The document discusses lean thinking and collaborative learning as essential components for organizational transformation, emphasizing the importance of shared knowledge and continuous improvement. It highlights the role of management in aligning purpose, process, and people while transforming organizational culture and systems through structured problem-solving and learning cycles. Additionally, it outlines the significance of collaborative mechanisms and relationships in achieving successful lean transformations and developing people's capabilities.

1. Learning Lean Collaboratively
John Shook
Lean Enterprise Institute
October 1, 2012

2. First, What is Lean
Thinking & Practice?
Systemically develop people and
continuously improve processes
to provide value and prosperity
while consuming the fewest
possible resources

3. Second, Why Learn Lean Collaboratively?
• Lean = learning
• Successful change requires dispersing learning
through an organization quickly and
effectively
• Learning collaboratively is a way to scale
learning – in an organization and beyond
• So, let’s borrow the learning curve of Lean
thinkers who are succeeding through
collaborative learning groups

4. Third, What is
Collaborative Learning?
Two or more individuals –
learning partners – intent on
learning something together

5. Collaboration is more than
sharing physical space

6. Learning Collaboratively is more than
learning while occupying shared space

7. Learning collaboratively means more than
learning while occupying shared space

8. Learning collaboratively means more than
learning while occupying shared space

9. Fourth, What is
Collaborative Lean Learning
Learning partners actively endeavor to learn
together through shared experience...
P-D-S-A
t
LEARNING CYCLES

10. Collaborative Lean Learning
Knowledge is not only shared but
created within a group where members
actively endeavor to learn lean together
through shared experience.
t

11. Collaborative Lean Learning
Individuals working together…
– capitalizing on one another’s knowledge
and skill,
• both technically and socially,
•recognizing that learning is not just an
individual but also a social act,
• to solve a problem, complete a task, or
create a product, or answer a question.

12. Elements of successful
Collaborative Lean Learning
• All learner partners actively participate
• Mutual Respect:
Openness in sharing experience, knowledge,
challenges, struggles;
• Teachers are learners; learners are
teachers
• Problems to be addressed are important
and challenging to all partners:
“What problem are we trying to solve?”

13. Back to Lean Thinking and Practice:
Every Organization Must Address…
• Purpose – Provide value to customers
(cost-effectively to thrive).
• Process – Through value streams that
are designed, operated, and improved.
• People – By engaging and respecting
employees and other stakeholders.
 Aligning purpose, process, and
people is the central task of management.
13

14. Lean Transformation
Social and Technical
14

15. Lean Transformations:
People and Process
Social

16. Lean Transformations:
People and Process
Technical

17. People & Process – aligned by
management to achieve purpose
17

18. Lean Transformation
Change Culture Change System
First First
Where Do You Start – Either? Both at once?

19. The Challenge of Any Organization
MUDA (Excess)
Capability
Demand
MURI (Overburden)
MURA (Instability) •Know your demand
•Know your true capability (capacity)
Management •Create flexibility to get them to match
TIME
19

20. Total System Efficiency
and Effectiveness
20

21. Lean Thinking & Practice:
Problems, Challenges, Opportunities
In the face of a reality Challenge to make
that’s like this: steady progress:
MUDA (Excess)
Demand MURI (Overburden)
21

22. Lean Transformation
It’s easier to act
your way to a
new way of
thinking than to
think your way
to a new way of
acting.

23. Lean Leaders
Develop people THROUGH getting the work done…
23

24. People & Process: People learning
process – process developing people
Typical thinking observes that people develop processes. True
Also true is that processes develop people.
People enter situations (a company) and learn the processes.
Before they develop processes, they learn processes. That
learning process develops them.
People are a product of the processes that they work.
Those processes, in turn, have people dimensions
that entail individual and collaborative learning.

25. Lean Capability Development
“It’s easier to act your way to a new
way of thinking than to think your
way to a new way of acting.”
Therefore:
Build processes that develop
people as they do their work.
Manage and lead accordingly.

26. Lean Enterprise
– the ultimate “social-technical system”
• The process of doing the work
is integrated with the process of
improving the work
• And…
26

27. Lean Enterprise
– the ultimate “social-technical system”
• The process of doing the work
is integrated with the process of
improving the work, and
• The operating processes ARE
people development processes!
27

28. Achieving Purpose, Solving Problems and
Developing Capability -- Collaboratively
CURRENT
STANDARD
CONDITION
Andon
A3
Lean managers establish systems to engage
everyone to work together in identifying,
signaling, and responding to problems.

