Tips and Insights

Since organizing is a relevant issue and a reoccurring theme for many companies employing 5S practices, I figure I have to say something about e-mail organization. Though I'm lucky enough not to receive 100 e-mails every day, I know people who do. I also know people who have thousands of e-mails stored somewhere, all waiting for something—a response, a reference . . . perhaps a burial.

E-mail, for many of us, has reached a point beyond usefulness and fallen into the realm of irritation and stress. When I have more than twenty e-mails in my in-box, I'm tempted to just hit the delete button. Surely we were not meant to hang on to all this information.

Because we're a small company, we've been given the freedom to use our skills and talents to fill niches as they become apparent. The leaders of the company happily delegate these tasks but recognize we need some oversight. Needless to say, their in-boxes are overflowing with copied and forwarded e-mails.

Recognizing this as a growing issue, we're now getting used to SharePoint, which, as I understand it, will end some of the e-mail nightmares that occur because we're trying to keep everyone informed. Instead, information—including e-mail discussions—will be stored on a server that everyone can access.

It's a good start, but as you've probably surmised, it still doesn't address all the issues. Several people have written articles with lots of solutions, and I especially like Stever Robbins' piece (a columnist for the Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge magazine). Not only does he give examples of good and bad e-mails, he also suggests that we figure out the per-minute rate it costs for each employee to read and respond to e-mail. When you multiply that number by the number of hours in a day, week, month . . . Well, you can imagine the steady trickle of money flowing down the drain.

One of his best suggestions, I believe, is the idea of training the senders. We know, of course, that we can't train clients how to send e-mails, but we can train ourselves (and maybe lead by example?).

Here are a few suggestions I like:

• Use the subject line as the whole message


• Include response expectations in the subject line
• NRN = No reply needed


• TY = Thank you


• NRB = Need response by (you fill in the date and time)
• Consider who you're copying and why, then tell each person what to do with the message


• Edit forwarded messages so they're appropriate for the next recipient

Even congress is inundated by e-mail, and they still haven't figured out a way to efficiently handle it (though one suggestion is to increase the budget for their offices—what a surprise). Since we don't have the luxury of extra money or staff to manage our e-mail, I guess we'll have to keep finding 5S solutions on our own.

Labels: 5S, Lean, organization, standardization

I threw 5S/6S in my last entry without explaining it fully. Though most of you probably know the background, let me share its Japanese origins and definitions:

• Seiri = tidiness, organization
• Seiton = orderliness
• Seiso = cleanliness
• Seiketsu = standards
• Shitsuke = sustaining discipline

And the English counterparts that came from it:

• Sort = cleanup
• Straighten/Set in Order = arrange
• Shine = neatness
• Systemize/Standardize = discipline
• Sustain = ongoing improvement
  

(The sixth S stands for safety.)

I can't say that we always live by 5S/6S in our office, and as I stated earlier, some of us work quite happily within our clutter. We rely on technology in this business, however, and we want to make sure everyone in the office can access the information they need when they need it. To that end, we've strategically organized our computer files, added software programs that help us manage projects, and tried to define all our processes, even the ones we think are indefinable.

Defining the processes hasn't been easy. Because we deal in mostly intellectual information and communication (though we do produce tangible documents), our processes have been hard to capture. We're constantly catching ourselves doing work in ways that contradict what we teach others, so we have to back away and start over.

When we do that, we look at the issue and ask what the user needs in the end (only this time the user is us), and we invariably define our process.

For example, we have several clients who wanted to create our EXPLAINIT Integrated Work Instructions in-house, and they looked to us to train their staff. Privately, some of us balked, claiming that our processes couldn't be duplicated, couldn't be categorized. Of course, what we discovered in our efforts to satisfy the client was that yes, we can define our processes. But would our clients be able to produce the same level of quality? It depends . . .

• Will the document designers be given the necessary software to develop the work instructions?
• Will they be given enough time to train on the software, learn the processes and create the documents?
• Will they have access to illustrations or be illustrators themselves?
• Will they be able to implement both a system that verifies the document's accuracy and a system that allows for changes?

These are questions we can't answer, yet we do know that when our clients aim for quality, creative solutions come alive. We're betting on their success.

So, as we continue to refine what we do to help our clients, we organize our thoughts, improve our processes and create standards that we can duplicate. Any 5S/6S proponent would say that's the kind of order that works.

Labels: 5S, 6S, Lean, organization, standardization, work instructions

For obvious reasons, we're proponents of Lean manufacturing concepts; standard work procedures based on best practice is our calling card. We're used to being part of 5S/6S* initiatives on the manufacturing floor, creating some pretty effective visual documents that help employees keep their areas tidy.

I know, though, that when 5S/6S moves to the office environment, things can get a bit sticky, especially if the employees think standard work (and Lean) only belongs in the shop. Without employee buy-in, the disgruntled will make themselves known. Take, for example, a recent article from BBC News which reports that black tape was stuck onto the desks of the National Insurance staff in Longbenton, North Tyneside (UK), presumably strategically mapping the areas where employees should store their pens, arrange their computers and lay out other items--the 5S system. The article doesn't make it clear whether the staff is upset, but the union is disgusted by the perceived humiliation.

That got me thinking about my own desk and those of my officemates. I'm pretty neat and orderly--a trait passed on from my parents and exacerbated by my husband. Several of my cubicle partners, however, have piles of papers, plastered bulletin boards and random scatterings of pens, pencils, markers and Post-Its. We all work efficiently and easily, however, ruling out any generalization.

On the other hand, David Freedman just coauthored a book with Eric Abrahamson called A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder. In it, he suggests that too much organization may stifle creativity. Based on our own little corner of the world, I'd have to say he may be right. All of our artists have more clutter than I do, and though I'd like to believe my writing is a bit creative, I know they come up with more ideas--more ridiculous and out-of-this-world ideas, true, but it's those ideas that often end up providing the spark for a new direction.

Maybe I need to think about letting my desk go . . .

Labels: 5S, Lean manufacturing, organization