The Waste Tale

You would probably agree with me if I said that to do things right means: to do things efficiently. Let's spend a moment considering what this means.

In my previous posts, I stressed the importance of discipline and good time management. These are important building blocks of a smooth process journey, which I think about as the quickest possible, successful route from start to finish. Because this is what it's all about - achieving goals without hassle. If we tried to define that hassle, we would likely think of additional, unnecessary steps in the journey, making it more difficult to complete. Having completed a journey full of hassle, we are tired, frustrated and, quite frankly, relieved that it's over and done with. We typically don't want to go through it again. However, more often than not, we face the same activities repeatedly in what is referred to as 'business-as-usual' (BAU). Would you prefer to keep going through the same, frustrating, inefficient journey again and again? Or would you rather make it better, improve its efficiency, and, in time, make it so smooth that you could let it run in the background and forget about it?

Lean

Efficiency won't come without investment. The realisation of the need for change must come first. Then, you should look to identify the reasons of inefficiency (or hassle) and seek ways to eliminate them.

Others have done it before. A prime example of the pursuit of efficiency is Lean manufacturing, with Toyota being the classic point of reference when it comes to process change and improvement. Toyota's Lean Manufacturing, known as the Toyota Production System, is a philosophy designed to eliminate waste, improve efficiency, and enhance quality by producing only what is needed, when needed. 'Waste', 'efficiency' and 'improvement' are central keywords of this concept and you can probably guess that they resonate with me very well. This is why, in my Uni days (when I first learned about these things) I was fascinated by Lean, with its feeling of common sense and natural logic. I wanted to do Lean, be it in business or daily life. In time, with years of experience, making processes better became my bread and butter and the principles of Lean always light up my path - suitably adjusted to a non-manufacturing environment, where required. Of all of them, the elimination of waste is always top priority.

7 (or actually 8) Wastes of Lean

Back in the day (the 1950s), Taichii Ohno of Toyota defined the Seven Wastes ('Muda' in Japanese) as part of the Toyota Production System, waste being any process action or step that does not add value to customer (or anything that customer doesn't want to pay for). We need to remember, this is manufacturing, a customer-driven environment. For our needs and purposes, if you can't think of an immediate customer at the end of your process, think 'end user', to make things more relatable (that end user could be yourself).

The original seven wastes are: defects, overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory, motion and extra-processing. As it happens with business studies, the 8th waste of unutilised talent was added in the 90s. All these pertain to some kind of process inefficiency, where the path to success gets either longer, or messier. Some of these wastes are easier to grasp than others. Defects, for example, refer to the customer's dissatisfaction with the faulty end product (customer will most likely need a replacement so the defective one was a waste). Over-processing means: doing more work than required. This could be using unnecessarily higher-spec equipment (where it's not needed) but also overanalysing, optioneering beyond reason or simply adding unwanted bells and whistles to a product for no one's benefit. Inventory is perceived as waste because it goes against the 'Just-In-Time' Lean principle (if you have to store that means you have produced too much). Motion and transport are some of the more intuitively recognisable wastes. Having to move (yourself or things) means extending the process and thus completing it later than, maybe, could have been possible otherwise.

Additional Wastes of Her Excellence

In reality, it all really boils down to wasted time and effort (and wasted effort being ultimately wasted time). Personally, I have this big notion of things best done quickly and so wasting time is one of my greatest evils of this world. Wasting time literally makes our lives shorter: we could be doing something better at this very moment, but we're not, because we're still processing. Wasted time sends ripples across the BAU (and project alike), making us change our plans, cut corners, affecting quality of our outputs and, very commonly, frustrating us big time.

On top of the 8 Wastes of Lean, wasted time in life and business arises from behaviours which may sound familiar to many, like:

• Not listening. Ever been in that conversation where the other person already knows what you need, no matter what you have to say? Assumptions and not listening to the customer may - or, more likely, will - lead to unwanted things being delivered. 

