(2014-02-28) Parallels and Differences Between The Book Traction and Kaizen, Lean

Parallels (and Differences) Between the Book "Traction" and Kaizen. Marisa Smith, an entrepreneur and business owner in Ann Arbor, saw the connections between my Kaizen work and a book that she uses within her company and with her clients: Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business. (EOS)

I read the intro and jumped right to Chapter 6 on “The Issues Component.” There's a lot that's very similar to Kaizen and Lean (Lean Development)… but a few key differences.

Wickman says that these are sequential… that you can't or shouldn't work on Issues if you don't first have Vision, People, and Data set up.

But, I wanted to see first what his approach to “Issues” was. I'll go back and read the rest of the book at some point.

Early in the book, on page 6, Wickman says that stopping to take the time to solve issues, saves you 2x to 10x the time.

Wickman says we need an “open and honest” environment, which reminds of Toyota and the way people are encouraged to speak up and point out problems. Wickman also says, “it's normal to have issues,” which is certainly true in healthcare.

His high-level process is very similar to PDSA and Kaizen, as this table that I put together shows:

I appreciate that Wickman says the “Discuss” phase can't go on forever. I see a lot of hospitals that are trying to get out of the old habit of talking about problems over and over in monthly committee meetings that don't accomplish anything. We need to work to find the “root of an issue” (the root cause) and fix things

I don't like that the Wickman process ends with “Solve.” The classic PDSA model realizes that “solving” a problem is really an experimental process (as opposed to a certain one).

Another thing that Wickman said that goes against the Lean and Kaizen approach is his statement: “… cause of the real issues are people.” No! A Lean thinker is “hard on the process, not the people” (see Sunday's Super Bowl coin toss). Dr. W Edwards Deming taught that roughly 94% of the problems and defects in a company are caused by the system, not the individuals.

There's a lot of really good stuff here. The “Entrepreneurial Operating System” is a structure that Marisa says works well for her and her clients. I'm excited to read the rest of the book.

One thing Marisa pointed out, a fair point, is that Wickman is writing for a different audience (smaller companies and startups) where most of the Kaizen material (including my own) is targeted toward bigger organizations.