Daily Management Systems (DMS): Early Indicators, Daily Rhythms, and Real Action

Speaker A: Welcome to leanverse, where Lean thinking meets modern life. I'm, um, your host Bernadette Hill and I'm joined by my co host, Tatiana Sell. We're two lean Six Sigma black belts who have spent our careers helping people and organizations simplify, improve and thrive. Our goal at leanverse is to ignite the desire for transformation and provide the tools to turn intention into action. Hi, welcome to leanverse, the new podcast

Speaker B: where we explore Lean thinking in modern life.

Speaker A: My name is Bernadette Hill and I'm a Lean Six Sigma black belt and a continuous improvement professional.

Speaker C: Hi everyone. I'm Tatiana Nassau, co host of the leanverse with Bernadette Hill. I'm a business operations and continuous improvement

Speaker A: leader and together we geek out about all things Lean.

Speaker C: Geek out on lean 61 mythology.

Speaker B: I am joined by my co host, Tatiana Sell.

Speaker C: Let's dig in.

Speaker A: Welcome back to leanverse, where lean thinking meets modern life.

Speaker B: This is chapter three of our January

Speaker A: series where Tatiana and I are talking about how to stop failing your New Year's resolutions. In the last chapter, we discussed measuring what matters. Goals, metrics and indicators that tell you whether you're moving towards what really counts. But measurement alone doesn't change anything. So today we're talking about daily management systems, the practices that turn strategy into daily behavior.

Speaker C: Hello listeners. In the last episode, we talked about daily management as a practice to create visibility and shared understanding of goals and respective metrics.

Speaker B: Seeing the signal is really only the first step. What really matters is how folks respond once that signal, or as we talked about, that indicator shows up.

Speaker C: Exactly. Here's a simple way to think about it. Daily management tells you whether something is off or whether something is on track. Structure problem solving is the discipline of doing something about that signal using JDI known as just do it or a scientific thinking framework like PTCA A3AD DMAIC.

Speaker B: If you know me, you know I'm pretty agnostic about frameworks. Like our show is called Lean Verse. So obviously we're very where we practice Lean Six Sigma most the time. But, uh, you know, we're not advocating for one framework over another. That's really not the point. At a basic level of maturity, it's really responding to that red that matters. And remember, think of those red metrics as like red light on your car's dashboard, Right? Something needs attention even if the engine hasn't stalled yet. Um, so if performance slips and nothing happens, that's kind of a. That's the big problem. Maturity doesn't stop there. If you're green, all the time, then that may mean, that may be a different signal. And that thing, that signal might be telling you that either you've stabilized or maybe it means that your goals weren't very, uh, were really stretch goals in the first place. Right. They were way too easy to achieve. And our UC Davis lead ambassadors bench, you know, red did show up for us when our interest in malign training spiked after our showcase. And we didn't have anything, uh, we didn't have the catalog ready yet, so. So as we mentioned, that wasn't a failure, but it was a dashboard light telling us that the system needed better sequencing. So one in. So some indicators stayed green for long periods and some went red. And those red ones presented action points for us. Right. To reflect and think about what to do differently. But that green was telling us something as well. Because when green indicators are green too long, that can also lead to, uh, inaction, boredom, um, complacency, people starting to skip meetings and huddles and thinking that their work is not valuable and important anym more. And that's, uh, not something that we want to see when we're dealing with managing, uh, our indicators.

Speaker C: There you go. This is where behavior really matters. Can be talking about red greens. Daily management is talking, is talking to you. Structure, problem solving is really the discipline of responding to those signals with intent and not with emotion.

Speaker B: You just said the words, right? The system is talking all the time. And good leadership is whether you pay attention or not. Right. Good leadership means you're paying attention to those signals. You can ignore them. Right. If your oil light comes on and you keep driving because the car is still running well, you shouldn't then be surprised when you end up with a much bigger problem down the road with, you know, stability. We talked a little bit about that in the last episode. Before you act, you have to understand what your baseline is or the baseline meaning where you started. Right. Um, and what stability actually looks like in your life and at work. Otherwise you're always reacting. So you'll feel like you're either constantly fighting, firefighting, you're always stressed, you're always anxious. Right. And that's not a place where any person can live in all the time. So the daily management systems and also thinking about structured problem solving helps you determine what do I pay, what are the things that I, I should pay attention to? And what's just noise, what's just information. Right. I don't have to really action against. So for us in our, in my, you know, family life, uh, it's often comes up in our Monday morning routines. Monday mornings are harder for us than any other day of the week. And it's because my kid struggles with transition. She has to go from the restfulness and kind of laziness of the weekend to this very forced productivity that is Monday. You know, getting ready for school and getting ready in your mind, ready for. For Monday morning. And because I know what our baselines are, because I know it's Mondays are always difficult. Right. Um, that I can predict that next Monday is also going to be difficult. Friday is going to be simple. M. Monday's going to be difficult. And that allows me to plan for it and put some actions in place to prepare. Right. So that you can actually start putting routines in place that help you with the problem.

