How to "Take Your Jobs" Back from Machines

Dear Friends,

Are you in danger of losing your jobs to RPA, Machines and AI?

HOW TO BEAT THE MACHINES .. AI and machines that are learning ...
Recommendation of these 5 books .. to counter the hyperAutomation that all workers are facing .. the Robotic Process Automation and loss of Jobs ...

1. TOYOTA KATA - what practices Toyota follows for managing "people" for improvement adaptiveness and superior results

2. HOW WE LEARN - in the age of machines which are getting inititaed to learning .. humans who have been learning as part of evolution need to go deeper into deep learning. No machine could learn the way we learned to learn.

3. DEEP WORK - minimization of the shallow work that we have been doing is the key. Get your deep work On - defined as " ...activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limits. These efforts create new value, improve your skills and are hard to replicate ( even by machines)."

4. PEAK - why machines will beat us. They will be at their peak performance 24x7 unlike we humans. However we have practices that can give PEAKS and extend our practices to extraordinary achievements that no machines can beat.

5. HUMANS ARE UNDERRATED .. what high achievers know that brilliant machines never will


I suggest a read of these 5 books .. then you are good to go for taking on deep learning machine intelligence ! GOOD LUCK !

For those who are " busy" in work - shallow or deep - I leave it to you. the algorithm from the books is

Get more percentage of "deep work" into your work. Continuously learn to learn. Maximize the peak performance by practicing for specific skills (the "10000 hours rule" is just a myth), Get your humanness On - as in "the machines will take over media gloss" humans are being unnecessarily getting under-rated, and finally, get into managing yourself and your people NOT by "implementing" Lean, Agile or Design Thinking, but maximizing the cognitive and thinking skills of all the minds working with you to improve continuously , adapt robustly and evolve creatively .  

Process Bench-Marking using ALVIS Thinking - Creating "Ideal" processes

Process Benchmarking

Benchmarking can be considered as using the knowledge and the experience of others to improve the enterprise. A Benchmarking study should not be considered as a collection of metrics alone. It is really a mechanism to map where your enterprise stand vis-à-vis others and how can you aim to achieve the performance that other have achieved or exceed what is available as the best. Looking below the surface, one can see that Benchmarking is a search for ideas that are working in processes that are similar to the process to be improved. However, these processes may be embedded in a different system; hence the characteristics of that system should also be included in the benchmarking study. Further, since the objective is to search for successful ideas, it can potentially reduce to a quick-fix short-term innovation, that may improve a process – but may harm the overall system in the long term.

 Crafitti (http://www.crafitti.com) has combined the analytical and logical dimensions of thinking that has served the businesses for so long with three relatively dormant thinking dimensions called – Value Thinking, Inventive Thinking and Systems Thinking. This new framework is called Analytical Logical Value Inventive and Systems Thinking (ALVIS). 

Analytical Logical Value Inventive and Systems Thinking (ALVIS) – Crafitti’s Framework for Innovation

Value thinking focuses on maximizing value of a system which also can be considered as designing a system which is least wasteful of resources – as described in Toyota Production System, Value engineering and Lean Thinking. Systems Thinking expands the focus from immediate problem, system or scenario to a holistic view of the system and its positioning in the overall scheme of things. This helps us to think about the system in terms of its relationships, dependencies and complexities with respect to super-system and sub-system and with respect to past and future. Finally, Inventive Thinking and the associated methodologies help us to create or invent solutions or design alternative futures that usually will not be simple extrapolation of known knowledge in the industry. Inventive thinking brings best solutions from across industries using the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). Thus Analytical Logical Value Inventive and Systems (ALVIS) thinking is a framework for innovation across the spectrum of innovation needs of an enterprise.

Process Benchmarking using ALVIS

We start with a hypothesis that no process is independent. All processes are part of a dynamic and usually an evolving system or system of systems. Hence isolating a process and benchmarking it independently may not give us an optimal view and hence will lead to lessons and solutions that not only can be inefficient but may actually harm the system in the long run. We have following overall steps in the Process Benchmarking process:

Step 1: Actors Departments Applications Processes Technology (ADAPT) analysis of the overall system using Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM). Relative quantification of dependencies of the process on various elements – Actors, Departments, Applications, Processes and Technology is obtained. This also gives us a view of Process/System Complexity using an analytical method of System Complexity Estimator (SCE).

Step 2: Definition and understanding of end-customer Value for each process, sub-process, sub-system or overall system is created. This feeds into an overall stakeholder’s analysis – as multiple stakeholders of the process may have a sub-optimal view of the value to the customer. Creating a common operating picture through consensus building is the main objective of this step. We use the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to understand stakeholder’s key value parameters.

Step 3: Value Stream Mapping (VSM) of the key process and sub-processes gives an overall view of how much is the efficiency of the process and information spaghetti (entropy or disorder). Process Efficiency (PE) is defined as ratio of value adding time in a process to the total turnaround time. A PE of 80% or above is considered excellent. In the knowledge work, for example, software bug-fixing value streams we have found PE to be around 30% -35%. Just imagine, if we can unlock the efficiency and make value streams even 60% efficient, the productivity of the system can double.

