Category Archives: Operational Management

Do’s and don’ts of managing autonomous teams (or Super7’s)

Managing autonomous teams, or Super7 teams, requires a different management style than managing regular teams. From my practice as a Lean Super7 consultant, I deducted several key do’s and don’ts. When your department introduces Super7 Operations, or other forms of autonomous teams, this may help you to adapt to the new situation you’ll face as a manager.

In the following weeks, I’ll share them with you on this site (www.cooperationalexcellence.nl). This week, I give you the first two sets.

Do: Let go, let the team make their own mistakes

Sometimes, the team manager sees problems that the team hasn’t recognized yet. A pro-active team manager might want to go and fix it directly. Fix it for the team, to help them along. However, studies show that teams that are allowed to make their own mistakes are more effective and more successful. You as a manager can warn the team, but the team must be left free to fix it or respond to it.

Don’t: Leave the team alone.

A team manager can let go too much. An autonomous team needs management support. They may not need detailed steering, but they do need coaching, facilitating and help in solving problems beyond their own circle of influence.

Do: Offer help when the team asks for it – ask questions later.

An autonomous team is capable to deliver results. Even more than the sum of what each individual could deliver. But there is a limit. When the team says they can’t do it, the team manager should help. What he can do to help depends on the specifics, but could include: add capacity, move resources from one team to another or approve lower output for that day.

Don’t: Always offer help when the team asks for it, without evaluating afterwards.

For example: a team indicates that they can’t meet today’s target, and the team manager accepts that some of the work is shoved foreword to the next day. The manager is right to offer help, but he should evaluate the average productivity of that day. Should it be less than normal, he/she should evaluate this with the team. And, the next time he can demand that the team steps to at least normal pace when they ask for help.

I will share more do’s and don’t in the next couple of weeks. In the mean time: keep experimenting!

Menno R. van Dijk.

Super7 Operations seminar for Lean and Operational Excellence professionals – a report

To present for an audience of Lean and Operational Excellence professionals: quite a daunting task! Last week, I was invited to discuss Super7 Operations with the experts of one of the leading Dutch consulting firms. Consultants, managers and directors: You would expect them to ask challenging questions – and they did. I really enjoyed the discussion with such sharp and experienced professionals. And, I regard it a great compliment that they were impressed with the results we achieved with Super7 Operations. And that they will be reading my book as a result.

As an author, I regularly get request to speak about my book on Super7 Operations. In most cases, I’m asked as an expert, and the audience is interested in how it works. This session was much more a dialogue, where the consultants shared their own experiences with Lean and Operational Excellence.

Key learnings from this expert seminar:

  • The small autonomous teams of Super7 Operations could be used outside financial services: for instance, energy companies have similar back-office operations, as do some telecom providers. And perhaps even healthcare? However, for logistics and production will benefit more from the original Lean approach from the Toyota Production System.
  • It is important to involve the Works Council in the pilots. There may be concerns about the flexibility in hours that is needed to work TITO. Also, changing individual performance reviews into team performance reviews may raise questions. On the other hand, in our experience at a leading Dutch retail bank, we have found that the Works Council is enthusiastic about the increased responsibility and autonomy for the employees.
  • Other Dutch retail banks and insurance companies may be interested in Super7 Operations and consultants could play a crucial role in spreading the idea of Super7 Operations across the Financial Services sector.

I’m looking forward to the next seminar for Lean and Operational Excellence professionals.

Menno R. van Dijk

Improve performance without performance dashboards

Can you improve performance without operational dashboards? As a consultant, I regularly speak with team managers about their team’s improvement efforts, or the lack of thereof. One cause of stalling improvement that keeps popping up is: “I don’t have accurate data. I can’t do anything about team performance without accurate data.” Of course, performance dashboards can be important for many reasons, for one to give focus to your improvement efforts. But is the absence of performance dashboards a reason not to improve? It doesn’t have to be.

