You don't have to do Lean....

Yes it's true.  In fact you don't have to do anything.  Not...One...Thing.  As long as everything is perfect in your organization and you have and never will have any competitors.  Oh and if you also have unlimited resources then stop fretting about Lean or Value or Waste or anything else for that matter.  Just sit back and bask in the unparalleled good fortune that is your life.

I do a lot of speaking engagements and spend a lot of time corresponding with many many people about Lean and the challenges associated with making changes within organizations.  I am very fortunate in this regard because that means I get to spend a lot of my time talking about something I am very passionate about and in which I strongly believe.  And when I do speak to people, especially people not yet ready to start their Lean journey, there are often concerns about opening up their processes to let their customers decide what adds value and what is waste.  And believe me I can understand this concern.  I have personally lived it in my own firm where before we started our Lean journey we added Value to our customers less than 6% of the time.  I get it.

However it was during a spirited exchange this week with an individual for whom I have a high degree of respect that something occured to me.  He was in full agreement with the notion of needing to improve his processes.  However he was having a difficult time accepting the fact that his customers would truly appreciate all the subtlies of what his organizatoin did.  And as a result his customers would not be the best people to talk to when separating the waste from the value.

We corresponded back and forth a few times exchanging thoughts and ideas.  And then I remembered something.  At the end of the day if you want to reduce the cost and cycle time of any process there are only two things you can do:

1. Remove steps from your process
2. Reduce the time it takes to complete steps in your process

It doesn't matter if you're Peter Drucker, Taiichi Ohno or Jack Welch.  At the end of the day that's all there is.  So if you don't want to leave it up to your customer to decide what to change then lock the front doors, draw the curtains, and start removing steps and reducing time as you see fit.  And you won't be alone.  This is how all non-Lean improvement efforts are conducted.  After all we work here so we know best, right?  Who cares what the customer thinks.  It's our process and if they don't like what comes out then they can just.... well you get the picture.

So back to the idea of whether or not your customer knows what constitutes value or not.  Where people get hung up when I talk to them is on the notion of Waste.  Immediately everyone thinks (and sometimes says) "oh so it's waste for us to do quality checks?  It's waste for us to move material around the shop?  It's waste for us to test software before putting it into production?  Ok we'll stop doing it.  So there!"  And then they usually cross their arms, sit back and assume an "aha! Gocha there smarty suit-wearing guy" expression on their face.  At least the ones with enough respect to show me how they really feel do that.

But what they're missing is that Lean divides waste (or muda) into the following two categories for just this reason:

1. Type 1: Activities that add no value to your customers but can not be discontinued using existing processes.
2. Type 2: Activities that add no value to your customers and can be stopped immediately.

And what's more the amazig thing is that really the only change in mindset that is required is the acceptance that Customers define value and waste.  Once you and your organization accept that you will find a virtually bottomless pit of opportunities to fix.  How great is that?  I mean seriously.

@leanmind