Operations improvement is a fundamental requirement, and requires continuous effort from any organisation that wishes to succeed in today’s environment of change and challenge. Yet, there are many myths surrounding innovations and ideas for operations improvement in organisations.
The fourth myth in our series of Myths vs Reality is: “Creativity training results in more and better ideas from workers.”
Reality is, most ideas are simple, common-sense solutions and responses to problems and opportunities that exist in the immediate workplace. Until a company can capture workers’ everyday ideas, creativity training to trigger more ideas can be a pointless and costly exercise.
However, here is a warning – do not fall into the trap of assuming that as ideas and solutions are often “common-sense”, they will just happen, as COMMON-SENSE IS NOT ALWAYS COMMON PRACTICE. Also, if you start a system of ideas for improvement, and expect that people will simply participate, you may wait a long time, become disillusioned, and stop the system. An environment needs to be created within which people are stimulated, and provided with support for the generation and implementation of ideas and innovations.
The response to a lack of ideas for improvement is often due to teams needing training, or needing more training in being creative. As reality indicates, that is often not the best way in which to approach the issue. A challenge with this type of training is that it is often at a conceptual level (playing games, building things with paper, using Lego blocks, etc.), and first-line workers may have difficulty in transferring such learning to their own workplaces. In the workplace, a more practical approach is often more effective.
A starting point is to create an understanding about the distinction between value adding and wasteful activities, i.e.:
- Direct value adding activities
- Indirect value adding (supporting) activities
- Non-value adding activities
and how to look for them in the workplace, with the aim of maximising no, 1, optimising no. 2, and eliminating no. 3. The more practically this can be implemented, the more effective it will be in triggering ideas for improvement.
Creating an understanding of ‘The 7 Wastes’ is also effective, but then it needs to be translated into what it practically means for the particular workplace; it should not be just a general description or a definition. A fun way in which to introduce ‘The 7 Wastes’ is to look at it as – “this guy TIM WOOD”. (Tim Wood is someone we would not like to see in our workplaces. He is not a good guy, and he negatively affects our product quality, cost effectiveness, and delivery performance.). In this analogy, each letter of TIM WOOD indicates a type of waste (The 7 Wastes).
Conducting “waste walks” is a practical way in which to demonstrate the different types of waste, “teaching people to see it”, and then coaching them on the causes of waste, and what can be done to reduce or eliminate it.
To read more about ODI’s Continuous Operations Improvement System, click here.
Author: Johan Benadie: Director at ODI and a 20 Keys practitioner for 22 years