Speaker C: Not everything understanding what baseline in instability looks like, otherwise you are just reacting. I'm going to reflect on that and why it matters. It's because in daily management we talk a lot about the signals and now we're talking about how we are reacting to it. That's very important. That's why I wanted to emphasize there is another reason that it's very important when we're talking about reaction in daily management. And here's one new concept. Not all problems, they deserve the same responsive. This is where the teams get stuck. If an indicator goes off track, you don't know the root cause.

Speaker B: The.

Speaker C: That's really when structure problem solving makes a lot of sense. You slow down, you understand the system and close the gap to standard. Basically when you're seeing that standard being, I don't know, 80% of a indicator and you see that you are at 70, you have that gap of 10. This is basically what I'm trying to say in here. But if you are constantly green, what do you do? Nothing. But no, that's not true. Signal M2. It might be telling you that it's time to raise the bar, to redefine the standard and introduce an intentional stretch. And if you treat every signal the same way, either fixing everything or celebrating everything, you might be missing the opportunity to improve.

Speaker B: And here's the uncomfortable truth. You can't solve everything. Resources are tight. I don't know anywhere, I've never worked anywhere where they're like carte blanche. Do whatever you want, spend as much money as you want and the same thing. Work is at home. Right? I don't have a bank account. That's. That is unending. You know, I don't have, uh, my daughter only has so. Or my kids only have so much, uh, wherewithal. To do chores, right? So we've got to get to the point, to the point, what matters, Measure what matters, react to what matters, right? Because without clear prioritization, teams end up with a lot of things to do. Um, a lot of massive work and no progress. Dozens of improvements that are in certain, you know, uh, phases. Nothing done, very few finished. So people stop believing that improvement is real. It's like deciding you're going to get healthier, organize your house, save money, learn a new skill, doing all that at once and then after a few weeks, a whole lot of the things you planned are halfway done, right? Um, you quietly give up on a lot of things and then, uh, the next step becomes too undefined and so you just can't take it, right? The whole thing seems overwhelming and so bye bye New Year's goals, right? It's not about reacting to every single. It's about deciding which signals deserve attention now, which ones can wait and which ones are simply data. And this is where the human side really matters. Problems aren't enemies, Tatiana. They're feedback. Lean practitioners often talk about Taiichi Ono and quote him because we, we consider him the godfather or grandfather of lean. He likes to talk a lot about how, you know, learning, uh, you're learning through problems, right? You're not blaming people, you're not hiding issues, but you're going to go see, you're asking lots of questions to understand, and you're creating the conditions of psychological safety, uh, so that people, others feel safe about surfacing their ideas too. That happens in my family. My kids are not afraid to surface their thoughts or ideas because we create that safe space to do that. So when, and, and on the other side of that, when teams or people are afraid, uh, the indicators are maybe telling them that something's going in the wrong direction, they stop learning from it. But if leaders can create that psychological safety by treating problems as teachers instead of threats, then people learn instead of shutting down.

Speaker C: Let me ground this with a real example. I worked with a group of tier two managers. There were three of them, each with about 10 teams underneath them. Their daily management was absolutely solid, probably one of the best I've seen in my career as a practitioner. The indicators were visible. They were accessible to the teams. The teams were trained. They knew how to read the board and they were reviewing the board pretty much kind of a daily. The signals were there, but when something was off track, they froze. They weren't sure really when to act and how much to act, what type of effort they should be putting to solve that problem and even worse, who should own that problem? They just didn't have that clarity. Over time, we aligned on what stable performance meant for their critical indicators. The conversation then moved to defining a clear criteria for action. That came with a lot of conversation on how we would read their charts. Now, some rules, you name it, and teach tier one on what that criteria is so they can act autonomously. They also knew when they could escalate their problems that they were not able to solve in their skills span of control to tier 2 and when multiple teams should work together to avoid duplicating efforts. Because guess what? Remember the structure that I mentioned, right? Had those three tier two managers and they had their own teams. And sometimes the different teams were experiencing issues in the same indicators. So do I just let them work the same type of thing or should I show, put together those two teams and help them solve for everybody? That was something that we thought that was important to avoid duplicating efforts. And another thing that was very nice in this coaching process and define the reaction was when they should also be bringing the issues, the problems to Tier three because tier two could not fix them as well.