An operational team should be given the responsibility to improve their work on a daily basis. Improvement should be their habit. It should feel weird not to be experimenting at any given time. This works best with autonomous teams, which work together on one common daily goal. The Toyota Kata has taught us that these teams should do frequent, small scaled experiments. And that it is equally important that the team learns from each experiment, as that the performance actually improves.

To start improving, a team needs time (a bit of overcapacity is needed to improve), and direction. The direction – what should the team’s improvement efforts focus on – could be derived from operational dashboards. But, often just as well, the direction could follow from a vision, translated into ‘target states’ (see The Toyota Kata). In Lean companies, the vision would be translated through ‘policy deployment’ or ‘hoshin kanri’ in Japanese, other companies would use for instance year-plans.

With time and direction in place, all a team needs is resourcefulness and a whiteboard. Well, you could do without a whiteboard, but in my experience it’s a great tool for improving and experimenting.

As a manager, ask your teams to start improving with what they know now. In parallel, you can work on perfecting your operational dashboards. Don’t wait for perfect dashboards. Start improving today.

 

Menno R. van Dijk.

Less management through Super7 – autonomy reduces the need for management

Can you run a bank with less management? If you would remove one layer of management from a large financial service organization – let’s say a bank  – would that organization be less effective? And with two layers of management removed: would a bank need to be rescued with taxpayer’s money?  My recent experience with customer focused, autonomous Lean teams at a Dutch retail bank have taught me:  Super7 Operations (see my book: Super7 Operation – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services) requires Less Management, More Delegating.  It may be too much to claim that two layers of management can be removed, perhaps not even one entire layer, but the span of control of one manager can dramatically be increased. And yes, that means a lot less managers. So why is that, what type of management tasks are eliminated by using small autonomous lean teams?

Less Capacity Planning

“Is it okay to take a day off next Tuesday?”.  In the old days, managers spent a lot of time planning the capacity of the team. Especially in preparation of the holiday season or in the summer period. An autonomous Lean team will take care of this planning themselves. And they make sure that they have sufficient capacity to get the forecasted amount of work done.

Less Management of Inventory

Prior to Super7, work needed to be booked in an inventory management system, and the age of the inventory (when did we receive the customer request?) needed to be monitored and compared to the Service Level Agreement (SLA). Then, if the system says ‘Orange light, i.e. ‘we’ve got only one day left within SLA’, priorities needed to be reshuffled urgently to prevent ‘Red Light’ the next day.

Less Management of Assigning Work

Because there is a lot of work in inventory, team managers attempted to get the ‘best work streams’ assigned to their team. The norms for each work stream differed; moreover, not all norms were set as accurate.

Less Management of skills

In the past, a Daily Production Meeting was held, in which the team managers, all together, determined which team would be doing which work streams the next day. In Super7’s, this whole circus isn’t needed. Each Super7 knows what work they will be doing: the same work every day, and all work that came in that day.

Less Management of Work In Progress

Before Super7, a manager needed to check the inventory system: is the work still waiting, or is it work-in-progress? A manager also needed to look in the report of the Daily Production meeting: where was the work assigned to? Finally, a request had to be distributed to the individual employees.

Let’s remove management layers!

Menno R. van Dijk.

40% flexibility in capacity to cope with fluctuation: Super7 Operations

Just how flexible is an Operation that is organized in Super7 teams?  40%. Super7 Operations can cope with a difference of 40% between a quiet day and a busy day.

From the many examples in day-to-day operations, we know that Super7 Operations increases the flexibility of a back-office. Impressive results have been achieved with this over the past few years, in many operational departments of large financial service providers.  Examples of this can be found in my book: Super7 Operations – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services.  

Recently, one of my clients asked me to calculate just how flexible a team will become. How much can the daily demand fluctuate when working with no customer queue when the team works as a Super7?  An alternative could be replacing a part of the employees with flexible contractors: so called min-max-contractors, who work between 20 and 40 hours per week depending on demand. Could the same flexibility be achieved with Super7 Operations?

