Page 18 - REI Corporate Newsletter_Q1 2018

A s Rosendin has learned more about itself, as every company on their LEAN

journey does, we found ourselves at the proverbial fork in the road. One path
was safe, justifiable, well-traveled by most companies striving for organizational

change. This is the path of pursuing evermore advanced and sophisticated tactics that
are part of the chosen strategy. But research has shown that as high as 90 percent
of companies that attempt organizational change fail. The other path remains less

traveled, appearing, to many, to be a form of backsliding. This is the path of foregoing
sophistication for effectiveness, complexity for graceful simplicity. We decided to take a
risk and chose the path less traveled.

The foundation that our LEAN transformation is being GTD breakouts all activities to their Next Action task.
built upon became our focus, being reinforced by Next Action tasks are properly sized by the amount
Kanban and Getting Things Done (GTD). The result? of time it will take to accomplish the task. Four hours
Employees are reporting appreciable decreases appears to be the sweet spot, as it encourages
in stress, increased clarity regarding work, and deep work while still acknowledging the reality of
increased productivity. Our customers are enjoying interruptions. The maximum time to complete a Next
greater confidence in our execution because of the Action task should not exceed six hours or be less
improved organization, short-term planning, and than ten minutes. This, again, acknowledges the
communication that results from the use of GTD- reality of interruptions but also discourages spending
Kanban. too much time focused on shallow work. Additional
task level clarity is achieved by assigning only one
Kanban has proven to be the ideal work flow for member to a task, applying appropriate labels, and
managing many discrete tasks. Three list, To Do, assigning specific due dates.
Doing and Done, make up the basic framework of any
Kanban system. Every task that has to be completed The reduced stress and increased happiness are
by a person is placed on the To Do list. This is how important to us because one of Rosendin’s core
teams can quantifiably and visually assess their actual values is Building People. We’re also grateful for the
workload. When a person begins working on a task, it value GTD-Kanban has added to our customers.
is moved from the To Do list to the Doing list. A good Seeing the value GTD-Kanban has to offer we feel
way to think of the Doing list is to think of it as Work it’s our responsibility to share this knowledge. To
THE ROAD less In Progress (WIP). This means that when a person is continue Building People, not only ‘Rosendin’ people.
inevitably interrupted and switched to another task the I encourage you to
reach out to me,
previous task stays in Doing, and the new task is also
TRAVELED their WIP. Managing WIP is extremely important at Rosendin, to
or another friend
placed in Doing. This is how teams track and manage
because the more WIP per person there is at any
gain access to our
given time the lower the team’s throughput. Once a
GTD-Trello Blog
that we use to train
task is completed, it is moved from the Doing list to
this step that dopamine and serotonin are released,
teams. We hope
Increasing productivity with Kanban and Getting Things Done the Done list. This is an important step because it’s in and support our
helping us to reinforce the use of GTD-Kanban and to
that you benefit
feel good about our work. as much from the
application of this
Specificity is key to successful use of Kanban. That’s system as many of
By Josh Mischung, Lean Trainer where GTD comes in. GTD is an individualized us have.
framework for, well, getting things done. To do this,

18 The Feeder | Q1 2018 LEAN LEAN Q1 2018 | The Feeder 19