the Learning and Skills Group

LEAN Training

I recently had a conversation with a colleague about LEAN. Does anyone have any experience of bringing this type of training 'in-house' as opposed to using an external organisation, and who are the best people to become the trainers or 'experts' to work within the business to champion, train and develop.

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Permalink Reply by Sumeet Moghe on May 30, 2010 at 16:33

Hi Denise,
One of the things with Lean is that it's a set of philosophies more than targeted practices. There are several practices that you can learn from targeted training. These practices include but are not limited to:
* Value stream mapping
* A3 reporting and problem solving
* Standard work observation
* Hoshin Kanri
etc.
The funny thing with this is that you're unlikely to see any great results by implementing any of these techniques in isolation without having a 'sensei' in your midst. You're best served by getting a consultant to engage (AT WORK) with one of your in-house units and then following a seed and split approach to have the new practitioners act as senseis. This is perhaps in difference with your initial thought of not using an external organisation.

Now let me try answering your original question. The Lean Enterprise Institute offers several comprehensive self-study workbooks as well as comprehensive workshops with detailed facilitators' guides and participants' workbooks. Of particular interest to you will be the Mapping to see and the Training to See workshops. Here's the link:
http://www.lean.org/BookStore/ProductCatalog.cfm?ProductCategoryId=1

Before you do embark on this journey, remember that Lean emphasises experiential wisdom, so the trainers or experts are the people who have actually been able to reduce waste on several value streams and have influenced business results using Lean practice.