104 -11 Steps of the C4 Process

103 - The C4 Process

Good Morning!

On this day in 1878, Edison Electric Light co. founded. More relevantly, in 1951, the First episode of I Love Lucy aired on American Television. That's relevant because we use a clip from I Love Lucy in teaching the principles of problem solving. That clip is available on my YouTube channel.

I've mentioned my process for solving problems a few times, but so far, I haven't had an episode dedicated to the C4 process. After discussing the evolution of the scientific method and the history of the quality movement over the past couple of days, I think it fits in nicely here and will help set the tone for future episodes.

The C4 Process is an evolution of the PDCA cycle that I first learned in the Army, but later really focused on in working with Toyota to understand what makes the Toyota Production System tick.

I taught PDCA for several years. It's stages of Plan, Do, Check, Act I found were excellent for conducting a thoroughly scientific analysis of a problem that we needed to solve or for an improvement we needed to make to a process.

I ran into problems with people taking shortcuts in the process. Mostly, people would tend to skip completely over the Plan stage, and Do something, then see what happened, and then do something else.

I was working with the team the developed the Rolls-Royce Production System and having lots of discussions about learning, employee development and engagement, and simplifying the problem solving process.

Separately, we had both began to focus on the key activities within the Plan stage, to call them out separately, so people might stick to them a little better. As we worked through these issues, Mike Kirkby of the RRPS team, told me that they had run a trial of a simple system they were calling the 3C's process because it focused on the Concern, then the Cause, and then the Countermeasure.

I had already decided that Cause and Countermeasure had to stay, but I couldn't find the right word for the first stage until this discussion. I immediately adopted this (or abducted it - or stole it outright) but because my focus was much more centered on what the employees can learn from the process rather than simply getting a solution in place, I added a 4th stage to capture the need for some retrospective thinking to solidify the learning. I called that 4th stage "Confirm."

So the 4 stages of the C4 process are Concern - where we understand the real problem; Cause - where we find the root causes; Countermeasure - where we develop and evaluate potential solutions; and Confirm - where we collect and analyze the results and reflect on what we learned by going through the process.

Tomorrow, I'll break these down into 11 key steps that I teach.

I'm presenting tomorrow and the People Processes Digital Summit that kicks off this morning.  My presentation on Solving Tomorrow's Problems will go at Noon Eastern time tomorrow, October 16.

Hit the link in the comments to register. It's free, unless you want to upgrade to VIP access for only $30 - that will get you access to all the videos for another month plus a few other perks.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

102 - Quality

Good Morning.

Let's talk about quality today.  Producing quality products isn't something we've only recently focused on.

I suspect that since the first human carved something and traded it to someone else, quality has been an important part of work.  But Quality has a spotty history.

Back in Medieval Europe, craftsmen banded together to create guilds that would prescribe and enforce quality standards for a variety of products.  The guilds would conduct inspections and put some kind of mark on the product to indicate that it met their quality standards.

Many craftsmen recognized the value of a consistent string of quality marks and added their own mark to all of their products - yes, this is the birth of the Trademark.  Consumers could trust certain marks to consistently provide high quality goods.  For the most part, that hasn't changed.

But sometimes, we get a little mixed up.  As we evolved through factory age and the industrial revolution and supplying products to meet surges in demand, as in world war II, our focus frequently drifted from quality to quantity.  Guilds, factory managers, and government customers responded to this with a heavy emphasis on inspection. 

This legacy of inspection lingers and production planners today will build schedules to release more material than actually necessary so they can satisfy the day's demand despite a percentage of products failing inspection.  In other words, if they need to deliver 100 dishwashing machines today, they would release material and order the build of 125 because they know that some will fail inspection.  25% failure rates are extremely high and extremely rare, but this is happening everyday, at a tremendous cost.

Walter Shewhart introduced the world to the concept of process quality and process control.  The idea is that if you design an excellent process and keep it excellent and in control, it will consistently delivery the required quality.  This means you can build exactly what you need to deliver without the extras to cover failures.

The US relied heavily on this during world war II and began inspecting samples instead of everything.  This was necessary because we lacked enough skilled inspectors. We also put into place a Training Within Industry program designed to teach supervisors how to train people to keep the process in control, to do the required work properly and quickly, and to improve the processes and methods.

But at the end of the war, that all changed for us, but not for everyone.  I'll tell a couple of those stories in future episodes.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

Elevate Episode 101 The scientific method 20201013

Back in August, I did a short video about the scientific method, outlining it's basic steps of observation and measurement, questioning, developing a hypothesis, testing, and analyzing the results.  Today I want to run through a brief history of this kind of thinking. 

The scientific method is given credit for accelerating the industrial revolution of the 18th century, but that's not where it begins. 