29. Achieving Purpose, Solving Problems and
Developing Capability -- Collaboratively

30. “Stop the Line”
•Design a repeatable routine – provide training
–Make success understandable and do-able
•Make it easy to see problems
–Anything that interrupts the routine
•Make it clear what to do for problems
–Contain and notify (“neither accept nor pass on…”)
•Make it clear what will happen after notification
–Help will come within the cycle of work
•Ensure problem-solving and learning
–Through structured routines for problem-solving and
rapid cycles of learning

31. 31
john shook

32. “Do not interrupt
while I am running this play.”
•This enables me to perform with
less chance of error,
•We can identify normal from
abnormal and solve problems,
•We can learn – together –
intentionally.
32
john shook

33. Capability Development Through Collaborative Problem Solving
No Problem is
a Problem!
NEXT
LEARN TO SEE TARGETED
CONDITION
GtS
GtS
TARGETED
GtS
CONDITION
Tools
m
ble
Tools
/Pro nity
Gap ortu
Tools
p
CURRENT
CONDITION
/Op

34. Collaborative Learning
…members actively endeavor to learn
together through shared experience.
P-D-S-A
TRY – FAIL – LEARN
DO – LEARN – IMPROVE
t
A3 KATA LAMDA OODA
LEARNING CYCLES: SPIN THEM FAST
SPIN THEM WILLFULLY

35. When (and why) not to pursue
Collaborative Learning or…
What pitfalls to avoid when you do.
After all, every yin has its yang.

36. Collaborative Learner Beware…
• Groupthink
– Everyone follows an attractive thread
– Design by committee
• For example “limiting statements” (S Bahri)
– “Democracy” to the point of lack of
leadership

37. Collaborative Learner Beware…
• Groupthink
– Everyone follows an attractive thread
– Design by committee
– “Democracy” to the point of lack of leadership
• Brainstorming as a group becomes too
easy; no individual steps up to:
– take ownership
– go through the intense pain of truly thinking
something through deeply

38. Collaborative Learner Beware…
• Groupthink
– Everyone follows an attractive thread
– Design by committee
– “Democracy” to the point of lack of leadership
• Brainstorming as a group becomes too easy; no individual steps up to:
– take ownership
– go through the intense pain of truly thinking something through deeply
• “Collaboration Fatigue” – Dr. Gigi Hirsch of
MIT
– Beware the trade-off between inclusiveness
versus effectiveness and efficiency

39. Collaborative Learning and
Successful Lean Transformation
• We are all teachers. We are all teaching all the
time.
• We can teach more effectively, or less
effectively. Whether our teaching is more or less
effective depends on two things: intention and
skill.
• Skill can be acquired, if we simply have the
intention.
• Thus, effective “teaching”, effective “learning”,
effective “leadership” is, more than anything
else, a matter of choice.

40. How to transform to a lean operating
and management system?
Three things:
1.Intent: manifested in a willful decision
2.Process: a means by which the
decision can be actualized
3.Practice, practice, practice…
– Right practice
– Perhaps with a coach!

41. Practice, practice, practice…
But, right practice,
41
john shook

42. Practice, practice, practice…
But, right practice, perhaps with a coach
42
john shook

43. Coaching?

44. Coaching?

45. One-on-One Collaborative Learning
Collaborative learning is effective when both mentor and
mentee share nearly equal responsibility
Manager interacts with Team Team Team Member takes
Member with Respect: Manager Member responsibility for own
Development:
1)Respects their intellect by 1)Team Member defines own
providing challenging career objectives
assignments 1)Team Member proactively
2) Engages with Team Members engages organization and
to understand their struggles management with new ideas
2) Supports Team Members 2)Team Member takes own
to over come those struggles initiative
3)Ongoing, sustained process 3)Ongoing, sustained process
to develop capability to develop capability

46. Collaborative Lean Learning Example:
Toyota Supplier Learning Associations

47. Collaborative Lean Learning Example:
Toyota’s TSSC
TSSC, the Toyota Production System Support Center,
mission: Help North American companies to learn the Toyota
Production System.
•Over 20 years, TSSC has collaborated with more than 150
organizations to learn TPS.
•Organizations demonstrate dramatic improvements in
Productivity, Quality, and Lead Time.
•Through collaboration and learning with organizations in
many sectors, Toyota benefits by bringing this learning back
into its own organization.

