Next week, the Service Greenbelts return for module 2 of the leanbelt certification program. Today's post, appropriately addresses the relevance of lean in service oriented industries. Dave Cresswell, guest blogger, returns to share the strides the I.T. department at BCIT has made.
The are
many tools and techniques that can be applied to any CSI (Continuous
Service Improvement) program, and lean methods
form the foundational set of tools that we are applying in our development of a
Continuous Service Improvement Initiative. As we start to socialize the idea of
incubating and launching an organization wide CSI initiative, a number of
questions have come my way from across our community. The two most common
questions I am asked are "why Lean" and "is
this an I.T. Methodology".
Why Lean?
The first
question, "why Lean" is easy to answer once you start
to understand the philosophy and principles behind the Lean approach. The basic
three principles that are associated with Lean are:
1. respect for people
2. drive up customer value
3. eliminate waste
And the
general philosophy of Lean is one of continuous improvement.
People, the Key to Lasting Organizational Transformation
Significant
change is always difficult for any organization. And the larger (both depth and
breadth), more complex an organization is, the more difficult it typically is
to embrace and accept significant change. The depth of the change initiative
also plays a significant role. If an organization is looking to make a short
term change to address a particular situation, the approach to introducing and
managing that change has very specific attributes and is typically easier to
implement than one that is fundamentally changing the DNA of an organization or
what it does or how it does it for an extended period of time. An example of a
short term change would include something like changing the structure of the
winter academic term during the year of the winter Olympics to accommodate our
staff that were volunteers and to mitigate traffic concerns. In this case, the
communications needed to be timely and shared broadly, with a clear statement
of the value to the individuals, the organization and the larger shared
community involvement in the winter Olympics. There needed to be clear
intention and general instructions for the 'rules of engagement' during this
time. That was supplemented with facts like dates, times of day, etc., and very
specific information about how work would continue to get done, and finally
ensuring broad engagement at the departmental level to do the planning required
to achieve the outcome.
However,
making or introducing a long lasting fundamental change often requires a shift
in our shared
and organizational culture. And as the quote goes, "culture eats strategy
for lunch, every time!" (attributed
recently to Shawn Parr from Fast Company, though originally believed to
be a quote from Peter Drucker). Changing organizational culture is a much
more daunting task, but one that if supported properly and done right will realize
significant ongoing benefits for the organization and all of its community
members. Adopting a focused and methodology-bound Continuous Service
Improvement initiative across the entire organization does represent the
introduction of a significant change. By choosing to base that on the Lean
methodology and philosophy means identifying and celebrating small, but
continuous improvements over time, as opposed to the Herculean efforts that
some organizations undertake to make significant change essentially overnight.
Another quote attributed to Confucius is "the man who moves a mountain
starts by carrying...small stones". Working on smaller, incremental
changes and improvements will allow us to realize benefit much sooner, and will
make the overall task much more manageable. That approach will help to mitigate
some of the challenges we all have with adapting to change.
So if we approach this initiative with a view to making our
customer's experience better (driving up customer value) we can directly
address the value proposition we are asking our customers to engage in, whether
those are external customers (students, applicants, other post-secondary
institutions, etc.) or internal customers (other BCIT groups, departments,
community members) that receive the service we each provide on a daily basis.
And by facilitating the exercise using Lean skilled and certified internal
coaches as we continue to develop them, applying one or more of the over 150
tools in the Lean tool kit, who better to engage than our colleagues and team
mates that are directly involved in the service or process to help us
understand exactly how the process works today, and what we could do to improve
it in the future. A future state where unnecessary and non-value-add steps and
activities in our processes are eliminated (eliminate waste) resulting
in more of our effort and outcomes focused on direct customer value. Listening
and learning from the people that are directly involved (respect for people)
and growing and improving based on their depth and knowledge of their business.
Why Start with I.T.?
As for the second
question, "is this an I.T. Methodology", the answer is
an unqualified "no". This is a business transformation technique
focused on continuous improvement that can be applied across the organization.
It can be applied as easily to the shipping and receiving area and processes as
it can be to recreation services, or Financial Services processes. In fact, we
have now started to apply Lean techniques and tools in a number of
Institutional areas including Admissions, I.T. Services, Logistics, Warehouse,
and Records Management to name a few.
So you then might
ask, why is it that I.T. Services appears to be leading this? There are a
couple of reasons for this. The first is one of opportunity. We needed a way to
re-engineer our Incident Management process when we were installing a new
system to capture and track incidents at the Service Desk. (An
"incident" can be thought of as any contact from faculty or staff or
students reporting a problem to IT Services). We have approximately 40,000
contacts a year at the IT Service Desk. We wanted to make the process better
for our customer, and the prospect of eliminating waste in the process was
extremely appealing. So we tried Lean out on that project - and it was a great
success. Another reason that I.T. Services is involved in this initiative lies
in the make-up and mandate for part of our team - the Business Analysts. A
large part of their role has always been business process improvement, so there
is a natural affinity for this activity within that team. And finally, another
capability that part of our team brings to the Institute is the identification,
incubation and launch of structured methodology. Whether that's Project
Management methodology, Enterprise Architecture methodology, I.T. Security
Methodology, or any other structured methodology.
But the fact that we
are starting this initiative shouldn't be confused with where it could end up
in the future. We are taking a "business" approach to this
methodology. How can Lean, and other Continuous Service Improvement
methodologies be leveraged across all areas of BCIT to drive up customer value
and eliminate waste. Within I.T. Services, we have developed a proposal and plan
for initially building some capability, but over time, growing that capability
so we also have capacity across the entire organization that would see expertise
being developed broadly, with our Lean certified practitioners initially
playing the role of Lean coach for other areas as they become capable and self-sufficient
themselves.
David Cresswell, Associate Director of Strategic Practices in I.T. Services at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) in Greater Vancouver, BC ( www.bcit.ca ).
As part of his portfolio, David and his team are responsible for identifying, incubating and introducing new methodologies and practices to benefit the Institute. Lean is one of those methodologies that is being implemented through the Strategic Practices portfolio.
As part of his portfolio, David and his team are responsible for identifying, incubating and introducing new methodologies and practices to benefit the Institute. Lean is one of those methodologies that is being implemented through the Strategic Practices portfolio.
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