Abnormalities

Yesterday, I left for work an hour early, so it was certainly nonstandard.

Today, I had a good conversation with my wife, but it ate up my blogging time! Plus, we were out past eleven, so the diapers weren't finished this morning.

But I think I found a way to interleave parallel operations (a SMED step) by doing some of my dressing during breakfast prep time (there are four minutes of microwaving that happen every morning). So that's good!

Motivation Monday - Memorial Day

Today's routine is no routine at all. Remember that your freedoms have been bought at a heavy price, and that they are currently maintained by men and women willing to sacrifice their lives to defend you. Warfare isn't about tactics, weapons, terrain, or chance; it's about what people do when called upon to stand and why they do it.

Maybe it makes their sacrifice a little more worthwhile if I find ways to waste less of my time.

Improve Elements

Have I mentioned that we are now in the Improve Elements phase of SMED? Breakfast prep, showering, dressing, these are things that really should be done in the morning for reasons I may never reveal. So now that we've finished changing internal elements to external ones, we need to improve the remaining internal ones.

The improvement to Bio-break that I mentioned yesterday yielded a five-minute improvement!





As you can see, I remembered to measure Showering and Dressing separately! Overall, this was a three-minute improvement over yesterday. If I keep that up, I should be below ten minutes in three weeks!

So, what's next? Showering is towering over the other elements. Can I speed up my shower? Next week's posts could get grosser.

Measurement

So, I timed the routine this morning. Here are the times I recorded:



As I was timing, I didn't realize that "Shower" and "Dress" were two different elements; I tend to think of them together. So, the two could probably be separated. With this in mind, I'll defer consideration on that one until tomorrow.

Ranking the elements in Pareto fashion gives this chart:



Now, that chart is oversimplified (no cumulative percent line, for instance), but it gets the point across. Throwing out Shower and Dress for the time being, Bio-Break is taking the most time.

Why?

Because I read. I'm currently reading B. H. Liddell-Hart's History of the Second World War, which is riveting, and the only time I really have to read it is, well, in the most private room of the house.

Why am I reading during this time?

No good reason, really; if I really want to read it, I could do so after the routine is completed. So, there's an improvement. I'll limit my reading at this point in the morning to when I've, um, concluded my business.

Prioritization

I've given some thought to a plan.

I think that I'm to the point now where I have a short list of elements from my morning routine. My main line of activity will be to continue the SMED process on these. However, up to this point, my approach within that structure has been rather haphazard. Of the remaining elements, I should prioritize based on how much savings I intend to gain from each element. This will require measurement and Pareto analysis, which I'll explain when I get there.

What about the items that just come up? Where do running out of oatmeal, not folding diapers, or having computer trouble fit in to this plan? Well, instead of being purely reactive, as has been the case recently, I think I should prioritize these also. If an emergent issue takes up time in my morning, it has become an element, whether I like it or not. Its time impact can be measured, and it can be prioritized just like the other elements.

In short, I want to form a list of mini-projects, and I want them prioritized. This way I am always attacking the biggest problem.

I need a strategy for measuring these elements, then. Once I have a prioritized list, I can start assigning deadlines, and that will be motivational!

Plan of Action

So far, my plan has been to follow the SMED rules until I get my morning routine to less than ten minutes. This has worked okay, until I found that I don't have sufficient infrastructure to maintain the improvements. This morning, I snoozed AND folded diapers. Additionally, I had an oatmeal mess to clean up and computer issues. It was a fiasco!

I need to ponder how to enforce improvements. Also, I need to form a plan that includes the SMED process as well as a method for dealing with unexpected problems.

Short on time this morning, but I'll be thinking.

Motivation Monday - SMART Goals

Is my goal of getting my morning routine to less than 10 minutes a S.M.A.R.T. goal?

Specific:
Is it clear what the goal is? Will I know when I've reached it? Without a clearly defined goal, it will be difficult to focus on achieving it, and success will be by chance.
-Yes, I think my goal is specific. If my morning routine takes longer than 10 minutes, I haven't reached the goal. I've also already limited my scope, stating that reading, writing, and praying don't count; they're the reason for shrinking down the rest of the morning.

Motivational:
Is the goal, for lack of a better term, exciting? Do I want to succeed at this goal? If there's no reward or no principle involved in forming the goal, it may be difficult to continue applying effort.
-Yes, I think my goal is motivational. I know that reducing my get-ready time will give me time to read and write like I want.

