely to remember negative consequences to them personally, even if they gain much more than they lost overall. And most will remember the effort negatively if they lost only a little but overall the gains (to the overall organization) were much bigger: in such cases many will hold onto feelings that they were harmed by those that took action.

Related: Respect for People Doesn’t Mean Avoiding Any Hint of Criticism - The Importance of Critical Thinking and Challenging Assumptions - Unpacking the Components of Hard Work to Design Better Work Conditions

People and Robots Together

Comments on: The Coming Auto Industry Battle: Toyota’s People vs. Tesla’s Robots?

Toyota's method is the best and will continue to be.

However, I believe we have reached a turning point where the effectiveness of industrial robots has greatly improved. For several decades it was pretty easy to predict wholesale adoption of the robots will save us mantra would be followed by failure. I still strongly believe Toyota's method (thoughtful use of robotics to enhance people is the best strategy). But the ease of using robots to succeed in the long term is much enhanced these days.

Robot first strategies are going to be succeeding quite a bit going forward. Yes those efforts might not be good enough when competing only with companies using the best strategy well (but that will be rare).

I wrote some about this in a recent blog post: Technological innovation brings great opportunity for improving results and our quality of life. But transforming potential benefits into real results comes with many challenges...

Essentially I see people today too dismissive of the usefulness of industrial robots. And they have past examples to point to in showing how a large commitment to robot first failed. It isn't that today robot first is the best strategy but I do believe the real world conditions have improved to make the blanket assumption that such efforts will fail as unwise.

A big part of this is that while we can simplify the argument to "robot first" or "robots helping people" it really isn't that simple. There are many reasons why today the conditions are different than they have been. Technological and software improvements are a big part of that. But also there is more thoughtful consideration of the advantages Toyota's management philosophy brings. Sadly not enough, but still companies are better today at thinking and acting as if their employees have brains than they were 30 years ago. Granted there is still a long way to go, but still progress has been made it seems to me at the macro level.

Related: GMs huge investment in robotics in the 1980s ($billions) has been an example of how pinning hopes on technology often doesn’t produce the desired results. - Toyota Develops Thought-controlled Wheelchair - Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity.

Code Software to be Robust and Easy to Update Quickly

Comment on: Correction vs Prevention in Software Development

I think both prevention and designing the software and management system so that rapid correction is possible are important. While rare events may be difficult to prevent when looking at each instance there are styles of coding that make more "edge case" failures more likely. Coding so that the system is as robust as possible is wise but you should also realize those efforts will likely not be perfect and so designing in visible notifications of failure and coding so rapid correction is possible is necessary.

In addition to the need to update quickly for bugs, software should be easy to update due to changing requirements and to aid in continual improvement efforts.

Related: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests - Software Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around - Building a System to Reduce Interruptions for Software Developers
- Use Urls: Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions

Transforming a Management Culture

Thoughts on: Where Lean Went Wrong – A Historical Perspective

I believe that companies that say they are attempting to become lean fail to do so in the most important ways. I do believe most efforts result in improvement but usually are fairly limited by the existing management system and refusal to really change much.

More than "lean failing" I would say transforming to a different management culture fails. Saying lean fails makes it seem to me that what a lean management system was in use and failed which is not really the case it doesn't seem to me.

I wrote about these ideas on my blog: Why Use Lean if So Many Fail To Do So Effectively

and discussed them in this podcast on Building Organizational Capability.

Related: Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods? - Transforming a Management System – A Case Study From the Madison Wisconsin Police Department - Culture Change Requires That Leaders Change Their Behavior - Change Management: Create a Culture Seeking Continual Improvement or Use Band-Aids?

Iterate to Continually Improve

Thoughts on: The Challenge of PDSA: Feeling Like You’ve Fallen Short

For me, this snowball was the understanding of the continuous improvement cycle, the iterative process towards ideal state or what many call “true north.” I have seen and explained the well-known visual many times; the person climbing up towards target state and, ultimately, ideal state through PDSA, only seeing ahead of them as far as the flashlight reaches.

The relationship of PDSA iterations and ideal state never really dawned on me while I was working through PDSA cycles in problem solving. The visual depicts the learner stair-stepping up through PDSA cycles, each step up the flashlight seeing further, learning more and getting closer to ideal.
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In absence of a clearly defined Target state, satisfaction with progress, pace, and incremental improvements may more times than not, leave you feeling as if you have fallen short.

Iteration and continual improvement are key. Understanding that "target state" is a temporary target is important. If a "ideal state" is too specific it can hamper innovation. This usually isn't so critical on fairly short term PDSA (except in those cases when we should look at innovation instead of improving the current process).

