Remember the song “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen”?
I was thinking how appropriate some of the lyrics are for people who see problems in their work area everyday that never get fixed. Encourage your teams to make problems visible so they can begin to solve issues.
- Make a whiteboard where everybody writes problems they see.
- Have blank A3 paper handy so someone can begin to uncover the root cause.
- Remind people to not just keep problems limited to memory because in a fast-paced workplace it is easy to forget or trivialize as time progresses.
- Assign or facilitate someone in the workgroup to own the resolution of the problem.
- Reinforce a culture where leadership supports problems being visible and not used as an easy punishing device.
Giving your team an avenue to express the problems they see will bring massive improvement to your organization.
My 2009 Hansei: Scarcity inspires creativity and innovation. How can I help harness that inspiration?
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Nice post. It is helpful to have frequent status updates and to pull the help chain (andon singal) for assistance. You may also find some standard templates for fish bone diagram and 5 whys useful in getting to the root cause. Encourage a countermeasure only for the root cause.