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Kaizen initial education & training

Primary purposes of initial education & training

  1. Create a culture of a blameless shared mission to root out and eliminate waste - wherever it is found
  2. Familiarize the initial Kaizen Team(s) and the most influential people in the company with the tools and concepts that will be used for process improvement
  3. Actually learn and practice some of the fundamental techniques, such as:
    1. Brainstorming and Affinity Mapping
    2. Using a stopwatch to time a video-taped process (and comparing results)
    3. Observing a video-taped process and coming up with ideas for improvement
  4. Building a cohesive team - rather than just a group of individuals
    1. Some knowledge-building exercises double as team-building exercises
    2. Process experts gain respect & appreciation for the contributions of process outsiders, and vice versa

Typical initial training program

An experienced outside Facilitator leads:

  1. Initial training for Executives and the founding members of the Kaizen Facilitators Team - with exercises to establish management policies regarding:
    1. Empowerment Boundaries
    2. Kaizen project selection policies & habits
    3. Kaizen Mandate solicitation and approval policies
      (See Systems2win templates for these and many more Kaizen tools)
  2. Training for the initial Kaizen Team(s) - which consists of almost the identical content that the Executives learned
  3. Do it. Conduct the first Kaizen.
  4. Gradually wean from the outside Facilitator - with in-house Facilitators assuming as much responsibility as they can as soon as they can - but not hesitating to bring in the outside Facilitator over a period of many years to:
    1. Help overcome the inevitable challenges that threaten the success of the program (which almost always involve people issues more than technical issues)
    2. Continually "raise the bar". What was considered excellent last year probably isn't good enough this year. By definition - continuous improvement is continuous.

Choosing a Kaizen consultant

If you don't already have a trusted Kaizen consultant, you can call Systems2win to find a consultant that is familiar with the many Systems2win templates and systems for Continuous Improvement.

 

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