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AI PractitionerInternational Journal of Appreciative Inquiry
November 2015
Volume 17 Number 4
ISBN 978-1-907549-25-0
dx.doi.org/10.12781/978-1-907549-25-0
www.aipractitioner.com/subscriptions
David Shaked and Nicolas Stampf
Instituut voor InterventiekundeSponsored by
Edited by
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Appreciative & Strengths-based Lean Thinking
Positive Engagement with Business Improvement and Efficiency
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AI PractitionerInternational Journal of Appreciative Inquiry
Volume 17 Number 4 | ISBN 978-1-907549-25-0
This issue details what makes process improvement engaging and resourceful, and creates something new that is better and more powerful than simply adding the two fields together.
In “Sustainable OD as an Issue Centric Approach”, Danielle P. Zandee sets out four premises of sustainable OD.In Research Review & Notes, Jannie Pretorius from South Africa shows how
studying the positive core of exceptional individuals has been applied in higher education, while AI Resources focuses on ways AI can help evolve the use of Lean Thinking in businesses and organisations.
From 2016, AI Practitioner will be published by the Instituut voor Interventiekunde (Institute for Intervention Studies, www.instituutvoorinterventiekunde.nl) in Amsterdam, a school of Appreciative
Interventionism and place to become an AI practitioner, master practitioner or meta practitioner. Founded by Wick van der Vaart, it has many ideas for developing AI Practitioner and I wish them all success. Very many thanks to everyone who helped me develop a simple email newsletter into the current international journal.
Anne RadfordEditor, AI Practitioner
November 2015
dx.doi.org/10.12781/978-1-907549-25-0
Welcome to November 2015 issue of AI Practitioner
Appreciative & Strengths-based Lean Thinking: Positive Engagement with Business Improvement and Efficiency
Inside this issue
AI Practitioner November 15 Appreciative & Strengths-based Lean Thinking
4 Appreciative & Strengths-based Lean Thinking: Positive Engagement with Business Improvement and Efficiency
Editors: David Shaked and Nicolas Stampf
Feature ChoiceSustainable OD as an Issue-centric Approach
9
Danielle Zandee
17 Interview with an Operations DirectorAccelerated Business Improvement through Strengths-based Lean Six Sigma
David Shaked
Appreciative Inquiry LeanA New Route to Success for Team Leaders
23
Jacqueline Bustos Coral, Juan Pablo Ortiz Jiménez and Kaj Voetmann
Lean with a Solution-focused TwistA Process of Continuous Improvement
30
Karla Stonham and Brenda Zalter-Minden
Strengths-based Kaizen Blitz in a Public Organisation
38
Theo van den Eijnden and Martijn Molenaar
Back Issues at www.aipractitioner.com
IAPG Contactsand AI PractitionerSubscription Information
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AI Practitioner 2015Research, Review and NotesFeature Choice
79
AI Practitioner November 15 Appreciative & Strengths-based Lean Thinking
About the sponsor of this issueInstituut voor Interventiekunde
78
Strengths-based Lean for Five YearsExperiences from Everyday Operations
45
David Hansen and Rasmus Jørgensen
KISS: Keep Improving Simple
and Straightforward52
Hans Uijen
58 A Human Performance Architecture Framework for Integrating Strengths-based Approaches to Organizational Change in a Geographically Distributed Organization
Peter Baverso
Appreciative Inquiry Research Review & NotesAppreciating Exceptional People in South Africa: Developing a Framework and Applying it in Higher Education
64
Jannie Pretorius
71 Appreciative InquiryResourcesResources for combining AI and Lean Thinking to find a strengths-based model for improving organisations
Matthew R. Moehle, Roopa Nandi and Hardik Shah
77 About the February 2016 IssueHow Has Appreciative Inquiry Lived Up to its Promises? What Will the Future of Appreciative Inquiry Look Like?
