Kaizen in the office. Chaos, farewell! or First Steps to the Lean Office Losses Due to Variability

31.08.2023

When companies try to apply lean methods in the office or in the service industry, many stop as soon as they open the door.

The plot of the stories may differ from what I describe below, but in general, everything follows the same scenario.

Someone in the company, having become infected with examples of production optimization, brings the idea “let's do it in the office just as cool!”.

With song and dance, the HR director organizes a training session for office workers, where they are introduced to the basics of lean, and offered to roll up their sleeves to get down to business. Half of the people go to the newly named gemba “guiding 5S”, the other half sits down to map the value stream. Things are boiling...

And after a couple of months, one of the leaders asks: “well, what did you manage to achieve?”

In response, they show him slender rows of pencils, a wall space clear of photographs of motivators and demotivators, covered with sheets with incomprehensible hieroglyphs and arrows, and three or four sleepy enthusiasts, against whom literally all office employees have already sharpened fountain pens. No one can show an economic result, and the manager explicitly or implicitly closes the project, transferring invaluable resources to more important tasks. Implementation completed, office back to business as usual.

Tidying up an office is not a very difficult task, to be honest. And even the effect of this work can give quite decent. However, there are so many details in the process that the devil almost certainly jumps out of them.

Organization of order in the office

The ICSI publishing house has released a book by Tom Fabrizio and Don Tapping “5S for the office. How to Organize an Effective Workplace. Good book to get started.

This book describes in sufficient detail the process of implementing 5s in the non-manufacturing area: how to prepare a project, how to conduct an initial analysis, what to do at the stages of sorting and deleting unnecessary (stage 1), rational location and definition of boundaries (2), cleaning and checking (3) , standardization and information exchange (4), maintenance and improvement (5).

However, when 5S is implemented in the office, it is very important to find a balance of reason. Not every company can comply with it and this can lead to unpleasant consequences. In Russian traditions, this is described by the proverb “make a fool pray to God, he will hurt his forehead.” When an unprepared company tries to raise the degree of organization to absolutely incredible heights, people explode.

“This is nonsense” - in this case it would be the mildest statement IN THE EVENT if you require to designate ABSOLUTELY ALL items at the very first stages of work.

Nevertheless, often neophytes of lean production require to remove absolutely everything superfluous from the workspace, everything personal and everything not related to work.

In the worst case, this can lead to the fact that employees start to leave.

And this is logical, because the working conditions suddenly become completely unbearable. Where once you could hang a vacation photo, today there should be a clean wall. Where once there were ten sharpened pencils in the organizer for any occasion, today only one is allowed. And most importantly, no one can really explain why this is necessary.

Explanations “this is all a loss” are not accepted. Maybe no one even argues that the extra pencils in the pencil case are the extra money spent by the company, but still everyone resists with terrible force. And if you have no idea why this is happening, look around. While you're putting away your extra pencils, people are wasting hours of work time doing completely pointless and useless work: they're coordinating orders with half a dozen directors for weeks, they're rushing around departments hoping to speed up an urgent order a little, they write multi-page reports that no one reads, they fill out hundreds of journals and forms instead of doing their main job.

And so an attempt to reduce a company's losses by reducing the number of pens or introducing the rule "use the back of the paper for printing drafts" always looks like spillikins.

Saving two packs of paper for ten employees of the "office plankton" class per month in this case looks like a mockery of common sense.

Workflows in the office

This is more or less “according to the rules” in production. Before you assemble the finished product, you must first make all the details. And for this, buy raw materials. And before that, develop a design. In the office, everything usually goes wrong. First you are asked for an invoice, then you think about the specification of the service, and then you start figuring out where to get the resources and time to complete what has already been paid for in advance.

And well, if only this.

Each office employee, if presented as an “office plankton”, will definitely have to grow into an octopus, since he simultaneously does three hundred and forty-seven jobs. "And the Swiss, and the reaper, and the piper on the lip." As soon as a person sits down to call the most hated clients, he is only gathering his strength, so at this very moment a colleague from another department comes and demands to urgently give him "five minutes" of precious time. And after three hours he returns to the lathered performer and asks: “Well, why are you taking so long, there was only an hour of work there ???”.

“Why are you pulling me every half an hour? I told you, everything will be ready in five minutes!”

