One statement you made here; “The point is, it wasn’t just “what’s measured.” It was also how often it’s measured that was important” can make ot break the longterm success of a Lean transformation.
]]>My name is Evan and I am a senior in college where I study Business, Computer Science, and Spanish. I am currently pursuing my Green Belt certification which led me to stumble upon your blog post here.
I found it interesting to read about how our perception is limited by the units we standardize. For example, you describe two different measures of “lead time,” one of which is the number of business days, and the other is the number of weeks. There is no easy conversion method for these measures without looking at a calendar and identifying where your described weekend “voids” exist. Additionally, you mentioned how some progress is measured monthly and other progress is measured quarterly. When these monthly measures are rounded and then averaged or aggregated for a quarterly measure, which is rounded again to calculate a yearly measure, more inaccuracy arises in the data.
Another interesting point you made is how a unit of measure is also synonymous with the frequency of a measure. The example you used was how a daily huddle can address information that is already up to one day old. To extend that, a semi-daily huddle would address information that is up to 12 hours old, and so on and so forth. I find it interesting to think about how we are limited by what we define as “normal,” and that the measurements we assume to be representative of our data can actually skew our perception and cause us to miss critical information.
You also talked about how “accelerating the cadence of problem-solving created flow.” In the example you used, you addressed that hourly inspections revealed many more problems that were either forgotten, patched over, or otherwise obscured in the day to day operations and ended up never making their way to the daily huddles. I think this goes to show how continuous improvement is truly continuous, meaning every second of every day we should aim to improve, not just for thirty minutes at a daily meeting.
Even in your closing remark, inaccuracy exists in your use of “less than a week” because this could mean anything from 0 hours to 167 hours (although we have an assumed conversational implicature that we would say “less than one day” if it was between 0 and 23 hours and “within the hour” if it was between 0 and 1 hours).
In your post, you talk mainly of measures of time. Are there any other measurements that you see this occur frequently? In addition, I would be curious to know how reducing the frequency of measures creates a “trickle-up” effect. In other words, have you noticed that performing hourly inspections creates a positive effect on daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly measures?
Lastly, do you have any advice on how to avoid the pitfall of limiting one’s perception of a problem with inadequate measures, and is there ever a time where an inadequate measure is permissible?
I enjoyed reading your post, and I hope you have the chance to reply as I believe there is a lot more that I could learn from you. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Evan