Editors: Robbert Masselink and Wick van der Vaart
AI Practitioner
38More Articles at www.aipractitioner.com
November 2015Volume 17 Number 4 ISBN 978-1-907549-25-0AI Practitioner
AI Practitioner November 15 Van den Eijnden and Molenaar: Strengths-based Kaizen Blitz
dx.doi.org/10.12781/978-1-907549-25-0-6
Theo van den EijndenTheo van den Eijnden is an independent professional in positive change and organisational development with a vast experience in quality and change management. He is qualified as a Green Belt Lean Six Sigma and Appreciative Inquiry practitioner, who strongly believes in the positive power of individuals, teams, organisations and communities.Contact: [email protected]
Strengths-based Kaizen Blitz in a Public OrganisationThis article tells the story of how a plan to facilitate a classic kaizen blitz grew to become a strengths-based event, the effects of which are still visible after two years. This article examines how a kaizen blitz works in a public and administrative organisation and how the strengths-based approach added value to the event, both short- and long-term. The case study examines the results of Appreciative Inquiry interviews we conducted recently with the manager and members of the team involved in a kaizen blitz.
What is a kaizen blitz?
The Japanese word kaizen simply means “change for the better” (Imai, 1986). More
of a philosophy than a technique or method, it is a way of life, a continuous awareness
of wanting to improve again and again (Hauser and Smolders, 2013). Kaizen refers to
activities that continually improve processes at all levels of an organisation. A kaizen
blitz (also called a “kaizen event”) is a concentrated, highly intensive activity designed
to make rapid improvements quickly and efficiently. It typically takes between one
and five days, and involves a dedicated, cross-functional team (Shaked, 2013). To
make a kaizen blitz successful a high level of commitment is asked from everybody
who is involved – including management – to make the quick implementation of
practical solutions possible.
Lean transformation: Setting the stage
The kaizen blitz was conducted in February 2013 in a large governmental
organisation with 19,000 employees in the Netherlands called UWV. Responsible for
executing social security legislation, the organisation had (and still has) to deal with
extensive budget cuts and is almost constantly changing. This affects operational
processes and thus the people working with these processes.
In 2007, Lean Six Sigma was introduced into the organisation. In its first year, it
managed to achieve a cost reduction of over 3 million euros. However, after that
the focus shifted from reducing costs to improving quality, for example, by getting
workers more involved in their jobs. The main reason for this change was that,
until this point, the projects did not really change the way job seekers receiving
social security were helped. Based on the belief that changing processes changes
the behaviour of the people executing those processes, the UWV Lean Six Sigma
Martijn Molenaar Martijn Molenaar is one of the leading Lean Six Sigma experts in the Netherlands. He works as Master Black Belt for a Dutch governmental organisation and is also a self-employed trainer and consultant. His approach is always strengths-based and long-term targeted. Contact: [email protected]
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department developed “Lean Transformations”, two-year training and coaching
programs in which Black Belts from within the company help teams improve the way
they work.
At the end of 2012, one of the authors was asked to help a team who were having
to work Saturdays to complete their work. To stop this structural overtime, he
suggested performing a kaizen blitz, which had never been done before within UWV.
The Master Black Belt suggested working with a team of facilitators consisting
of Lean experts, a data analyst and an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) specialist. AI had
been introduced in the organisation three years prior to this and had already been
successfully applied in several departments. During the World Appreciative Inquiry
Conference in Ghent in April 2012, the other author attended the workshop on
Strengths-based Lean Six Sigma given by David Shaked and David Hansen. The
findings and energy of that workshop inspired us to combine Lean and AI when the
idea of the kaizen blitz emerged one year later. By bringing in AI, the aim was to create
a way to better engage employee strengths.
Preparing the kaizen blitz
Our kaizen blitz team consisted of 13 people responsible both for maintaining a
database of clients receiving social security payments in the Amsterdam area and for
making sure that the clients received their payments. As a kaizen blitz had never been
done within the organisation, it was a real challenge to make it happen and especially
to make it a strengths-based event. We realised that the first conversations with the
team would be critically important and that the choice of focus would determine how
the whole process would unfold (Watkins et al., 2011).
The team manager, who now felt she was being supported by her colleagues, worked
with the Master Black Belt for five weeks on preparation for the kaizen blitz by:
• Arranging support from top management
• Setting up a pre-kaizen blitz meeting with the team
• Making a basic road map for the week
• Determining where and how in the process of the kaizen blitz strengths-
based elements would fit in to make it a strengths-based kaizen blitz
• Making sure that every team member was present during the week
• Making Lean coaches available during the week
• Arranging other teams to take over the most important work during that
week
• Arranging food and beverages for the whole week
As a kaizen blitz had never been done within the organisation, it was a real challenge to make it happen and especially to make it a strengths-based event.