Achievable:
Is the goal formulated in such a way that a path to success is easy to see? Can I form a plan for attaining the goal?
-Hmm, I don't know if it is really easy to see the path to success the way the goal is formulated. However, it may just be due to lack of a plan. But that's more my fault, rather than the goal not being achievable.

Relevant:
Does it make sense to use resources to attain this goal? Does it warrant priority, and does it relate to my larger goals?
-Yes, as a lifelong disciple of Jesus Christ, I want to honor Him with my time. Part of that is making studying His word a priority in the morning. This goal is relevant.

Time-bound:
Does this goal have a deadline, or some temporal expectation?
-No, there is no deadline for any milestone in this project. This goal is currently not time-bound.

I think I need to make a plan and set some deadlines.

Progress Update

All right, last night we had a dinner guest -- and I still got the diapers done before I went to bed. That's tough to do, but the key was that I got the diapers started shortly upon my arrival home.

So, there have been some detours lately. First, the trimmed down morning schedule has been jeopardized by lack of discipline in the diaper arena. This means that what should look like this...



...really looks like this...



...but if I just start the diapers when I get home, this problem should disappear.

Of course, that's not all. Breakfast preparation has been taking longer sometimes due to unavailability of oatmeal. I think we may have that problem licked, so now it's time to start drilling into the shorter schedule and separate these few tasks into component elements. I'll focus on this next week.

Responsive List and Diaper Struggles

So, here's the pilot responsive list, as described in earlier posts:



The idea is that you take this in hand, walk to where the oatmeal is, and use a marker to cross out one item on the list for every item you see in the pantry. If there are three oatmeal containers, three of the five on the list would be crossed out. This would leave two to purchase, and I'd cross those out as I put them in the grocery cart. Simple, fast, and based on actual consumption, rather than an estimate of future consumption. If we end up eating more than five cartons in a month, I'll add an oatmeal carton to the list. Easy.

I had to fold diapers this morning. It was date night last night, but that's no excuse. I could have started the diapers before we left the house, but I didn't. As a result, the diapers were washed and dried, but they were not folded and put away. I really need to get more disciplined about starting the diapers as soon as I get home.

Diaper Rule Violation

So, my kung fu is strong, but I lack discipline.

I got home around 6:30 last night. It took half an hour to put away all of the groceries, so I didn't have dinner until after 7pm. THEN I started the diaper wash load. I prioritized preserving food and avoiding starvation over washing diapers on time, and it cost me a few minutes this morning. I could have stayed up later to get the diapers finished, but I also prioritized sleep.

This morning, I was able to set aside space for oatmeal in the pantry. My wife insists that we need a full month's supply of oatmeal on hand. This means FIVE cartons, which I feel is excessive inventory. However, I capitulate. Often, when implementing leaner inventory measures, the replenishment system needs to be in place before people are willing to lower inventory. Once they see the system working, it makes more sense. So, the next thing is to mark the area I've set aside, then make a pilot of the responsive list I've mentioned earlier.

All this talk about oatmeal is making me hungry.

New Rule

New Rule:

Diapers shall be put into the washer as soon as possible upon arriving home.

I did this yesterday (not for the first time) and it worked great (as it always does). A bit of a challenge will be today, when I arrive home quite late (it's grocery day (I'll also have to put away the groceries (and THEN I'll have to start the diapers -- I need to make sure I don't forget)))!

Motivation Monday - Excuses, Excuses

I'm off track!

I still have diapers to fold, and there's no oatmeal for me again! (This actually shows that my calculation of about a carton a week is accurate, looking at this blog's previous posts.)

It's tempting to say, "Well, I had a kidney stone on Friday, had to travel to see Mom on Saturday, and had church and a separate round of Mother's Day celebration for my wife. No wonder I'm off track!"

But you know the truth? If I'm setting all of this up correctly, it should be really easy to keep up with all of this morning stuff. I just haven't done enough yet to make it easy to do it right.

And it's not hard to get motivated to make things easy on yourself.

Sick Day

Sorry, I didn't forget to write a blog post, but several diverse biological functions combined today to keep me from doing much of anything productive. Don't worry, I'm not going to post a 5-Why about kidney stones.

At least, I won't promise that I will post one.

How Much Oatmeal?

My wife and I are ready to solve the oatmeal problem once and for all. We have experienced a few issues with purchasing before, so we want to prevent those from coming up here, also.

