The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle lies at the heart of lean thinking. It arose from a need to systematically solve problems and make sure that once solved they would not arise again. I.e. PDSA is a way to make a system wide improvement.

Rooted in the scientific method, PDSA acknowledges that adults learn best by doing, and thus it encourages experimentation. The cycle is simple enough: we plan some work (which is actually a hypothesis); we do some work (run the experiment); we study the results (where we learn about the system we are experimenting against); and finally we take actions, making sure, for example, that if we’ve improved the system, we do not regress to a previous, dysfunctional state.

PDSA, because it deals in system wide improvements, is as concerned with root-causes as it is with their symptoms. An example, from the world of finance, might help.

Imagine an Accounting and Reporting department (or a similar department) within a bank. One of the accountants sees a problem with a number, tracks it back to a particular set of data within a spreadsheet, and then adds a quality check. This quality check is not a long term solution but rather a counter-measure that will enable the accountant to do their job.

Many companies stop at counter-measures, and in fact many companies have become experts at counter-measures (many companies wear this like a badge of honour, saying that they are great fire fighters). PDSA, however, asks for some much more rigorous thinking. Within a lean finance system our accountant would be asking some difficult questions:

• Why was the data corrupted in the first place?
• Who provided this data and how was it pre and/or post processed?
• If the person responsible for the data is under qualified, why? Who hired him or her? Should we change the way we hire?
• Did the data come from an external party? If so, which one?

This set of questions immediately does two things. To get answers to these questions, the accountant asking them has to cross organisational barriers. If the accountant can get answers, and implement a true fix, he or she will not only fix the data but make a system wide improvement.

Role Fixation, The Enemy Within

The example above clearly casts the role of accountant in a new light. Within the lean finance system, we see the accountant’s responsibilities extend to problem solving. And in fact, this is a specific example of a general truth. Within a lean finance system:

• The managers need to be problem mentors, guiding the problem solving process.
• The accountants need to be problem solvers.
• The business controllers need to be problem solvers.
• I.e. everyone has to become a problem solver.

Because lean asks for system wide improvements, lean initiatives can stutter because of role fixation, which limits the problem solver to their team. So, in the above example, a traditional system of finance, with its role fixation, would reward the accountant who added a quality check to his or her data. I.e. a traditional system of finance encourages counter-measures but not system wide improvements.

PDSA is a Way of Thinking

A lean finance system tells financial institutions to encourage inter-team work, it encourages, in a positive way, problem solvers to ‘stick their noses’ into other team's business. In doing this, it asks for a culture of transparency. This is why PDSA is not a set of tools but a way of thinking, a way of managing.

Can’t We Just Use the Lean Tools?

This is a question that gets asked often. My answer is always the same. You can do what you like, but don’t expect significant changes without a significant change in the way you think; a focus on tools moves the focus away from people, problem solving and dysfunctional ways of thinking.

An example may help here, too. Two years ago we heard about a financial institution that ‘went lean’. They introduced the PDSA cycle, they visualised workflow, etc. When I inquired if there had been a change in results, the answer I got was ‘no’. This is what happened:

• The 12 month plans that the company previously had were broken up and carried out as 12 one month PDSA cycles.
• The to-do lists that were previously stored in a spreadsheet were transferred to a signal board.

I.e. the company only changed the mechanism for writing down and talking about their plans. Had they really expected a radical improvement in system performance without a radical improvement in thinking? My colleague was at client last year. He told me that some teams has ‘gone lean’ but were just biding their time until the consultants left so they could return to their previous system of planning.

Why Do We Keep Get This Wrong? A Problem of Perception

In their book, Sobek II and Smalley say:

We want to get the problem taken care of and move on. At Toyota, however, the process by which the results are achieved is equally – if not more – important, and the ultimate goal is not just a problem resolved in the immediate term, but also that 1) the problem is less likely to occur in the future because the overall system is improved, and 2) the problem-solver has enhanced his or her problem-solving skills and is prepared to tackle even more challenging tasks in the future. This difference in perspectives fundamentally alters the way we see PDCA[*].

(2008, Sobek II and Smalley, Understanding A3 Thinking, Productivity Press, p. 4-5)

* PDCA stands for Plan-Do-Check-Act, which is another name for PDSA.

Many managers have heard of PDSA, but many, wrongly, assume it to be a planning tool, or a quality improvement tool, or a way to structure work. They do not realise that it asks that they become expert problems solvers, that it asks that they become coaches, and nor do they realise that it asks them to re-design their organisations to allow for inter-team cooperation. This perception of PDSA is why lean initiatives so often fail.

We Are Only Using the Tools, What Shall We Do?

I have seen a number of lean initiatives bootstrapped in a number of ways. Lean tooling can lead the curious to the lean literature. The lean literature is consistent, saying that lean is a way of thinking whose overriding structure is the PDSA cycle. Quickly these curious souls start to change how they perceive lean. From their change in thinking comes a set of new principles, and from these principles come structures. For example, a company I am helping have started to have coffee mornings that involve all departments. They have also started to train everyone in empathic listening. The reason for this is simple: to be good at cross-team problem solving you have to be good at cross-team communication. Empathic listening, with it’s focus on needs and the creation of win-win situations, is a good tool for my client to have in their lean box.

I personally think that mental models are important, and they need to be challenged, and that can best be done with a system of coaching. However, when rolling out a lean system of finance, a multi-facetted approach works well. Why not teach empathic listening at the same time as introducing the PDSA cycle? My answer, then, to those who started with tools is this: it’s OK to start with tools, just don’t neglect how you think.

