Comments on: Solve your own darn problems

By: OT CHANDY

OT CHANDY — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:03:37 +0000

Very nice Jamie! Like it…

By: Jamie Flinchbaugh

Jamie Flinchbaugh — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:47:21 +0000

I agree Mark, both that this is a problem and that it’s a whole other post. I actually wrote a column about that back in 2006. Here’s the column:

http://www.assemblymag.com/CDA/Articles/Column/a589050d308aa010VgnVCM100000f932a8c0____

I think people look for the short cuts. Once they find them, NIH (Not Invented Here) sets it as resistance from the rest of the organization. That’s an often-failed path to improvement.

By: Mark Graban

Mark Graban — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 04:03:38 +0000

Another variation on this theme (maybe worth a separate blog post) is that people need to quit looking for short cuts and answers from other people. Every lean message board or linkedin group has people who post asking for a lean example in their exact industry, company size, and region to go visit and copy from. It doesn’t work that way. This happens a lot in healthcare, related to process and benchmarking — hospitals sometimes BUY a checklist for the O.R. instead of learning how to make their own. That’s so lazy. Sure, you could argue it’s a “best practice” but are people going to follow something they didn’t get input into?

Solve your own darn problem. Make your own darn checklist. Quit copying.

By: John Hunter

John Hunter — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 15:24:36 +0000

This is very hard. I love solving problems and improving things.

By: Jamie Flinchbaugh

Jamie Flinchbaugh — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:40:22 +0000

Thanks for the comments Charlene. I agree, doing this work has to be done for the benefit of the team. Taking work off the team is systems level improvement, involving the scope and work loading of the organization. Working on systems doesn’t need to create a monster. It can start in simple terms with simple methods.

By: Jamie Flinchbaugh

Jamie Flinchbaugh — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:46:37 +0000

Thanks for the comments Steve.

I like the relation to “playing your own position.” People like their comfort zone, so if in a new position, they still prefer to play the old one (wondering how this applies to Pedroia’s switch to shortstop: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/sports/redsox/463858-221/pedroia-atshort-nota-tall-order.html )

By: Charlene Johnson

Charlene Johnson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:31:39 +0000

Hi Jamie–agree with you in principle.

In reality, I have seen it play out this way: solving the systematic issues means more work for the team. First logging/analyzing data to understand the problem. Then developing and implementing some new process or tool to (hopefully) systematically fix the problem, with mixed results. Now you wind up with more work than you had before…the residual issue, plus feeding the new monster/process/tool.

It is good, when adding something new to the plate, to take something off. Otherwise people become cynical about systematic improvements.

By: Stephen Cook

Stephen Cook — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:02:24 +0000

I totally agree Jamie, I also call this playing your own position. Sports analogies are overused for a good reason, that being that you can learn valuable life lessons about teamwork by playing team sports. To win games, it’s really important to get the best players on your team possible, but even more important for your team to play like a team. When the chips are down, does the line decide they need to block even harder or do they start complaining that the running backs are running fast enough? Individuals on teams need to learn to play the positions they are given and assume that those around them will play their positions. I had a great football coach who would tell the team that when you have a broken play, just find someone from the other team to hit, this is much more productive than trying to figure out who’s fault it was that the play was broken. Teams need to learn to trust each other and play the positions they are playing to the best of their ability.