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CHAPTER SEVEN ORGANISATIONAL READINESS FOR IMPROVEMENT
7.1 The research found that organisations who were more engaged with Lean and had considered and planned for it were ready to embrace the ideas and concepts of Lean or improvement. This chapter outlines a number of organisational factors that affect the ability of an organisation to implement an effective improvement programme. Three main elements identified were:
- An awareness or realisation for the need for improvement
- Developing or planning capacity within the organisation to deal with change
- Developing an organisational culture which understands the customer, processes and uses data to drive improvement.
7.2 These are presented under the concept of 'organisational readiness' and relate to many of the points already presented. However, this concept became one of particular relevance and importance within the research as the degree to which the organisation was ready appeared to have impact on its ability to engage with Lean or, indeed, any improvement or change programme which, in turn, impacts upon outputs.
A. Need for improvement
7.3 Many of the respondents across the majority of the case studies believed that improvements needed to be made and there was acceptance that there were problems at different levels. These included Director-level structuring of teams to deal with the implementation of a new IT team, to managers aware of issues through backlogs or 'work in progress', to front line workers working in Kaizen teams to address process problems.
7.4 In one case study, where 75% of this department's staff were manual workers, they understood the need to ensure that people were in a position where they felt they could contribute. Kaizen was not the only method used and many things were done to make staff feel involved, including meeting people, open forums and newsletters.
7.5 In a further case study, the programme had to be sold to combat "initiativitis" and to overcome pockets of resistance, and this has been accomplished over time due to evidence that the programme had delivered. The evidence had been communicated through word of mouth, through the publication of a "Storyboard" which gave examples of the 500 processes which have been improved by focussing on 20 core "Actions for Change" and an imminent target.
7.6 Each of the pilot sites had clear and specific reasons to attempt implementing a Lean approach. In the case of Pilot 1, the imminent move to a new, expensive site had created the managerial opportunity to encourage radical ways for the processes and systems to change. Furthermore, there was a strong business case for the need to improve student recruitment practices, due to the impact of the costs of the new sites. At the level of the pilot implementation, there was a clear recognition that existing practices were causing problems for both staff and students. There was a comparable need for radical restructuring in Pilot 2, due to mergers of smaller council organisations, coupled with a recognition by management that both quality and cost efficiency needed to be improved. It could be argued that Pilot 3 was the least ready to adopt Lean practices of all the sites. There was not the same degree of management or professional acceptance of the need to change and there were even concerns that Lean would interfere rather than support intended improvements. Crucially, the managers in Pilot 3 perceived that Lean could detrimentally impact upon short-term reporting of performance measures to Government.
B. Capacity for improvement
7.7 In order to create capacity for improvement within the work force some cases had to rely on current resource, considering more efficient means of managing it whereas others 'bought in' resource through new appointments. For example, one agency had recently appointed a new change manager whereas another "did a big change nine months ago (where they) changed the whole management structure of the company".
7.8 One of the Senior Managers felt that Lean reflected the way they had already had to work with increasing workload and no increase in resources, and Kaizen was a tool to help them address externally-driven changes whilst ensuring buy-in from staff:
"Kaizen is the staff's experience of the efficiency drive - it's been a great way of getting buy in from junior staff." ( CS3)
7.9 For some cases the improvement agenda and the tools and techniques that accompanied it were new. One case study reported that it did not have any experience in improvement and in fact had not changed their processes in any way for many years. Some people were saying that no changes had taken place for probably 10-15 years . In Pilot 2, the lack of experience of change was widely recognised:
"I don't think they had a great deal of experience in terms of process and procedures and what was going to change as a result of this. So I don't think they had a lot of experience of that at all - some did. Some of the tradesmen … have never been involved in [improvement] in their life."
7.10 Therefore, some experience of processes analysis and implementing change is a necessary characteristic for implementing Lean and organisations lacking this experience may initially struggle to achieve a capacity for improvement.