Conclusion

One may perceive a book to be a great door-stop, but one would get more value from it by reading it (depending on the book, of course). It’s the same with PDSA; how we perceive the PDSA cycle will very much dictate how much value we derive from it. It’s not enough to start working in cycles and hope that everything else will fall into place. It will not. Real change in results are always precipitated by real changes in thinking.

Further Reading
This introduction to the scientific method includes a good visualisation. Harris, William, 'How the Scientific Method Works, available from: http://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/scientific-experiments/scientific-method6.htm, accessed on 10th of May, 2013.

In Man for Himself, Fromm says that psychoanalysis’s main function:

has been that of “debunking,” of demonstrating that value judgements and ethical norms are the rationalized expressions of irrational – and often unconscious – desires and fears […].

In the workplace there are processes that seem rational, but they are often born of someone’s rationalised expression of a deep fear. For example, in finance, many companies have to report to the central bank (or other regulatory bodies). The central bank is scary. One person – or maybe a collective – may create a ‘central bank coordination team’. This team uses processes to deal with requests from the central bank. Maybe the team and the processes grow but they will never add any value. The only purpose they serve is to relieve the anxiety that surrounds interacting with the central bank.

As time goes on, and as everyone gets used to the idea, the wholly irrational idea of a ‘central bank coordination team’ becomes a norm. It is never questioned. Suggest dismantling the coordination team and you will be met with hostility. (This is why lean transformations are always met with hostility – would you like to tell the central bank coordination team that their work is waste and based on a hidden fear?)

Rational Responses in Irrational Systems
There is another feature of irrationality at work. If the system is utterly irrational then an irrational response actually makes sense. For example, it’s not normal (really it’s not) to CC your boss in every email. But this is a rational response to an angry, blaming culture.

In last week’s newspaper I saw that some children in Colorado now have bullet proof backpacks. One father said of his daughter, ‘If you put it on her back, it almost covers her whole body.’ The father went onto say, ‘It was a very hard conversation to have but she knows that it's something that will keep her safe’. This is a rational response to an irrational system.

Organisational Design
It seems to me that anyone capable of understanding their own fears and desires is more likely to design a functional organisation. They say that organisational change is dependent on personal change - if a person needs to first uncover their hidden fears before going on to design their organisation, then this cliché holds.

Further Reading
'US schools weigh bulletproof uniforms: 'It's no different than a seatbelt in a car'', Roberts, The Guardian, 26^th of April, 2013. Accessed on 27^th of April, 2013. Available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/26/us-bulletproof-uniforms-gun-control.

Fromm (1947), Man For Himself: An Inquiry Into the Psychology of Ethics. My edition 1990,  Holt Paperbacks.

Continue reading →

There is an ever increasing demand on employees to perform at a higher level. Traditionally it was accepted that this demand could be met by employees spending an ever increasing amount of time in the office. The longer hours inevitably lead to exhaustion, more stress, illness and ironically a less productive work force. Organisations need to change the way they view the relationship between themselves and employees in order to create a mutually beneficial and sustainable association. An environment needs to be created that energises employees and unleashes their creativity. Continue reading →

I learnt at school, on a BBC, a computer, not surprisingly, commissioned by the BBC as part of their computer literacy drive. I was 10 at the time and, it's fair to say, that computer changed my life because 10 years later, when I enrolled on my computer science course, I had a feel for programming and that feel was enough to get me started.

In the video, the thing I most agree with is that coding teaches tenacity. For me, years of programming, at least a decade, taught me how not to give up. Now, no disrespect intended, but when I started organising, managing, etc, I found it very easy because re-jigging a team or even a helping with a cultural change is nowhere near as intellectually hard as programming a computer. I was also lucky because sharing a computer with my brother, and later a super-computer with my peers at Edinburgh University, also taught me about resource allocation. (And OSs taught me about queueing; and Boehm taught me the iteration; and parsers and compilers introduced me to Chomsky; and my second year under-grad project introduced me to Tuckman; etc.)
Enjoy the vid.

I am reading a paper entitled ‘Building Ambidexterity Into an Organization’. The paper was written by Julian Birkinshaw and Cristina Gibson and is available on-line here: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/building-ambidexterity-into-an-organization/. In the paper the authors describe ambidexterity as the ability to ‘master both adaptability and alignment’. I.e. the ability to grab new business opportunities whilst exploiting current capabilities.

Later in the paper they describe a phenomena called contextual ambidexterity. Although they identify four characteristics of ambidextrous individuals, they do say that ‘an individual’s ability to exhibit ambidexterity is facilitated (or constrained) by the organizational context in which he or she operates, so contextual ambidexterity can also be diagnosed and understood as a higher-order organizational capability’. Continue reading →

I wanted to talk today about the bedroom tax. The bedroom tax is a new policy idea from the British Government. It goes something like this: The Government provide housing benefit to lower income families. If such families have an extra bedroom, i.e. if their house is under occupied, they will lose 14% of their benefit. If they have 2 or more bedrooms they will lose 25% of their benefit. The reason for this change in rules is to save £480 million. I.e. it’s a cost cutting exercise. Ministers say those who can’t afford the reduction in benefit will be encouraged to ‘move to smaller properties’. (‘Bedroom tax will be costly disaster, says housing chief’, The Guardian, available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/30/bedroom-tax-disaster-housing-chief. Accessed on 31st of March, 2012.)

Many people who claim this benefit will live in what in England we call council houses. These are houses provided by the government via the local council. The rents on these properties are quite low. Many of these houses have two or three bedrooms. Those who live alone in a two bedroom house but who cannot afford the 14% reduction in their housing benefit can, for example, request from the council a one bedroom flat (apartment) or house. But there aren’t that many of those. What that means, then, is that those who cannot afford the 14% reduction will move into privately owned houses, whose rents are higher than the houses provided by the council. Continue reading →