I was delivering some training on Lean Production methods yesterday. The team I was working with are based in a call centre and we found a number of interesting continuous improvement opportunities to work on.
Through our conversation I became particularly interested in how they could move their resources more dynamically (rules based) when call queues were extending.
I shared with them an account of when I was working as a Production Engineer in an automotive firm where we used several different Kan-Ban pull production systems to address this same issue.
Despite having already explained how these systems worked in principle, they were not convinced that it was a strategy that could work for them. It was the story, the parallel example, that convinced them.
I see this situation time and time again. The principles of an improvement may be sound and people may understand the improvement concept logically, but they haven't bought into the applicability to their business. A story can often get you past this issue.
What stories do you have that can help you to 'sell' your next improvement idea?
Giles Johnston
Author of Business Process Re-Engineering