Outside the Box Thinking

comment on: Is Thinking Outside the Box Out of the Box Thinking?

I remember Russel Ackoff* telling a story about that 9 dots problem where his daughter shared a solution to cover the dots in 1 line. She folded the paper to the dots were all lined up and drew one line that went through all of them. The teacher said that was wrong! Great teaching about "outside the box" thinking there. But it is a great illustration that just saying "outside the box" isn't the same as adopting that mindset.

* It has been a long time, I might be be wrong but I think it was Ackoff that told that story.

Related: The Psychology of Change is Often the Trickiest Part of Process Improvement - Children are Amazingly Creative At Solving Problems - Innovation Strategy

Understanding Variation Doesn't Mean Crushing Any Variety

It doesn't follow that because Dr. Deming sought to reduce the variation that caused processes to be unreliable and that harmed customers it meant he was against variety or failed to understand the importance of variation in different contexts than the context where it caused problems. Drawing such a conclusion is just not sensible when looking at Deming's work. It is a misunderstanding that is usually caused by taking one quote and drawing poor conclusions about what that quote meant.

Dr. Deming understood the organization as a system and how understanding variation fit within that system. When variation within the system causes problems and reduces efficiency then reducing variation important. It is a mistake to attempt to take thinking that is part of a system and analyze it without understanding the context within which it has meaning. Reducing variation has a specific context within Deming's thinking and that did not mean reducing variety or reducing variation when it was useful.

W. Edwards Deming understood you didn't use the same improvement thinking every time you wanted to improve. You selected the useful management tools and concepts that fit the current situation. It is important to have a wide variety of tools and thinking to allow finding the best ways to improve different situations.

Iteration is an extremely important part of improvement efforts. Why? Because, trying a variety of ways to improve and a variety of changes to the existing conditions will lead to finding the most valuable improvements. The PDSA improvement cycle is designed specifically to introduce more variation into improvement experiments. The value of many small attempts using different tactics (introducing variation to learn what works best) is a core part of a Deming management system.

W. Edwards Deming stressed the importance of understanding psychology and appreciating how different people provided important contributions and how that variety helped the organization. You need to design systems to maximize the benefit gained due to some forms of variation.

It is a mistake to think that W. Edwards Deming didn't understand the value of variety or of variation in the right context. One must reduce the variation that is damaging to the ability of a system to deliver reliable value to customers. That doesn't mean variety and variation in other contexts are not understood to be valuable.

Related: How to Improve Your Understanding Variation and to Use Data to Improve - We Need to Understand Variation to Manage Effectively - Standardization Doesn’t Stamp Out Creativity

This is an edited comment I wrote in response to post on Linked In but since they have repeatedly broken links over the years I don't link to that site any more.

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

Iterate the PDSA Cycle Quickly to Speed Up Learning and Improvement

As you say learning is central to using the PDSA cycle. Those organizations that are most successful turn the PDSA cycle quickly and iterate. A significant part of such behavior is to intentionally design the PDSA to iterate quickly - break down PDSA cycles into smaller pieces that can quickly be iterated.

Comment on: What it Means to Turn the PDCA Cycle One More Time

Related: How To Create a Continual Improvement Culture - Using the PDSA cycle to improve management

The Value of Putting Pen to Paper

Comments on Learning by Writing… by Hand

The psychology behind the learning advantage of handwriting is starting to be understood... [Carol Holstead] "It turned out my theory was right and now is supported by research. A study published last year in Psychological Science showed that students who write out notes longhand remember conceptual information better than those who take notes on a computer."

I am also a fan of technology. And also a fan of learning and paying attention to research. Pen on paper has advantages for learning that technology has yet to equal. At the same time technology has many advantages also.

We seem to understand the advantages of using technology fairly well but under-appreciate the advantages of pen on paper. To make sure we don't lose out due to this bias we should think before we accept that pen on paper isn't worthwhile.

From a post I wrote in 2005, Measurement and Data Collection

I believe, it is better to focus on less data, really focus on it. My father, Bill Hunter, and Brain Joiner, believed in the value of actually plotting the data yourself by hand. In this day and age that is almost never done (especially in an office environment). I think doing so does add value. For one thing, it makes you select the vital few important measures to your job.

Lots of data will be kept in computers and that makes sense. But putting pen to paper has value that we too quickly dismiss.

Related: Experience Teaches Nothing Without Theory - The Illusion of Knowledge - Write it Down to Improve Learning (Ackoff)

"I Know"

What did you learn? by James Lawther:

My daughter (11) has developed another irritating habit. Whenever you say something to her she replies “I know” Your sister needs help. – “I know” We are late for school – “I know” E = MC squared – “I know” The cat is on fire – “I know”

My preferred countermeasure to the "I know" mentality is to ask a question. You can quickly learn you don't know as much as you thought you did when you try to explain what you know.

Often attempts to encourage kids along takes more energy and especially if we are wiped out by work taking more energy to engage kids and help them discover cool knew things is hard.

A strategy for kids, or executives, is to have them predict and explain their prediction and then see what actually happens. After events it is easy to say "I knew" that would happen. Predicting before they happen is often not as easy.

If the kid takes on the I know role play the kid in the soap story below or this post on naturally curious children.

Related: Encouraging Curiosity in Kids - The Education System - Sarah, aged 3, Learns About Soap