From experience, we know that a Super7 team is able to work one hour longer on busy days. The end time of the working day is flexible, and the members of a Super7 team make arrangements among themselves when one of their team has obligations preventing him/her to stay longer that day. Next to that, we’ve measured 5 to 15% higher productivity as well when the pressure is on. And, these extra hours are compensated by leaving early on quiet days, which means no extra hours to pay. This results in the following graph, showing the 40% flexibility:

 

Super7: flexibility to cope with fluctuation

Super7: flexibility to cope with fluctuation

Next to this, our analysis showed that Super7 Operations delivers greater flexibility than replacing 20% of your people with min-max contractors.

Naturally, things like team meetings and training are done on quiet days, and when they are planed on busy days they are rescheduled. This results in up to 20% lower ‘availability for productive work’ on quiet days – but this can be achieved without Super7 as well (we’ll call this scenario 1).

20% min-max contractors give you the flexibility to ask 20% of your workforce to stay longer or leave earlier, as long as you stay within the 20 to 40 hours per week range.  (This is scenario 2)

Super7 Operations is our Scenario 3

To be complete, we added a fourth scenario: Super7 Operations and replacing 20% of the employees with min-max contracts. 

The graph below shows these four scenario’s next to each other.

 Flexible capacity in 4 scenarios 

Surprising results, don’t you think?

Menno R. van Dijk.

 

 

Visual Management for Teamwork – the Team Board

Visual management creates the openness and transparency that are essential for Lean teamwork. Each Lean Team should have a team board, to my opinion. In true Lean companies this is common practice, but in Financial Services I have encountered Lean teams without one. Not so in one department that I helped with the introduction of Lean, or more specifically, a Lean way of working tailored for Financial Services – Super7 Operations.

The benefits that we found from the use of team boards are:

  1. Team pride. Teams are proud of what they achieve, and of the improvements they have made. In this department, each Super7 team chose a team name – often a bit tongue-in-cheek – that was displayed at the top of the board. Often with pictures of the team members matching the theme of the team name.
  2. Output management: Each team shows their progress against the daily target, updated 4 times per day. The manager can see where help is needed, even before the question for help has been asked.
  3. Continuous Improvement: Each team shows the Kata-improvement or the experiment that they conduct that week. And some teams include an improvement idea list for improvements that go beyond their own team scope – which for instance the IT department can work on.
  4. Learning. Weekly dashboards are displayed on the boards, and ‘red lights’ are celebrated as improvement opportunities. And the evaluation of Kata-improvement actions is also displayed on the board: “what did we learn from this experiment?”
  5. Open and Transparent culture. Teams have nothing to hide from each other, from the management or from visitors. All results, good or bad, are displayed with pride. Good results as successes, bad results as learning opportunities.

If you are familiar with the use of team boards in production or assembly plants, as is explained in detail on www.lean.org, these benefits won’t be surprising. The question remains, however, why there are still lean teams in Financial Services that haven’t adopted this best-practice.

More information on Super7 Operations can be found in my book: Super7 Operations – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services.

My book explains the theory of Super7 Operations in detail as well as giving practical guides for implementation of Super7 Operations in the detailed case studies. You’ll get valuable tips and tricks for implementing Super7 in your own organization, from the people that have done it before you.

Menno R. van Dijk.

Super7 Operations - The Next Step for Lean in Financial Services

Kata Coaching in practice of Lean Super7 Operations: keep it simple

Kata coaching has successfully been used in practice, in organizations that have adopted Super7 Operations. One important lesson: keep it simple, keep the improvement steps small.

Recently, Super7 Operations was introduced at a debt management department. The team managers responded very well to the step-wise improvement method of Kata. However, they sometimes found it difficult to accept that the goal for next week would be anything less than reaching the desired condition. This lead to too many actions on the action list, that couldn’t all be finished within one week. To my opinion, this one-week rhythm is essential for maintaining momentum in the early stages of development of Super7 Operations. The lesson that we learned is to keep the improvement-kata simple: one action in one week, one experiment, one problem to solve. The improvement steps may seem small, too small perhaps, but in our experience this is in fact the maximum improvement pace for the organization.

