Where does Problem Solving pop-up?

Daily Performance Management and Hoshin Kanri together ensure that you tackle the right problems at different levels within a team or organization. Daily Performance Management is focused on staying good in the short-term, Hoshin Kanri is focused on getting even better on the long-run.

The first step in fixing a problem, is knowing it exists or what the problem is.

Zig Zigler

The visualisation of Daily Performance Management, Hoshin Kanri and Problem Solving can also be shown as in below image:

And the distribution of work among the people in a team or organization looks like this:

The meaning of Kaizen

You have possibly heard of it before or seen it in above picture, but is it also clear what it stands for?

Literally: A change for the better. So, you could state that all the problems you tackle in an organization is a ‘change for the better’, aka: an improvement. So, everything you improve can be called a Kaizen. Problem Solving or improving, is actually ‘doing Kaizens’.

There is a big challenge in doing Kaizens. You may know the standard methods: PDCA, DMAIC, 8D, 4C, etc. But in many cases, we do not follow the steps of these methods aka: The problem is often not worked out properly (read: based on facts), the cause is often not investigated (read, “We already know the solution”), and the standardization is not important because “it has already been solved!”.

What I’m actually saying with regards to above, is that we do not take the time to follow all steps. Many Kaizens (Problem Solving Projects) therefore automatically though unconsciously, generate new problems, for which we do not have the time. But, having no time does not exist, having no prioritization does. 

There’s an easy explanation to the above challenge. See below video to get a sense of it (approx. ~2m.):

Above video tells us that we need to be aware of our human habits. If we are, we can make sure that first of all, we will take all the steps (of whatever problem solving method you’re using). Secondly, we can make sure to do it in the correct way. Main challenge is, it takes more time… So prioritization is needed, read: Daily Management & Hoshin Kanri. Ultimately, it will save you (more) time!