AI Practitioner November 15 Van den Eijnden and Molenaar: Strengths-based Kaizen Blitz
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A week before the kaizen blitz, an afternoon meeting was organised with the whole
team to discuss the aims. The team stated the primary focus of the kaizen blitz
should be to stop the overtime. The manager of the team responded enthusiastically,
as she felt backed up by her colleagues. She also wanted the team to perform better.
She hoped that a kaizen blitz would help both aspects.
During kaizen blitz
On a snowy Monday morning the team started to map out all their processes on
brown paper. They were asked to reply to appreciative questions:
• What in the process is working well and what are you satisfied about?
• Where is value added for the customer?
• What would you like to keep?
They discovered that the majority of team members had their own way of working.
What each participant had in common was the fact that they all wanted to perform
better as a team. By the end of the day half of the processes were mapped out.
On Tuesday, the team continued the mapping process. It had been decided that they
would concentrate only on the most important processes. They also worked out how
to successfully measure the duration of each process.
On Wednesday, the team measured processing times via experiments and tried
to collect high-level data with the help of a business-intelligence expert, who was
present all week to support the team. At the end of the day the team made it clear
that they were not at all happy with the progress that was being made in the kaizen
Mapping the processes in dialogue with the team
What in the process is working well and what are you satisfied about? Where is value added for the customer? What would you like to keep?
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blitz. Their biggest complaint was that nothing had been improved yet, while the
purpose of the week was nothing but improvement. Also, it wasn’t clear enough for
most participants what the final goal of the week was. They wanted to start thinking
about better processes and learn from each other: they became frustrated by the
fact that processes were mapped out, but due to time limits couldn’t be improved
upon during that week. Although the message was a tough one for the coaches and
manager, the team was thanked for their openness.
With the above in mind, the Lean coaches and the manager spent Wednesday evening
trying to figure out what to do the next day. They agreed that it was important to
maintain the engagement and the eagerness that the team had shown in the first two
days.
They decided to change the program. The next day would be a day in which the team
had to create: (a) a structure for continuous improvement; and (b) a detailed plan
for each week in order to monitor the progress of each of the processes and to make
those processes more visible.
The next day, the team leader made clear to her colleagues that she wanted to create
a team in which continuous improvement was normal, and she demanded support for
this vision. She did this because she realised the team needed a clear vision and that
she was the right person to show it to them. At first sight this might not be considered
as a strengths-based approach. However, on closer examination, providing a clear
vision made strengths-based improvements possible. Rother (2009) described how
Toyota, the company from which Lean Management evolved, uses a “kata” (a fixed
set of steps that one should take when improving a process) for any improvement
activities. Step 1 involves clearly identifying the vision, just as the team leader did in
this case.
Her intervention impressed the team: from then on they enthusiastically took up
the challenge and created a daily start-up routine and a new work-planning scheme.
The team’s result was surprising because on paper it seemed possible to finish their
work in four and a half days, without having to work on the weekend. At the end of the
day the team was very positive about the response to their complaints from the day
before.
On the final day, the team prepared some final improvements to their standards of
working and presented the results of the week to the other teams in their department.
They were both proud of the results while at the same time surprisingly sceptical
about how everything would work in practice.
Although tired after a full and intense week, the facilitators were both proud
and delighted with the results the team achieved and concluded that this was a
breakthrough week neither would ever forget.
They wanted to start thinking about better processes and learn from each other
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Post-kaizen blitz: Short term
A fortnight after the kaizen blitz, the week and the results were evaluated by the team.
What did they think was positive? What had gone well? What could have gone better?
Going through the processes step-by-step was a positive experience: it created clarity
and insight into what they did really well and where they could make improvements.
However, the team struggled, but tried to stick with the new way of working. It was a
stressful period for both the team and the team manager, mainly because no one was
used to the new daily routines. The team members made it clear that they were very
unhappy with the results, especially because they felt forced into a very strict new
working scheme that they found did not work well in practice. Also, they did not feel
that there was an opportunity to change the process after the initial five days. Thus,
they rated the kaizen blitz poorly, with an average of three out of ten.