The Kata Coaching Questions (my own free interpretation – please refer to www.lean.org/kata for the standard):

  1. What does perfection look like to you on this element of Super7 Operations?
  2. How does the current situation look like?
  3. Where do you want to be next week on the development of this element of Super7 Operations? And what obstacles are preventing you from being there now?
  4. What action or experiment will you take to get to where you want to be next week?
  5. What do you expect from this action?
  6. When will be able to evaluate what you have learned from this action or experiment?

 

 Theory and examples of Kata coaching can be found on www.lean.org/kata or in the excellent books and you-tube posts of Mike Rother.

Super7 Operations - making it work

Soft Skills for cooperation in Super7 teams

What soft skills are needed for cooperation in Super7 teams – what soft skills are essential for a team to reach cooperational excellence? The implementation Super7 Operations (link) within the operations departments of one of the leading Dutch retail banks is in full swing. Many things need to be taken care of in the preparation phase: small, autonomous production teams (Super7’s) arent’ formed overnight. But one thing in particular is essential for a smooth introduction of Super7 Operations: attention to the soft skills that are needed for working together in a small, autonomous team.
In our experience, the most important soft skills for cooperation in Super7 teams that required training in preparation of Super7 Operations are:
1. Giving and receiving feedback
2. Understanding the development of autonomous teams
3. Effective meetings and making decisions as a team

Let’s look at these subjects in a bit more detail:
1. Basics of giving feedback
• Describe what behavior you have observed
• Explain what effect this behavior has on you
• Check if the person you give feedback understands you
• Indicate what behavior you would like to see

2. Basic development steps of autonomous teams
• Phase 1: group of individuals
• Phase 2: a developing team
• Phase3: a cooperating team
• Phase 4: an autonomous team, striving towards cooperational excellence

4. Basic elements of effective meetings and making decisions as a team
• Use team roles in meetings: chairperson, time keeper, voice-of-the-customer
• Make sure all items on the agenda are well prepared
• Assign a fixed amount of time to each item on the agenda
• Start with giving all participants the chance to say something about the subject – finish the initial round before starting the discussion
• Use a white board or flipchart to write down the most important points
• Keep the focus on solutions and improvement ideas
• Make sure everybody gets their say
• Keep the discussion focused
• Don’t take minutes, write down actions (what, who, when)

For the team managers, the change from traditional Operational Management to Super7 Operations can be even more dramatic than for the team members themselves. More on this change and the required skills for managing Super7 Operations can be found in my book: Super7 Operations – The Next Step for Lean in Financial Services. More information about this book can be found on www.super7ops.com

How to apply Kata Coaching in implementation of Lean Super7 Operations

 

Kata coaching is especially useful in the implementation of Super7 Operations. The theory and examples of Kata coaching can be found on www.lean.org/kata or in the excellent books and you-tube posts of Mike Rother. Recently, I’ve applied Kata coaching during an implementation project of Super7 Operations.  Every week, I used the Improvement Kata questions to challenge the team managers to make one improvement step on each of the 7 principle elements of Super7 Operations. And in turn, the team managers have used Kata coaching questions to get their teams to improve. The effect of applying the Kata coaching questions to the 7 principles of Super7 Operations was impressive: not only did this lead to exiting improvement experiments on the shop floor, but it had a profound effect on morale as well.  I have found that Kata coaching is an effective way to get and keep things moving towards the desired direction. It just isn’t possible to implement perfection in one blow, and this isn’t any different for Super7 Operations.

