LEAN and Lego

About 18 months ago we set up our Process Improvement Unit, which has done some great work looking at a number of processes across the University. There's some case studies of completed projects here,  and a list of projects currently being worked on here.  As well as carrying out process improvement events, the team also have a training and awareness remit, and today I attended a morning session on process improvement awareness together with other staff from across CiCS. It was for people not directly involved in process improvement events, but for those who might be sponsors, or have members of their team involved. With process being an estimated 90% of what the University does, it's vital that we take process improvement seriously.

One of the tools the team uses is LEAN, and we had a quick look at the history of it  - it came from Toyota who saw what Ford were doing in the US in car manufacturing, and decided to improve it!  there are two main pillars in this model of process improvement - respect for people (if the end result is worse for the people involved, or customer service is worse, than people will not participate again), and continuous improvement (constantly thinking about how to do things better)  - they have to go hand in hand.

We looked in more detail about a couple of imporantt concepts - value and waste. In summary, every part of a process has to add value, and waste has to be eliminated. Well explained here.

And then - a practical exercise - building things with lego.  Ziggurats to be precise. I can't give too much away, but a great demonstration using production line techniques of many LEAN principles.


I was Queen, of course, and was pleased that by round three, I had plenty of Ziggurats coming my way!


Very enjoyable and informative day.

Processes, PSE and Peregrines

Service Strategy Board yesterday and first up was an update from our Process Improvement Unit (PIU) which was set up almost a year ago. A number of big projects have been undertaken, and some impressive improvements made to processes. Changing the way we deal with paying casual workers for example has led to work taking a day a month to an hour a month in some departments. There's a number of new projects on the way, and these are prioritised on the basis of the ease of the project, its likelihood of success, and its importance to the institution (bearing in mind the institution’s KPI’s).  The unit is also embarking on more training, both in using LEAN techniques, and awareness raising of what it means to be involved in a process improvement event. The latter is especially important for managers who need to be aware of what they and their staff are committing to.

Other key issues coming up from the service managers included MOOCs, technology-enhanced feedback, changes to research infrastructure, the new portal, exiting from our collaboration environment uSpace, and improvements to our network infrastructure. We are about to launch an open day mobile app, we're looking at mobile SAP apps, and piloting printing from mobiles, so lots of mobile developments. We're also looking at improving our service management reporting to include actions arising from incident reviews. A full agenda, and a productive meeting.

This afternoon we had a meeting of the Professional Service Executive - the Directors of all of the professional services. This also started with an update from PIU, and an interesting discussion which touched on the importance of system development in some areas of process improvement and how we prioritise this alongside our other work. We also discussed the planning process, our risk register and the University's new HR strategy currently being developed. We also got an update on the work of our Development, Alumni Relations and Events office. It's about friend raising as much as fund raising, showcasing what we do and building our reputation. Of course, fund raising is vitally important, both in supporting our students and in supporting our research.

Also today  -  important news - two of the peregrine chicks managed to exercise their wings enough to get to the top of the nest platform. They'll be flying in a couple of days I think!

There's a little story about them and a few more pictures over at the other blog.

Research SAG and Process improvements

This morning I went to our Research and Innovation Service Advisory Group. Made up of researchers from across the Faculties and from Professional Services research support areas,  it is one of  number of SAGs supporting our different service areas. The SAGs act as a channel for connecting our services and developments  with the relevant areas of the University, and they help us collect user requirements and agreement about services, service levels and priorities.

This morning we had a really productive discussion around service levels, response times and where different research services should sit in the critical, high, medium or low priority matrix. Very pleasing to see a group categorise services as mainly medium, no critical, and very few high. very realistic and helps us enormously. We discussed storage of research data at length, and what advice we should be giving researchers on where to store data - preferably not on a pile of hard drives on their desks, or a small server underneath it! The staff survey we did recently had some comments in about both research computing (which people are generally happy with), and some of the support systems, which many people aren't.  There's some work to do on either improving the user interface, or changing the way our costing system is used so that only experienced admin staff use it, not PIs who maybe use it infrequently and therefore find it difficult to use.

