Where Lisa Discovers a New Way

Lisa sat at her keyboard, enjoying a bagel before her shift started at 7am.  As she flicked through her dozens of emails, meeting requests and other things that never got looked at or finished, she saw one that caught her eye:

>To: All Service Centre Employees

>Subject: Urgent Notice Regarding Your Employment

“As you all know, at the Shoe Emporium we have strived to be the first choice for passionate shoe buyers over the past five years.

Unfortunately, to remain cost competitive in a tough market, the board of directors have made the difficult decision to cease the employment of all northern service centre employees by the 14^th of next month.

If you are receiving this email, then this decision relates to you.”

Lisa stopped reading and put down her bagel.  “Cease the employment?”  She was being downsized!  Lisa had known things were bad at the Shoe Emporium, but being put out of a job like this was the last thing she had expected, and the 14^th was less than four weeks away.

Lisa checked her watch, picked up her phone and dialled a number.  If she timed it just right she would have 20 minutes before the call centre opened.  The phone only rang once.

“Hi you’re on the phone with Steve,” said the perpetually cheerful voice on the other end.

“Hi Steve,” Lisa said, trying to keep her voice steady.  “They just announced something big here.  Can I meet you at the boardwalk?”

“You can, because I’m actually here right now,” said Steve, but he didn’t get to finish before Lisa hung up her phone and quickly headed down to meet him.

At the boardwalk near the bay, the people were blissfully unaware of Lisa’s news.  As she made her way through the holiday makers strolling leisurely about, she saw Steve standing by a large sign, there as promised.

“These things are just fantastic,” said Steve as Lisa approached, and she looked up to see that the large sign he was looking at was in fact a map of the bay area.

“Steve, they’ve just announced they’re cutting costs,” said Lisa, slightly out of breath.  “All the bay area call centre employees are going to be losing their jobs in four weeks, including me.”

“Cost cutting eh?” Steve furrowed his brow for a moment in thought. “Never a good sign.  And even worse, I suppose, when you’re not on the end doing the cutting,” he added sympathetically.

“Steve, what am I going to do?”

Steve was silent for a moment, lowered his chin and looked across at her solemnly.

“Well, Lisa, you know we were both going to be doing this process improvement anyway,” he said.  “If we were going to do it before, would you be willing to still do it now to save your job?”

Lisa paused to let the words digest.  This certainly wasn’t the option that first came to mind.  Save her job in four weeks?  Surely it could not be possible.  But… what was the alternative?

“Well,” said Lisa. “I guess I have no choice but to say yes.”

“You always have a choice, Lisa,” said Steve.  “I know it might sound crazy, but I’ve seen this thing work wonders.  There is a lot I have to teach you, but I think together we could do it.”

“Well I’ve got about five minutes now,” said Lisa, a smile finding its way to her face. “Will that suit?”

Steve laughed a deep, warm laugh.  “Five minutes eh?” he said, obviously up to the challenge.  And then seeming to remember something, he said: “Well we can start here, with this map.”

He looked again at the large map of the bay area.  Printed down the bottom were the words: “YOU ARE HERE” next to an arrow in bold.

“This was the next thing I was going to teach you, Lisa,” said Steve.  I came here for a reason, you see.  Because if we want to get anywhere worth going, we first need to know where we are.”

Lisa looked at him sceptically.  “Doesn’t that sound like something a monk might say, not a business owner?  No offense Steve, but I’m about to lose my job here and I’m almost late for work.”

Steve laughed.  “I promise, you will love this.  Let’s head back to your building while we talk.

“You see most businesses don’t know or haven’t articulated their current processes – they just let their employees work and hope for the best.  They can’t improve their business because they don’t even know where they currently are.

“You might say they are lost without a map.”

Lisa’s brow unfurrowed a little as she warmed to the idea.  “A map,” she said, half to herself.  “But what kind of map?”

“A process map, Lisa.  A map of the things you do that bring value to your customers.”

“Oh, of course.  And we all know value is determined by the customer,” said Lisa, in a mock sing-song voice.

“Aha!  The perfect student – you remembered!”  Steve smiled his unstoppable smile.

“You know how I remember that?” asked Lisa.  “I actually took your advice and asked my customers what they like and want more of.  And you know, I found out a few things I wouldn’t have if I’d just assumed.”

“Oh?”  Steve raised an eyebrow, even more interested.

“I found out a lot of my customers would be willing to pay for faster shipping,” Lisa continued.  “So that would add value.  They would also pay for a longer return period.  The majority of my customers tended to shop with us because we had access to really special, niche brands that others didn’t.  But the main process, of course, was selling shoes.”

“That’s great!  Wow, you’ve done a great job so far.  And for all of those valuable processes, we can create a map.”

They sped up slightly as they passed a small boat at the dock.  A young crew dressed in white polo shirts were passing boxes of inventory along a gang plank to each other onto the boat.  It was a simple process, left to right, left to right until it got to the end.