The work of most office employees does not fit into the production flow paradigm. And this is quickly revealed when trying to draw a flow map. There is no flow. But the map needs to be drawn. Enthusiasts, especially inspired by their teachers, are even able to gnaw their way through office labyrinths and still draw the process of completing individual tasks. But with amendments to the fact that “other similar tasks are performed completely differently”, “there are three categories of complexity”, “only Petrovich does this work and only when he is free” and “and if the boss is on vacation, then everything is done completely differently » it turns out that . Most likely, such a value stream map describes a spherical value stream map in a vacuum in the absence of the rest of the universe and can only serve as a scarecrow for subsequent generations of recruits under the slogan: “you can’t do this in any case!”

What is the root of the problem

There is only one source of all this explosion-threatening irritation of employees and utter confusion in the streams. And I can only repeat the same thing: until the value of the activities that are carried out in the office is determined, any effort to implement lean manufacturing methods will fail. Not because lean methods don't work in the office or don't work without a lack of value. They work. But they give a result that no one needs. It's the same as tightening a Phillips screw with a simple slotted screwdriver: you can tighten it, but you will spend a lot of effort and most likely break the thread.

Unfortunately, the value of the work of many offices is very difficult to detect. Including because the law of doubling the administrative top of Parkinson continues to operate inexorably even in the digital era. Therefore, those crumbs of value that are created by individual outstanding office octopuses are very difficult to detect and collect in a single stream. And the activity itself often resembles not a stream, but a pool with strong undercurrents in which anything can disappear.

To isolate these elements of value will require several non-trivial methods, which I will talk about at the March seminar ““, including talking about standardization, how to find elements of value in entangled flows, managing all the variety of office tasks, how win all the inhabitants of the office to your side.

For the time being, those wishing to take part in the seminar have the opportunity and. But every day the number of free places is slowly but inexorably reduced. So hurry up.

Quality Director, ROTO FRANK LLC

An already complex world requires simplicity in everything. For most people, the desire for simplicity becomes clear when it comes to the workplace. Surprisingly, for several decades, nothing has changed significantly in this direction, despite the revolutionary office technologies under the slogan of “paper-free” economy, despite the huge progress in research on organizational and managerial activity. As before, mountains of documents grow and rise amazingly fast, folders with the inscription “Urgent!” rise proudly, yellow stickers with phone numbers and e-mail addresses flicker, graphics, task lists, all types of storage media from DVDs to flash drives USBs, business gifts, knick-knacks... Why?

We try to answer this question at ROTO FRANK. Thrift and Lean technologies in everything, including offices!

The workplace is more than the place where we work. It is a symbol, something like a reflection of the contents of our thoughts with you. Whatever you have in your head is magically presented on your desktop. More and more complex tasks that come day by day on a site from 1 to 2 m 2 create a kind of colorful collage from the daily routine.

However, as soon as you start to purposefully try to change this art object, you will feel how your daily work changes and simplifies.

In fact, creating a neat office is easier than you think. It can be a small but significant contribution to the quality of your work in the workplace.

Self-control test (how well organized is your workplace)

Are the things you use every day right in their places?
On your desk are the documents of the task you are directly working on. right now?
Do you only work with one inbox/tray for incoming mail?
Is it guaranteed that urgent (due date) documents are not stored in stacks or filing trays where one would waste time looking for them?
Does your intermediate storage system for current documentation/projects ensure that you can find any document you need in a maximum of one minute?
Do your colleagues refer to your work papers in case you are absent?
Do you use checklists that make your job easier?
Do you always know where to place this or that document?
Have you set the rules for working in the office in writing?
Does your enterprise include administrative costs as part of the overall productivity of the organization?

Let's summarize. How often did you answer "yes"?

10 times - You are already very well organized and know what techniques you used to achieve such a result. Working with you is a pleasure.

7-9 times - You know almost everything about how to organize a desk or workplace. But there remains potential, realizing which, you can significantly improve the situation.

3-6 times - You, like many others, have a lot of different things in your hands that you must deal with at the same time. However, you will be able to see that there is an opportunity to streamline this process more efficiently (make it more valuable).

1-2 times - If you have not yet paid enough attention to the optimization of the workplace space and take note of the following information, you will be amazed at the positive effect of applying simple techniques and tips.