There's a document called the Edwin Smith Papyrus, which is a medical text from Egypt dating back to 1600 BCE.  I think it's safe to say that we as humans have had this capability to think like this since we became humans.  Just imagine what kind of thinking was required to build pyramids with limited tooling, not just in ancient Egypt, but in ancient civilizations around the world.

The scientific method requires an ordered way of thinking that aims to strip emotional noise and bias out of the analysis we do on any phenomenon.  It turns out that this is the hard part.

But let me fast forward a few thousand years.  Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, also outlines a scientific method and gives us the theory of empiricism.  Empirical evidence is that which is directly observed and measured.  Aristotle also taught us inductive and deductive reasoning, which essentially requires us to question even that which is directly observed in order to make sense of what we see. 

So observation and thinking really go hand in hand.  These days we see a lot of shocking videos and our emotional responses are predictable as we jump to conclusions based on the very limited evidence provided by most of these videos.  Because we aren't to see and describe ALL the circumstances surrounding what we are seeing on the video, we aren't able to properly decide what happened, so we fill in the gaps with whatever our emotional and experiential triggers give us.

The 1600's gave us Francis Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, and Isaac Newton, all of whom devised ways of thinking, measuring, and reasoning through the problems they were interested in and took us in a different direction, away from inductive and deductive reasoning and into quantitative analysis and experimentation.  These guys brought mathematics to the game.

In the lean world, we tend to begin our historical analysis with Walter Shewhart, who, in 1939, published “Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control” and introduced the Shewhart Cycle which he listed as “Specification – Production – Inspection.”

W. Edwards Deming, a disciple of Shewhart’s (and editor of Shewhart’s book) evolved the Shewhart Cycle into a 4-step cycle he labeled “Design – Produce – Sell (Get to market) – Redesign through Market Research” while working in Japan in 1950. 

The Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers called this the “Deming Wheel” and deployed it to companies throughout Japan after relabeling the steps “Plan – Do – Check – Act” in what Deming later called “the corruption.”

We'll pick it up from here as we move forward.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.

100 - Why am I doing this?

Good Morning!

This is my 100th posting today.  I suppose I should have some kind of special celebration.  Maybe I'll have a glass of 18-year-old Elijah Craig, or the Van Winkle Special Reserve I got for my birthday!

I haven't gotten very much engagement with these postings.  My old friend Dan Shumate has been the most encouraging, so thank you Dan.  I cross post these to Linked In, where I don't get much traction either, so I've had people question why I'm doing these if I'm not getting results, and growing my mailing list, or getting new clients. 

Those are very good questions.  I've had several people tell me that they see the videos and some have said they really like them.  I've even had one tell me they look forward to them, but if they don't like, share, or comment on Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube I don't see that.  Still, it feels good to hear.

I've decided that I'm doing these for me.  I get to focus my brain every morning in figuring out and writing down what I feel like talking about every morning.  It helps me get the day started - even though on some days it's all I'm able to finish.  I get a sense of accomplishment every day that I do one, and now, since I've missed a couple of days, I feel bad when I don't get to do one.  Keeping the streak going is a pretty good motivator for me. 

As I've mentioned before, this month I've started scheduling topics that should help me write a new book I'm calling High Speed Problem Solving.  It isn't working out as well as I hoped, because what I can say in a 3-minute video doesn't translate to more than a page of text.  I still think it'll work, though.

I'll be happy to deviate from the schedule to talk about anything you as a viewer would like to learn more about.  If it's something I know pretty well, I can turn that around pretty quickly.  If it isn't, then I get the opportunity to go dig around and learn a few new things.  I hope you'll challenge me on this.

I have one friend who doesn't comment on the posts but clearly watches some of them.  He provides excellent feedback that helps me make these more accessible and more relevant.  The last message he sent suggested I bring guests on especially for technical topics like safety.

I love that idea and intended to do that with a longer show.  It's very tough to bring on a guest when my target time is only 3 minutes, especially since I like to talk!  But the idea has morphed into a weekly show idea where I can do 20 to 30 minutes.  I can record that on Zoom, and Zoom will actually strip out the audio so I can run that as a Podcast in addition to the webcast on Youtube. 

There are a zillion Podcasts.  Gaining traction requires excellent content, excellent production,  and excellent marketing.  I've never been great at marketing, so I'd have to work a lot harder at that or find a good partner to do that.  If you're interested, let me know.

One thing I know for sure is that I get a lot of help from the Lord.  I know He has my back, and I know I'm working His plan so when the time comes, He'll have just what I need ready for me.

In the meantime, though, I'm going to keep pressing on.  I'm going to keep sharing what I discover with all of you.  I'll focus on excellence in operations and leadership for the big part, but every week I will do an episode on travel.  Travel might be where I start the weekly longer show.

