Category: Lean and Continuous Improvement

Leadership, Lean and Continuous Improvement, Personal Development

Prioritized Leader Actions are for, well, EVERYONE!

Glenn Sommerville
Prioritized Leader Actions or Leader Standardized Work

This post is a revision from a previously popular post.

I’ve never understood why so few leaders use Leader Standardized Work (LSW). Talking with many leaders over the years, the explanation I hear most is that they don’t have standard repeatable work or tasks. Baloney! All leaders have regular actions that they must or want to take on an ongoing basis. Examples include budget reviews, team member 1:1s, Gemba (go to the workplace), submitting your monthly business expenses, and many others. So if the “standardized work” wording is a barrier to using LSW, in HPL’s new fall ‘Lunch and Lead’ program called “4-steps to Time Shifting – making time for the things that really matter“, I’ve rephrased it to “Prioritized Leader Actions” or PLA. Ultimately, I think it more accurately reflects the intent relating to leadership responsibilities. Leaders are too often ‘fighting fires,’ and I believe a significant cause of this is that they are not proactive enough! Yes, it’s only a name change, but unfortunately, I think the name LSW casts a negative perception on many to the point that they don’t even consider it. So, let’s talk about Prioritized Leader Actions (PLA)!

I’ve found PLA to be a great tool to help me be a more consistent and effective leader. I’ve used PLA for years. For me, it’s my little voice reminding me of the most important things I need to do or that I want to do to be successful when leading. These are my priorities. Regardless of your responsibility, there is an inevitable component of it that is repeatable; therefore, Prioritized Leader Actions are for, well, everyone! It’s not just a manufacturing thing!!!

Here are some key points I found helpful when it comes to PLA:

1. Set up PLA with a designated section for daily, weekly, monthly and Mid-long term (quarterly, semi-annual) based on the frequency of completion of the task or action.

2. Place tasks in the PLA that are important to YOU that you must get done and those that you want to complete, check, or confirm because they are essential to you or your business.

3. Set your PLA up on a monthly basis, refreshing it at the beginning of each month.

4. Have a method within the PLA to indicate which days you are on vacation and identify when you are out of the office on business. Doing so will help you plan more effectively when you complete tasks, or it will provide you with the opportunity to delegate if necessary.

5. PLA should be dynamic, not static. It’s OK to add and remove items from your PLA. However, as priorities change, new systems develop, metrics improve or degrade, you may find that you need to adjust what you’re doing or what you’re checking and confirming.

6. PLA is for you, not anyone else. It’s OK to show people your PLA, but I don’t advocate posting it. It’s more effective if you carry it with you at all times to help you execute it versus showing others. As a leader, you should also check your team’s PLA periodically.

7. If you’re not getting to something on your PLA, don’t beat yourself up; instead, find the root cause for not getting it done and determine what you need to do differently to achieve it. After all, the items on your PLA were put there by you because you either need to get them done as a core responsibility of your job or they are most important to you. Then, use it to improve your self-discipline, motivate you, or remind you to just do it!

8. PLA must be integral to your planning system and routine. It must integrate with your schedule, follow-up system, and to-do lists.

9. Print out your PLA for the month, update it daily as you complete tasks daily, and “pencil” in additional PLA tasks as you’re thinking of them throughout the month.

10. When you get busy, that’s when you need your PLA the most. Please don’t abandon it, then. Instead, use it to help you get the most important things done. Then, when you can’t do everything, use it to make an informed decision as to what will and will not get done.

I use an Excel spreadsheet for my PLA. To make things easier, I’ve added some conditional formatting for the visibility of weekends, business travel, or when out on vacation. I prepare the PLA for the month, print it out, and then use it daily by marking tasks using a pen. PLA is integral to my daily, weekly, and monthly planning system.

Check out our ‘Tools‘ page to download a template of my PLA to use for yourself. Then, modify it as necessary to make it work for you.

I hope you found this helpful. Are there any key points I’ve missed or, in your experience, you feel are most important?

