Blog entries

Physics of Coordination

Christine Slivon — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:21:41 +0100

I have always been bothered by this phrase, which has sometimes been used to refer to the workflow loop developed by Business Design Associates (© 1995). This picture shows a sequence of speech acts (Request, Promise, Declare Complete, and Declare Satisfaction) which constitute the making and keeping of a promise. What is wrong with calling this the physics of coordination?

&nRead More...

Reflections of, the way life used to be

Rebecca Bettler — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:17:00 +0100

Every time I hear the word “reflections” used as an agenda topic, I can’t help but to start smiling. There are two reasons it makes me smile, and both are linked to the same story.

A few years back, I was part of a leadership team that put together quarterly presentations for the executives. One of the sections we had to prepare was titled “reflections.” As a team, this was the only time that we woulRead More...

How'd we get here?

Matthew Horvat — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0100

This is my story of how we got here. It isn't right or true, but it is how I think of how we got here. What is different about your story?

Previous to the 20th century we had the industrial revolution. With the advent of power driven machines business consolidated work from the cottage to the factory. Machines were built by craftsmen and operated by specialists. These specialists worked to increase the output of their machines. The Industrial Engineer was born.

Scientific ManageRead More...

Practice

Christine Slivon — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:38:19 +0100

I am working with a 7-year old girl at Aikido and teaching her how to do forward rolls. She looks around at the others, who are all practicing the technique that the instructor has demonstrated. She says to me, “How do they know what to do?” I misunderstand her question. I say, “because the teacher showed them.” She says, “I have been here three times. They have been here five timeRead More...

Managing Big Projects

Matthew Horvat — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:49:03 +0100

Last week Cascadia hosted the Principal Planner for the city of Portland, Oregon. Apparently, we are working within a comprehensive plan that was created in the year that Mt. St. Helen's erupted. Time to re-plan.

The system is nearly unbearably confusing and the proposed changes are immense. 22 public organizations are involved. The redesigned system holds 9 action areas which break away from traditional functional boundaries of existing departments.

It seems similar to a new coRead More...

Inspiration vs. Motivation

Matthew Horvat — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:15:20 +0100

There is lots of conversation among us lean coaches about motivation and inspiration related to people changing. The difference to focus on is where the source is that compels you to action: internally with the case of inspiration and externally in motivation.

Lean requires leadership; a top down approach because people do what their boss needs. People generally work on what they think their boss thinks is important. One for motivation theory.

On the contrary, it is widely knRead More...

Responsibility Comes First

Matthew Horvat — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:52:09 +0100

Thanks to some local friends in the A/E/C industry I'm getting through Steven Spear's new book on organizational design, Chasing the Rabbit. We came up on a powerful remark about learning that I want to share. It is about responsibility and doing your homework to make yourself ready for external help.

Page 259: [The success of improvement] "rests on your willingness, energy, and drive to do your own homework so that you are pushed to the edge of your abilities and are therefore receptivRead More...

Creating an A3 to Improve Posting Frequency

Aaron Preston — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:14:18 +0100

If you subscribe to the blog feed via RSS or venture to our website regularly, you may have noticed a lack of posting to blogs by me and my colleagues over the last few months. To practice what we preach, I have decided to investigate this issue using A3 thinking. I fully intend to share the A3 with you all faithfully reading the blogs on this website over the coming weeks.

Thank you for your patience and continued interest.

Obvious

Christine Slivon — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:45:44 +0100

My high school math teacher, Frank Allen, used to say, “The obvious is usually hard to prove and often wrong.” What I have learned since then is that what is obvious to me is often not obvious to another observer and vice versa.

What does this insight have to do with lean? One of the principles ofRead More...

Lean Design in Projects

Matthew Horvat — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:08:59 +0100

In a recent post, Mark Graban calls healthcare owners to action in three ways [verbatim]:

Design your process BEFORE you design your space
Analyze the existing process and layout to understand the waste and problems, so you can incorporate those lessons into new space
Take control of your design process – don’t abdicate responsibility to the architects. Work with them, but realize it’s YOUR space that you have to live with for years after construction

He is telling Read More...