The PDSA process doesn't hamper innovation. But, when people set in their minds ideal states or targets that they move toward and don't see those as flexible based on new learning they can stunt innovation.

Related post: Resources for Using the PDSA Cycle to Improve Results - Continually Improving Using a Focus on Delighting Customers

The Problem Is Exacerbated by Fear of the Word Problem

Comments on What’s Another Word for “Problem”?

I think this is a wise recognition: "may need help in more areas than process improvement."

Fear is likely a part of the problem (yes problem). Such a desire to ignore problems and the word problem can also be greatly enhanced with performance appraisals systems that create a mindset that is focused on hiding potential issues that may reflect poorly on those appraisals...

The problem with the word problem is often not as simple as it may seem at first. Changing the word used may do a tiny bit of good but not much. The underlying issues that cause people to think problems are something to not acknowledge is not something solved by avoiding the word.

Related: If Your Staff Doesn’t Bring You Problems That is a Bad Sign - The Problem is Likely Not the Person Pointing Out The Problem - Is Using the Words Resources or Assets When Talking About People the Problem? - The Importance of Making Problems Visible

The Psychology of Change is Often the Trickiest Part of Process Improvement

Comments on, The Time I Volunteered at a Distillery and Couldn’t Help Doing Kaizen

It’s “Kaizen” because it made my work easier. It improved quality and consistency. I did it because I WANTED to. This is really repetitive work and not particularly skilled work. But I discovered there was a “knack” to it. Doing repetitive work allowed me to exercise my brain to do problem solving and come up with a better way.

So Then What?

I’m an individual worker, but there are others doing the same work.

An interesting thing happened... I tried sharing my discovery with other volunteers.

“Hey, can I show you something I learned about doing this?”

The general response was, “Nah, I’m doing fine… thanks, though.”

I have had a similar experience when volunteering. In my case it was primarily compiling a packet of information - very repetitive. It didn't take me long to figure out ways to improve the process. Getting people to accept changes to the process is tricky when people are unfamiliar with each other (I have found). I was tried to get my group to change but they didn't want to, but another group did so I showed them (they had overheard bits of it). At the end I think 4 of 6 groups switched (one of those that didn't was my original group).

Even once it was obvious the new way was much quicker (over twice as quick) the group that decided "no" to switching stuck with their original decision. My guess is this relates to psychology and I bet experiments would show a group that decided "no" would be among the most stubborn at sticking with the old method because they would have to accept they were reversing their original decision.

I knew it could be tricky to get people to change and I tried to present the case for change in a way that had a good chance to success originally. Even so it failed. The psychology of such efforts is usually much trickier than the process improvement. This point is actually one of the reasons creating a continual improvement culture that has respect for people at the core. When you create such a culture the psychology of change piece becomes much much easier which and as you continually improve processes the most obvious process improvements are made. If you don't create the right culture continuing the continual improvement process gets more and more difficult but if you do create the right culture it gets easier.

Related: Businesses Need to Capture Potential Information and Use the Creativity of Employees - The Importance of a Work Culture That Values and Supports Critical Thinking - Change Management: Create a Culture Seeking Continual Improvement or Use Band-Aids? - Communicating Change

The Absence of Defects Does Not Necessarily Build Business

Comment on: Saving Money vs Making Money

by saving money, we make more money – simple (and easy); anyone should be able to see that! And while this may be true for the short term, it doesn’t support any longer term growth.
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So, what do you want to do? Do you want to save money or make money?

Let me know your thoughts!

How about Deming's thoughts :-)

"No defects, no jobs. Absence of defects does not necessarily build business… Something more is required." W. Edwards Deming

Waste can be equated to defects and the sentiment is the same. I share more of my thoughts on the topic in a 2006 post: Quality and Innovation.

Related: Zero Defects Isn't the Right Goal - Customer Focus by Everyone

Deming Wanted Managers to Understand the Systems They Managed and to Visit Where the Work was Done

Comments on Deming wasn’t a fan of Management by Walking Around

Deming’s view is entrenched in Lean management practice in the form of “Genchi Genbutsu”, literally “go and see” at the “real place”. Where practitioners of Management by Walking Around merely visit the workers for a chat, practitioners of Genchi Genbutsu stay with the workers to understanding what is going on.

True, and the details you provide are important. It wasn't managers going to the gemba Deming was against. What mattered is the system. Some people did Management by Walking Around (MBWA), even decades ago, in a useful way - with understanding. But most did not.