Teamworking
7.11 Team working was often cited as an important, even critical, aspect of the Lean approach as well as other change or improvement activities. It was reported that team work allowed organisations to generate a capacity for improvement.
"The team leaders speak to their staff and ask them to put forward any concerns that they have it is basically about the processes." ( CS6)
7.12 Within the case studies there were both mixed approaches and feelings about team working. Often the impression was that people were used to team-working at a local level within departments, although it appeared less effective across departments, especially where there were large physical distances between offices.
7.13 For the RAF, while there had been improvement programmes in the past they had not been sustainable. They had appointed a Lean manager and a central Lean team by secondment to which the consultant transferred his skills, but they were also transferred to the teams actually carrying out the RIEs:
"… the whole idea is that the Lean team receives the skills from us during the skills transfer and they start to run their own events. With joint consultation with us because it is always helpful. So the guy who was facilitating the launch day event did a fantastic job…I just popped in for a couple of hours per day and he was running simple 6S11ones and I just touched in for half an hour and we did some planning together… and that's what we should do, so 6S stuff, some standard work then into year 2 they should really be starting to do that and that is good value for money." ( CS8)
7.14 The pilot studies further demonstrated both the need and the value of team working. In Pilot 2, the process of housing repairs spanned a wide number of disparate departments and locations. The RIE event needed a minimum of 17 people to ensure that each stakeholder group was represented. The RIE successfully addressed these issues:
" [Lean] breaks down the barriers, to create a more integrated team work" ( PS2)
7.15 In Pilot 3, there were additional challenges to bring a multi-disciplinary team together for a sustained period, especially as there were additional professional boundaries that inhibited team working.
7.16 The majority of the case studies did encourage multidisciplinary teams even if they only existed for the life of the improvement project. This was evident in two health cases, an agency and in a local authority where teams were constructed to consider a particular process i.e. within the 'Kaizen Blitz' or RIE week.
7.17 One of the most striking examples of developing a capacity for change was with an agency case study where the approach to quality and continuous improvement could be described as being driven in a very organic or emergent way through questioning and opportunity to implement changes though guided by direction from the top. This approach had developed a culture of team working, questioning, improvement and determination to succeed in a clearly defined strategic framework.
7.18 To summarise, the results suggest that the organisations with a history of managing change, that had previously tackled process change and were able to build effective, multi-disciplinary teams were those with the greatest capacity for Lean improvement. Therefore, some organisations will need to assess their own capabilities or degrees of development in each of these dimensions so that they can anticipate the implementation challenges that Lean presents. For some public sector organisations it may be that the introduction of Lean needs to be timed appropriately, so that some preparatory work can be carried out to generate this improvement capability.
C. Organisational Culture
7.19 The literature frequently sees Lean as a significant culture change. When implementing Lean it is necessary to treat organisation culture both as a factor that influences ease of implementation and as an outcome variable. An effective Lean implementation needs to cope with the cultural barriers to adoption and also to change employee expectations, beliefs and behaviours. The most relevant aspects of culture influenced by Lean include:
- The degree of focus on the customers and their needs
- The understanding of the organisation as processes in a dynamic system
- The ways in which data is collected and used for improvement
- The ways in which quality measurement drives continuous improvement.
7.20 Most organisations exhibit different characteristics across each of the above dimensions and the Lean implementation may need to be adjusted to cope with the necessary changes of emphasis. Care may have to be taken in situations where aspects of culture are initially diametrically opposed to the Lean approach. For example, in many public sector organisations, the current approach to management focuses on Government target achievement in a performance management style. This often restricts the availability of useful data for continuous improvement purposes and limits objective measurement.
Understanding the Customer
7.21 Within public sector organisations there is on-going debate regarding 'who is the customer?' The first principle of Lean is to 'specify the value desired by the customer' so there is a need for organisations to understand or define who their customers are and what their needs are. Some of the case study organisations carried out customer surveys, which were believed to help develop an understanding of customer requirements and needs. The results, from customer and employee surveys, were used to identify and highlight areas for improvement that were visible to all part of the organisations.
