How Does an Organization Adopt a Daily Management System?

In the fall of 2020, Kaas Tailored hosted a series of Zoom calls unpacking our Daily Management System (DMS). Each month we focused on a different element of our DMS, starting with strategy, then discussing daily huddles, then talking about Visual Management Systems (VMS), and ending with Leader Standard Work. In this post, Jeff explains how organizations can begin to adopt their own Daily Management System.

For a lot of you, this is really being done to you by the corner office, and there’s not a lot you can do in the structure you have. Trying to fight the government or the City Hall is probably not so smart. I would say, “Start where you are at.” If you are not above reproach, or if I am not above reproach, I’m very unwilling to cast stones at people near me. For example, at Kaas, we did not have a written strategy until earlier this year that people could articulate.

Just Start. 

Our current Kata challenge, or improvement, that we are doing company-wide is to shorten the lead time of value-creating activities by 75%. This activity of learning daily management and the structure that we are sharing with you, which we got from our friends at Nordstrom, has caused me to be a little bit less of a hypocrite. We have a strategy; we are aiming at it. I expect to see our challenge reflected in our Daily Management System from the strategy to the daily huddles to our visual management and in our leader standard work. Are we spending the time on the things we say we care about? 

Start with your Department

My encouragement to you is, “Be above reproach for your department, for your family, for your soccer team, if you are coaching it. Have a strategy.” Whatever sphere of influence you have, start there. We have put in writing something that is pretty bold. We want to be a platform for potential to come alive and shine. That is super stupid, super crazy, but at least we put it in writing, and we can tell people, “This is what we are all about, and we absolutely believe in improving every day, giving our best to our best, and knowing and showing the truth.”

Start with your Soccer Team  

By declaring and putting in writing, “this is who we want to be,” we can be attacked, but it allows us to be a little bit less hypocritical. You can do this in any area of your life. I coach soccer. I remind my team that “I’m about growing men,” which is why I coach boys. It was never about soccer. So we always talk about, “Hey, remember, I’m here to coach to grow men.”

Start with your Leadership Team

This thinking can be applied to a family unit, a business unit, or a company. But if you are inside of a company that is casting silos, pushing all these things down to you, you can’t actually fix that. If your leaders care about that, have them call me, I will gladly explain the science behind it so they can decide. If 30% improvement isn’t good enough for them, then they probably have some other better plan than that. 

If you’d like to learn more about how to implement a Daily Management System within your organization, or more about Kaizen and Continuous Improvement, consider signing up for a Kaas Tailored Waste Tour.