Yesterday I went to a presentation on a recent Rapid Improvement Event facilitated by our Process Improvement Unit, looking at the student "Change of Status" form.Now, that might not sound too exciting, but it's an important event for a student - withdrawing, changing course, taking leave of absence - a possibly life changing event. And to achieve this, it was taking up to 200 hours per form over 8 days - and the 8 days could be spread over several weeks. So, the process was not fit for purpose, the event identified where the waste was, and got rid of it. The process was pulled apart, and a new one built. That sounds easy, but it isn't. I was really pleased to see that the team was taking a pragmatic approach, looking at fixing the paper based process very quickly, with a fully digital, workflow based process to come later. If you wait for all of the system based things to be improved before you change anything, then nothing will happen. So, with no system enhancements at all just process improvements, they've reduced processing time by at least half, and seriously improved the experience for students.  Well done to all involved.

Photos and processes

As part of our drive to simplify and standardise processes to improve our services, we set up a Process Improvement Unit last year. Yesterday we had a Steering Group meeting, chaired by the VC, where we looked progress so far. Lots of things being worked on, including a number of student related things - change of status forms, fee waivers, UKBA issues and helpdesk referrals in the IC.  There's some quick wins we think we can get by improving the speed and efficiency of processes, which in turn will improve services and free up resources. There's also some big projects we need to work on, and one of the things to come out of many different discussions is the critical nature of course data in our student system. It is used by so many different processes, and has to be right. It's curated and input by a number of different areas, and it isn't always as accurate as it might be. So, historically we have found ways round it, but we can't continue to do so - this is something major that we have to put right. Lots of other exciting things to be worked on, including helping departments across the University to think about and improve their processes. We're hoping for a step change in culture!

Also yesterday we visited our colleagues in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health for a Strategic Liaison meeting, where one of the main topics of discussion was eLearning. On-line assessment, distance learning, ePortfolios, learning technology - all important topics for them, and we talked about how we could help. We also touched on MOOCs, but more of that in a couple of weeks.

And if you're wondering about the pictures in this post....

When we moved into our new building we were faced with a lot of blank corridor space, so we asked our staff  to submit photos which could be blown up. printed and displayed, and the first set has just gone up. The quality was excellent - please don't take the quality of these photos as indicative - I've just walked down the corridor with my iPhone :-)  Unfortunately some didn't have a high enough resolution to be blown up to the required size, but we'll be doing it again soon. And to avoid accusations of favouritism, these are just the ones nearest to my office! It's really brightened the place up, well done folks.

Business Process Management Practices in Education

Gartner's definition of BPM is a management discipline that treats processes as assets that directly contribute to enterprise performance by driving operational excellence and agility.

Businesses tend to look at markets, products and functions, and often miss processes. But, that is the main work that we do. Processes create value. Often taken for granted. Often not seen end to end. Often hidden in applications, tasks or overlapping practices. Increasingly unstructured and unautomated. Often no ownership end to end.

Many barriers, functional barriers, and hierarchical barriers, lead to management blind spots.

We're not very mature as a sector in dealing with BPM.

Some benefits from BPM include increased agility, faster delivery time ( good BPM projects are less than 4 months) and increased customer satisfaction. BPM is also a source of competitive advantage. In IT, BPM can reduce the "running the business" costs.

How to get started in BPM. Consider the 3 Cs.
Competence, (eg have to be good at change management)
Confidence
Credibility

Most BPM projects driven out of IT departments because we already look across different departmental silos, and we're used to thinking about processes.

Start with small proof of concept. Then do another, and another. Each time, you're building a business case for your next BPM project. Keep staff numbers small. Projects should be low impact and low risk to start with, and not in IT in order to get credibility. Has to be something the business cares about, eg staff recruitment or induction. Stopping doing stuff is a valid part of the process.

Then, step up to high impact, high visibility projects. Eg Customer facing, large scope.