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Lean and Continuous Improvement, Uncategorized

Proof-of-concept Line Trail Guidelines

Glenn Sommerville

We (HPL) have been working with a few different clients recently where there has been a need for proof-of-concept line trials. To me, line trials are a lot of fun! Well, they can and should be. Think of them as a sandbox that we can build out our creative and innovative ideas and concepts to see if they will work in the real world. However, to be effective and result in meaningful outcomes, line trials need to follow a robust Plan, Do, Check, Act/Adjust (PDCA) process. A common mistake when undertaking line trials is an inadequate plan! A good rule of thumb is to spend approximately 70% of your PDCA time and effort (not including the actual trial build duration) in planning for the trial.

Given the importance of proof-of-concept line trials, HPL has created two documents to help plan and execute effective line trials, as follows:

Both documents are available for free download from our HPL website’s tools page using this link.

While recently reading “Leadership Moments from NASA, Achieving the impossible“, by Dr. Dave Williams, one of the statements in the end of a chapters ‘Leadership Insights’ stated:

Simulation creates an environment where failure is a safe opportunity for learning.

Although the quote was referring to space flight training and simulation, the same is very applicable to proof-of-concept line trials. Really, the only failure of a line trial is not to follow a proper PDCA process because something may negatively or falsely impact the trial. Even when the trial doesn’t produce the desired result, it should not be deemed a failure when line trials are made to be a safe time and place for those involved to experiment and learn. So even if a line trial results in a less than expected or disappointing outcome, as long as we’ve learned from it, it’s a great successful failure!

I hope you’ll find these two new tools helpful. Let us know what you think or if we’ve missed anything.

Tx’s Glenn!

Gemba, Lean and Continuous Improvement, Personal Development, Problem Solving

The conflicts of line trials

Glenn Sommerville

One of the things I’ve always loved is the simple kaizens (continuous improvement). I was reminded of this recently working with RAB Design Lighting when the team there was conducting some line trials. Having coached the team on the importance of detailed trial planning and real-as-possible process set-up, but also the need to be balanced with simplicity, low cost, and high flexibility, I was thrilled to see their creativity and ingenuity that met these two potentially conflicting criteria. See examples in the pictures below.


The two criteria mentioned above is important because you want a trial to simulate the real line conditions as much as possible, however, things will definitely change as you learn more. So you don’t want to invest time and money building/buying a lot of things that may not actually be used in the permanent line or that may require several iterations of changes to get just right.

When conducting line trails careful planning is necessary. Planning such as: Clearly defining the purpose of the trial is critical. Determining what are you trying to prove, disprove or discover. Setting up the line to simulate as close as possible what the actual real line will look and feel like. Protecting the trial from “noise” or other things that can negatively impact or distract from the purpose of the trial. Although some of these things maybe real, you should try and isolate them from initial trials if they are not directly related to the purpose. There is a time and place to allow real time disruptions and abnormalities but not in early trials. Identifying and defining the number of trial observers, their roles, responsibilities and tracking needs. Deciding on what metrics to track and measure throughout the trial and who is going to do that. Scheduling, taking into account breaks, lunches and shift end, is also important.

Trials are to experiment and learn. They can also be a great deal of fun along the way! 

Congratulations to Denis Arsenault, P.Eng. and the RAB Design Lighting team for the successful trial this week! I’m looking forward to the next one!

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Leadership, Leading Problem Solving in Non-Manufacturing Series, Problem Solving

Looking for Evidence Through Gemba – Leading Problem Solving in Non-Manufacturing Series

Glenn Sommerville

We took a bit of a post break over the summer but will pick-up where we left off talking about leading problem solving in non-manufacturing environments. This is post #4 in the series. If you missed the others or need a refresh, here they are:

1 Second Understanding in non-manufacturing

TIM WOODS (8 forms of waste)

Teaching your eyes to see with TIM WOODS

A core responsibility of any leader is to help identify problems and challenges for their teams to get engaged and resolve. A great way to do this is through gemba or “go & see”. If you are not familiar with this term, we will include some links on the topic at the end of the post. Gemba can be done alone or with your team. There is a place for both.