48. Collaborative Lean Learning

49. PDCA Standardized Work for Collaboration
(from BAMA Example)
Participant Participant Participant
Focus: xx
Target: xx
Try
Who is the coach?
Learn Who is the architect?
What is the process
(the Standard
Work)?
Host
Each participant Collaborative activity
takes home at one location

50. Intent is to support deep thinking Self-Learning
 Individual, intentional PDCA Learning Cycles
 Supported by skillful coaching
What is my
target condition?
How do I improve this
situation?
Try
P
A D
Struggle to do
C -Why?!
Reflect

51. Group Learning, Individual learning…
• Early childhood education is largely collaborative
as teachers take young students through group
discovery learning activities.
• By high school, the learning has
become individual-based.
 Everything I Know About Lean
I learned in First Grade
– by Robert Martichenko

52. IBM Collaborates with State to Bring PDCA to Vermont 1-8 Schools

53. What will you do?
Find someone to learn with:
…NOW
 Assignment

54. What will you do?
Assignment – One Minute
One thing you will do this week about
the one thing you wish to change

55. Follow the Learner: Dr. Sami Bahri
“One idea, one person, every day”
Dr. Sami Bahri
“Learn at least one “green” thing every day”
- Yellow is theory
- Red is to avoid
- Green is to do

56. What will you do?
Assignment – One Minute
One thing you will do this week about
the one thing you wish to change
One more minute: share that with
the learning partner sitting beside
you and discuss how your partner
can help you with that problem

57. The following slides contain
supplemental Information
about the Lean Enterprise
Institute and its mission, basic
approach, and major activities.

58. Lean Enterprise Institute
• Founded in 1997 by Dr. James Womack,
principle scientist of the MIT research that
resulted in “The Machine That Changed the
World”
• Non-profit education and research institute
• Based in Cambridge MA, with 17 global
affiliates
• Over 230,000 members from all industries
• Mission: Advance Lean Thinking and Practice in
all things, everywhere

59. Lean Enterprise Institute
Digital books,
Industry
courses, social
Networking
networking
Publications
www.lean.org Education: public and in-
community with house workshops
Coaching over 200,000
members

60. Since its founding in 1997, LEI has …
•Changed the language of management
•Registered over 230,000 Lean Thinking Practitioners and Leaders to its online Lean Community.
•Sent over 100 e-letters to over 150,000 subscribers
•Trained almost 20,000 people at public workshops
•Moderated eight online Forums with nearly 17,000 subscribers.
•Delivered onsite training to over 2,000 people at over 100 companies.
•Partnered with companies committed to implementing and spreading the methodology for creating a
lean enterprise through experiments and shared learning.
•Collaborated with over 50 independent faculty members.
•Developed over 40 workshops for executives, managers, and technical professionals at every
experience level in manufacturing, service, healthcare, and administrative value streams.
•Produced 20 webinars on a wide range of lean management topics.
•Produced 20 publications and sold over 600,000 books, workbooks, and training aids.
•Hosted eight major Summit conferences with more than 7,000 attendees.
•Created a web site with thousands of pages of resources
•Founded the Lean Educators Academic Network.
•Founded the Healthcare Value Leaders Network, including the first Healthcare Transformation
Summit.
•Formed the Lean Global Network, a network of 17 not-for-profit institutes on six continents. And
supported over 40 world-wide events since LGN was officially formed in 2007.

61. Lean Production, Lean Thinking, Lean Practice, Lean Learning

62. Lean Enterprise Institute
Individuals, Lean Thinking Individuals,
Organizations Everywhere Organizations
LEI
Publish
books, web,
apps
Management Systems
Develop
Education
programs
Share
Operating Systems learning with
community
Lean Community
Co-Learning
Hands-on Collaboration
LEI establishes a limited number of collaborative learning partnerships
with organizations committed to lean transformation.

63. Lean Transformation Model
SITUATIONAL APPROACH
- Value-Driven Purpose -
“WHAT PROBLEM ARE WE TRYING TO SOLVE?”
Clear Roles and
PROCESS Responsibilities CAPABILITY
IMPROVEMENT DEVELOPMENT
Continuous, Sustainable
real, practical improvement
changes to capability
improve the way in all people
the work is done at all levels
LEADERSHIP
MANAGEMENT
Lean Thinking and Practice

64. LEI High-Level Transformation Model
• Basic Approach in all cases: PDCA – The art and craft of science
• Specific Approach in each case: Situational, determined by asking
– “What problem are we trying to solve?” What business need?
– “Where can we run initial trials?” - even when going big
• TWO Pillars: Process Improvement and Capability Development
– Process Improvement Change
• Start with the work – find problems, gaps, obstacles
– Individual level, system level
– Capability Development
• Problem-solving, improvement capability
• At all levels
• Ownership clarity: Clear Roles and Responsibilities
– Internal: executive sponsor, improvement leader, team members
– External: project coach, mentor, architect

65. Transformation Model Questions
1. What problem are we trying to solve? What is the
purpose of this transformation?
– At both macro and micro levels
1. What specific process improvements are being
implemented? How is the actual work being
improved?
2. What capability enhancements are required and
being achieved?
3. What role is leadership taking? Is ownership clear?
4. What basic philosophy or thinking underlies this
transformation?