BPM is about change management, a core element of which is communication. So, you need to communicate what you're doing. Has to be relevant, compelling and repeatable. Make it business focused. Communicate your success. If you can't do it, the BPM programme will die. Has to be at least quarterly. Tailor the comms to different audiences. Make sure you get the "what's in it for me" messages. These will be different for different staff. Eg for execs, will it improve business performance?
For line manager, will it help me achieve management goals?
For workers, will it make my job better?

Develop your key objectives. Eg, improve customer satisfaction to 90% by September 2013. Must be hard, tactical and impactful. Need metrics, and the most important of these is a baseline.

Some common failures:
BPM project costs are more than the benefits
Endless analysis and no results, mapping current processes instead of improving anything
Rushing to a solution, deploying a technical solution that increased transaction time.

Successful implementations require:
Business driven projects
Visible projects, killer processes
Projects with strong cost savings element.
Ongoing engagement of subject matter experts
Gain trust of employees
Strong partnership with IT
Frequent reviews of quality
Iterative and rapid process development process
Utilising trial and error approach. Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Excellent session, and lots for our new LEAN unit to think about.


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LEAN and Mean

I've posted before about how we've been looking at ways of engaging with the efficiency agenda, and in particular simplifying and standardising business processes. The main methodology we've looked at is LEAN, and following two successful pilots, the University has agreed to set up a process improvement unit which will use LEAN as the main, but not the only, technique to really make a difference to our processes. The aim will be to reduce waste, to simplify, to remove blockages, to speed things up and generally find solutions to problems.

The unit will be based in our department, CiCS, but will have a University wide remit and will sit outside of the current management structure. By basing it in CiCS, it will have the support of all the current good practice we have in business process analysis and improvement. Also, many of the solutions will require some sort of IT intervention so it makes sense for us to keep an eye on resources and priorities.

There will be two facilitator/coordinator posts, one of which is about to be advertised, and a supporting clerical officer. This is an exciting time, I'm looking forward to it really making a difference.


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Shame it's just too late for the Oscars...

Had another of our coffee and cake meetings yesterday where we meet a random group of staff for – coffee and cake! Of course we talk about things as well – no topics are off limits – and yesterday we talked about LEAN and how the setting up of a small unit to take it forward is going to work, how we foster and support innovation, and some practical stuff like our imminent move to a new building.

I also spent some time yesterday looking a draft of our revised Research Support Strategy. More on that later when it’s been to our Research and Innovation Strategic Advisory Group for comment.

Today I’ve been working with another University, helping them review their IT Strategy - always interesting looking at what other places do, and always informative as you can learn as well as input to the discussion.

Finally, some congratulations to our Teaching Technologies Team who under cover of darkness the other night produced and edited a great film of the light show on our Arts Tower which was officially opened last night after a £36m refurbishment.

Releasing CRABs

This week we had a Service Strategy Board, where looked at a release management policy. "Releases" can come form several different sources - projects, internal pieces of work which aren't projects, and supplier driven releases, such as upgrades or new feature implementations.  Currently we don't have a formal release policy which is consistent across all three different types, although we do have a good "go live" checklist as part of our project management process. So, we've now agreed to have a formal release policy for all three types, which we are combining with change management - our Change Advisory Board (CAB) in effect becoming a Change and Release Advisory Board (CRAB).  To keep it manageable it will be as lightweight as possible, and only apply to significant releases.  One of the issues we looked at was how this links with process change, as many projects involve changes to organisational processes, which may or may not be coincidental with the release. Often these processes are not owned by CiCS, so this is an area for further discussion.

Talking of processes, we're moving ahead with our implementation of LEAN,  and have the go ahead to set up a small unit which will be based in CiCS. A Steering Group will help us prioritise and monitor progress, and we're gong to move on this as soon as possible.  Exciting stuff!

I've also had a meeting this week with the CEO of Yorkshire Universities about the possibly of talking to their Executive Management Group about Shared Services next month, which I have agreed to do. The plan will be to get them talking about the possibility of sharing services, and what opportunities there are.  Just looked at the membership of the group and spotted University of Lincoln in there. Didn't know Yorkshire had taken over Lincolnshire.....