• Formulating unclear requirements. These live on the flip side of not listening: there is a lot of communication and the user is being listened to, but to no avail. With not enough detail provided, the right thing cannot be provided just in time. Time will be wasted on returning to customer for clarifications.

• Focusing on the wrong thing. Value-driven prioritisation has this merit that it delivers things with most value to customer (or end user) with highest urgency. Prioritising without value analysis and focusing on, ultimately, things that aren't most valuable to deliver will most likely result in dissatisfaction. This, in turn, drives the need to redo, correct, reprioritise and the familiar ripples of wasted time can already be seen on the horizon.

• Using vague vocabulary. This is where you listen to what is being said but can't make any sense of it. Much as you can't necessarily make other people express themselves clearly (you can but try, by asking to repeat or clarify), you can make sure your vocabulary is clear, no-nonsense, straight to the point. This is vital in the matters of project management, particularly when communicating with stakeholders (although the art of efficiently dealing with people also deserves a separate post!). Exact vocabulary prevents the need for repetition (wasted time) and limits the risk of misunderstanding, which could result in erroneous outcomes (wasted effort).

• Neglecting logic. Logic should be your guiding star. Logical conclusions and assumptions are, generally, known to be reliable (and I'm saying 'generally' because exception paths defying logic are uncommon, but possible). That's why if you see something fairly obvious, it's best to assume the obvious outcome. If it's clear that a process, as designed, is not going to work (due to unrealistic assumptions) then it's not worth trying to implement it anyway, because it's not going to work. It will fail and time would have been wasted.

Mess

Mess is an arch enemy of efficiency. If left unchecked, it can develop a life of its own, start growing, claiming territory (and, depending on the type of mess we're talking, it can really become disgusting). Mess is commonly a by-product of lack of discipline or faulty time-management, invariably leading to the need to deal with it. That's why it's best not to let it happen in the first place.

Organising your living space is paramount. Knowing where things should be and making sure they always are where you expect them to be. Keeping just the right amount of items (like pairs of shoes, or coats) handy, so things don't get lost amongst each other and don't take up space which could be dedicated to other things. Always washing up after meals, so that a growing mountain of dirty plates doesn't start charging you rent one day. Dirt indeed has a life of its own. If left to its own devices, it will spread and become a much bigger problem to get rid of than it would have, if tackled early. Getting rid of bigger problems typically comes with bigger time commitment.

Same rules apply to all sorts of mess, physical or not. Think about the mess that one can create on their smartphone ('My memory card is full!') or computer ('Sorry, that email must have got lost') or cloud storage. Digital mess can seriously impact your daily operation, make you inefficient, slower than necessary, less reliable. Would you trust a messy project manager to deliver the required, quality output on time?

Keeping tidy takes effort, but if you're on top of it, the only long-term effort required is maintenance. If you're not on top of it, there may be times when things may get lost and having to search for them may take up time you haven't planned for. Logic suggests that small, consistent commitments that can be planned and spread over time are likely to deliver efficiency. 

Kaizen for everything

We have now ascertained that efficiency comes at a cost and it would be foolish to think that it can be achieved single-handedly, in an instant. This particularly holds true in business, with organisational structures, tractions and dependencies resembling a living organism. Keeping daily routine efficient is tricky. Keeping business processes efficient is a grand challenge. That's where clever organisations turn to Kaizen.

Kaizen (Japanese for 'change for the better') is a concept in business studies which states that significant positive results may be achieved due to cumulative efforts of all employees of an organisation, by means of small, incremental improvements to all aspects of its operations. The philosophy helps ensure maximum quality, elimination of waste and improvements in efficiency. If done right, Kaizen becomes second nature - and that's why the beauty of this simple concept agrees with me so well. It doesn't ask you to deliver results on your own - it asks you to contribute for everyone's benefit (because if every individual contributes then every individual benefits). It doesn't ask you to make the process better now, and once and for all - instead, it asks you to constantly think about how to reduce waste and act on it in small increments.

Think Kaizen in business and in your day-to-day. Make elimination of waste your aim and deploy continuous improvement to achieve it. Change for the better is within reach.