Low score? Don't get upset! By answering each question, you indicate exactly where there is potential for improvement - where you answered "no", there is a chance to do it!

How did we start in ROTO ...

Purpose: to develop a plan for successive steps for implementation.

But first - a few notes and axioms based on the results of monitoring the state of affairs at the start.

Permanent improvement unknown in offices

"There is no time to put things in order, but everyone has time to look for the necessary thing." This is the practice of many offices, including ours in ROTO. While in Production, continuous improvement and optimization is an absolutely normal daily routine, in bureaus and offices, the need to optimize current processes does not come immediately. The mistakes that are easiest to make, hardest to detect, with the most costly consequences and hardest decisions, are the ones most often made. beyond the scope production.

Huge potential in offices

It is worth recognizing that the lion's share of optimization is implemented in production to a lesser extent in administration. However, there is great potential in the offices, while great progress has already been made in the factory workshops. Therefore, many companies today continue to reduce unproductive office activities and reduce losses in this area, while already producing high-quality products for a long time.

Needed for survival

Another reason for change.

It is no secret that globalization has left its mark in all industries, thereby forcing to reduce waste and losses in all their manifestations, which today is not an option, but a prerequisite for ensuring the company's survival in a competitive market.

Daily activities in many enterprises

What does a typical work day look like? At many enterprises it is about the same:

work in the office is not regulated by any rules; everyone does their job the way they think is right
terms are long
there are "detours" and "congestion"; an efficient flow of activity is more like a trickle.

Almost a third of all losses

Based on research conducted on photographs of employees' working hours and the distribution of workload during the day, it was found that almost a third of all losses in offices and at each workplace take time to find the right document. Half of all losses are caused by poorly coordinated processes, resulting in long waiting times and process thrashing. The rest is unproductive office activities. Having carried out a simple calculation in our head, we were horrified ...

70 unproductive days a year

Based on the fact that almost 30% of working time, according to research results, is not productive, you can easily calculate how many days a year each employee wastes. This means that 70 days out of the working year, each employee comes to work, does useless things and goes home (!).

sustainable order

Our main goal is that with the help of the tools and advice that we have in our hands, we can maintain order on the desk and in the office all the time.

Figures from world practice

By applying simple tips and tricks, in the future, you can achieve results in the near future. How to determine the effect of implementation? Improvements can be quantified; average statistical data from practice show:

10-20% efficiency improvement

20% free space

40% reduction in search time

25% reduction in lead times

Effects in the future

Through change, you can achieve:

a clear improvement in employee satisfaction
reduction of intermediate, non-value-adding steps in processes
improving reactivity to meet customer requirements
increase competitiveness

What does "kaizen" mean?

Kaizen is a process of continuous improvement in the form of directed progressive movement/development through small steps. The activities of this process are easy to implement, do not require costly high-tech solutions or investments, and the risks are foreseeable and limited.

The principles of kaizen are a priori, first of all, mastered in production. The results are improvements as well as knowledge of the potentials for improvement. From production to offices... The principles should be adopted under the slogan "What is good for production, may be good for administration." The tools used are not new, they are based on the search for improvement potentials, but already in the office area. Thanks to kaizen, problems that you previously did not suspect become transparent and obvious. The peculiarity is that not only the company benefits, but also the employees: they can work faster, better and less stressed, while the company becomes more competitive due to this.

Climbing the kaizen ladder

The goal of kaizen in the office is incremental and continuous improvement.

The first stage requires a lot of time and effort to put things in order and sort within your work area (removing everything that distracts your attention and interferes with concentration when performing urgent tasks, does not apply to them).

At the second stage, the "rules of the game" are established. Rules keep things in order. Besides, where rules are established, there is no longer a need to constantly clean up.

The third stage marks the success achieved by the results of the first two. However, it is too early to relax, at this stage the processes require optimization.

At the fourth stage, there is a more intensive involvement of employees in thinking about possible improvements. Here employees act as experts.

The task of the fifth stage is to give a vector to the aspirations in the search for improvements by setting goals. These goals are directly related to the strategic development of the company. The definition of performance indicators in this vein helps to measure the degree of achievement of goals.