Back to a New Year

Happy New Year everyone - hope you all had a good break, and are raring to go with this brand new year!  Sorry for slight delay in blogging - have been struck dumb (literally for most of yesterday), with a cold and sore throat. Oh well, first I've had this winter so can't complain.

So, what's been happening since we came back? We've had a good  meeting on how we're going to develop our new portal - so much has changed since we came up with the specification over a year ago (we put the project on hold to concentrate on our Enquirer and Applicant portal), that it needs revisiting. Portal technologies have changed, and we now have Google apps, which change the way we deliver some services. More discussions over the next week or two, and some investigaing to do about how things like iGoogle might integrate with our single sign on, before we come up with anything concrete.

Exciting meeting today with our University Executive Board discussing our response to the Diamond Report on Modernisation and Efficiency. There's a number of projects already taking forward some of the recommendations including a review of procurement and the introduction of a managed staff printing service, but I have been keen that we introduce a structured approach to business process review and service improvement, embedding it into the University culture.  We've been investigating Lean, and today we presented our proposals to set up a small team to take this forward, and I'm pleased to say they were approved. Our focus will not be on just cost savings, but realignment of resources to better support the University's objectives, improving services to staff and students, and simplifying processes, especially those large complex ones which often  interface between professional service and academic departments. Watch this space!

Also this week we've considered the Woolf Report into LSE's relationship with Libya. It's a very comprehensive report, and contains a number of recommendations around the ethics of universities accepting donations. It raises a number of issues about due diligence which I suspect many Universities are now considering.

And finally, I got the report from the IiP assessor who recently reviewed the department - we reached the standard in all areas, and had many areas of good practice highlighted. One or two areas for development identified, but on the whole it was excellent - obviously a lot of good work going on in the department - well done everyone.

Tablet news

Last week we had the second of our LEAN Rapid Improvement Events - another 5 days of people from all areas of the University locked (well not quite) in a room together, looking at a probleme and coming up with a solution. This time it was the way we maintain and manage our regulation on-line. Currently it takes a huge amount of effort in academic departments and in central ones, the process is complicated, and the data isn't always data timely or accurate. And yet this data is vital for so many of our student related processes - module choice, registration and timetabling for example. I was pleased to go up on Friday afternoon and have a presentation on a revised process which will simplify matters enormously, reduce the time taken and improve the accuracy of data. Great work by everyone on what has been a problem for the University for many years. Now we just need to put it into practice!

And in other news.....

Today sees the publication of our newsletter, myCiCSnews, which can be downloaded as a pdf from here.  There's articles on learning technologies, research on the campus compute cloud, information security, and many more.
For the first time we've made it available in a tablet version, which works really well on iPads and other tablets,  and includes embedded video etc. Click here to view.  Both versions look great, thanks to some fine work on the content and design.

Shares in post-it notes anyone?

A fairly major event took place all of last week for those staff involved in registering students - we had our first LEAN Rapid Improvement Event.  Facilitated by the excellent LEAN Unit at St Andrews, we were particularly looking at how students get registered for a computer account and issued with a UCard. Staff from many different areas of the University took part over the 5 days - from CiCS, Student Services, Student Union, Institute for Lifelong Learning, Medicine - and I'm sure there were more I've missed.  I wasnt there, but have reports back that it was an excellent event - hard work for everyone involved who had to completely and in detail map out current processes, uncovering many things along the way, including how many different "statuses" we have for our students:

Also how the process which was originally degined for undergraduate students arriving in September, didn't fit other students - part time, postgraduate etc. Then come up with actions to radically change and improve the process.

Lots of hard work involved, and I'd like to thank everyone who took part - especially under the pressure of the stop clock! Of course, the really hard part starts now, as we have to make the changes that the group came up with.

We've got a second event coming up in December, and hopefully we can then persuade the University to get LEAN established to radically improve and streamline processes across the University.