Gemba walks are much more likely to be useful (because the expectations are for a more engaged leader) but there are plenty of times those are not done well, and are no better than bad MBWA. Jim Womack has a book out on Gemba Walks which provides good details to managers on what they should do (and what Deming wanted them to do).

Related: Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies, Go to the Gemba - Leadership and Management - Jeff Bezos Spends a Week Working in Amazon’s Kentucky Distribution Center (2009) - Customer Gemba

What is a Lean Program, Deming Program?

Thoughts in response to: Dr. Deming’s Last Interview & Jack Welch’s Thoughts on Him by Mark Graban.

Deming sure provided some great quotes in that interview; those you listed above and more (in fact I posted about one this week in To Achieve Success Focus on Improving the System Not On Individual Performance). From Mark's post:

I’m not sure what 'a Deming program' is anymore than I know what 'a Lean program' is sometimes.

This is so true. Basically organizations can be making good progress but essentially none that *have* a Deming or lean program. Toyota is sensible to consider the closest - I mean lean after all originally was just documenting Toyota and calling it lean instead of Toyota management or whatever. But Toyota does plenty of things that are not what even Toyota says how things should be done.

And beyond that lean has evolved away, IMO, from just being able to say anything Toyota does is by definition lean. Lean and Deming are more about a philosophy of managing - continual improvement, respect for people, etc. than prescriptions. So you can't really have a checklist and say that if your org can check off all these things they are lean or Deming.

The fact that the management systems can't be reduced to a checklist is a necessary given the long lasting power they offer. When you reduce the ideas for management that far (so you have a checklist of exactly what to do) you get a stupid system that can't be used for managing large systems of people. Organizations doing the best job of being worth of claims of being true to the management systems are likely to have the widest understanding of all the ways in which they are failing to live up to that vision.

I continue to think Toyota is doing a very good job. But they also have plenty of room to improve. And they continue to be tempted by becoming more like other companies instead of recommitting to the principles of lean and Deming.

Related: Rethinking or Moving Beyond Deming Often Just Means Applying More of What Dr. Deming Actually Said - Long Term Thinking with Respect for People - Deming and Software Development

A Good Management Culture Encourages the Debate of Ideas

my comments on Political Correctness Comes To Lean

Criticism is one of the ways in which knowledge advances. It is a type of thoughtful feedback (and subsequent dialogue) that helps expose blind spots, identify misunderstandings, provide alternate explanations, or uncover errors that others cannot see or are unwilling to acknowledge.

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Without criticism from others, we are unlikely to challenge our own thinking or escape the comfort of self-satisfaction. We fall prey to the confirmation bias and accept information that confirms one’s views and reject all information that does not. We also develop a love for the status quo. Criticism is rejected without consideration and attributed to people who are simply uninformed or who suffer from professional jealousies.

The outcome is blocked information flow, which is the opposite of what we seek to achieve in Lean management.

I agree with you. I put much of the blame on insecurity and mistaking respect for people with not making anyone uncomfortable. When people are insecure or unconfident they often take criticisms of ideas, plans, results, etc. as personal attacks. Then misunderstanding of don't be "dis-respectful" to people comes into play.

I have written about this several times

Respect for People Doesn’t Mean Avoiding Any Hint of Criticism

Building a Great Software Development Team, a significant part of which was hiring people that would debate ideas without becoming overly personally defensive.

And those posts link to more related posts. The retreat into criticism of ideas is dis-respectful is a real problem for management improvement. Usually there are plenty of other more severe problems, but if you are doing well and getting rid of common failures to manage the organization as a system, experiment and base decisions on data (in many ways) you are likely to reach a point where the fear of debating ideas common in the USA becomes a serious problem.

Related: What Does Respect for People Actually Mean? - Disrespecting most people in order to avoid confronting one person is not good management (or respect for people)

Ex-Toyota Manager Consulting with Porsche in 1994

Interesting article from 1994. Shock therapy for Porsche [the broken link was removed]: The prestigious German car firm was speeding to destruction, so its chief swallowed his pride and hired Japan's top consultants to improve outdated methods of production. John Eisenhammer charts the brutal remedies they prescribed at the company's plant near Stuttgart:

The results are already impressive. The production time of the new Porsche 911 Carrera has been reduced by a third, to 86 hours. That is still some way behind the best comparable Japanese time of 50 to 60 hours, but Porsche claims to be well on target. Whereas 70 per cent of Porsches three years ago required expensive rectification at the end of the production line, the proportion is now half that. Inventory levels have been reduced by 44 per cent: 7,000 square metres of shopfloor space have been freed and rented out. A worker suggestion scheme, which in the past generated fewer than 20 ideas a month, has now exploded to around 2,500

While respect for people is an important part of the Toyota Production System, the practice of former Toyota managers were often the "tough love" variety. Today, many people are often too timid, in my opinion, to call out things that need to be improved for fear of making someone uncomfortable. Where that balance properly lies though is based on the culture of the organization (and what needs to be done - occasionally there is a need to "shake people up" in order to make change take place more effectively).