The battlefield is vast, so today I will try to cover only a few recommendations, the so-called tips & tricks, as part of the first stage. In fact, we are still on the border of the first and second steps. And there is much more to come. But we allocate time with a reserve for ensuring that every detail is accepted and perceived by employees. Therefore, we do not participate in the pursuit race. Our tactic is a measured forward movement. So, first step: clean and tidy

How can an employee work with high efficiency in chaos?

In today's international competition, every minute counts.

I can’t think of a single person who would regret the time saved when doing everyday work. The explanation for this is simple: stacks of papers on the table reflect the character of a person - an empty desktop speaks of a bright head.

Before you can maintain order, you must first restore it at least once. This is the goal of the first stage. You will say that you do not have time for this (based on this, we can conclude that you clearly understand the structure of your working day, which is already the first step towards standardization!). However, try to break out of the office routine and start with this first step. The amazing thing about the Lean Office is that the time spent making changes immediately pays off later. By tidying up and tidying up, you relieve yourself of the need to be in chaos in the future, saving valuable time from unnecessary searches. Perhaps your colleagues, when they see your desktop, grin and say: “Don't you have a job?” But wait a while and see that the same people will come back to ask how you did it.

Before proceeding to decisive action, it is necessary to first clarify the initial situation. The effect of this introductory stage is so powerful that such an approach is highly recommended.

1. Take a picture of the starting situation: your desk, as well as a complete workplace: floor and window sills, used cabinets (in detail).

The way you see your workplace in a photo is different from how you see it when you sit at your desk. Photography allows you to see the situation at a distance, such a "shock therapy" is very useful and the best way to open your eyes to problem areas.

Do not try to compromise colleagues with your photo essay. This procedure is not started in order to expose colleagues in chaos at their workplaces. Chaos only indicates that the existing processes are not fully thought out and not standardized. Wherever you see discrepancies in the photo, there is room for improvement. The photo will show a picture of how your workplace looks from the outside. To enhance the effect, you can print them out and hang them under the heading "This is how our customers, guests, colleagues, suppliers, etc. see us from the outside."

2. Sort and organize

After you have logged the initial state, sorting is necessary. Get rid of all unnecessary things. There are many things in the drawers, cabinets and on the shelves that you have long been accustomed to, but which have not been used for a long time or will not be used in the future. Anything not in use should be disposed of.

The number of sorted documents, paper trays and other such things after such a procedure is amazing.

The result is freed up space and areas, as well as a subsequent reduction in search time. Do not try to embrace the immensity. Start from the starting point of space and follow step by step. For example, your desk is the epicenter of your work. Start with it. The postulate of time management says: an employee at an “empty table” works more efficiently than at a “loaded one” (like a carpenter with a planer). Following the table, pay attention to the following areas. It is recommended to follow the following route:

desk
drawers and table drawers
under the table on the floor
in vertical cabinets, chests of drawers, on shelves
on window sills and other horizontal surfaces

What to do if there is not enough time for sorting

It may happen that there is not enough time for good quality sorting at the same time in your entire office space.

Attach stickers to the doors and number them sequentially. Make a list of tasks based on this. Label each task with the name of the responsible person and a due date. Make this action plan visible to all employees. It can be removed when all activities are completed.

On this plan, you can immediately see what has already been done and what remains to be done.

You can also make a photo protocol and send it to all employees. It is unlikely that the protocol will remain in memory for a long time. However, stickers will serve as a kind of reminder beacons and are constantly in sight.

Use the sticker method also if you doubt the suitability of things, or cannot make a final decision on your own. Include these points in the action plan, and then, in a joint discussion with interested colleagues, jointly decide the fate of these objects or objects. Write the initials of employees on the stickers, so it will be easier to determine at a glance who is responsible for this object.

3. Practice getting rid of things in test mode

Humans are hunters and collectors by nature. Therefore, when preparing to part with things, doubts may arise - what if they are needed again ... It will be useful to experiment in this direction before moving on to decisive action. Items and documents that are not needed at the workplace, but which you would not like to get rid of yet, put in cardboard boxes.

These boxes can be stored in an archive, basement, or warehouse. Thus, you free up precious area / space in your workspace.

Remove empty shelves from the office. Otherwise, they will fill up with something again very soon. In order not to forget the contents of the boxes, label them as follows:

Be careful when determining the expediency of the archive's relevance period.