One of the many purposes of gemba is to look for evidence. Evidence that things are going well, and to identify opportunities for improvement. If done regularly, you should be able to discover needed improvements before they lead to a significant situation or crisis. When it comes to opportunities, you are looking for standards not being followed, lack of standards, or signs that there is a some form of abnormality that is not being addressed. Let’s look at examples of each.

All companies have some form of standards, policies, or rules that are documented and employees are expected to follow. However, far too often we don’t use gemba to check on them to confirm if they are being followed or not. If not, why not and what do we need to do? As a result, a crisis or urgent situation is usually when we take action, dropping everything else to attend to it.

Here’s a very common example where a company has a smoking policy which states smoking is only permitted in the designated smoking areas. It’s easy to assume that the policy is being followed, until an employee lodges a formal agency complaint against the company that they are entering the building every day walking through a haze of smokers at the front door that needless to say are not in the designated smoking area. Your day, just evaporated!

Using gemba of this nature is to take a walk and look for evidence. Not only do you observe people using the designated smoking area or not, but is there evidence that this standard is not being adhered to? How? Are there cigarette butts outside of the designated smoking area? Can you find cigarette butts near the front doors or other non-designated locations? If so, this is evidence that the standard is not being consistently followed and action is required.

This is beyond a 5S issue with cigarette butts on the ground!

While doing so, you may discover other unrelated evidence that you weren’t expecting. For example in this picture, there is remnants of yellow caution tape on the hand railing. Why? Upon further investigation it is determined that these steps often ice over and so the stairs are closed. However, is this addressing the root cause? Is this a good solution? Again, further action is warranted.

The second evidence gemba is about looking to find where there is a lack of standards or absence of good practices currently in place. Gemba of this nature may begin with a specific focus item or theme, or a simply a search for any abnormalities.

For our example let’s assume that we are leading a team that works on confidential new product designs. The team has doubled in size in the last year. Although there isn’t currently a standard or policy in place, it’s always been the practice to secure confidential information at the end of each day. In this case, you may want to do a gemba of the work place to see how many confidential documents, files, drawings, etc that you find unsecured after the team leaves for the day. Based on the evidence found, action may be required.

The last evidence gemba is where we want to find problems or opportunities before they become a big deal. There are two effective ways to do so. The first one is very easy and is guaranteed to reveal exceptional opportunities. Do a gemba and just talk to your team and simply ask “What frustrates you?” They will tell you! These frustrations are problems that are bubbling and definitely already distractions, but if left without action, will eventually become a significant issue.

The second way of finding problems or opportunities is to walk the work place looking for abnormalities and then think beyond the obvious for possible explanations and/or ask questions to solicit insights from them. The potentials here are endless and somewhat dependant on the environment and work performed. Here’s a brief list of some common potential issues in non-manufacturing environments:

  • Team using makeshift materials for laptop/monitor stands or creating their own stand-up stations – evidence of potential ergonomic concerns and/or inflexible workstations.
  • Excess paper in the recycle bins next to printers or photo-copiers, evidence of potential frequent equipment jams or poor printing capabilities.
  • Team members searching for documents, materials, or equipment to perform their jobs, sharing of the same between them could be evidence that the team has outgrown the previous levels of core essentials to efficiently do their jobs.

After you have used gemba to gather the evidence in any of these 3 scenarios, it is time to engage the team to understand the root cause, determine appropriate actions, and to implement the necessary changes to drive resolution to solve the problems and make improvements.

For those interested in learning more about gemba, please review the following articles:

10 Important Steps of Effective Gemba Walks or “Go See”

The Different Types Of Gemba

Gemba by any other name is… go & see! Gemba is NOT just for manufacturing processes!

3 Steps to Having Time for Gemba

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com

Leadership, Leading Problem Solving in Non-Manufacturing Series, Problem Solving

Leading Problem Solving in Non-manufacturing Series – Teaching your eyes to see with TIM WOODS

Glenn Sommerville

As a follow-up to our 2nd article in the “Leading Problem Solving in Non-Manufacturing Series” that described the acronym “TIM WOODS” as it applies to non-manufacturing environments, this 3rd article in the series will explain how you can teach your eyes to see these waste form in non-manufacturing areas and then how to engage your team in problem solving.

