Facilitating Rapid Process Improvement Workshops: The Self-Study Guide for Lean Leaders

by Sheilah O'Brien

Overview

This is a self-study guide for facilitators of rapid process improvement workshops that helps anyone who feels like they aren't truly gaining the full results of improvement initiatives and kaizen events. They know they can do better, but don't know how. The author, an experienced facilitator in government and nonprofits, speaks to the facilitator through coaching notes and actual workshop documents and techniques so the reader can fully understand how greater results are achieved. This guide takes the reader through a step-by-step path of a newly created workshop agenda. The author has parsed the workshop path into more manageable parts, easier for both the facilitator and the team. These parts split the improvement work into two sections: "removing the unnecessary" and "smoothing out the flow." "Smoothing out the flow" is divided further into:

• When the work is coming in
• When the product/person is going through the process
• How the work is performed

In addition, the author includes newly created tools and training content. For example, a data-gathering table points the facilitator to what data need to be collected when. Training for the team includes making sure they understand the structure of a process as well as to instruct them and define how a Lean process actually functions. This distinction is important because all improvements are not necessarily Lean improvements.

Several bodies of knowledge are incorporated into this guide--not only Lean and Six Sigma, but internal auditing, organizational development, and statistics.

Essentially, this guide includes tips, nuances, and original tools that are missing from the traditional training of facilitators of kaizen events. It provides enough information for the facilitator to think in a creative way.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367724672
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/28/2021
Pages:	234
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paddy Sheilah O'Brien has an MPA from Cornell University, a BA from Pitzer College and is certified in Lean, project management, and communications. She was instrumental in pioneering Lean in many state government services, ranging from child adoptions, the motor pool, and the revenue department. She also extended her technical assistance to the non-profit providers in 33 counties. Her real contribution is sharing 'lessons learned' from running over 24 rapid process improvement events. Her recipe for success: stick to the original intent of kaizen and believe that frontline workers know the problems best. With the right tools and guidance, they can solve them. O'Brien has learned from the best consultants, taken all the professional courses, and collected research from multiple Lean databases. But out of all these resources, she states there are many gaps for the practitioner. In here recent book, Lean for the Nonprofit: What You Don't Know Can Cost You, she has filled them in with her well-thought out connections between technique, experience in developing workshops, and calling out what historical management innovators have already given us.

Her career, both in the private and public sectors, is a tapestry of different kinds of knowledge and skills. For instance, as a former internal auditor, she brings the importance of internal controls. As a practitioner in organizational development, she brings knowing the stages of team development to facilitation skills. With her program evaluation experience in collecting data, she created a list of simple tools easily taught to any staff member of improvement teams. And being an associate in project management helped in preparing, facilitating, and closing out an improvement event.

O'Brien has presented at national conferences, been the recipient of multiple awards, and has developed and delivered multiple courses on Lean, performance measures, and quality tools. She has recently taken leave of full-time state employment to embark on a second career of being an author and lecturer.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction 1

Why the Creation of This Manual? 1

Organization of This Manual 1

How to Use This as a Real Guide 2

What Is New and Different? 2

References 3

1 Laying the Foundation 5

Welcome and Team Introductions 5

Sponsor Expectations 7

How the Rapid Process Improvement (RPI Came About) 8

Background and Charter 10

Ground Rules and Decision-Making 14

Administrative Tasks 15

Data Collections Methods 17

The Art of Facilitation: Review Each Day 19

Appendix 1 20

References 27

2 Understand the Current State 29

Walk Through the Actual Place of Work to Grasp the Big Picture 29

The Second Walk-Through: Specifically of the Process to Be Improved 33

Analysis of Data, Observations from Walk-Through 36

Backlog 40

Revise Preliminary Flowchart 42

List of Facilitation Deliverables 44

Appendix 2 45

3 Improve: Clean Up the Current Process 51

Preparation for Step-by-Step Exercise 51

Conduct Step-by-Step Exercise: Explain the Tool 54

Teach/Review Root Cause Analysis Tools 58

The Workshop Could Stop Here 62

List of Facilitation Deliverables 63

The Art of Facilitation: What Is Value? 63

Appendix 3 64

4 Pause: Workshop Quality Check 71

Why the Pause? 71

Review Accomplishments and Learnings 71

Revisit Charter and Change If Necessary 72

Preparing for the Next Level of Improvements: The New Pathway Model 76

List of Facilitation Deliverables 79

The Art of Facilitation: Balance Three Things at Once 79

Appendix 4 80

5 Smooth Out the Flow: Improve the Process When the Work Comes In 85

Prep work: Understand the Current State of "Input" 85

Data Collection. Background/Information 86

Kinds of Products/Services. Background/Information 90

Controlling/Distributing Work. Background/Information 92

Points of Entry, Background/Information 95

List of Facilitation Deliverables 96

The Art of Facilitation: Work with Your Data 96

Appendix 5 98

6 Smooth Out the Flow: Improve the Work as It Goes Through the Process 101

Minimize Batching 101

Introduce Error-Proofing 103

Push or Pull and Kanban 104

Takt Time and Balancing the Workload 106

List of Facilitation Deliverables 108

The Art of Facilitation: Takt Time May Not Be Our Time 109

Appendix 6 111

7 Smooth Out the Flow: Improve How the Work Is Performed 115

Why Bother with Standardization? What Is It? 115

How Do You Put Standardization in Place? 115

Show Me How to Do It: Facilitation Case Study from Field Offices Client Application Process RPI 119

List of Facilitation Deliverables 123

The Art of Facilitation: Knowledge Workers (The Professional Bureaucracy) 123

Appendix 7 125

8 Smooth Out the Flow: Improve the Process Supports 131

Mini-Lecture: Overview of Supports 131

Materials 132

Environment 135

Equipment 139

List of Facilitation Deliverables 142

Appendix 8 143

9 Pause: Putting It All Together 147

Gather All Information Pertaining to a Future Improved State 147

Gather PDSA's and Sort Improvement Ideas 148

Develop Pilot Tests and Recommendations 148

Develop an Impact/Difficulty Matrix 149

Prepare Supporting Documentation for Report-Out 150

Facilitator Develops a Draft Presentation Outline 157

List of Facilitation Deliverables 157

The Art of Facilitation: Unions 158

Appendix 9 158

10 Report, Implementation Tracking, and Continuous Improvement 163

Part 1 Oral Report-Out, Written Report, and Dissemination 163

Appendix 10 Part 1 168

Part 2 Tracking System and Continuous Improvement 173

List of Facilitation Deliverables 182

Appendix 10 Part 2 183

11 The End of the Story 191

Addendum: Prep Work for the RPI 199

6 Weeks Prior to Event 199

4-5 Weeks Before 1st Day of Workshop 200

3 Weeks Prior to the Event 204

1-2 Weeks Prior to the Event 205

1 Day Prior to the Event 208

Day of the Event 208

Appendix 210

Index 211