Write a serial number on each box. When creating an archive and packages, make an inventory of what you place in them. From the description, you can make a list of contents. You can attach the protocol of the archive on each specific box. You can keep a copy at your workplace - on the inside of the cabinet door, in order to have direct access to this information if necessary.

4. Free up more space in your workspace

The workspace around you should be organized in such a way as to help you focus on solving your daily tasks and achieving your goals. Only those things that you need on a daily basis should be present in your environment. Often, however, after sorting, the presence of things, objects, furniture that is not used and interferes is detected.

Sometimes it happens that you cannot accurately determine the need for certain documents at hand. You periodically access some folders, but do not remember which ones. Each time you look at the folder, put a small sticker on the spine of the folder.

After about three months, a picture will appear from which you can judge which folders are the most popular in your work. In order not to waste time looking for stickers every time, place them on one of the walls of the cabinet with folders. The advice will be useful if you periodically archive infrequently used folders, or get rid of them. Put a regular reminder in your calendar when you decide which folders should be removed from your workspace.

Alternative idea: You can seal the folders with duct tape. When a folder is needed, you rip off the tape. After three months, you will understand which folders should be sent to the archive: all those on which the adhesive tape remained intact.

Some offices stock cabinets or cabinets that are not being used - often with the argument that the furniture costs a lot of money. It is true that acquisition always involves spending money. If the furniture stands in the aisle, causes unnecessary searches, distracts from work, this results in even greater costs.

Get rid of such furniture. Arrange only the necessary furniture and find a new use for it. Some businesses offer to take away unwanted furniture and items to their employees. Determine a place where you will put such things so that they can be taken out freely.

5. Optimize waste sorting

Putting things in order is always connected with the fact that you part with the unnecessary. Often in the workplace, one wastebasket is used for everything - whether it's a yogurt cup or crumpled paper.

Instead, you need to get a box for recycling papers. You use it, provided with your name, for this purpose only. By the way, it is better to have a small desk and a large drawer than vice versa.

Other waste should be sorted using a multi-compartment bin or individual labeled containers. The sizes of containers are determined by the volumes of waste.

Since too many documents accumulate in the box over time, it is necessary not to empty it daily, but at least weekly. In addition: if you need a document that you have sent to a box, you can retrieve it unharmed.

The paper drawer must be of the appropriate shape and size so that the documents placed there are not wrinkled.

Please note that garbage sorting must be observed throughout the entire chain! There were cases when sorting was successfully carried out in offices, however, by the evening, the attendants simply dumped all the garbage into one tank.

For idealists - you can use one of the drawers of the table / curbstone under the container for papers. It is open during the day. When you receive visitors, you can close it with one movement - it is not visible to prying eyes.

6. Keep your workspace clean and tidy

If you have put things in order and cleanliness in your workplace, now you need to constantly maintain this state.

Make it a habit to clean up your desk before you leave your desk at the end of the day. This way you can start from scratch the next day. Otherwise, you accumulate documents: on the first day, 5 sheets remain, the next day - another five, and on the third day you already have a stack of papers. This tidying up in the evenings is useful if you are still in the adaptation stage. As you master the recommendations for keeping order, you will see that after the day there is not much to be put in order.

Maintaining cleanliness and order should be regularly monitored:

You can use the checklist provided at the beginning, or develop your own according to your needs. You can also include items for cleaning tables, drawers, cabinets, office appliances, floors, plants, lamps, trash cans, common areas, etc.

Successful implementation

I suggest you try these tricks. You will notice that more and more time is freed up in your activities when you are surrounded by order.

ROTO FRANK is a German company. Most of my Russian colleagues will support me in the fact that every day we believe more and more in the validity of the German proverb “Ordnung muss sein” (Order is the head of everything). This gives us an incentive to move towards mastering the next steps of the Lean Office: developing rules, optimizing existing processes, involving employees as experts, setting strategic development goals and defining performance indicators.

Double-check yourself on the implementation of the methods proposed to you:

Did you take a picture of the original state?
Have you sorted and disposed of unnecessary things (and continue to do so systematically)?
Have you applied the sticker method?
Have you practiced the method of getting rid of things in test mode?
Have you freed up more space in your workspace?
Have paper waste been sorted into a separate box?
Have you made it a habit to clean up your desk at the end of the working day?

