About "Lean" / Quality at the speed of Light !!!!!!!

Six Sigma was Exciting, not becuase it delivered results, cause of the complexities it could offer. The way it made you think, about the work you did and the way the output varies when hands change. Service Industry and Six SIgma are like distant relatives, Six Sigma talks about reduing variation, where in Service industry breathes on the fact that, things change, people and outputs vary.Might be that the methodology is effective but the way it was delivered was not right, or the people who delivered it came from a pile of rusty metal pieces (Manufacturing Quality Gurus).

Projects run on processes that are not stable, tools used just because they are supposed to be used, though known assignable causes exist process behaviour charts made with meticulous efforts, the methodology became a drama for me and just a livelihood for the key actors. Goal statements, as vague as "Improving Cutomer Sat on MS Vista product Series ", being such a big "Y", it sounds easier to take up a "Project to eradicate poverty in Africa". Project Owners show a blind eye to the part that people resign, hands change, Policies and buisness outlook changes etc.

But Lean, was supposed to be different, a methodology much more practical than, Six Sigma. With an open mind and lots of Enthusiasm, I attended the recent trainings. The trainer was too boring but Still I thougt the methodology was not. Somewhere or the other it talked about stuff which everyone who loved thier work would like to see working. "Cut the crap and do the job" was the slogan. The methodology spoke about avoiding sources of waste, through certain methods which was tested and had tasted success. About not doing stuff that you were doing currently cause the customer was grumpy / your leadership lacked balls, It spoke about avoiding work that did not add value ( Most of the meetings and Calls. The methodology sounded like common sense put up in powerpoint.

Implimentation part came, and along with it came the baggages. People who where intereseted in getting the PPT's in place, in getting thier data on time. Implimentors who never realized the importance of involving / Explaining the executors on what these meant (Jazzy presentations / Tools & Templates) / how would it help them in the days that come. Are we not interested in actual results, why do projects make very less impact on the ground, Is it because of the urge to put it up on the presentations. Lean can make huge impacts but for that we need people who can walk in with enough Charisma, who can drive and change Mindsets and Behaviours. People driving these initiatives, tend to spend more time answering thier Boss, than analyzing the ground realities, Filling in Excel sheets with data that has been populatd on the basis of educated guesses / Calculated risks. Does understanding the ground realities slowdown the project pace, then let it, cause the pace that we portray is vague, the impact the project would leave will be nothing.

Let's stop being hypocrats, let's do stuff so that the guy on the ground is benifited, not cause my promotion will be in place or my boss is pleased. Let's value the brains behind these methodologies and let's do it so that we learn and the change benifits the customer. Lakhs of rupees thrown away on these sessions must actually enable us to make lives easier. Here on the ground you sit back at your desk for another three hours filling in sheets and forms !!!!!!!!!

Swine Flu Celebrations !!!!!!!!

“Aaaachiiii, Aaaachiiii ", (Stop, ask your mind not to search for a Dictionary word), a cute kid sneezed in the middle of a shop floor, predominantly a shop for the upper strata. She jumped into the pile of balls and the dust made her sneeze. The next moment she was in the lime light of the whole shop, everyone turned around, stared at her and the whole shop came to a stand still, she went back to play while everyone continued to stare, she stopped, again sneezed and the viscous fluid started flowing. The next moment, parents of the other kids came running and picked them up and ran back to safety (Some even had an expression; “I almost saved my kids life”). Our heroine in pink started weeping her mom in early thirty’s came running and lifted her up. The lady stared back at the crowd, a crowd which already had confirmed that this was the youngest possible H1N1 victim ever.

Though the kid did not sneeze after that, half the crowd walked out, the lady at the counter did not smile at the kid or her parent, instead tightened a two day old mask, which can spread much more dreaded diseases that H1N1. A reactive society at it’s best. Swine Flu has made things tough for a sneezing kid; Pandemic declared months back we decided to be careful after a few deaths and some hyped up reports on the front page. Reactive approach with a lot of aggression, aggression backed with very less facts, facts collected from vague sources, Pune the educational hub of the country responded to Swine Flu the Desi way, people believed that masks at the traffic signal is a life saver, shaking hands went out of the trend and “ Namaste “ was full on. Mails flying across workstations about the latest sensation, people checking websites for the latest death updates, Colleges closed, Malls shutdown and Movie releases extended, things changed, changed overnight.

Swine Flu season is over, people are back on the street, we would call ourselves, resilient, and the media even would come up with Photographs of kids going back to school with a caption “Nothing can stop them”. We belong to a country were people get killed in blasts, in floods, in road accidents, in epidemics like typhoid and malaria, here people die in riots, alcohol tragedies takes lives, calamities and terrorism kills people here. What is special about Swine flu that the government must take care of us, Actually Swine flu is nothing, it is better, at least a dignified death for a taxpayer, you die on a bed with your loved ones around. Your body is in one piece and last but not least your get a send off, even media would play a role (If you are the first, 25th, 50th or the 100th one, these numbers would be like a Silver, Golden and Platinum Jubilee). Life is good, until you are on your own, until you do not travel in trains (Bomb blasts), You do not drink water from taps (Malaria/ Cholera), Drive vehicles on the bumpy roads (Accidents) and Swine Flu has a new mantra for us, Until you do not breathe, until you step out of the home, and guess what we tried, but no choice could not sustain it for long!!!!!!!