Performing artists are by nature often goal oriented perfectionists, pursuing excellence-driven outcomes with clear expectations in mind. While high levels of artistry demand constantly evaluating and correcting minute details to ensure the best possible performance, when it comes to developing and implementing ideas and projects, how can arts leaders transpose these skills to the world of entrepreneurship and organizational outcomes? To explore this question, we caught up with Operations Management expert and GLP Module Director Tim Kraft of the Poole College of Management.
What are the key principles of the Lean business philosophy?
There are a number of definitions for lean, my favorite is “Lean is the relentless pursuit of creating value for the customer through the strategic elimination of waste”. This definition highlights the two fundamental building blocks of lean – continual improvement (i.e., “the relentless pursuit”) and the elimination of waste. By creating a mindset where everyone in our organization is always looking for opportunities to continually improve and eliminate waste, we can operate more efficiently and effectively.
Why is the Lean operations philosophy so popular with social enterprises?
Lean was started by Toyota in Japan after World War II. Because of the war, Japanese companies did not have the resources to compete with large global players like GM and Ford. They had to figure out a way to do more with less. The fact that lean was built on this concept of “do more with less” is one of the main reasons why it has become so popular in the last two decades with startups, nonprofits, and social enterprises. The tools and philosophies behind lean can offer a small business a roadmap with which to operate efficiently and effectively, even when they do not have extensive resources.
What are your top tips for reducing waste in operations? Can you give a brief explanation of TIM WOOD?
I love the TIM WOOD acronym! The acronym lays out the 7 categories of waste: Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing, and Defects. Knowing these 7 categories can provide you with a simple checklist to work through when you are working on process improvements. The categories are universal and applicable whether you are improving a process at a manufacturing facility, in a classroom, in a performing arts center, or at home in the kitchen.
What are the key concepts of Lean operations that social enterprises can take away and instantly implement?
There is a beta test mentality to Lean that I think can be very valuable for social entrepreneurs. For example, there is a concept in lean called a Kaizen Event in which a cross functional team does a deep dive into a portion of an operation for a week (for example) in an attempt to make it run more smoothly. The purpose of the Kaizen Event is not for the team to spend all week designing the new process to be rolled out at the end of the week. Instead, the expectation is that multiple iterations and tests of the new design will be run throughout the week, with the team learning from the iterations – seeing what worked and what didn’t and then iterating on a new design. Through this testing process we gain valuable knowledge about our process that allows us to shape it as we iterate.
How essential is continual evaluation within Lean operations?
Constant evaluation and corrective feedback is everything! The Lean philosophy believes nothing is ever 100% perfect. We can and should continue to iterate and look to continually improve our operations and processes. For students who have taken my module, I’ll point back to the video I showed that compares the 1950s racing crew pitstop with a 2013 racing crew pitstop. I’m sure the crew in the 1950s thought they were pretty fast – but the reality is that we can always get better, there’s always waste to eliminate.
