Growing up Vietnamese-American, I was taught to honor and respect people, never to waste anything and to always think beyond myself. I was also taught to hide conflict and to ignore problems, especially if had to do with someone senior to me.
Jag lärde mig snabbt att heder och respekt inte kan bestå om man inte tar upp konflikter och proaktivt löser problemen. På Planview AgilePlace börjar vår kultur med människor. De olika, udda personligheterna i vårt företag får lysa igenom - de gör oss till dem vi är.
But our traditions go deeper than bacon, Doctor Who, and Nerf guns. They’re rooted in an intrinsic hunger and drive to work together to improve the way the world works. We know that respect for people is one of the most effective Lean improvement methods, which enables us to maintain our agility, and adapt to change quickly and sustainably.
All this is not without conflict. We have a diverse team with diverse skills and personalities, which makes conflict (defined as a difference in opinion or approach) inevitable. We know that when diversity is not treated with respect, this healthy, natural conflict can escalate to become unhealthy, and turn into distrust, frustration, or resentment.
Hur Lean-förbättringsmetoder möjliggör respekt
Våra kärnvärden (respekt för människor, ständiga förbättringar och ett obevekligt fokus på att leverera kundvärde) har hjälpt oss att skapa en kultur av förståelse och ansvarstagande som sträcker sig över bakgrunder, personligheter, arbetsflöden och trossystem.
These values are strengthened through Lean principles, which are applied across the organization, from the way we hire to the way we interact with each other on a daily basis. I’ll explain each of those Lean improvement methods and principles, as well as give practical tips for how to incorporate them into your organization to create a rich, diverse, respectful Lean culture.
Optimera helheten
Culture is our heartbeat here at Planview AgilePlace. Everyone who joins Planview AgilePlace goes through our Lean Bootcamp: an intensive training dedicated to learning Lean principles, practice activities that demonstrate Lean tools and product training.
Our learning does not stop there. We continue to train and have refreshers as we join our teams. We have Lunch and Learns, covering everything from blogging to public speaking, so we can empower every Planview AgilePlaceter to use their diverse knowledge and expertise to benefit others. We empower everyone to have an equal voice and a channel to celebrate their diversity.
We are all Lean practitioners and teachers, working to practice Lean improvement methods in every activity we do. We are constantly exercising and strengthening our Lean muscles, not only to punch bears, but to face our fears and overcome it to all follow a common purpose.
Gå Gemba Walk
Gemba means to “go and see.” Walking the gemba is never more critical than when we face incidents or outages with our software. Our cross-departmental incident response team works together to make sure customers, employees and other stakeholders are all up-to-date and informed.
Our CEO, CIO, CTO are in the trenches with the product development, marketing and sales teams, sometimes burning midnight oil. As we improve the incident response process, we document it in a place everyone can access. We hold regular trainings to keep all teams informed of proper protocol. We do the gemba walk to physically go to the heart of the problem, make it transparent and fix it together.
The same goes for people. When conflict arises out of our diversity, we come together to listen and support. When we have team issues, we all get together in a room and whiteboard our concerns and action items to resolve them.
Walking the gemba is to walk in someone’s shoes. We do this through being in the same place, face to face. How do we do this when we have employees all over the world? We have virtual conferences, we fly people in for our planning meetings. Twice a year, we get everyone together for an entire week of planning, bonding, and learning. We work hard to provide an environment where everyone can participate, no matter the distance.
Kaizen
Our culture of Kaizen (continuous improvement) allows us to fail fast, so we can learn faster. Planview AgilePlace has an environment where we can reflect on our mistakes and work on mistake proofing our process. We invest heavily in training to teach the skills and knowledge teams need to succeed.
Kaizen is everyone’s responsibility. Team leads often identify their own learning gaps, and develop team training for our bi-weekly team training sessions. I work with team leads and subject matter experts to cross-train teams in technologies like Rabbit MQ and Docker. We have an open library and subscriptions to training sites for self-learning. We have an all hands (whole) company training on a regular cadence, so we can constantly reflect, learn, and get better.
We have to have slack time to practice Kaizen, which is why slack time is an integral part of our workflow. Slack gives us time to reflect, practice, and improve our work. It’s everyone’s responsibility to create an environment where slack time is encouraged and respected.
Vi måste också själva dra nytta av den lediga tiden, så att vi kan lära oss, växa och bli alltmer värdefulla för våra team. En sund organisation investerar tid för att alla ska kunna lära sig.
Kanban
We fear what we don’t see, and we make assumptions about things we don’t know. Kanban is the tool we use to visualize our work, and it can also help visualize defects and misunderstandings. By using process policies, everyone can decide on guidelines and boundaries together.
Planview AgilePlace (the software) allows you to make those policies transparent to everyone, so there are no misunderstandings — and if the policies aren’t clear enough, they can be edited. The more we see, the more we understand and the better we can work together.
Våra team har Lean-promenader och Lean-caféer som uppmuntrar till öppna samtal och ger alla möjlighet att komma till tals. Vanligtvis ritar vi en grundläggande Kanban-tavla "Att göra, göra, gjort" på en whiteboardtavla, där alla lägger in klisterlappar med idéer till förbättringar. När alla har lagt fram sina idéer röstar deltagarna om vilka ämnen som ska diskuteras. På så sätt kan alla få en jämlik röst och bli hörda. Samtal i öppna forum som detta gör det möjligt för människor med olika bakgrund att dela med sig av sin expertis, sina perspektiv och sina farhågor. Att bara prata, utan att döma, är en av de mest effektiva metoderna för Lean-förbättring som vi har tillgång till, och vem som helst - även personer med liten erfarenhet av Lean - kan delta.
Starkare tillsammans
Mina föräldrar har alltid sagt till mig att vem som helst kan knäcka en ätpinne, men om jag hade en bunt ätpinnar skulle det nästan vara omöjligt att böja dem. En organisation är bara så framgångsrik som dess medarbetare, som är förenade i ett gemensamt syfte. Här på Planview AgilePlace har vi alla samma mål: att göra arbetet bättre för alla i världen. Försök att införliva några av dessa Lean-förbättringsmetoder i kulturen i ditt team eller din organisation och se hur samarbete, kvalitet och kommunikation förbättras.