This week, I'm speaking at the People Processes Digital Summit.  The summit will run Thursday and Friday.  I'm on at 11 am on Friday.  There are lots of good speakers lined up so I'd love to have you join us.  It's free, but they are also offering a VIP package for extra access for a few bucks.  The last day to register is Wednesday the 14th.  I'll paste the link in the comments.

Have a fantastic Indigenous People's Day.  Go do something to help someone today.  Put their needs above yours.  A little love goes a long way and we need it now more than ever.

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow!

99 - Review and Reflection

I’ll try not to whine too much, but this has been a pretty tough week.  It’s been hard for me to be consistent with my programming this week primarily because of how I’m managing the time I’m spending taking post-surgery care of my lovely bride.

She had knee replacement surgery on Monday.  She is allergic to codeine-based pain killers, so we’re managing her pain with alternative methods - In other words, she’s in a lot of pain most of the time.  That’s been affecting our sleep and so it makes it more difficult for me to write and record.  She is doing better every day, though, so I expect to get everything back on track this coming week.

From a contents perspective, though, the week was relatively rich.

This week, I turned the focus squarely onto problem solving with episodes explaining why along with examples of yesterday’s problems - particularly focusing on wildfires; on today’s problems - focusing on employee engagement; and on tomorrow’s problems - which we can’t specifically forecast, but which we know will be coming.

I also spent a lot of time this week working through a system called Quantum Profit Science.  I mentioned it once before a couple of weeks ago.  I think it offers real promise to organizations who are struggling with profitability.  This system builds schedules that ensure each order tracks to a profit specification and provides and incentive structure to employees to find ways to improve the work. 

I also spent a lot of time this week thinking through a new program that my friend Norman Bodek is launching.  He’s calling it his Library Study group and he’s asked me to help with a group or two as they form.  We’ll pull a book or article out of his lean library, read through it, pull it apart for key lessons, and then reassemble it using current problems and examples.  It will be a true mastermind program for lean practitioners, particularly those who have been doing this work as leaders, consultants and coaches.  This will be a way they can share their perspectives and gain new perspective that they will be able to take back into their companies or their client work.

I hope you had a great week.  Coming up this week, I’m going to be digging in to the scientific method, problem-solving methodologies that based on the scientific method, and particularly on my C4 process.  I’ll be sharing the key phases of C4 and its 11-step process that will guarantee better thinking and better solutions.

Have a great day and I’ll see you tomorrow.l

98 - Tomorrow's Problems

We really don't know what kind of problems, opportunities, and challenges are going to show up tomorrow.

But rather than waiting to react to what might happen, we can take steps to shape the future we want and position ourselves and our organizations to thrive regardless of what might come.

I'm not sure anyone clearly foresaw the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, and yet many businesses were able to pivot and thrive.  Or maybe thrive without having to pivot. 

By now, everyone listening and watching has heard of or used Zoom.  I first downloaded Zoom in 2015 when the team I was working with in Arizona decided to try it to help us all stay on the same sheet of music in dealing with 9 different agencies.  It always worked well for us.  Last October, because I liked it so much, I decided to buy 20 shares of stock.

That was just lucky, but Zoom had a vision that they were forced to accelerate in response to the Pandemic.  The huge surge in use exposed problems they were unable to see or anticipate with fewer users.  They were, however, able to diagnose, analyze, and solve many of those problems very quickly.

I also noticed a trend last year toward ghost kitchens - restaurants created only for delivery.  Now every restaurant uses this mindset.  One of the best restaurant pivots away from the dining room and to the drive through is Chick-fil-A.  They have always been a popular drive through, but when the pandemic hit, they doubled down. 

There always seem to be two lines of cars wrapped around every Chick-fil-A, a site that would send me scurrying away in other restaurant chains.  But Chick-fil-A gets everyone through so expertly, but that's not by accident.  They put a dozen crewmembers outside to direct traffic, to take orders, to take payments, and to deliver food. 

The only other restaurant I have seen with this kind of response is In-n-Out. 

Other restaurants seem content to have longer lines and to have customers decide not to wait.

I think the true secret for solving tomorrow's problems isn't in anticipating any specific problem, but to prepare the organization and the workforce for anything.  If we can sense a problem coming; if we can see when it actually begins to impact us; and if we have people who know how to think critically and face the hard facts about what they see then we'll be able to respond nearly immediately. 

We may not get it right the first few times, but with a culture that is willing to try anything and persist, we're more likely to get to an effective solution much more quickly that those who are more protective of the status quo.

A culture like that is characterized by high self-efficacy among its people.  High self-efficacy translates to willingness to try new things and persistence through failure.  Solving tomorrow's problems depend on this, so we need to start building that today.  I can show you how. 

Have a great day and I'll see you tomorrow.