why continuous improvement programs fail – can kaizen and...

© 2012 Michael DePaoli., All Rights Reserved

Why Continuous Improvement Programs Fail – Can Kaizen and

WIP Help?

Michael DePaoliAgile/Lean Coach, cPrime

Mike.DePaoli@cPrime.com

Welcome – About your Speaker

Michael DePaoliAgile / Lean Coach, cPrime

13 Years combined Agile and Lean experience

27 Years in software industry – roles from developer to CTO,  Product Owner, Management Consultant

Specializing in helping companies craft strategies for Lean‐Agile transformation and context specific tactics leveraging systems & interdisciplinary thinking

Mike.DePaoli@cPrime.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/mdepaoli@AgileMike

“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”

W. Edwards Deming

SHARE WHAT HAS IMPEDED YOUR TEAM’S CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS?

Sailboat Innovation GameContinuous Improvement

Paradise

WHY DO CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT EFFORTS FALL SHORT?

REPORT FROM MY EXPERIENCE

o Magical Thinking

o Teams executing a PDCA cycle and forget the ‘C’

o Assumption that continuous improvement at the Team level is an innate skill

o Company Culture Doesn’t Value It…aka it doesn’t value learning

Magical Thinking

Denial

The Missing ‘C’

PD A

Does Our Process Make My Scrum Butt Look Big?

© 2012 cPrime Inc., All Rights Reserved 8

Continuous Improvement Isn’t an Innate Skill of Teams

Company Culture doesn’t value Learning hence no Continuous Improvement

Improvement in Organizations requires change of one type or

another

Why does change fail so frequently?

Because Size Matters!When it comes to change

BIG CHANGES CAN BE SCARY… CAUSE A MORE PRIMITIVE RESPONSE

OrHere’s how your role will change working within the Scrum process……

Product Manager

OUR 3 BRAINS

(AMYGDALA)

A Neuroscience Detour

BigChange

SmallChange

© 2012 Michael DePaoli., All Rights Reserved 15

Don’t Awaken The Amygdala!

Keep folks in their Neo−Cortex and rationally engaged in change

How do we enable continuous improvement without having

continuous fear…?

KAIZEN

TO MAKE BETTER

o Kaizen enables "continuous improvement”

o Kaizen deals in the small – small thoughts, actions, and rewards

o Small change avoids fear response

o Many small changes can quickly result in big change without the overhead

o Roots in TWI

WHY KAIZEN WORKS

“All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or

revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the small steps of Kaizen disarm

the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play.”

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way- Robert Maurer, PhD.

WIP LIMITS – A SMALL CHANGE WITH BIG IMPACT

This small change can have dramatic affect in improving cycle time, throughput and quality

It provides a means to enable continuous improvement

WIPLIMIT

Product Quality

Process Effectiveness

Customer Satisfaction

Social Capital

WIP can provide an immune system like response to impediments

It can free up the time for improvements and innovation to occur

Swarming Behavior on Bottlenecks

Know what you'd like to improve?

What will you measure to know that you are improving?

REVIEW We shared experience of Why continous

improvement / change efforts fall short Explored why change fails – Our brain and the

importance of the size of change Explored Kaizen Looked at introducing WIP as an Example of

Kaizen Improvement requires measurement, else how

do you know you’re improving

REFERENCES

Dan and Chip Heath, Switch, 2010

Robert Maurer, Ph.D. , One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

David J. Snowden and Mary E. Boone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making”, Harvard Business Review, 2007

Eric Ries , The Lean Startup

James Thorton, “Humans have three brains” , article posted on site “The Book of Threes -a Subject Reference Encyclopedia”

Article: http://www.threes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2472:humans-have-three-brains&catid=70:science&Itemid=52

Thank you for attending!