Great Post – The Silly Cycle

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Just came across a great post here by Christian Paulsen at the Lean Leadership Blog.  He compares the PDCA cycle that Deming preached to the “Silly Cycle” that replaces the PCA with Do, Do, Do.  This post really hit home with the way we run around “doing” things rather than thinking them through.

As a leader do you encourage any action to be done regardless of root cause analysis?  Do you punish those who are thinking a problem through and not just out there “doing” something?  It’s an easy trap to fall into.  Have you ever felt you had to have something to tell the corporate office on a problem?  The more countermeasures thrown at the problem the better right????  Wrong!!!!

Take the time to reinforce with your teams the value of the PDCA cycle.  Reward them for thinking a problem through.  Ask the tough questions around causal explanation and experimentation.  Ensure you create time from all the “doing” for your teams to work on the Act portion, implementing systems!

The PCDA cycle will not only fix your problems, but more importantly, develop problem solvers that can fix even more problems!

Bryan

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Almost Standard Work: 6 Pieces, 5 Steps and 3 Mistakes

[tweetmeme source=”leanisgood” service=”ow.ly” only_single=false]Several weeks ago I posted an article related to building a pinewood derby car. After superior engineering, cutting edge tribology and a monster paint job, we didn’t bring anything home except the car and hopes of a better race next year. So our next project was at Lowe’s.

Performance Appraisals – A Better Way?

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As Bruce points in a couple recent post (here and here), it is performance appraisal season.  Bruce provided many great points on how they are used for evil instead of good!  But we all aren’t as lucky as Deming and can’t just conscientiously object.  In reality most of our jobs require us to perform some type of annual evaluation.  What can you do to take the “jackassery” out of them and avoid crossing over to the dark side?