Speaker B: You know, you just brought up a very important thing, uh, aspect of the tiered approach. It's that. And we'll go back to that. Respect for people. That lean is all about a, uh, major principle, which is we are not going to throw problems at people who are not resourced to solve them. Right? And this is something I see all the time, everywhere I ever worked, which is Tier three leaders that push down what should be Tier three problems to the tier one workforce that doesn't, that is not yet or doesn't have the right resources to solve them. That's very, uh. That is not respect for people. Respect for people is what you're describing, which is we are going to have the right levels and we're going to solve the problems at the right levels so that everybody knows that, so that everybody's input is valuable at the level that they're. They're at and are solving problems at the level they're at. What does this change do for your teams? Did it. How did it affect their confidence?

Speaker C: Yeah, that was huge, actually, when we created the response plan. Let's, let's call this way. I know the criteria to respond. I know what I can do. If I can do that, I go there and escalate in a very nice way. The Reds stopped feeling like a failure for them or stopped being super scary. They really know when to act and when not to, they reduced a lot of their work in progress. That was that problem that piling up of problems and they finished what they started. They build a shared repository of uh, solved problems and lessons learned. That's when yokoten started to happen. And yokoten, for folks that are not familiar with this, it's a Japanese word as well. It means best practice sharing. That became very real and not performative. So Bernadette, that's the story. I, uh, hope that you and our listeners find it insightful and a little bit provocative as well. If you don't know the root cause structure, problem solving, it's definitely the best bet. Red and greens are both signals. Don't forget that in the leadership is responsible for responding to those signals, intentionally empowering their teams to do what they can, their span of control and providing the support to the teams when they just can fix by themselves.

Speaker B: Excellent. So that's an excellent summary of what we've spent December or January January series talking about. And so here's the reflection that I would like all of our lean verse audience to sit with. The next time you notice your savings are off, things are, your evenings are feeling chaotic, you, a goal or resolution is slipping, ask yourself, was this a complete surprise to me or huh, have the signals been showing up for a while and I maybe wasn't paying attention to them? Do you treat that signal when it does happen as a threat, a checkbox, or an invitation to learn? Because success with the New Year's resolution doesn't come from willpower, as we've talked about. It comes from setting yourself up to learn early and adjust. It starts with clarity about what really matters. So that's your North Star or what we call true north. And that's alignment like we talked about in the Hoshin episode. When you choose a goal that actually supports the direction through negotiation tactics like catch ball, as we've discussed, and then align on indicators and uh, that tell you whether or not your daily behaviors are helping or hurting you, that you can make those indicators visible. And then, then you have a method to check in with them regularly. So that drift, if there's going to be drift, shows up early instead of becoming overwhelming. So that when those signals appear red or green, like we've been talking about all episodes, you can respond with curiosity, right? Instead of blame, you can action. Instead of panicking, you adjust the plan instead of abandoning the goal, right? We don't change the North Star. We change the activity that gets us there. And that's how resolutions stop being promises. Uh, you make in January and then end by the end of January and start becoming something that is progress. You can sustain all year and finally never forget. You don't succeed by becoming perfect because perfection doesn't exist. You succeed when you notice sooner and adjust sooner.

Speaker A: Daily management is how strategy becomes daily behavior. Not through more meetings, but through feedback, rhythm and early signals. It helps people notice drift while problems are so small.

Speaker B: Daily management is how you protect both

Speaker A: the goal and the relationships that matter. Because red doesn't mean failure. Red just means something needs attention. And in our next and final chapter of this New Year's Resolution series, we'll talk about what to do when that signal shows up, whether it's red, green, or something in between. Before we close, I want to invite you into something I've created intentionally. If these conversations resonate with you and you want a quieter place to think, reflect, and apply these ideas, you're welcome. Inside the Savage Simplicity ecosystem, it's a cognitive sanctuary, A space to slow down, to tell the truth about what's working and what's not and practice improvement in a human way. You'll find the link in the show notes. There's no pressure, it's just an open door. Thanks for being here and I'll see you in the final chapter. Because life is hard, why not make it simpler?

Speaker C: How?

Speaker B: Uh, I saw that again. And thank you for joining us for our fail Proofing your New Year's resolutions with Lean Verse. In February, we're shifting our goals from make. In February, we're shifting from make.