1. Innovation and idea generation:

What is the idea management process? Why is it important and useful for any company.
Who basically generates new ideas.
What are the ideas management models?
How does the idea management system work?
How to evaluate a proposed idea.
How to encourage employees to come up with more good ideas for your business.
Innovations in the workplace: when, why and who needs them?. Creating motivation to be an innovator.
Creativity as the basis for the development of innovative ideas in the workplace.
What limits creativity?
Internal barriers: stereotypes of thinking. Awareness of internal barriers to creativity and the importance of their weakening when solving non-standard tasks.
"Idea killers" in project work or how to "strangle" a new idea? Awareness of environmental factors that block creativity and innovation in an organization.
Suboptimal in the workplace? The idea of "weak signals".
New approaches and optimization of processes in the workplace. Idea generation tools.
Problem formulation rules. Awareness of the idea of "weak signals" and their role in finding a non-standard solution.
Learning the rules for formulating / posing a problem. Acquisition of skills to find and formulate a problem / non-optimality in the workplace.
The reverse problem method. Training the skill of using the "Problem - Reverse" method in the process of generating ideas.
Brainstorming method. Understanding the quality criteria for generating ideas in a group. Training the ability to generate ideas in accordance with the rules and be its constructive participants.
How to evaluate promising ideas? Method "3 baskets". Creating a rating of ideas. Analysis of the results of generating ideas in a group and areas of application of tools in practice.
How to maintain and develop your personal creative potential? Understanding how you can keep your mind flexible. Increasing motivation to develop your creative potential and apply technology in practice.

Creative and logical thinking.

5 stages of the creative process.
"Ripening" of ideas.
Evaluation and selection of ideas.
Final analysis.
How to “pump up” your mind.

Programmatic methods used to manage ideas in an organization:

Techniques that stimulate the generation of innovative ideas.
Methods for collecting them.
Tools for collaboration in the field of ideation.
Reward tools.
Tools for monitoring and selecting the most interesting ideas.
Reporting tools.

2. Conducting an effective meeting

Model (roadmap) for conducting an effective meeting.

Methodology for holding different types of meetings:

meeting - debriefing.
meeting to build a plan for the next period.
creative meeting: development of new ideas (brainstorming).
crisis meeting: development of ways out of difficult situations.

Factors affecting the effectiveness of communications, the role of attention in the process of communication.

The art of being heard and understood: active and empathic listening, creating harmony in communication.
The concept of a dispute, types of disputes.
General rules for conducting a correct dispute.

Organization and control of the implementation of decisions taken at the meeting.

Evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of the meeting.
Minutes of the meeting: draft decisions, maintenance, compilation, distribution.
Rules for preparing reports for participants.
Implementation of decisions and monitoring of execution.
Group decision-making models. their opportunities and risks. Choice of the optimal model.
Responsibility and involvement of participants in the development and decision-making process. The choice of "necessary and sufficient" level.
Decomposition of the decision. responsibility matrix.
Formalization of decisions.
Assignment of tasks to performers.

3. Kaizen and 5S:

Toyota Production System (TPS) and its principles, Lean Production or TPS in American style.
Kaizen as a key element of the company's production system - goals, principles, three levels of kaizen, cycles.
Kaizen of the process - identifying the problem, analyzing data and finding the root cause of the problem, planning actions to eliminate it, implementing the plan, evaluating the effectiveness of the actions taken.
Kaizen performance indicators.
Kaizen teams - formation and activity, methods and tools.
What is Kaize office. Why it is important to involve all company personnel in the process of improving business processes, how to achieve this.
Why you need to improve the efficiency of internal processes.
Product value chain. Analysis of administrative processes and identification of losses.
5C in the office. What gives the company the implementation of 5S.
5C tools: sorting, organizing, keeping clean, standardizing, improving and discipline.
Implementation technology. Determining the scope of implementation of 5C tools. Methods for classifying work items and materials. Technology "Red label" Development of rules for standardization, visualization and planning in the office.
Work with personnel. Increasing the potential of employees.
7 principles of educating effective staff.
Built-in quality in administrative processes. practice in the department. Data collection, quality circles.
“5 kaizens” in the workplace: we plan improvements and implement them.
Planning steps to put ideas into practice.
Planning for optimization at your workplace.

