Picking the Right Improvement Target- Practical Leadership Tips

A comedian once said, “Shoot first, then call whatever you hit the target.”

My duties with the Auburn Technical Assistance Center involve interactions with many different companies each year, primarily concentrated on lean implementations. In each case, the initial challenge is determining what the company needs to move their business forward.

We typically begin by engaging senior leadership in clarifying the company’s mission, vision, values, and true north targets. Some leaders are pursuing lean because they read about its success in a publication. Many are facing challenging competitive environments due to the overall economy or a specific issue within their markets.
In any case, the challenge is to identify the correct target before they apply resources, direct efforts, and trigger the subsequent cultural uproar involved in a change effort. Fields (2011) offers three suggestions to help leaders focus on the correct target:

• Establish your desired end result- Define clearly what you want to achieve out of the project. For a lean implementation, the desired end result might be “A learning organization where team members engage daily in problem solving at every level.” Of course, you can’t get there overnight, so this outcome automatically incorporates a long-term, continuous improvement approach. The trick is to act consistent with this goal, even when you have pressure for short-term results.

• Formulate your precise outcome question- Leaders need to have (and communicate) the outcome of achieving the desired end result. This is the “so what” factor. In the lean implementation example, if we achieve the learning organization, what will that do for us? Will it make us more profitable, shorten lead times, improve morale, etc.?

• Step up the decision ladder- Each project has a decision ladder, with the floor being the implementation zone and the top rung being the outcome. Starting from the floor, the rungs are who, how, which, and what. Discussions about the who rung are focused on resource assignments. The how rung is planning. The which and what rungs help us focus on the area where we will apply resources to reach the outcome.

Stepping up the decision ladder keeps you from getting target lock (can’t see the forest for the trees). Here is an example of using the step up approach. If you are asking a question about how to lay out equipment, step up the decision ladder and also ask what is the obstacle causing us to need to change the layout.

Choosing the correct target is the critical first step in any improvement activity. Do you have a robust process for selecting your end results, outcomes, and decisions?

david

Fields, D. A. (2011, October 19). Great shot, wrong target: Stop wasting money on misdirected projects. Industry Week. Retrieved 11/12/11, from http://www.industryweek.com/articles/great_shot_wrong_target__stop_...