Lean Virtual Process Improvement

 Many organizations stopped their improvement activities during the pandemic.  The risk of face-to-face meetings and going to Gemba were oftentimes too great for an organization.  But other organizations were able to maintain their improvement efforts.  Even with the entirety of the team working remotely, some organizations were still able to generate improvements. With the more widespread efforts of vaccination against COVID-19, we should expect businesses to start opening their offices.  This should bode well for continuous improvement practitioners.  The timing could not be better with what appears to be a rapidly expanding economy as business and individuals get back to work to meet pent up demand. 

As we return to “normalcy” are there any lessons learned we can take from the organizations that worked remotely in applying the scientific method?  Interestingly, organizations that operate on a global footprint have been working and collaborating remotely for more than a decade.   These teams with individuals from Europe, Asia, and North America meet through one of a half dozen platforms, at some early or late time of the day to identify waste and generate solutions to their problems. 

With the large, and rapid push to remote work, many of the IT meeting platforms made great strides in enabling teams to meet.  Two of the more common solutions include Microsoft Team’s and Zoom.   Being able to see and hear all the team members at the same time and sharing documents and editing them in real-time allow improvement teams to generate solutions and write standard work.  In addition to the meeting platforms, virtual whiteboards also became more prevalent.  Microsoft Whiteboard, Scrum, and MURAL are three I have some familiarity with. 

Having personally completed virtual Value Stream Mapping and Analysis diagnostic and planning sessions, along with virtual Rapid Cycle Improvement Activities, I can attest it is possible to generate improvement in the remote environment.  Should you wish to go down this path in the future, here are some best practices I have learned:

•         I find it helpful to have someone run the applications and do the documentation, while a different person facilitates the discussion.  This means you need a two-person team to complete virtual improvement work.

•         Decide on your applications and formatting of documents before you begin. Are you going to use PowerPoint or Visio?  Are you going to use Word or Excel?  There is not right or wrong answer here, but you can waste a lot of team time if you are not clear on your documentation strategy up front.

•          8-hour meeting days are possible, but it is a grind.  Try to limit the work to three-hour or six-hour blocks with lots of breaks.  I am convinced there is such a thing as screen fatigue.

•          No one is really paying attention to the work.  People are now trained to sit in online meetings and do other work.  If you can have “cameras on” a mandatory requirement, this will go a long way in keeping people in the moment.

•          Follow the process. Do not skip steps.  You can walk through all the activities in an A3 in applying the scientific method.  It just takes longer.  Deviating from the process only leads to poor work, and spotty results.

•          Have Gemba plan.  How will you go to Gemba?  Can the people on site show a video of Gemba?  Are some team members allowed on-site to observe?  This needs to be thought through in the preparation phase as well as the event execution phase.  Not having base-line data, including direct observation data is not acceptable.  Be creative but get the data.

•          Use break-out rooms.   If your technology platform allows, leverage the use break-out rooms.  Dividing and conquering the work in a virtual environment, works the same way it does in the physical environment.  This allows the work to progress more smoothly, keeps all team members engaged, and shortens the timeline for execution.

•          Hold daily summary meetings with leadership.  Be sure to have a mechanism to remove barriers as needed both in real-time and at the end of each day.

•          The final presentation can be done virtually.  Capturing the relevant portions of the work and presentation in the A3 flow works fine virtually.

•          Have forms read to go.  Create a shared workspace like a Team’s Channel or a SharePoint site to house necessary forms.  This will save you from e-mailing items to team members during the workshops. 

•          Keep the scope a little tighter than you would meeting in person.  I find everything takes 20-20% longer in the virtual world than in person.  Keeping the scope, a little narrower, will allow you to stay on task and get done in the budgeted amount of time.

•          Have a plan for experiments.  You might not be able to test all the standard work, but you can test pieces of it. Develop a plan to incrementally test some of the change ideas to gather feedback on your solutions.  Can the experiments be monitored virtually?  Can the experiments be monitored in person by people with authorization to be in the space?  There is no need to skip the experiments portion of the scientific method. 

 With some patience and persistency, you can generate double digit improvement in performance and culture working remotely.  What have you learned about working remotely? Please add comments of for the community

    Lean Blessings,

        Ron Bercaw

        www.breakthroughhorizons.com