One of the other things I missed was our departmental meeting yesterday. Normally I am there, but due in part to the lack of public transport from a small North Yorkshire town on a Sunday which meant I couldn't get back from a weekend away until yesterday, I couldn't be there. So, instead I decided to use some of the technology we use in Teaching to give my report - we use Echo 360 for lecture capture across the University, and I have a version for personal capture installed on my mac on my desk. So, I used that. Apart from forgetting to look at the camera rather than the screen, I don't think it was too bad, and I'm going to use it now for recording other short messages which will probably go on here. For anyone who missed it, or wants to look at the technology, it's here.

LEAN BBQs

Exciting day yesterday as we began our journey to becoming LEAN. And no, I don't mean a mass diet. We're using some excellent help from the St Andrew's LEAN unit to help us understand the way it works, and we're running through two different processes - Maintenance of programme regulations and student computer account registration. Hopefully after that we'll be able to demonstrate the benefit to the University and get some commitment to take it further forward.

This morning we had an interesting telephone call with a Gartner analyst about introducing release management into our cycle and that led to a discussion about how some of our processes including change management and project management fit together. Lots to think about.

I'm also involved in planning a session for our Internal Communications Network on using social media  - looking at the pros and cons of using blogs, Twitter etc in a work setting. I have plenty of examples of both, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

And today is our departmental BBQ - the last one in the picturesque setting of our car park. Hopefully by this time next year we'll be in our new building with a proper garden with grass and everything. Off to chop salads now, but expect photos here later.

Standardisation vs Diversity

As we sit and wait (and wait....) for the White Paper on Higher Education, I thought I'd write this to pass the time, and stop me reading the hilarious #HEWhitePaper tweets. Suspect I'm not going to be quite as amused by the real thing.....

This morning I briefed our University Executive Board on the work of the UUK Efficiency and Modernisation Task Force which I'm a member of. Gave them some context to the setting up of the group - the changing economic context, the pressure on finances, broader public sector developments (eg work of the Efficiency Reform group under Ian Watmore), increasing competition within tighter resouce contratints, and last but certainly not least, the belief in BIS that the University sector is really, and I mean really, inefficient.

So, the group has focused on effectiveness, quality and efficiency, and looked at evidence from a number of sources.  Evidence from the private and public sectors is that simplification and standardisation of processes is the most important starting point to achieving efficiency savings. The other important factor is understanding the cost of services - you need to know this to decide where to focus your activities and to know how much you're likely to save.  Then of course there is the level of  - and this is a word used in discssions within the group - mandation. This is a real word, but actually means to memorise a seech, not to mandate, which is the context in which it has been used. Anyway, that aside, its not a popular concept in Universities, but successful efficiency initiatives in all sectors tend to be characerised by defined and clear authority to make decisions, take responsibility for outcomes, and actually instigate - and make compulsory - change when required.

The group has also identified a lot of good practice in the sector - we just don't tell anyone about it.

So, the report will be out in a few weeks, and then we'll be looking at how and which bits we implement.  We've already got a lot of things underway or planned including business process review and improvements using LEAN, IT as a Shared Service and investment in cloud computing.

Interesting reception to my presentation by UEB. I think it's fair to say not all were convinced by the standardisation argument, suggesting that we are a diverse body and shouldn't be subject to it. Of course, I can't argue with us being diverse - we are, but I can argue, and will, that we need to standardise those processes that don't add value if we're going to have any hope of investing in those which do, which of course may be diverse. I can see no good reason why one department processes an invoice differently to another, but I can see why teaching, learning and research needs to be different.

I think there are some interesting discussions to come.