4. Introduction of innovations. Fundamentals of project management.

Project management - general concepts.
The concept of the terms project and project management and project management processes.
Goals and objectives of financial and economic analysis of projects. Basic definitions.
Project planning processes.
Project execution and control.

Tatyana Shustova

He works as a marketing communications specialist for a large pharmaceutical company. Also interested in internal communications.

Imagine that you are a creative person who needs his own small, cozy, inspiring mess for comfortable work. So that important records are interspersed with beautiful postcards from the countries where you spent an unforgettable vacation, or flyers from the nearest cafe, and your favorite dirty mug was always standing next to the monitor.

What can you do, that's the kind of person you are. The ideal order bores you and kills all the desire to create, and you simply have no time to understand the papers. Now imagine that you are suddenly placed in the strict framework of an outlandish Japanese system.

What is kaizen

Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy of continuous improvement and change for the better. Kaizen is what in simple words can be called lean manufacturing. The right object in the right place in the right quantity. Order, sorting, accepted standards, maintenance and cleanliness.

Documents, materials, means of production - all this is stored, maintained in order and systematized in such a way that any worker can quickly find everything he needs. In large companies, kaizen is about production processes, and for office workers it is reflected in their work environment.

This also applies to the workspace on system drives (standard file names), and stationery (its own place for paper or printer cartridges), and document storage (folders signed in a standard way).

Advantages of the kaizen system

If we consider kaizen at the company level, then this system turns out to be useful and productive. I will give a simple example. I was lucky to work in a large factory where kaizen was used to the maximum. For example, a suggestion from one of the employees to load four more boxes on pallets led to the fact that the competent distribution of products made it possible to save a significant amount on the warehouse rental.

Or an example of using kaizen in . The place for storing paper is marked with a scale. If the amount of paper decreases to a certain notch, then it's time to think about ordering a new batch. This helps to foresee the situation when something will be missing.

As for the personal space of an office worker, you should always have a clean desk. All folders with documents must be signed and brought to uniformity.

In this case, you will know where and how much office supplies are. It is very comfortable.

Personal experience of using kaizen

I first encountered the philosophy of kaizen when I got a job in a Japanese company. In the office, every thing had to stand in its place, marked with a green sticker. There was a photograph on my desk that showed a monitor, keyboard, and mouse standing on an empty table. And the caption: "This is what my desktop looks like at the end of the working day."

Everything would be fine, but in this “sterility” I suddenly began to miss myself. Being a creative person, I used to surround myself with things I love. I needed "order in disorder": the case when from the outside your table seems to be a cluttered place, but you know exactly what is where.

It seemed to me that it took a long time to arrange the work accessories in their places. And one day a protest woke up in the soul of a deprived artist. And now your favorite mug, which there is simply no time for, is hidden in a drawer for personal items. And my heart is happy from such a rebellion.

Before that, I worked as a designer in a small advertising agency. On my desktop were movie flyers, and all sorts of funny pictures, and a bowl of nuts, and even an anti-stress ball, on which every week a new costume was put on, which we made out of paper. And it was good.

But is it so good? It took about the same amount of time to find a really important piece of paper as it did to put things in perfect order. Being distracted by a newspaper with a horoscope lying around was a common thing, and time was wasted on this too.

What is still worth choosing?

My decision was simple: I chose the best of the two approaches. I combined the systematization and order that kaizen offers with my vision and favorite things.

The main rule is not to overdo it with either kaizen or mess.

In my cabinets, drawers and documents, everything is laid out in a clear system. But there is always a corner on my desk dedicated to inspiring things: drawings, a flower in a pot, and an elephant from Thailand.

Do not be afraid to make an effort on yourself and sort out important things on the shelves. Once you get used to it a little, you will realize that it is very convenient. And for your mess, take a separate corner.

Kaizen is good until you start paying more attention to the form than to the content. Creative clutter is good as long as it doesn't just turn into clutter.

I brought three things to my new workplace. First, a mug. Secondly, a block with replaceable checkered leaves instead of a diary. Thirdly, a flower in a pot, which I affectionately call George to myself. In honor of George Harrison. Everything else is complete kaizen.