An important skill for leaders is to learn to “see”. This means seeing beyond what most people see, or at least a different perspective of the same image. Teaching your eyes to see is a learned skill, that once mastered, opens your eyes to many new things.

So how do you learn to see?  Practice.

The first step is to Go to the area in which work is performed and go with a specific purpose to learn to see.  For example, go with a focus to see one specific type of waste from the TIM WOODS definitions as summarized below.  For more examples of each type of waste in non-manufacturing areas, you may want to review the previous article here.

So what do you do if the work is done on a computer? Go to computer and observe what is done, how it is done, the steps involved, information required, etc. You can learn a great deal from observing any type of work. Observing someone doing data entry or programming, can be enlightening to see, what they experience. It could be glare from overhead lighting or sunshine, large numerical entries prone to errors, system delays while background analysis takes place, excessive clicks to complete a desired task, etc.

The next point is to dedicate an appropriate amount of time to see a very specific focus. I’d recommend no less than 30 minutes, and more appropriately 60 minutes depending on the area you are reviewing and the people being engaged. However, it’s less about the size of the office area, and more about giving enough time to really see and observe the various forms of waste. Sometimes, depending on the type of waste, you need to observe for a longer period of time before the waste actually takes place. For example, to see wasteful “transportation” or employees walking around looking for information they need to do their job, likely only occurs periodically. Unless you are just lucky enough to be there at the right time, you will miss this type of waste unless you observe long enough.

Look for that specific focus that you determined and only that focus. Resist the temptation to “wander” or make a “laundry” list of everything you see. When you see the specific focus items, ask yourself as many questions as you can about that particular item. See beyond the obvious. Look for deeper meaning, symptoms, evidence, or abnormalities. Ask “why” many times to understand what is really happening.

Although efficiencies and personal productivity can be improved by engaging in TIM WOODS in non-manufacturing areas, I’d suggest it’s less about that, and more about reducing employee frustrations and distractions. Employees will become more engaged, energized, and happier! Of course, if your employees are engaged, energized and happier, they will be more able to focus on their work tasks resulting in improved efficiencies and personal productivity.

This type of activity is something you can practice on your own, together with your team, or engage your team to increase engagement, awareness, and sustainment long term.

Often leaders in non-manufacturing areas struggle with what to put on their Leader Standard Work (LSW).  This is a great one to add – “Conduct TIM WOODS audit”!  Whether it be weekly, monthly or otherwise, adding to your LSW and integrating it with your calendar by reserving time in your calendar makes for very effective leadership.

Team engagement can be done by establishing an audit type system (similar to a layered process audit) where the TIM WOODS focus areas and office locations are pre-determined and an audit frequency and responsibility schedule/matrix is made up. In doing so, each team member will be have the responsibility to conduct a TIM WOODS audit on a specific focus area, in a specific location, at a scheduled interval.

When repeated often and with a new or different focus you will soon see these forms of waste naturally and without effort. Once you learn to see, you won’t be able to turn it off.

The next step is to engage your team in problem solving to resolve the cause of these wastes by implementing a “Problem Solving Auction” which includes the following key points:

  • Prioritize and select a limited number of top items, recommend 6 or less open at any given time.
  • “Auction” off ownership of action and agree upon completion dates.
  • Document and distribute the action plans as detailed above, make visual physically or virtually.
  • Problem solve after the auction, not during.
  • Follow-up, close out actions, recognize successes, repeat.

To get you started, you can download our TIM WOODS audit sheet from our Tools page.

In the next article in this series we will discuss “Looking for evidence through gemba” in non-manufacturing areas.

If you missed the previous articles in the series, ‘Leading Problem Solving in Non-Manufacturing Series”, you can find them here:

Article #1: 1 Second Understanding

Article #2: TIM WOODS

Contact me:

For additional information on High Performance Leaders Inc., click here.  Or follow on LinkedIn.

You can email me with any questions at glennsommerville@hotmail.com, find me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/glennsommervilleL2R/, or on Twitter at  https://twitter.com/gsommervilleL2R.

If you are enjoying my posts and find the information useful, please “Follow” me by entering your email in the follow box on the right-hand menu of my website www.glennsommerville.com