Lean Marketing House » Pillars

The Uniqueness of Hoshin Kanri

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 02:37:00 +0000

The “Hoshin” is developed at each layer of management clarifying strategies and targets to assist in reaching the preceding layer’s targets. This results in both a macro and micro PDCA. This greatly increases the line of sight and shared responsibility to each other in achieving these goals. Kanri is defined as a method to efficiently achieve purposes through PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act).

What makes Hoshin so unique over other planning methods is the effort that is put into the cascading effect of the Hoshin plan. This effect is called “Catchball”. Catchball drives the strategic planning process into every level of the organization and every employee and provides them the opportunity to define how they will contribute to that success.

Catchball(PDCA) works like this:

(Plan) Leaders set the strategies and targets. The team members, made up of the people closest to the work to be improved, put a plan together to make it happen. Ideas are tossed back in forth and open debate is encouraged and expected. Agreement is reached and a plan comes together with a defined course of action and responsibilities.
(Do) Continuing dialogue takes place. "Are we on track? Do we have the time and other resources required? What are we learning that needs to be incorporated into the plan?" Changes are made as a result of this dialogue.
(Check) The leader or the preceding layer monitors and is responsible for the outcome. The leader resolves confusion and helps at key points acting very much like both a coach and a manager during the process.
(Act) Continuous review and discussion will keep the team on target. The goals are accomplished as a result of interaction not because of a prescribed method.

This is the secret of Hoshin Kanri and I believe the preferred method for engaging change. Most processes are built around the existing organizational structure depicted in the structure on the left. Targets and measures are set and many times with a mandate on how we will achieve them. Hoshin Kanri through the use of catchball develops a more collaborative structure and as a result an easier method for change and even more importantly sustainability.

This is not about relinquishing control. It is about gaining more control over implementation. Collaboration does not insure the best answer gets enacted. It typically insures that something does get enacted. It takes away that paralysis from planning. No longer are we trying to gather buy-in to get something accomplished, but rather change is being driven from the bottom up with a sense of joint accountability.

Can Hoshin Kanri work in your organization?

Lean Engagement Team Book Released

admin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:55:00 +0000

Sales and marketing can no longer operate in a vacuum. It has become a process output that intertwines across many of the departments within the organization. As companies have become flat, their decision making is increasingly being done by committee. As a supplier, you must mimic your customer decision-making path and as a result your sales and marketing will also be done by committee. Our highest priority is to deliver to the customer content that he deems valuable to his decision-making process.

Lean is the future of marketing and one of the main reasons is the development of Agile under the Lean umbrella. Using the Agile Manifesto as a basis for Agile marketing or Lean marketing is a good start. In summary they are based on these principles:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Content-rich material over elaborate promotion
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Response to changing customer needs over following a plan

The further we are from our customers’ knowledge base the more effort has to be made to create a larger and larger supply of prospects. The ability to share and create knowledge with your customer is the strongest marketing tool possible. Successful Sales and Marketing Teams are no longer trying to get their message out but developing strategies to get the message in.

Table of Contents

The Path
Positioning your organization from your customer’s viewpoint
Only the Customer Determine Value
PDCA from the Outside-In
The iCustomer and iTeam
New Lean Thinking
Lean Engagement Tools
Lean Engagement Team
Marketing Gateway of EDCA, PDCA, SDCA

The book is available as a PDF download on the Business901.com website or on Amazon:

Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [Ring-bound]

Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [CD-ROM]

Lean Sales and Marketing works because of Leader Standard Work

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:32:00 +0000

People struggle with Lean in sales and marketing because they don’t believe that many of the fundamental concepts of Lean, such as Standard Work can apply to the S & M discipline. If you review the slide shows under the Lean Engagement Team section on Slide Share, I think you will find how much they are based on standard work. Think about Leader standard work, it is intentionally designed to focus multiple layers of attention on the same process. For example:

The Team Leader’s Standard Work might including adding new call scripts into a follow-up campaign for a certain webinar or trade show. The team leader also heads a brief daily stand-up meeting with the team which is part of the regular agenda to ensure that appropriate action has been taken or initiated. The Team Coordinator should attend but not head the meeting.

The Team Coordinator might then work with the team to go over playback of scripts for training. He may bring in additional trainers as part of a weekly program to improve delivery. The TC ensures that program has been coordinated with other actions in the marketing communication department.

The Marketing Communication department sends follow-up emails, auto-responders and/or direct mail.

The Value Stream Manager might allocate budget for calling program and meet once a week to check progress and to lead a regularly-scheduled meeting with the TC, TL and MC to discuss the problems or opportunities.