Step 4: To define and describe an ideal process which is least complex in terms of its dependencies on other system elements (ADAPT) and is viewed with the same lens by all stakeholders and which has highest process efficiency. This is the second level of ideality. The ultimate ideal process is the one which does only the value adding activities, doesn’t harm the system in anyway, consumes no resources and takes ZERO time. The ideal process is the ultimate benchmark for ALVIS.

Step 5: How others are doing it? Identify key competitors/enterprises who are doing it better/differently. This is done through open information available about other companies or published by the companies in public. A survey questionnaire is designed and executed in other companies and with their customers to gain key business intelligence about similar process and experience.

Step 6: Ideate on solving problems identified during ADAPT, Stakeholders analysis, VSM and ideality definition. Here we use TRIZ tools of key contradictions and inventive principles, laws of system evolution and Lean method of elimination of Non-value adding (NVA) steps in the process.

Step 7: A final report on the benchmarking study and ideas for improvement is submitted and a presentation made to the stakeholders with specific recommendations. Action plan of redesigning the process along with the changes in the associated system, system of systems and organization structure is also provided. 

IC Toon - Lean For Software Project Managers

CLICK ON THE IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGE VIEW

Lean and Six-Sigma Kill Innovation - Go for LIST

The timing of the blogpost Six Sigma Kills;Lean kills absolutely is 10 years late in my opinion. In the year 2000, it was evident that world has taken a new course due to the age of connected that we have now. In the connected age, it is multiplicity that gets value.

Paraphrasing Thomas Barnett who wrote in The Pentagon's New Map, "the future was not about dealing with the biggest threat in the environment, but dealing with the environment of threats" I suggest, "future is not about the big OPPORTUNITY in the environment, but its about the environment of opportunities".

I think the six-sigma and lean initiatives as implemented by many organizations - completely miss this environment of opportunities. I must qualify, the way six sigma (nothing but a concoction of multiple patches on the fundamental statistical process control) and lean were designed and emerged - they serve fundamental purposes. However, the interpretation of these concepts and the way they have been mandated - has created a huge drag on the organization - nothing wrong with the principles and tools - it is just that people are applying wrong principles and tools to completely different situations and scenarios.

How to understand, explore and thrive in this environment of opportunities. We have been served greatly last two centuries (at least) by honing and developing our analytical and logical thinking dimensions. Lean thinking to my mind brought a concept of Value maximization (rather than waste reduction) in the way Toyota implemented it - hence we need to make and understand Value - end-to-end. Systems thinking - a holistic way large complex interactions were categorized and viewed with the sense of understanding them and may be designing them is also a dormant thinking dimension compared to analytical and logical. Finally, the inventive thinking - which is a departure from the existing methods, thoughts and solutions, in turn creating variations - has been subjugated completely till its revival in the form of design thinking and may be started with Herbert Simon's Sciences of the Artificial need to be incorporated in the 5 dimensions of Lean, Inventive and Systems thinking along with analytical and logical thinking.

We call this new 5 dimensions thinking framework the Lean Inventive Systems Thinking (LIST) and it combines the five key dimensions of thinking into a robust framework for innovation - end to end.

Lean Inventive Systems Thinking (LIST) – Crafitti’s Framework for Innovation

Lean thinking focuses on maximizing value of a system which also can be considered as a system which is least wasteful of resources. Systems Thinking expands the focus from immediate problem, system or scenario to a holistic view of the system and its positioning in the overall scheme of things. This helps us to think about the system in terms of its relationships, dependencies and complexities with respect to super-system and sub-system and with respect to past and future. Finally, Inventive Thinking and the associated methodologies help us to create or invent solutions or design alternative futures that may not be simple extrapolation of known knowledge in the industry. Inventive thinking brings best solutions from across industry using the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ). Thus Lean Inventive Systems Thinking (LIST) is a framework for innovation across the spectrum of innovation needs of an enterprise.

If you want to explore the environment of opportunities through LIST send me an email at navneet.bhushan@crafitti.com

Innovation Crafting in Large Global Organizations

Last month I was invited to address the top management of First Indian Corporation on Innovation. It was a great experience sharing Innovation experiences and thoughts with them

Below is the presentation made it is titled "Innovation Crafting in Large Global Organizations"

Ic In Large Global Organizations

View more presentations from Navneet Bhushan.

New Services from Crafitti - Facilitated Kaizen Blitz and Technological Alternatives Study (TAS) on a Patent

We at Crafitti consulting have started two unique services
1. Facilitated Kaizen Blitz
2. Technological Alternatives Study (TAS) on Patent

The posts at the Crafitti Blog explains these in much detail (Click on the links below)

FACILITATED KAIZEN BLITZ
Technological Alternatives Study (TAS) on a Patent
We already completed one project each in each of these streams from Crafitti and I must say these were immensely satisfying - the results and impact that these created at our client organization.

These services are in line with our promise of going beyond innovation lip-service and co-crafting innovation with our customers! We deliver the promises!

A random thought - TRIZ - For Leaning the Thinking

TRIZ - Theory of Inventive Problem Solving is a systematic way to make thinking Lean

provided at the first place we actually think !

The problem is our minds are not designed to think hence elimination of waste from the thinking process does not arise at all!


Hence any method which (1) forces us to think actually create a mental fatigue (2) any method that eliminates waste in our thinking actually considered very complex as - since we don't think at all where is the chance of waste!

A Random thought, just like that...........

Making Open Innovation Lean and TRIZ Enabled