Continuous Improvement – Leader Standard Work

by Scott Roeder

Standard Work is a cornerstone of lean operations and a requirement of any continuous improvement effort.  By documenting and executing the current best practices, you create a baseline of consistent results from which to drive improvement.  Improved processes and operations are adopted, and the new current best practices become the norm.  While Standard Work has been around for decades in lean manufacturing and production environments, Leader Standard Work, is a relatively new concept for managing sustained continuous improvement.

Leader Standard Work consists of five elements.

• Daily Reflection Meetings
• Gemba Walks
• Rapid Response to Abnormalities (Andon Response)
• Mentoring
• Strategy Deployment

Daily team reflection meetings keep people focused on improvement efforts.  Ask the questions, “How did we do yesterday?”, “What wastes did we uncover?”, “What can we do to improve today?”  The leader can use problems surfaced in these meetings to teach problem solving tools and get their team to think critically about solutions in the future.

A daily Gemba walk (going to where the value is created) allows the leader observe operations when they are under control and quickly notice problems, when they are not.  This means that problems can be addressed where and when they occur, rather than reacting after the fact.  It is a coaching tool for your teams to discover root causes at the source, and work on problem solving instead of blame assignment.

Rapid response to abnormalities focuses resources on where the problem is accruing. It reinforces the message that nothing is more important than the “value add” to the management of the organization.  Since problems can be expected, and they are opportunities to teach problem solving and improving processes, rapid response shows that ignoring or hiding problems detracts from organization performance.

Mentoring of team members is a high engagement approach which is more focused on learning and growing, to develop the next generation of leaders. By teaching problem solving techniques and encouraging critical thinking about how we improve processes and how we can grow as individuals, we teach that everyone has responsibility for personal growth and overall organization results. Because this high engagement approach can be more satisfying on a personal level, it tends to attract and retain the most talented people.

Strategy deployment is the tool for connecting the organization’s vision with long-term objectives and annual improvement plans.  The strategy flows down from the top into specific projects that have clear goals and objectives.  Monthly progress reviews give structure and visibility to the improvement activities and ensure that the organization is moving steadily toward the objectives.  While continuous improvement activities are part of the culture, strategy deployment is the driver to keep all efforts aligned with the vision.