“Take that boat crew for example,” Steve pointed to the crew.

“When we are creating our map, just like that boat we need all our team-mates to be on board or our boat won’t run.  In other words, we need to include our team-mates from the front lines.  And see how they’re passing those boxes along to each other?  That is exactly how we draw in our processes – moving along from station to station, from process step to process step until it is delivered at the end to the customer.”

“I think I get it,” said Lisa, and she looked at her watch.  Time was running out before the call centre opened and she needed to start work.

“Maybe it would be easier if you could see one,” said Steve.  “If you’ve got a few minutes and a spare whiteboard, I’ll show you how to make a map now if you like?”

Lisa hesitated just a little.  “OK, Steve, but we need to hurry.”  And they entered the building.

*

Fifteen minutes later, the two were totally engrossed in the rough process map on the whiteboard they had drawn in a spare meeting room at the Shoe Emporium.  It seemed simple enough.  There was a box with a pointy roof on the left, an arrow moving down and then a row of boxed process steps from left to right.

A few arrows here or there indicated “redoing” a few of the steps, and underneath it all were some rough timings of the steps and queues in between.

“It’s amazing,” said Lisa, slightly slouched in her chair.  “I can see the process.  You know, Steve, this might actually help.”

“I guarantee it will,” said Steve.  “But remember, include your team-mates and help get them on board.  An important part of Lean is to take them on the journey with you and pass on your knowledge as you make changes.  Also, you never know when you will need their support.”

Lisa gave him a worried look.  “That’s the hard part.  I don’t know anyone who cares enough about their job here to spend time on the process with me.  Most of the people are out the door the second their shift is over.”

“That may be true, but you must find a way, Lisa.”

It was heartening, even if she didn’t quite believe it.  And for a moment Lisa felt as though it could work.  But the moment was broken by the door being flung open – no knock, just a loud crash as it hit the adjacent wall.

“WHO… IS… THIS?” said an overweight, red-faced man pointing directly at Steve.  He needed no introduction to Lisa – his name was Robert, and he was Lisa’s boss.

Steve turned to the large man without missing a beat and smiled.

“I’m the repair man, your process is broken,” he said, arm outstretched for a handshake.

Looking slightly perplexed, Robert pushed aside his open palm and stepped out of the doorway.

“Get out of this office, NOW!” he yelled.  And then directing his anger at Lisa, he said: “You are 20 minutes late, the phone lines opened at seven!”

Oh my God, Lisa thought.  The time must have slipped away while they were doing their process map.

As they walked out of the office Robert said – voice still well above normal volume – “And you can make up the time tonight.  We’ll be rounding it UP to an hour with no pay!”

The storm that was Robert the Boss then whisked away to berate someone else.

“I am so sorry about that,” said Lisa, as she quickly walked Steve out of the building.  “But he’s right, I am late.  I have to get back.”

She managed a half smile.  “Thanks for meeting me.  There’s a lot to take in but I’m sure it will help,” she said, not sure at all.

“You can do it, Lisa,” Steve said warmly.

With that, they said their goodbyes.

But as Lisa made her way back to her desk, her worry grew.  With a boss like Robert constantly around to block any changes she tried to make, what could she do?

She would need some more skills if she was going to succeed.

Selected chapters from the story within Five minute Lean:

• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Makes a Change
• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Discovers a New Way
• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Performs a Balancing Act
• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Pulls the Trigger
• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Sets a New Standard
• Lean Parable – Where Lisa Becomes a Leader

Check out these selected chapters from the teachings within Five Minute Lean:

• Five Minute Lean – Add Important Data to Your Map
• Five Minute Lean – Present and Manage Your Change Using an A3 and LCA
• Five Minute Lean: Glossary
• The Five Minute Catch-up
• Five Minute Lean – Make Feedback Meaningful with Kano Analysis
• Five Minute Lean – Collect and Measure Feedback With the Net Promoter Score
• Five Minute Lean – Get Your Map Started with a SIPOC
• Five Minute Lean – Heijunka: Level the Workload when Demand Fluctuates
• Five Minute Lean – Introduction
• Five Minute Lean – Use Kaizen and Kaizen Events to Help Stakeholder Buy-In
• Five Minute Lean – Create a New Standard Procedure and Checklist for Quality Control
• Five Minute Lean – Organise Your Process with Five S
• Five Minute Lean – Build in Quality with Error-Proofing and Autonomation
• Five Minute Lean – Put it Together With Design for Ease of Use
• Five Minute Lean – Map the Value Stream to Reveal Opportunities
• Five Minute Lean – Work Towards One-Piece-Flow (and Reducing Silos or Batching)
• Five Minute Lean – Create a Pull System with FIFO, Kanban Triggers and Visual Management
• Five Minute Lean – Help Your Process Flow with Line Balancing
• Five Minute Lean – Implement With Agile for Fast Iterations and Feedback
• Five Minute Lean – Solve the Real Cause of the Problem