In his own gruff way Mr Iwata agrees. 'We are not here to praise,' he growls. 'But there is hope for Porsche.'

Related: Early "Lean" Thinking - Pay Practices Say More About Respect for People Than Words Say - Respect for People and Understanding Psychology - Respect for Everyone Funny item from the story:

When not discussing production-line changes or conducting workshops, the Shin-Gijutsu people are ambushing staff. 'When I see one of Porsche's fine engineers, I do not say 'good morning',' grins Mr Nakao. 'I say, 'show me your hands. They must be dirty - engineers must always have oily hands'.' Used also to checking the soles of shoes worn by managers in the finance department, to see if they spend enough time walking around the factory, Mr Nakao was devastated to discover the trick did not work with Germans, who are used to resoling old shoes. 'We do not do this in Japan,' he says. 'How can I see if a man is doing his job properly if he keeps changing his soles?'

It is also illustrates that your practices need to adjust to the system. Time at the gemba is important and transfers. Your specific means of checking that might have to be adjusted.

Lean Thinking at Amazon

My comments on Michel Baudin's post discussing lean, service and Amazon:

Unlike other Shmula readers, I can't jump from this to the conclusion that Amazon are based on Six Sigma or Lean. Instead, what I hear Bezos saying is "We studied what's out there, and went our own way." And that way is a game changer in retail worldwide, worthy of study in its own right...

It is interesting to see what Amazon continues to do. I think you are right that they have learned good things and are applying them their way. Often Bezos does what I see as much more fundamental lean thinking than those that spout the term a great deal.

For example: Bezos going to the gemba, Bezos root cause analysis ... Bezos understand the weakness of traditional accounting more than most any executive (he was a Wall Street analyst), this is way more important than I ever see mentioned in what makes him, and Amazon, different.

Bezos practices long term thinking better than nearly every "lean" company (though Toyota, and some others do this very well). From this mindset many things spring - focus on long term customer value, invest in value stream (Amazon's purchase of Kiva robots for example). Willingness to go against the current fashion, being directed by Wall Street analysts what is in the businesses, etc..

There are also job announcements, over the years, looking for lean experience and expertise I have seen from Amazon (which is a clue they are interested in lean).

Making Standard Work Fun

I am not really sure the standard work shown in the video (drivers pointing to the sign in each subway station) is a great part of the process but it is an example of standard work. It just seems odd to me that it is really the best idea to have as part of the process but maybe it is. In any event it is a fun video.

Related: Why Isn’t Work Standard? - Arbitrary Rules Don’t Work - Standardized Work Instructions - Visual Instructions Example

Pilot on a Small Scale First - Good Advice We Often Ignore

Response to: Pink NFL Penalty Flags Surprisingly Cause Confusion

This is an example of why piloting new ideas is wise. The truth is we often don't pilot stuff. Many times it works out fine (and no-one mentions we didn't pilot it on a small scale). When you don't pilot and it then fails on a big scale this is the question, I think.

Were we bozos for not seeing the risk - looking back is it a pretty strong case we should have piloted.

If we often don't pilot and it works 99 times out of 100 it may be we are pretty good at knowing what needs to be piloted and excepting some failures is ok in order to get things done. Part of the decision that is critical is making sure you don't fail to pilot when it is really costly to be wrong (which is part of the decision on whether to pilot).

We can just always point to failure to pilot as the dumb thing to do when it fails. But I see that as a bit overly simplistic. Many organization don't pilot well. Getting them to do so all the time would likely stop you from doing better stuff. Getting them to do so when

1. there are likely to be be things we should learn
2. there are significant questions about how it would work
3. the costs of widespread failure are large
4. we can't consider the potential risks and make a judgement that there is likely not to be a problem

Piloting on a small scale is best. It is what I recommend and encourage. I just think seeing the failure to pilot as a cause of the widespread problem is too simplistic. Why did we fail to pilot needs to be the next question - don't stop at the failure to pilot as the root cause. From there you will nearly always discover, unless maybe you are Toyota or the Kaizen Institute or something :-) that your organization consistently fails to pilot before adopting on a wide scale. Then you need to dive into that issue...

