PROBLEM SOLVING TO DEVELOP PEOPLE

These materials are from Jeffrey K. Liker and the book, Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels.

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IDENTIFY AND SELECT IMPROVEMENT OPTIONS

Another Japanese word that comes up in problem-solving is Nemawashi. You could have read about Nemawashi thirty years ago, in books about Japanese management; the concept isn't peculiar to Toyota. 

One way to translate Nemawashi is based on nature, it is best defined as preparing the soil before planting the tree. Preparing the soil means that all people that will be affected by the change you are proposing are prepared. All parties will have to sign off on the proposed change prior to you making a formal proposal for that solution. 

The first step is to circulating a document, often one by one with different members, and you then make the effort in discussing it with them and getting their ideas, and you are actively listening to them.

As you actively listen to them, you give them reasons why some of the ideas were considered and have been tried in the past and didn't work. You use all your social skills to build consensus. When you finally make a formal proposal, everybody has already agreed to it.

PLAN FOR PEOPLE

When we identify and select our improvement options, our countermeasures are still part of the planning process.

We're going to use Nemawashi to generate a lot of ideas, and then we're going to narrow down those ideas by using different measures of effectiveness, cost, simplicity, and ability to implement quickly.

Perhaps you will use some formal criteria to narrow down these options; and rate those criteria using the three-point scale. You may even come up with a quick number. But it is also important to use your judgement.

Define the small number of items that you're going to test. In the process, even as you're testing them, you will report the results back, and you will continue to build consensus.

The Nemawashi process is where you start to get ideas and it’s where you end by getting agreement; it is in fact a good plan and again you're going to do Nemawashi in every step of the process.

One of the things we'll talk about, in the A3 process which we share in later sections, is that A3 is a part of Nemawashi, part of the consensus building process.

PLAN AND IMPLEMENT IMPROVEMENTS (DO)

Nemawashi can take some time to do, and as you can imagine there is a problem to solve so time is of the essence. You don't want to wait and allow defects to continue to occur, or let waste build up while you are trying to root cause. The challenge is to do a thorough job of the systematic eight-step process, but the pressure to solve the problem keeps mounting as time goes by.

You want to contain the problem; so for example in a Toyota plant when someone pulls the cord the andon light goes on; this signals the team leader to immediately pay attention to the problem that the team member has discovered. The team leader's first job is to contain the problem so that we can continue to produce cars.

Then you step back and look for more longer-term countermeasures. The first thing you do might be to contain the problem, which is effectively a “do” activity. Then you would go through the plan, do, check, act. For the biggest problems, you're going to focus more carefully on the rationale. 

If it's possible, pilot a new idea.  

I was at a warehouse where they were creating a new rack to contain different size boxes that were used for different products, and they kept tinkering with this one rack and they kept getting feedback, letting just a few operators use it. They relocated some boxes, added on to the rack. They did all that and finally they were satisfied. Only then did they go live in all the workstations.

You need to know who is responsible for implementation and follow-up. 

You need to regularly have a system of tracking progress and reacting to what you learn and you are always building consensus and approval for Nemawashi.

DEVELOPING PEOPLE THROUGH PROBLEM-SOLVING

One interesting part of the Toyota Way is that there is such an intense focus on developing people. The Toyota Way is represented as having two pillars; continuous improvement and respect for people and those two pillars are very much intertwined.

As people are solving problems they are learning skills including Nemawashi. Including coming up with creative ideas, stretching their minds; including deeply observing; monotonous watching and watching and watching and thinking and asking why?.

They're developing the whole repertoire of skills; at the same time they are solving real problems, and they are getting better and better, so the results of the problem-solving are getting better and better.

Thinking back to when Gary led that effort to get 60% warranty reduction with some of the best people in Toyota. Nobody questioned whether they could achieve 60% or whether it was acceptable to achieve 57%.

The goal was 60%, and they were going to achieve it; they knew they were going to achieve it. They even knew how; through the problem-solving process. What they did not know was the specific solutions that would work.

TOYOTA BUSINESS PRACTICES

What Toyota has done is configure two sets of things in parallel that comprise the Toyota Business Practices. One is, what are the concrete actions and processes that will be taken. In other words, What steps do we take to solve the problem?

Second, what values, what skills are we going to reinforce in people as they are going through this 8-step problem solving process; they call this drive and dedication. You could say that they are building drive and dedication in their people.

In fact, these are real skills by going through the eight steps. As you read these, you can see that each bullet point will exemplify a way of acting. For example, when you are clarifying the problem, you should be putting the customer first and asking who is the customer, what is it that they need from me to satisfy their needs to solve the problems? 

When you are developing countermeasures, you're trying to fine-tune your judgments based on facts; for example, how would you prioritize the problems.

You're involving stakeholders and you're learning how to talk to those stakeholders¾how to persuade them by listening and taking their ideas seriously.

When it comes to the action plan for implementing the countermeasures, we're going to have a visual schedule that will be posted some place. Typically, you'll have some sort of board that is tracking the problem-solving process, and we'll have this action plan and the A3 of the action plan.

Notice you have individual names written down here, not teams; this is done by the group, but in each step a person is accountable for that step. Part of the checking process is meeting with that person. That person is reporting out at meetings when they are supposed to have something done. It becomes immediately obvious if they don't, or if they haven't thought things through carefully.

Every time you meet with the person, every time that person reports out, that’s an opportunity for that person to get feedback and to improve their problem-solving skills.

An action plan is about accountability, and it's another tool for developing people.

CHECKING IS LEARNING

We continue with the check stage of plan, do, check, act and that's more people development and more opportunity for learning. As you observe the situation, and if you are coached properly, they will suggest you go and see.

If you go back to your coach (sensei), and show him just numbers, they the sensei will ask you, “Did you go and observe the process? How long did you observe the process? Did you talk to the people?” And then, he will send you back to the Gemba.

You need to be prepared to make adjustments. Often we declare victory too early; you're going to take checking as a checking and acting stage. These stages blur together because you come up with a new plan based on finding out that you haven't achieved the target; you made progress; but you haven't gotten there; then you have to do some more; then you have to check back and you have to act.

The whole process is designed to develop people and for the organization to learn; that's why you spread the best practices. You're not spreading the best practices; you're spreading learning; and your input becomes the input to a thinking process. To those that you spread this to; it's not the input as a solution, but the input to force thinking.

THE FINAL ACT – DEEP REFLECTION

The final act in PDCA is a deep reflection, and this goes on until you're convinced the process is stabilized. Often, we hear that the solution is not sustained; you go back a few months later and it's not working the way you set it up; people aren't following the standard method you designed.

 The problem usually is that you didn't stick around long enough to continue checking and continue coaching and continue supporting until the new process became a routine; the new way to do things. 

You are responsible as the owner of the problem for sustaining the solution and for continuing the improvement. We often see that a company will create a model area in Lean, some call it a lighthouse project. Once they do that one area which inevitably becomes a great success, they end up getting ordered to spread this everywhere in a cookie-cutter way and they stop going back to that model area.

The value of that model area is that it’s a learning line; you can continue to learn and continue to advance beyond other parts of business, but usually the learning stops because you're busy spreading whatever you learned. Then that area which was the model; the area that was supposed to be the best in the company; is no longer the model because it slipped backward.

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