Looking back two years later
In February 2015, two years after the strengths-based kaizen blitz, we interviewed
three members of the team and the team manager. In order to connect again with the
positive power of the event we were especially interested in the good things the kaizen
blitz brought them. So we asked appreciative questions: looking back now at the
kaizen blitz, what went well for you and for the team? What long-term benefits did the
kaizen blitz bring to you and to the team?
A new work-planning scheme in progress
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The following are some of the answers we received:
“Giving each other feedback is a strong point we still use every day. By
doing this the team was strengthened, and is still strengthening itself.”
“I am proud to have been involved. Although I felt some resistance
during the kaizen blitz I am now fully convinced that Lean is working and
I am now following a Green Belt training.”
“The kaizen blitz really helped people to use their strengths.”
“Going through the process step-by-step and looking at the steps that
went well gave a good insight into our working routines.”
“It was not just a one trick pony. It brought us a sustainable way of
working we could keep up.”
“The kaizen blitz really helped us to analyse processes in general from a
Lean perspective.”
“The daily start-up has had a very positive impact. Other teams have
a weekly meeting but having them on a daily basis is certainly more
effective. On the team’s whiteboard the daily capacity and the incoming
work is made visible.”
“By getting a real insight into each other’s way of working, more mutual
respect arose.”
“It gave me a new perspective of looking at my work. There is always a
possibility to change things for the better.”
“By each of us being forced to be transparent about the way we work,
mutual understanding and trust in each other grew naturally.”
Looking back now at the kaizen blitz the team members and the team manager rate
it an average of seven-and-a-half out of ten! We also asked each of them to rate the
effect on their personal development out of ten to which the average was eight.
General conclusions and suggestions
The strengths-based kaizen blitz was an absolute turning point for the better. It gave
the team a different and more positive view of change and it had a powerful positive
effect on the connectivity and the collaboration of the team members.
It is an intensive, confrontational and emotive experience which is important to
know up front. A strengths-based kaizen blitz creates a shock effect. It gives the
improvement process a boost by creating a mindset that focuses on the power
of strengths from the team members, thus creating a path towards sustainable
continuous improvement.
It is an intensive, confrontational and emotive experience which is important to know up front.
‘It was not just a one trick pony. It brought us a sustainable way of working we could keep up.’Kaizen blitz participant
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It shows team members that working on improving your work can be fun. It also helps
people identify more with their work and helps them grow professionally.
If we were given the chance to do this again we would stress even more clearly to
those involved what we wanted to achieve and why. A clear vision is key. Second,
the team would receive a one-day Lean training before the kaizen blitz, so that they
would know what to expect. Third, the processes would be mapped before the
start of the kaizen blitz in order to spend more time on experimenting on proposed
improvements. Finally, we would have focused more on selected individual processes
as opposed to looking at all processes. Focus grows the value of the outcome even
more.
If we were given the chance to run a kaizen blitz anew we would definitely do it the
strengths-based way again. It is probably one of the best learning experiences all
participants have had in their working lives.
ReferencesImai, Masaaki. (1986) Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success. New York: Random House.
Hauser, Otie and Ingrid Smolders. (2013) Lean tenminste houdbaar tot: hoe creëer je duurzame waarde? Utrecht: &samhoud.
Rother, Mike. (2009) Toyota Kata: Managing People for Continuous Improvement and Superior Results. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Shaked, David. (2013). Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma: Building Positive and Engaging Business Improvement. London: Kogan Page.
Watkins, Jane Magruder, Bernard Mohr and Ralph Kelly. (2011) Appreciative Inquiry: Change at the Speed of Imagination. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
If we were given the chance to do this again we would stress even more clearly to those involved what we wanted to achieve and why.
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AI Practitioner
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International Advisory Practitioners Group IAPG
Members of the International Advisory Practitioners Group
working with AIP to bring AI stories to a wider audience:
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Purpose of AI Practitioner
This publication is for people interested in making the world a
better place using positive relational approaches to change such
as Appreciative Inquiry. The publication is distributed quarterly:
February, May, August and November.
AI Practitioner Editor/Publisher
The editor-in-chief and publisher is Anne Radford. She is based
in London and can be reached at
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