With this particular example it seems to me one that could have been thought about rationally and a decent case that we don't need to pilot could have been made. And that illustrates that there is always a risk to implementing without piloting (there is a risk of doing it anyway including a very big one of failing to catch the problems because your pilot failed to capture some important features (for example - you didn't think of the need to pilot with pink towels... - this would be an easy mistake to make).

And it shows why thinking about pilots is important - which is another thing we often fail to do, considering how to make the pilot cover the risky scenarios that may take place. Sometimes organizations will use certain locations to pilot stuff which can be useful - you can train these locations to provide good feedback, etc.. But as soon as you make the pilot locations different than were it will be done there are risks of not catching things.

It is the interaction of variables that often creates problems which it was this time. Pink flags meet the initial criteria of being noticeable. The interaction of putting many other pink items into play (certain jerseys, towels, etc.) is what seems to be the issue.

Related: What is the Explanation Going to be if This Attempt Fails? - Accept Taking Risks, Don’t Blithely Accept Failure Though - Management is Prediction - Combinatorial Testing for Software - European Blackout: Human Error-Not

Early "Lean" Thinking

"There are some who criticize the 'early days' of the Lean movement as being too focused on tools. But, I’ve re-read a lot of the early material and this is not the case." - Mark Graban

Exactly right. It seems to me it was when the first "lean manufacturing" fad wave hit and you had lots of people (that didn't study and learn what it was really about) quickly churn out their oversimplified "lean manufacturing" cookbook tool approach. That is when the tool approach took off and because it is easy to train people on tools that has always been a popular way to sell services to companies. It is really just putting new tools into the existing management system instead of adopting new management thinking which is what the people that actually studied "lean" were doing and talking about. The tools can be helpful but it is a very limited approach to "lean" (if you can even call it that - really it should be called using a couple of lean manufacturing management tools). The initial people who studied Toyota, and other companies in Japan (mainly), understood it was a different way to manage - not just using a couple of tools.

But it was hard to figure out how to actually do it (getting management to improve is hard - it is easy to sell management some training that will "make workers better"). It was easy to offer training in setting up QC circles and how to use various tools, so much of that happened. The biggest change in the selling lean training is you no longer see people selling QC circle training, they now sell other tools.

Here are some early reports (so early it preceded the lean terms widespread use). It also means the focus hasn't already been set by the Machine that Changed the World but it is the same stuff that those that studied in 1980, 1990, 2000 or 2013 saw - it is more about respect for people and using everyone's brain than any specific tool. And these articles have a bit more focus on using statistics and data than much of lean literature today (partially because George Box and Dad were statisticians and partially, in my opinion, because current lean literature is light on using data).

Peter Scholtes report on first trip to Japan, 1986

Managing Our Way to Economic Success: Two Untapped Resources - potential information and employee creativity by William G. Hunter, 1986

How to Apply Japanese Company-Wide Quality Control in Other Countries by Kaoru Ishikawa. (November 1986).

Eliminating Complexity from Work: Improving Productivity by Enhancing Quality by F. Timothy Fuller, 1986

On Quality Practice in Japan by George Box, Raghu Kackar, Vijay Nair, Madhav Phadke, Anne Shoemaker, and C.F. Jeff Wu. (December 1987).

The early lean stuff was much like what is discussed there (though these were before the "lean" term had taken hold). These were all first published as reports at the University of Wisconsin - Madison Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement founded by my father and George Box.

While the format of the documents may be a bit annoying thankfully they are actually available, unlike so many articles supposedly meant to stimulate better management practices (look at major "associations" that don't even make articles available online without a blocking paywall preventing the articles from doing much good).

Related: Management Improvement History (2004 post) - Early History Of Management Improvement Online (2007) - Transforming With Lean (2007) "Successful management improvement is not about mindlessly applying quality/lean tools." - "The tools are very helpful but the change in mindset is critical. Without the change in the way business is viewed the tools may be able to help but often can prove of limited value." (2006) - Lean Thinking and Management (2006) - From lean tools to lean management by Jim Womack, 2006 - I would link to the original article but it is gone :-(

Mistake Proofing and Mistake Making Less Easy

For my own thinking I think of "mistake proofing" as best and different from "mistake making less easy" (visual indications of a problem for example, but no physical block to making the mistake). And I don't think of "mistake proofing" as different for person v. a machine.

But in communicating with others I have to be much more verbose as the understanding of what poka-yoke means doesn't fit the understanding I have in my head. Making it harder to make mistakes and making mistakes that are made more visible is good. Preventing them is even better.

Reaction to: Yet Another Post About Poka-Yoke

I discuss these ideas in my book: Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability