Region Twente together with Symbol spreads the ‘Lean Magic’ in the organization
‘Once you become enchanted by the Lean mindset, you see opportunities everywhere to organize your work more efficiently and deliver more value for your customer. This creates a culture of continuous optimization. Each success further fuels the flywheel of improvement.’ For Region Twente, this was the reason to organize two so-called Lean Magic days together with Symbol. “The goal? To spread the magic of Lean in the organization, by making many colleagues enthusiastic about it. And the results can almost be called amazing.”
“Our Managing Director Gerharda Tamminga was inspired by the Lean mindset years ago and is now eager to work toward her multi-year ambition: a Lean organization with as little waste as possible with our customer in mind. Therefore, it is important that the ‘Lean Magic’ lands: people need to get inspired. For that reason, we set up two Lean Magic days – as playful and light-hearted as possible, but supplemented with some necessary theory,” says Monika Kokhuis, Quality Officer and Process Supervisor Lean GGD Twente. (Text continues below)
Lean Magic in full swing
“Together with Symbol, we put together the program. Each participant experienced a different first Lean Magic day. At the start, participants were given a card with their personal program for the day on it. A number of themes were addressed in blocks of 1.5 hours. So short blocks: each time a different trainer, a different sound, a different subject and a different energy. The participants were also able to speeddate with improvement teams that have already carried out a project within Regio Twente. For example, an employee from P&O told about their successfully implemented Lean project – from objective to problem, approach, rollout and result. The first day ended with a creativity battle, in which participants had to use a number of gadgets to shape what they had learned into a game, song or poem.”
Deeper into the Lean matter
At the end of the first day, people could sign up for day two. Those who signed up were also given a homework assignment: do a so-called “waste walk” in your own department. “In other words, record waste and present it to the group,” Kokhuis said. “So the first hour of the second Lean Magic day was spent entirely on all the individual presentations. What wastes did you pick up in your department? Why do you think it’s a waste? And have you perhaps already come up with a solution? We then delved deeper into the Lean matter with the group, led by trainers from Symbol and others. Topics such as the ‘value stream map’ (mapping processes), ‘first time right’, ‘Kaizen’ and ‘5S’ were covered. This was another wonderfully interesting day, which made the participants even more enthusiastic about the Lean mindset.”
Results above expectations
‘Do you also want to (learn to) work ever better, smarter, more enjoyable? Then come to the Lean two-day event on September 4 and 25, 2018 and start your own smart Lean journey.’ With that call, the steering committee tried to get as many colleagues as possible excited about the Lean Magic days. But expectations were not necessarily high. Kokhuis: “We were hoping for a group of forty people, in which case it would be nice if a number of them went on for day two and perhaps even some for a Yellow Belt. Frankly, the Lean steering committee thought that wasn’t feasible. But … we were proven wrong! We started on day one with 36 people, all of whom signed up for Lean Magic day two at the end of that day. 20 people then signed up for a Lean Yellow Belt and everyone has now obtained the certificate. Of course, we are extremely proud of that!”
Lean: a way of life
Meanwhile, the Lean Magic days have been a while ago and people within Region Twente are eager to get started further. This is wholeheartedly encouraged by general manager Gerharda Tamminga. “I myself became enchanted with Lean seven years ago, when I was still working as a municipal clerk. I remember the first wow moment well: the moment when it turned out that – as a result of working according to Lean – we had reduced the processing time of a building permit by up to six weeks. I wish my colleagues wow moments like that too. After all, they ensure that Lean becomes a way of life, and that is my intention. How great would it be if we constantly asked ourselves the question: how can we organize things even better and make it even easier for ourselves?”
The sequel to Lean Magic
“The strength of our Lean Magic project was that we let everyone make their own choices,” Tamminga continued. “Participants who chose Yellow Belt training at the end made that choice very consciously. This created ownership and people are still raving about it today. A number of colleagues who have now passed their Yellow Belt want to train even further. I applaud that and we facilitate it. They use their expertise broadly within our organization. They are the right people to make even more colleagues and teams enthusiastic. And people have already asked about a second round of Lean Magic days. Why not? We will continue until Lean has seeped into all the capillaries of our organization.”