"Customers are routinely surveyed (typically monthly), with 400 calls per month in the samples." ( CS5)
"We have got customer surveys and all that, that are issued on a regular basis and we get lots of feedback. The away day is [used] to see the kind of comments that have been coming in on how staff feel and, if [staff] can improve on the level of service that we have got." ( CS6)
7.22 As well as a survey, a government agency also encouraged customers to give improvement suggestions on a web page and through focus groups. By understanding and meeting customers' needs the customer receives a good service and it generally places less demand on the operation (through rework and so on).
Process or System Perspective
7.23 In chapter 1 it was stated that the Lean approach assumes the concept of a process-based view, where organisations are divided by workstreams rather than functional departments. This mindset is taken further to understand these processes as complex, dynamic systems, where a change to one part of the system may have an unanticipated impact elsewhere. The systems perspective is intended to encourage improvements that can be sustained. At the most basic level, Lean is tackling the excessive departmentalisation of organisations to create what is colloquially referred to as "joined-up working". One council has taken steps to embed the business change process and to create a culture of continuous improvement. Whilst some respondents felt that their organisation was process based "where process is obvious" others, often further down the organisation, described the organisation in departmental structures.
" We are in boxes. Kaizen is the start of breaking it down." ( CS3)
7.24 A couple of case studies mentioned that although there was a move to a more process-based culture there was still a long way to go given the existing (departmental) structures.
"This is a very departmentalised structure and there is a need to move much towards a process-based way of working to get the research done with a faster throughput time. However, people do not interpret this in this particular way, and they certainly do not have a systems or process perspective." ( CS2)
"we don't actually have a process management as a formal structure" ( CS5)
7.25 An agency case study recognised the usefulness and importance of a process view and was trying to develop this through enterprise development work by helping other departments to create a more process way of working. However, this was still in its early stages, with no real process ownership, processes not dovetailing properly, and a large amount of handovers still occurring.
7.26 One of the health cases attempted to use the process/system approach in order to understand the patient's journey, this had particular impact if the understanding was created through getting staff from along the journey together.
"they only saw their own part of - their small part of it and I think once they saw the whole patient journey together they had a better feel for what the patient experiences…And people say 'I did not know you did that and if I knew you did that I would have asked you'. The connection between the different thoughts just does not seem to happen until you have them all in the one room." ( CS7)
7.27 The same view was expressed in one of the local authority cases:
"I have worked for council a long time - seen people's names on list but now know them and can call them. Kaizen helped make links between offices. Now lots of to-ing and fro-ing and e-mails across different areas." ( CS3)
7.28 Feedback from two of the pilots indicated that one of the most important benefits of the RIEs was that staff gained a view of the whole process which would not normally be possible in the silo-based organisations in which they worked.
Data Collection and Analysis
7.29 Collecting and presenting data and information was considered a way of creating a culture of improvement. Targets and measures were cited by a few case studies as a means to focus attention on key areas of business. For example, they were said to "help concentrate the minds of the Trust Chief Executives who were responsible to the Scottish Executive for the achievement of the targets." There was also a feeling that most people knew about the targets and non achievement and, therefore, the need to change, which helped with the sign up. Some of the case studies were surprised about how useful this process was.
"I would say as the programme commenced we were probably not as good at putting information in at the beginning of the change. But I think they had reasonably good audit data being collected on a monthly basis and with some of the changes we were able to use… that ongoing gathering of data to show an outcome of reduction in time from x to y." ( CS7)
7.30 However, the level of the use of measures ranged significantly across the case studies. One case study had no formal quality measurement system, focusing only on their delivery target which they usually missed. Others had extensive quality measurement both externally and internally. For example, one case study mentioned continual student and staff surveys, a performance measurement system, delivery reports which represent an overwhelming amount of information about performance and issues. They reported a monthly summary of quality in delivery which for September 2005 ran to 42 pages of analysis.
