Developing A Lean Learning Organisation
Working in a multi-disciplinary complex environment can surely have it’s challenges. At Insight Software Ltd (GoHubble.com) we have a lot of variables to manage. We provide advanced analytical solutions which pioneer the industry on Reporting, Analytics and Planning across critical systems such as Oracle, SAP and JDEdwards as well as other ERP’s and CRM’s. Our enterprise customer environment can be unsurprisingly highly differentiated, with different performance and governance constraints and obstacles per enterprise. With a team approach supported by a learning culture, we repetitively overcome these challenges to provide a solution which can perform a billion transactions in under 10 seconds which transforms the customers view of their data and the value of the data to the oganization.
Learning and continuous improvement albeit might sound like buzzwords to some, to us are in fact measured and real cultural objectives and outcomes we embed in our product, support and services teams. We fully embody and recognise learning in many forms and strive for a Kaizen cultural approach to improvement. We believe this is a key component to successful companies today, particularly with those who look to innovative and operate in complex environments like ourselves.
Below are just some of the small ways we embrace Kaizen and Continuous Learning across our company.
1. Culture Of Trust And Inquiry
The first step in creating a learning culture is to truly believe that whatever the outcome, everyone is trying their best with what they know and have available to them in order to achieve positive result. Let’s face it, nobody wants to or ever intends to fail or deliver a negative outcome. When this is fully acknowledged and becomes your default starting point, the tone changes to that of inquiry and discovery as opposed to blame and fault. Trust is a fundamental component to any environment that wishes to develop a kaizen culture and learn fast.
As CTO, it’s incumbent upon me to set the tone across the teams and department, simultaneously working with other leaders for consistency and support on this front. I need to reinforce this statement in my personal actions, responses, recognition and rewards. To do this, I actively look to encourage open and honest information and promote inquiry, collaboration and discovery for reflection and learning. I strive to ensure that people are comfortable and feel safe when sharing learnings and recognize the benefit in others doing so. For some at first who are not used to this openess and approach, a transition period is expected to build up trust. We reward quality of information, engagement and actively seek to restrain judgement whilst capitalizing on moments of Failure as key moment to learning.
2. Transparency — Simplify And Surface
Our product department which covers Engineering, QA, Product Management and 3rd Line Support has undergone significant changes in the past 12 months. We have successfully moved from releasing every quarter to releasing every week, we have changed most of our tooling and systems across all the above disciplines, we have adopted Kanban across the teams and service functions, brought in new skills to support a product transformation, structured new teams and improved our delivery success by a factor of x4. All this whilst significantly growing as a company and innovating our product range.
Supporting these changes is a principle of ‘Simply And Surface’. Embedded into each change above, we ensured and continue to assert that all tools and processes are visible and accessible to all. We have very few if any sources of data related to our products and delivery progress which cannot be accessed by the whole company. This not only means that all data is accessible via URLs and dashboards, but key information is presented in public spaces and actively shared. This information is also structured in a way which requires little or no training to understand on first view. Supporting this we ensure all goals are clear from the top down so everyone knows what, why and when we are working on all activities. The leadership team religiously present bi-weekly, monthly and quarterly updates constantly reflecting on our progress, learnings and goals.
All of these components might seem trivial, but contribute towards a learning environment. Sharing key information allows for passive and active engagement which penetrates the many and not the few. Having access to information this way, helps people at all levels and roles obtain feedback on progress and change and helps everyone make decisions in realtime proactively. If the teams are aware and can connect their contributions with key outcomes, it helps align behaviour to work closer as a team towards common goals. Reflecting back on the notion that everyone is trying to do their best to achieve a desired outcome, sharing information better positions and aligns teams to do just that.
3. Structured Learning
Having a structured approach to learning can help encapsulate the principles laid out in points 1 and 2 above. Structure can help ensure you have consistency in depth and consistency in actionable outcomes which helps put the learnings into practice. Learning with little or no application can have limited effect, so we try to drive thoughts and conversations to measurable actions which we can test.
By way of example, we have introduced a structured Lean root cause analysis process in the department using the 5 Why’s. This isn’t innovative or new, but it works for us and works well. We invoke this process as and when needed, usually when there is a learning opportunity recognized. A learning opportunity being something that could also be a positive outcome and not just a failure.
How this works in practice for us :
- When a learning opportunity is recognized, a passionate individual of any role can request a 5 why’s engagement.
- Where key individuals of the event have been recognized, each individual is asked to participate to help improve the outcome for next time and given a 5 Why’s document to complete independently. (Usually 3–5 people of different roles in the event).
- The instigator/facilitator sets a 45–60 minute meeting to converge the group and schedules this as a shared and open agenda on our confluence page which shares all other active and historic instances, discussions and learnings to all. This is also searchable should anyone be looking for related topics around the event.
- During the meeting, each contributor runs through their 5 Why’s submission which also includes their suggested remedies and actions and the group collectively agree actions and measurements to apply in a timely manner.
- All activity is recorded and shared on confluence for others to follow or contribute to if they so wish, including the application of the actions and their outcomes. Any agreed changes which are deemed to be improvements with evidence are communicated and subsequent processes are versioned and updated with reference to the root cause analysis.
Plan-Do-Check-Act
Supporting the 5 Why’s process, we use the well versed Lean based Plan-Do-Check-Act process or Plan-Do-Study-Act to others; arguably the parent process of Build-Measure-Lean which many will be familiar with from Lean Startup. The 5 Why’s session above fulfil the Plan section. The actions agreed from the 5 Why’s meeting are what we agreed to Do using a supporting hypotheses with success criteria. We then schedule a follow up in a timely manner to Check or Study the outcome from Do. At this check point we decide how we Act on the outcome, by formally adopting the changes or pivoting and trying something different.
Summary
Developing a continuous learning environment is an endless endeavor, much like continuous improvement itself. I’ve shared just some of the many things we have put into practice to help us progress as a team and organization. To hold ourselves accountable to this and not get caught up with our own bias, we recently engaged DORA (Devops Research And Assessment) to objectively assess us on a bi-annual basis. DORA provided us objective insights into strengths and weaknesses which we now have active programs to address. From the research I was personally pleased to see that we scored significantly higher than average on Learning, Collaboration, Westrum and Job Satisfaction. These key ingredients provide confidence that all other problems we face can be solved together as we learn together.
Above shares just some insights to our approach on developing and maintaining a learning culture. If you would like to share your approach and learnings or would like to enquire some more, please feel free to get in touch.
