Lead Time For Organizational Transformation Still Remains Same

However fast today's technology can get you things and decisions, organizations, I believe still wouldn't change at the click of a button. Although all changes would be possible, the biggest change is the change in mindset and this itself takes years. The psychological inertia really drags its feet and slows things down. 

It is just reinforcing that things may change so much faster around us. People may perceive iphone 6 upgraded us (and not the devide, as I read on twitter today) by giving us the ability to do so many things, but, the mindset change to identify value adding and non-value adding activities takes its own time. 

An organization is nothing but a group of people working towards a common objective and hence the lead time for organizational transformation has not changed in the past decade, past three decades or even more.

A mature organization is the one that has its business excellence practices ongoing since 10 - 15 years!

Innovating Business Model for a Coffee Shop

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pasotraspaso/

Ever since I've read The Undercover Economist's chapter on how coffee shops make money, I have been fascinated by the "Job To Be Done" at a coffee shop. I was deliberating this with a group I was facilitating and we arrived at "Replenish Self" as the core job to be done. 

Perhaps there's more money from the related jobs than the core job of making coffee. This is primarily because in order to make it a profitable business, coffee alone is insufficient. You may read a detailed article here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/12/20/whats-the-secret-to-a-successful-coffee-shop/ The point #10 is critical in the article. I quote the same below:

Understand what you are really selling – Too many businesses, including coffee shop owners, don’t fully understand the need they are really satisfying for their customers, and so they often concentrate on the wrong parts of their offer. Customers frequent a coffee shop for many more reasons than just hunger and thirst. There is the escape from a stressful office, the chance to maintain or grow a relationship, a place to get away to do some reflective work, a chance to engage with familiar coffee shop staff at a particularly lonely time, or as a place to do business and reach an agreement. Understanding the needs you are really catering to will help you better construct your offer and make decisions that keep your customers returning and so maintaining the coffee shop’s success.

Today, selling coffee alone is not profitable, there is too much competition and the market is served quite well. In order to make people enter the coffee shop, one has to make it lucrative and how much can one make coffee lucrative? 


The core job of making coffee is no longer the only value expected by the customer. The related jobs need to be explored and there are a lot of opportunities that exist in this space. This needs to be exploited and leveraged by the coffee shop for a profitable growth. The solution a customer is looking for in a coffee shop is no longer having coffee.

The most recent addition to this additional job is the sound of a coffee shop: http://coffitivity.com/ Even the sounds of a coffee shop can be sold! So, if you own a cafe and are reading this, how about live streaming the sounds of your coffee on the internet or for a set of specific subscribers? Much livelier than the recorded sounds, right? 

Only do the Important Thinking

This is one of the most convincing ideas that has been proposed with regards to the morning breakfast. Here's the deal:

When we're faced with a number of options, we're always going to assume that one of them is better than all the rest. This means the more options there are, the more likely we are to choose one that isn't the best one. We also presume it would take more homework to choose the right one. In other words, as options increase every decision becomes bigger, and so the more likely we are to delay our decision-making.

What more than doing the things that clear up your thinking. This put many arguments in my mind on 'how much time to devote to a particular task' to rest. 

Here's the full article: http://www.fastcompany.com/3012886/dialed/the-hidden-link-between-breakfast-and-productivity

McDonald's at the Hyderabad Airport & Handoffs

As you exit the airport at Hyderabad in India, there is a McDonald counter. Its quite small and is an extension of a counter two floors below. There are always two people in it and some machines, perhaps to make something. Or so I thought.

Every time I have been there to get something, the guy behind the counter suggests that I go to two floors below where a full fledged outlet exists. The way he says is that it takes a long time for him to process a request and it would be faster if we go to the outlet downstairs. I don't get this.

If you are just directing your customers to an another place, you've potentially lost her. This is a classic example of Handoffs. The responsibility of delivering to the customer, the action of delivering to the customer and the knowledge of how to deliver to the customer are clearly with three different people at this place. They lost the customer all five times! I didn't bother going two floors downstairs!

When the above three are separated, then there results a Handoff. When the above three are integrated, perhaps, there would be a "Handover". 

Occupy Gemba

The core idea of the “Occupy” movements across the world has tremendous value. It is a call for action and until result is promised, it is non-negotiable. This tinge of stubborn-ness can be a source of wealth of improvements in the organization if it is channelized in the right direction. If we take a leaf out of the movements and apply it in the organization, then all the senior executives decide to “Occupy Gemba” for just 90 minutes every week with a strict non-negotiable stubborn-ness to find out the 99% activities that are adding to your cost against the 1% activities that brings you the money. The sole aim of “Occupy Gemba” would be to find wastes those 99% activities that does not count.

This war-footing would set your organization on a journey in performance excellence that would be unparalleled.

(Gemba = Japanese for workplace)


(cross-posted at www.bmgindia.wordpress.com)

Lean Is Not Eliminating Waste

One of the teams I worked with on the current value stream map for a throughput and subsequently the future value stream, I recollect the question we were confronted with - how to increase the value creating ratio? We tried our might to bring the non-value creating time to as low as possible, but, the required storage of even 3 days made sure we still had to struggle to get the ratio even to a double digit. 

It is at this time that one of the members asked if we have to increase the value creating ratio, then we have to either decrease the denominator (component of non-value creating time) OR increase the numerator (value creating time)! This directly translates to the question, how do we add more value to the customer? This is the core of lean - how do I add more value to the customer? How do we increase our offerings to the customer in a way that will increase the value already being added? Have you thought about this for your business or your throughput?


How much ever you eliminate waste, at the end you have to delight your customer. The core of lean does not talk about eliminating waste, but to increase value addition.


(cross-posted at www.bmgindia.wordpress.com)