7.31 One case study, an agency, focused their quality measurement on staff and customer feedback. The same case study also extensively checked for quality, errors and service levels in the high volume processes:
"On the core processing business we have various internal checking systems. New staff, for example, have the quality of their work checked out 100% that is usually in the first few weeks and then as they gain experience and get better we progress and we reduce the level of checking to zero in some cases. Again when I first came here everybody had 100% of all of their work checked." ( CS6)
C. Summary
7.32 In summarising the need to understand and be aware of organisational readiness table 7.1 highlights the dimension together with the impact if it is not addressed prior to a Lean implementation. The table also shows how implementing a Lean approach can benefit and support the dimension.
Table 7.1 Potential Dimensions of Organisational Readiness
Dimension | Evidence base | Potential Impact | Benefit of a Lean Approach |
|---|
Acceptance of need to change | All successful case sites had experienced either a crisis or a major organization event that highlighted the need to change. One pilot site demonstrated considerable lack of acceptance of the need to change. | Lean programmes cannot be successfully established if personnel do not accept that there is a need. Symptoms would include: - Lack of management buy-in
- Lack of direction for the programme
- Lack of attendance at RIEs
- Failure to implement or sustain changes
| The Lean process exposes the organization to the waste, errors and delays in the system, highlighting the need to change |
Capacity for Improvement | The most successful case studies demonstrated a history of attempting improvement. A few sites conveyed problems associated with lack of experience in improvement | Improvement events will not achieve sustained changes unless the right types of change are implemented correctly. | The Lean methodology encourages frequent, small-scale, low risk changes that provide an excellent opportunity for the organization to develop change skills |
Team working | The majority of case and pilot sites had a history of departmental working that makes team working difficult Some sites still retained hierarchical management structures | Cross-functional process redesign cannot happen unless multi-disciplinary teams are able to function effectively. | Improvement events deliberately bring together the teams and provide a suitable environment for "no-blame" team working |
Unsupportive culture | The most successful sites consistently demonstrated values that fostered improvement activity and generated commitment to change | Symptoms would include: Management style that does not adapt to empowerment and team working and lack of trust for devolvement of decision-making | The preparation for Lean often includes training for middle management, to manage expectations and condition new roles |
Lack of customer focus | Whilst all successful sites showed clear commitment to serving customers, some evidence demonstrates the difficulties of combining customers' needs and professional priorities | Inability to consider "customer value" Inappropriate optimization of processes | The "value" approach forces a different perspective to achieve a customer focus |
Lack of process-based view | Many sites took considerable time to move away from departmental optimization. Many organizations divide demand in ways other than customer journey, e.g. by patient symptom, or by technical modality | The customer's journey cannot be optimized without a process view System dynamics often cancel out the benefits of changes that have been taken without a process view | Lean relentlessly pursues a process perspective of the organization. |
Lack of improvement data | Most sites needed early preparation of data for use in RIEs Some sites had no knowledge of basic improvement information e.g. demand for services, error rates, time requirements etc. | Processes cannot be successfully changed unless basic information is available | The Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle encourages evidence-based change |
This chapter has demonstrated that the capacity for improvement through lean is influenced by:
- An awareness that improvement was needed which, in turn, engaged staff within the organisation.
- Clear and multiple avenues of communication, which were used to highlight the impact of the changes and improvement and motivate staff.
- Targets, Performance Indicators ( PIs) and measures, which were used to focus minds and guide the improvements.
In terms of benefits, the Lean process itself has:
- brought some of the PIs and measures into question.
- allowed many of the case studies to question, analyse, and so, improve their processes, understanding of customers and team working.
- given public sector organisations in Scotland a greater appreciation of processes, flow, waste and what the customer valued.
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