Gemba / Shopfloor Boards - Are they useful tools ?

Recently came across a post by a Company's President, with the picture of a shopfloor Gemba board. To him, these boards were a "collection of wasteful activity", he wanted LinkedIn community's take on his comment.

Here's my take.

If the right KPIs are being reported and monitored:

1. These boards serve as the agenda for the daily morning meetings ,can help monitor daily progress & address specific issues that are show stoppers for achieving the KPI targets

2. These boards serve as an excellent dashboard, indicating both the status and trend of the metrics (that the leaders are accountable for)

3. Individuals are made accountable for the metrics and hence these boards help inculcate ownership.

The boards will not work if it is a print out like the one on the photograph. The metrics should be hand drawn - with the daily "plan" pre filled at the start of the month : just before the meeting, the metric owners will either use a red or a green bar to indicate the 'actual' number. The reds will be discussed, reasons identified and corrective tasks will be noted in the task tracker.

Consistency - active participation of the leadership on a daily basis is the key.

My limited experience, tells me that these boards are excellent tools, when used properly.

Are distractions are Habitual ? Do we long for distractions ?

From "The power of habit" by Charles Duhigg. In the course of explaining how habits are formed, there was a sentence to this effect: "In an experiment to study habits, monkeys were given a drop of juice (reward) everytime they completed a particular task, say clicking a yellow button on the screen ( trigger). After few trials, the monkeys' brain started longing for the reward as soon as the trigger appeared. In exactly similar pattern, human brains are now rewired to long for the momentary distraction from the current task ( reward) everytime the phone beeps or when the notifications (trigger) arrive" So is our tendency "to get distracted" habitual ? Could this be true ? I decided to block all notifications (triggers) in the last 5 days and decided to check my phone hourly. Here's the result : My battery that read 16-18% at end of the day, now reads 40% at the end of the day. Indicating the reduction in screen time - the time I saved , by avoiding those useless notifications (Like LinkedIn notifying me of the daily news rundown, WhatsApp notifying me of the countless forward messages,or Facebook notifying me of friend suggestions or emails from a list you subscribed a millennia ago).

True - Notifications are the new time and productivity killers ! Do you agree ?

Bureaucracy in the way of business. The need for “Break the rules, when necessary” culture.

Take this famous scenario: A country's parliament is under attack by terrorists. The national news television’s video crew is in the same premises. But no visuals of the incident were captured by this crew (while some of the private media players were airing live visuals). The reason? The crew had to wait for formal approval from their bosses to use the cameras outside the building. This is a classic example, that happened for real, of bureaucracy coming in the way of business.

All the systems, processes, procedures in any organisation should help the business move forward and achieve its objectives. But, how often have we encountered situations in everyday worklife, that bureaucracy, systems and processes are coming in way of the business, rather than helping the business move forward ?

It is not uncommon for businesses to encounter extra-ordinary situations (say the customer has an emergency request) that cannot be fulfilled if we are to follow the existing processes and procedures. Convincing the functions in the entire value chain to break their rules/ standard processes/procedures for these emergency situations, within a short span of time can be quite a task.

Just like leaders encourage organizations to be “innovative” : encouraging the culture of putting the business requirements ahead of bureaucracy is an absolute necessity, to stay in the business. The leaders should cultivate a culture that encourages employees to break the rules, when necessary , to put the business ahead.

Encouraging the "break the bureaucracy" mindset, should begin at the hiring stage. The candidates should be screened for their ability to break rules, within applicable limits, to get things done. This is equally important as the leadership quotient, the innovation quotient.

Individuals should be encouraged to go around the bureaucracy , in the larger interest of the organization. Annual performance reviews should have provisions to reward people for going around bureaucracy, in the larger interest of the company and client. At the same time, the annual performance reviews should have a section to penalize people for being bureaucratic - and standing in the way of business, without any other valid reason.

Would be very exciting to hear from readers, on how bureaucracy have been overcome in their own organizations !