It is this way that standard work is layered to ensure focus on the processes that produce the results. It is one of the most challenging aspect of the transition from a traditional results-only culture to a lean results-and-process-focused culture.

A quote from Dr. Michael Balle, “Lean is not a revolution; it is solve one thing and prove one thing.” Leader Standard work is the foundation of Lean Sales and Marketing and the fundamental process that replaces the "Silver Bullet" found in most typical marketing jargon.

What are your thoughts? Is your marketing efforts based on standard work?

Systems2win(who I work with) has an excellent description on the website, Leader Standard Work tool.and a new video out (below) that explains Standard Work.

The SDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team

admin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 03:29:00 +0000

This presentation is an overview on how to implement SDCA (Plan – Do – Check – Act) in the field of Lean Sales and Marketing. It includes an outline for standard work of this cycle and an embedded video with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise discussing Standard work in a knowledge creating department – Engineering.

Standard Work in Lean Sales and Marketing

View more presentations from Business901

Graham Hill former head of CRM at Toyota Financial Services states that:

Marketing in highly competitive markets is about exploring new propositions on the innovation fitness landscape. The environment determines where to start and complex marketing environments need EDCA. EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, SDCA = Standardize, marketing operations are all about moving along the EDCA>PDCA>SDCA pathway.

Standard Work should only encompass part of your time. In fact, knowledge workers should have a a fair amount of slack time built into their process, i.e. Google, 3M. On the other hand, just about every person wants some form of standard work. Most enjoy doing tasks that they are comfortable with and gives them a sense of accomplishment in completion. The amount of Standard Work that you decide for your teams will differ from organization to organization and from team to team. The bigger picture is that Standard Work is what provides line of sight for your team. It enables support and provides opportunity for managers to serve you.

More information is available in my posts, Lean Canvas for Lean EDCA-PDCA-SDCA, The PDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team and The EDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team.

Have we reached the end of the pathway? We have actually just started. Standardizing your work provides opportunity to spread it within your organization and will make it easier for customers to go deeper into your organization for knowledge sharing. As a result, it will provide a flood of new ideas for innovation and co-creation opportunities. But even more importantly it secures a vendor-customer relationship or partnership that is difficult for others to replicate. More on this in the blog post, Positioning your organization to learn from your customers.

Standard Work does not need to be boring: Is Zappos the Next Toyota?

PDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team

admin — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 03:49:00 +0000

This presentation is an overview on how to implement PDCA (Plan – Do – Check – Act) in the field of Lean Sales and Marketing. It includes an outline for standard work of that cycle and an embedded video with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise discussing the Power of Check in PDCA. The video goes on to discuss how to test your opinion with PDCA.

PDCA in Lean Sales and Marketing

View more presentations from Business901

Graham Hill former head of CRM at Toyota Financial Services states that:

Marketing in highly competitive markets is about exploring new propositions on the innovation fitness landscape. The environment determines where to start and complex marketing environments need EDCA. EDCA = Explore, PDCA = Plan, SDCA = Standardize, marketing operations are all about moving along the EDCA>PDCA>SDCA pathway.

Lean Sales and Marketing is essentially a knowledge transfer system and PDCA is an incredibly powerful tool for defining and closing knowledge gaps. Starting with the unknown, we start with EDCA. As we move along the marketing pathway we arrive at a known problem/knowledge gap and PDCA is utilized. Viewing sales and marketing from a knowledge versus a performance gap perspective, can make things a little fuzzy. Refining the Marketing pathway into three separate distinctive cycles of SALES EDCA, SALES PDCA, SALES SDCA allows team roles to be defined and provides clarity to the process. In the blog post Practical Approach to Innovation used by Disney, a video demonstrates an approach developed by Walt Disney and based on the roles of Dreamer, Realist and Critic. However, instead of thinking of the Dreamer think EDCA, Realist think PDCA and Critic think SDCA. This serves as a great analogy on when to use the three disciplines and how they interact with each other.

More information is available in my posts, Lean Canvas for Lean EDCA-PDCA-SDCA and The EDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team.

Is your organization a learning organization?

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 02:37:00 +0000

This is an interview with David Garvin and Amy Edmondson, Professors, Harvard Business School. Learning organizations generate and act on new knowledge. The ability to do this enables companies to stay ahead of change and the competition.

This is the the link to the PDF of article that is discussed in the interview, Is Yours a Learning Organization? Or, you can view it below.

Is yours a learning organization