The 7 principles of Super7 Operations:

The 7 principles of Super7 Operations

Principles of Super7 Operations

  1. Customer is central: The Super7 team has a goal that is relevant for the customer.
  2. Flexibility in skills and capacity
  3. Team manager steers on output and is supportive to the Super 7 team
  4. Daily rhythm and quick response to disruptions
  5. Super 7 team is autonomous in work distribution and in imporving the way of working.
  6. Continuous improvement of performance, supported by planning and forecasting.
  7. Visible management to create openness, transparancy and Super 7 team pride.

 

The Kata Coaching Questions (my own free interpretation – please refer to www.lean.org/kata for the standard):

  1. What does perfection look like to you on this element of Super7 Operations?
  2. How does the current situation look like?
  3. Where do you want to be next week on the development of this element of Super7 Operations and, what obstacles are in your way?
  4. What action or experiment will you undertake to get to where you want to be next week?
  5. What do you expect from this action?
  6. When will be able to evaluate what you have learned from this action or experiment?And afterwards:
  7. What did you learn from this action / experiment
  8. …start again at step 1

 More on Super7 operations can be found in my book: Super7 Operations – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services.

Super7 Operations - the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services ; a book by Menno R. van Dijk

Super7 Operations – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services ; a book by Menno R. van Dijk

Super7 Operations - The Next Step for Lean in Financial Services

The 7 principles of Super7 Operations – what does good look like?

Successful implementation of Super 7 Operations – the next step for lean in financial services – depends on the introduction of all 7 principles of Super7 Operations: 1. Customer central, 2. Felxibility in skills and capacity, 3. Output steering and supportive management, 4. Daily rhythm and quick response management, 5. Autonomy in work distribution and process improvement, 6. Continous improvement of planning and forecast, 7. Visual management – open and transparent operations. 

The 7 principles of Super7 Operations

Principles of Super7 Operations

Naturally, the introduction of the principles of Super 7 Operations is best done step-wise. However, it’s good to start with the end in mind:  what does good look like in Super 7 Operations?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1.  The Super7 team has a goal that is relevant for the customer. The Super 7 team can help each other in achieving this goal. The goal is translated daily to a goal for that day. The Super7 team is committed to achieving the daily goal. When problems arise during the day and the daily goal can’t be met, the Super 7 team responses by doing what they can to come as close as possible to the goal. When that isn’t enough to reach the goal, they ask for help from their team manager. The request for help is quantitative and specific. For instance: we come 6 hours short, we solve 4 hours ourselves and ask for 2 hours help from another team.
     
  2. All Super 7 team members have the skills for all types of work. The Super7 Skills-Matrix shows who can do what, and at what skill level. The Super 7 team members are sufficiently flexible in working hours to be able to meet customer demand on busy days. 
  3. Team manager steers on output. Manager stimulates the Super 7 team to  come up with solutions. Manager is available and helpful when the Super7 asks for help. 
     
  4. The daily rhythm is adjusted to the rhythm of the customer requests. There is a fixed schedule for Super 7 team stand-up meetings, focused on achieving the daily goal. When incidents happen, the department responses quickly in constructive and effective dialogue between Super7 team and their manager, and subsequently between the team managers and the department head.
     
  5. Super 7 team is autonomous in work distribution and who does what. There is a standard way of working. The team can deviate from this standard, as part of an improvement experiment. The duration of this experiment is known beforehand (optimally 1 week). Evaluation is based on facts and figures. Most important outcome, however, is what the Super7 team has learned from the experiment.
  6. The Super 7 team is stimulated to continuously make the daily goals more challenging. Standard norm times are improved and planning is made tighter. Work is planned based on forecast. The organization continuously strives towards improved forecast accuracy and improved performance. Performance is discussed on all level of the organization. 
     
  7. The Super 7 team board is neat and easy to read. Daily goal and progress towards this is visible on the Super7 team board. Performance of last period is visible, as is the trend. Running and planned experiments and improvements are visible on the Super7 team board. Fixed lines are made with tape, fixed headers are printed.                                                                  

 More on Super7 principles? My book on Super7 Operation – the Next Step for Lean in Financial Services – is available in bookstores!