Lean and cake

This week we've been fortunate to have a visit from Heidi Fraser-Krauss from St Andrew's University, following our visit there last week. She came down to talk to staff from a number of departments including Student Services, Finance, HR, ACS, External relations and of course CiCS about what LEAN is, and how they've implemented it in St Andrews. A very informative presentation, and lots of good disucssion and questions.  What came across more than anything is the need for senior management support and a champion. LEAN also needs managers to relinquish some of their "command and control" and let the people who actually do the job suggest changes, and then help to facilitate the changes. This can be hard, and  many people I've spoken to about LEAN agree that one of the biggest barriers to change is middle management. The manager's job is also to set challenging targets - there's no point starting to change a 3 week process to get it down to two and a half weeks - go for a day, or an hour. Challenging is the polite term - I preferred Heidi's description of "pant-wetting" targets. So, lots of things to think about but a very positive attitude from everyone there, and I think we've probably got enough momentum now to get on with it.

Other meetings this week include a newly reinstated CiCS/Library Liaison group, where we talk about matters of shared interest. Research data storage, the Library's new technical architecture, learning spaces (including our plans for Information Commons phase 3), and how we support international collaborations were all on the agenda. The latter is an interesting one, and focused a lot on licences, both of electronic resources, and software, and the many different licening models we have for both. Some  allow access to our international collaborators, some don't, and some we just can't work out whether they do or don't.

We had the second of our coffee and cake meetings with a random selection of staff yesterday, and as ever, the cake was excellent I'm told. We're always happy to get feedback on how these things have gone, and suggestions for improvement. We have tried to find an informal space to have them in, and someone suggested a pub yesterday. Not sure about beer and cake.....

LEAN Central

Today myself and colleagues visited St Andrew's University, on our way to the UCISA Management Conference. We were talking to them about their implementation of LEAN, and spent the afternoon in LEAN Central. The space was one of the first things we talked about - you need a big, friendly, comfortable space, with lots of wall space, on tap tea and coffee and good AV. Just the sort of space we're hoping to create when we move out of the Computer Centre later this year.

St Andrew's began using LEAN 5 years ago, and have made a lot of progress. It was very helpful talking them about what had worked well, what might have been done differently,  and where they had had the greatest successes. What is very clear is that to be successful you have to embed change into the culture of the organisation,  and you must have support from senior management to ensure that change happens. It isn't easy - like most things it's no magic bullet, and does not always involve technology. What can be an issue is capacity - if you come up with recommendations to radically change a process, and it requires some sort of technology change or development and you haven't got the resource to implement it, then you have a problem.

I'm hoping to set up something similar to their LEAN Unit, and really make a difference to some of our processes. Lots of things still to sort out, but am optimistic that we can do it.

Shared, lean services

I posted yesterday about the investment by HEFCE in shared services and cloud computing. Today UCISA is running a managers forum on Shared Services which I'm sad to be missing, but following a lot of the proceedings on twitter (#ucshare).  Various themes running through proceedings so far - can we afford not to, being one, and why are there so few really shared services in HE (with the exception of the national ones such as JANET, UCAS etc). I'm glad to hear that the VAT barrier to shared services, (although Universities are classed as VAT exempt, they have to pay VAT on services they buy - even shared ones - which is non recoverable),  is recognised by the government, and there may be a solution on the way.

I was also pleased to see business process improvement mentioned as a key driver for shared services. Those of you who've heard me speak on the topic recently will know that I believe one of the barriers to sharing services across institutions its that sometimes we can't even share them within our own institution - we need to get that sorted first.

We've just established a project to review and improve key business processes by developing a framework based on LEAN.  Originally developed by Toyota for the manufacturing industry, LEAN attempts to identify and eliminate “waste” in any process, and therefore reduce complexity and time. It concentrates on the value of the process to the end customer, has been used successfully by many Universities and organisations, and is a simple and common sense approach. It also promotes local ownership of processes and the culture of continuous improvement, as well as being relatively quick to identify areas to change, as it uses process mapping workshops which can identify “as is” and “to be” maps in two days.
Had a good discussion yesterday with one of our project managers who is going to help me  take this forward. The intention is for a Steering Group to prioritise which processes need review and improvement, and to have a group of trained LEAN facilitators drawn from a number of different departments to take it forward. With the current financial climate it's essential that no resource is wasted, and that we deliver the most value to our customers.