66. External Support for Lean Transformations
• “The value of external support of any Lean Transformation is
determined by happens after the support ends” – Dan Jones
 So: Define what should ideally happen when support
ceases.
 Then: Determine what needs to happen for that to
happen?
• LEI engagement with any organization is defined by the answer
to those questions.
 Define (together with the organization) the ideal and target
conditions
 Then provide support:
 As little as possible
 As much as necessary

67. Sr.
Mgmt.
System Kaizen
Eliminate
Muri and Mura
Middle
Mgmt.
Point Kaizen
Eliminate Muda
Front
Lines
FOCUS
67

68. Lean Transformation: Impact and Roles
of Different Organizational Levels
Role Impact
MUST PROVIDE VISION
SENIOR Likes the results
AND MOTIVATION
MANAGEMENT
MUST LEAD THE ACTUAL
OPERATIONAL CHANGE MIDDLE Often left battered
MANAGEMENT and confused…
Likes the
MUST “DO” VALUE-CREATING FRONT LINES
involvement
Different Responsibilities at Different Levels
68

69. Muri: overburden
Mura: variation
Muda: waste
Role Problem: Impact
MURI & MURA
MUST PROVIDE VISION
SENIOR Likes the results
AND INCENTIVE
MANAGEMENT Problem:
MURA & MURI
MUST LEAD THE ACTUAL
OPERATIONAL CHANGE MIDDLE Needs the right tools
MANAGEMENT and skills to be
Problem: successful
MUDA
Likes the
MUST “DO” VALUE-CREATING FRONT LINES
involvement
The right focus and process at the right level
69

70. Muri: overburden
Mura: variation
Muda: waste
PDCA process:
Role Hoshin Kanri Problem: Impact
MURI & MURA
MUST PROVIDE VISION
SENIOR Likes the results
AND INCENTIVE PDCA process
MANAGEMENT Problem:
VSM and A3
MURA & MURI
MUST LEAD THE ACTUAL
OPERATIONAL CHANGE MIDDLE Needs the right tools
MANAGEMENT and skills to be
PDCA process:
Standardized Work
Problem: successful
MUDA
Likes the
MUST “DO” VALUE-CREATING FRONT LINES
involvement
The right focus and process at the right level
70

71. Lean Purpose
Enterprise (Why)
Mission/Values
Vision/True North
Line of Sight
Strategy Development and Deployment
Capability
People to ID & Solve Process
Problems
(What)
(How)
PDCA Thinking •Horizontal flow of value at
the pull of the customer
• Make People Before •Workplace Management
Making Products
through Standardization &
• Engaged and Involved
Visualization
• Challenging & Coaching •Relentless elimination of
• Teamwork
waste, overburden and
unevenness
•Lean Tools and Practices

72. Plan-Do-Check-Act Improvement Cycle

73. Plan-Do-Check-Act Learning Cycle
Adapt
Fast
Study Cycles

74. LEI has sponsored the founding of three
organizations to promote lean thinking
through a collaborative process
•Lean Global Network to advance the application
of lean thinking in every endeavor, everywhere
•Lean Education Academic Network - LEAN - to
advance lean thinking in education
•Healthcare Value Network to advance lean
thinking in healthcare

75. The Lean Global Network
LGN is a network of non-profit, mission-driven institutes
taking responsibility for bringing lean thinking and
practices to their countries and the world
We believe lean thinking and practice can:
– Improve the performance of organisations and raise living
standards
– Meet growing aspirations while minimising resource use and
environmental impact
– Provide more fulfilling work and continuing development for
everyone
– Enable consumers to create more value in their increasingly
busy lives
Lean Global Network

76. Lean Global Network
LGN – A Global Network of Lean Enterprise Institutes

77. Global Collaboration

78. John Shook
• Currently leader of the Lean Enterprise Institute
• Eleven years with Toyota in Japan and the USA
• Production and management system transfer
• Engineering and PD system transfer
• Toyota Production System dissemination
• U of Michigan – seven years Director of “Japan
Technology Management Program”; created
and taught Industrial Engineering “lean” course
• Consultant for 15 years