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Dec

PDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team

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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

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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.

Categories : Pillars

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Dec

LabWorks Opens On the Lean Marketing Lab

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The virtual community of the Lean Marketing Lab open its doors (gateway) on Monday. November 21, 2011. This online community was created to further the cause of bringing continuous improvement to the sales and marketing community. The foundational work is in Lean but you will find a flavor of Service Design and Design Thinking intertwined. Now, the paid membership section LabWorks Group has also opened for training and consulting. The presentation below describes the offer..

So before you buy the books above or enroll in a Business901 program check out the special offers that are provided for being a member of the group.

Categories : Lean Marketing

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Nov

Does Lean need to move beyond Deming?

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The Agile Minds Group in Belgium recently held a conference on Lean Software Development. The speakers were a few of my favorite podcast guests such as Jim Benson , David Anderson and Don Reinertsen.

Don is always entertaining and has such a way with explaining statistics that he makes himself difficult to argue with. This time he took on Dr. Edward Deming and for most of us it would seem to be an overwhelming task. Deming – loyalist should understand that Don makes his case outside of manufacturing. He questions if precise optimization is toxic in product development or knowledge work. Such as:

Is preventing problems always better than correcting them?
Should we really try to eliminate as much variability as possible?
Does responding to normal variation make performance worse?
Did Deming understand Kanban?
Is 3 Sigma upper and lower control limits correct for you?

In this presentation, Don Reinertsen discusses the limitations of Deming’s ideas and how to go beyond them.

Don Reinertsen – Is It Time to Rethink Deming? from AGILEMinds on Vimeo.

I would consider myself a Deming Loyalist. However, I do agree with Don on many of his points. It is the evolution of Lean that is being discussed. As we apply Lean outside of manufacturing many of the basic assumptions that we tie to Deming and Lean may not be valid. Following the principles of John Boyd’s, OODA Loop for a better prescription may open the doors for Lean to prosper outside of traditional process thinking.

An example of this is The Lean Startup where if you review the first writings of Eric Ries you will see the influence of not Deming but The OODA Loop and Don Reinertsen. When you look at the my outline for Lean Sales and Marketing, it follows a similar pattern. It concentrate on the Demand side of the business which requires and encourages variation. It requires placing economic value as part of statistical control. It requires us to look at Lean with a fresh set of eyes!

You gotta like a guy that stirs the pot. Thanks Don!