Several processes have already been identified, including regulation/module and programme approval and change, computer account registration and uCard production, staff recruitment and postgraduate admissions and we'll be canvassing for more soon.

Finally, there's obviously been a lot of discussion at the forum on the potential for shared services to reduce our carbon emissions.  A tweet from the fantastically informative @ajaybb says "ICT in HE: 1.47m computers and £116m electricity - surely we can find some scope for sharing resources amongst that lot?" One would hope so!

Implementing LEAN

Interesting presentation from a University that had implemented LEAN.
I've posted about LEAN before, and some of you will know that I'm interested in using it in Sheffield to improve some of our processes.
LEAN is a form of process reengineering, and 80% of lean projects involve implementation of some technology. It also intersects with project management technologies.

LEAN focuses on processes, not people, and one of its goals is to eliminate outdated or inefficient practices. It leverages collective knowledge by getting all those involved in a process together to talk abut it.

Common roadblocks to lean are:
People afraid, of losing jobs, or of change
Lack of follow through.
Distractions
Sabotage (it does happen!)
Sacred cows, or things we just can't change
Predetermined solutions, especially by senior management
Too many other pressures

The goal is to eliminate waste and this can come inn many forms, for example multiple forms asking for the same information, forms sitting in inboxes for a long-time, actual work time being minimal, customers waiting a long time, inaccurate information

Many detps want quick fix, ask IT to write or implement a system but don't review the processes. IT can be used to prioritise, this particular University will not start a project unless its been through the LEAN process. only do projects that have been through LEAN.

A key tool is value stream mapping, basically a diagram of the process with metrics, timelines etc. You can also use other tools to get information such as asking "why?" 5 times in different ways.

In this University they trained a number of facilitators then paired them up to work on 10 projects. First task was to identify goals. Different goals would have different ways of approaching the project eg reducing cost might be different to improving accuracy.

Value stream map of current process and desired should take two days only. Metrics need to be included timeline underneath and identify where a process is so complex that it needs its own map.

Identify sacred cows, and parking lot items - things that might touch the project but not driving main project, need to be parked and not used as distraction.

Then make a list of actions to get to desired state and allocate tasks. Then becomes like a project.

People have to be neutral. If people are heavily involved in process, have to be balanced by people who aren't.
Time, can be done in 2 days.

As you're doing LEAN document the process your working on. Chances are no one has done it before.

A LEAN initiative is a good way to embed things in the process like equality and diversity, data protection, carbon reduction.

LEAN and mean

Had an interesting call with a Gartner analyst this morning about LEAN - an on-going process improvement technique, originally developed for the engineering and manufacturing industries but now applied to any process. It focuses on a number of basically common sense approaches (but we all know that common sense isn't always that common), and I like it because its simple and makes sense.

A key principle is that of removing waste. Waste can be a number of things. Stuff for example - detailed project plans that sit on a shelf and are never referred to, piles of paper people print and take to meetings, documents that are produced too soon and in too much detail. Papers should be read, not weighed. It can also be unnecessary steps in a process such as a sign-off step just to keep someone happy, or unnecessary loops.

Another waste can be motion - waiting for information, not knowing where to get help and information from, unnecessary movement of information, people or things.

Time is another form of waste - task switching is a good example. If you're in the middle of doing something and someone phones you up with an unrelated 5 minute question, it can take 30 minutes out of your day.

In IT terms, over-development is a waste - good enough is exactly that. We should be aiming to deliver just what is needed which might only be 60/70% of what was asked for, and delivered quickly.

The LEAN technique involves following a process through from end to end and working out what is waste and what adds value - if anything isn't adding value it should be remove. this technique brings together staff from different functional areas and allows them to see the whole process rather than just their bit of it, and should help to improve collaboration and reduce silo working. By allowing staff to work in teams on processes (without necessarily having the line management present it should also empower them to suggest improvements. Of course, with all such techniques it's important that it is kept lightweight, that quick wins are achieved and it doesn't become an end in itself. I'll certainly be suggesting that we give it a try some of our processes - the difficulty will be deciding which ones to start with!