Lean Project Consulting Announces Principal Promotions

Cheri Phelps — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:00:00 +0100

Hal Macomber and Greg Howell, co-founders of Lean Project Consulting, Inc. of Louisville, CO, announced Friday, February 12, 2010 the promotion of two of their colleagues to the position of Associate Principal. Roberto Charron, of Sunny Isles, FL, will assume responsibility for corporate transformations to lean management. Steve Knapp, P.E., of Louisville, CO will assume responsibility for Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) Services.

Lean Psychology

Matthew Horvat — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:02:44 +0100

Karen Martin's free webinar on Lean Psychology was great! Her examples and instruction are very proactive; I appreciate that. Following her tips we change agents are sure to avoid pitfalls. Much of the discussion was on resistance (per a lot of requests that she's gotten). I find it interesting what we do when we are resisting. Personally, I work on developing the habit of noticing resistance just to deal with it directly.

My take aways are: Reflection. Being fully present. Be a sRead More...

What would I cover at a Lunch and Learn

Matthew Horvat — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:09:12 +0100

Hello,

I am doing a 2 minute survey on surveymonkey.com to understand better what your questions are. I've been making offers to come to your office for an hour to present and discuss Lean. With your help I would like to better focus and prepare. Please take a minute in the survey HERE (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5VFTGWX) to tell me who you are and what questions you have. I'll publish the results here on my blog. All is anonymous.

Thanks,
Matt

4 Elements of Change

Matthew Horvat — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 21:47:45 +0100

Construction, like healthcare, is learning from another industry. I was just watching David Fillingham, Chief Executive, Royal Bolton Hospital NHS Trust give his speech on Managing the Lean Hospital: what it takes to engage the whole hospital for the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit 2009. In this he has four points on how to convert the skeptics that I thought fit very nicely to our industry (construction):

Rigorous use of lean methods
Convincing data
Hands on experience
ReinfoRead More...

A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare/Construction???

Matthew Horvat — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:30:15 +0100

It is challenging to learn from other industries. Construction is not the first industry to adopt lean; there are great examples in the healthcare industry. I just read A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare: A Practical Method for Eliminating Waste to learn more about the A3 process and came away with some very helpful tips:

State the issue through the eyes of the customer (always maintain focus on customer).
The value of drawing with pencil and eraser the current condition can't be oveRead More...

Chief Social Architect for Projects

Matthew Horvat — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:23:32 +0100

Projects are made up with people thrown together. Establishing the role of a relationship designer in a project based company has many practical purposes. Let's call that person the Social Architect (SA). The Project Managment Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) does not go into enough detail about the social aspects of project management, yet we assign this role as part of the Project Manager's job description. A better fit would be somewhere above the project level; a support person who provides guidRead More...

But... we're people

Matthew Horvat — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 01:39:17 +0100

The Simply Lean Pocket Guide for Construction is a great book for tools. The organization of the book presents the tools in the familiar PDCA logic using an improvement workshop 'real world' example. There are about 100 pages of templates and an easy to use glossary.

Discipline is lacking in our industry. This book shows you what to use and when to use it. But use this book along side many other influences during your lean transformation. What worries me is the lack of humanity presentRead More...

Who's asking the right questions anyway?

Matthew Horvat — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:11:05 +0100

I have not been doing lean consulting long enough to have a career's depth of war stories. When faced with some regular questions, I have to pull from the underlying philosophy rather than a real world example. Even in the Lean Construction history, there is not a lot of examples. Peter Block defends this approach in his 2003 book, The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters

Yes, this is a quote from the Declaration of Independence. Using this quote to offer some commentary on the state of the AEC industry would have probably been more appropriate near Independence Day but when Read More...

Which Lean Skills Need Improvement?

Tom Robinson — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 20:15:38 +0100

I had a rather obvious realization the other day, about what those of us in the lean “field” can work on. My notion may seem too simple, and too either/or. But hear me out.

If your technical skills are great, work on your people skills. And if your people skills are great, work on your technical skills. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But I see too many technicians, say, listen poorly when they are facilitating groups. Likewise, I sRead More...