In the past, when we've purchased something like four cartons at once, it was difficult to find places for the oatmeal to inhabit. This led to placing oatmeal in odd parts of the pantry just because there was room. Then, when we tried to count how many cartons we had on hand, we didn't see all of it. We ended up buying too much trying to replace oatmeal we hadn't yet eaten. We'll try to avoid this whole mess through two measures (both of them very important in Lean).
1) Buy the smallest quantity necessary to guarantee availability of oatmeal. (This reduces Inventory-related waste.)
2) Mark a place large enough to store oatmeal that is off-limits to any other foodstuff. (This is, on a very small scale, 5S.)

Based on my calculations, one carton will last us 7.5 days, so a two weeks' supply is pretty close to two cartons. Therefore, each time we purchase, we should end up with two full cartons and possibly the remnant of a third that we haven't used up yet. So the area needs to be large enough for three oatmeal cartons. I think I'll use paper and scotch tape to mark the area this evening.

4 Whys?

Yesterday, I showed how I intend to implement the results of my 5-Why Analysis, but you may have noticed...there were only four levels of why.

The point of 5-Why is not to fill up a chart with exactly five layers of causes. I know, it has the word "five" in the title, but that's just a guideline. The point is to get you thinking deeply about the issue. Quality guru Deming pressed that in order to really solve a problem, you had to have "profound knowledge," something that goes deeper than what's immediately apparent. What we want from 5-Why Analysis is to drive below the surface symptoms to the single item that, once fixed, clears up the problem once and for all. As we showed yesterday, resolving the surface symptoms will not clear up my oatmeal problem. However, I believe that we arrived at the root cause in only four levels, so we stopped. Sometimes it may take six or seven levels. The point is that five is not a magic number.

So how about that responsive buying list? Well, I've talked it over with my wife, and she's on board (at least with oatmeal); but we foresee some issues that we can address as we implement the thing. Oatmeal will be our pilot program. I'll keep the updates coming!

Oatmeal, Revisited

Let's look again at the 5-Why Analysis from yesterday, and talk about implementing solutions.

Symptom: No Oatmeal for my breakfast. Response: Eat something else. I did this. I ate something else for breakfast. It was delicious.

Cause 1: No Oatmeal left in the pantry. Response: Buy some more oatmeal. I had to go to the grocery store anyway to get food for a special occasion (some friends had a baby recently, so we're bringing them dinner), so I bought oatmeal while I was there.

Cause 2: We didn't buy enough oatmeal at the last grocery run. Response: Increase the amount of oatmeal we purchase each grocery run. (But how much?)

Cause 3: We didn't measure our actual need before deciding how much oatmeal to buy. Response: How much oatmeal do we need? Given that we buy groceries once every two weeks, we need enough for four bowls a day for 14 days. A single carton provides 30 servings of half a cup each, so a carton lasts approximately 7.5 days. We need to make sure we have at least two cartons on hand as a result of each grocery trip.

Cause 4: We use a static buying list. Response: Make the list a little more dynamic. For staples, set a "comfort level" and subtract current inventory from it to determine purchase quantity.

But that's only 4 Whys, not 5 Whys!

I'll explain tomorrow.

Motivation Monday! - Root Cause Analysis

This morning went swimmingly, mainly because everything that was supposed to get done last night actually got done last night. I'm thrilled. However, I need to get out of here earlier, because we ran out of oatmeal and I need an alternative.

If success is a motivator, then I should probably be motivated to ensure success. One way to help gain successes (even small ones) is to tackle problems and eliminate their root causes. For instance, if I have a problem (e.g., I have no oatmeal for my breakfast), I might try to solve that problem by eating something else. That will get rid of the symptom, but only for a little while. I need to take my thoughts back from the symptom to its cause.

So why did I have no oatmeal for breakfast today? Because there was no oatmeal left in the pantry. Okay, if I go buy another carton of oatmeal, I'll solve the problem, right?

To a certain extent, yes, but overall, I will probably run out of oatmeal again. I've solved the cause, but the roots of the problem are still there. So why was there no oatmeal in the pantry?

Because we didn't buy enough. If I stop there and just make sure I buy a ton every time I'm at the grocery store, I could make it so I never run out of oatmeal again, but that introduces another problem: I'll have too much oatmeal and not enough space to store it (we live in a small house). The "solution" would not be the best, and I wouldn't get the full benefits of solving this problem for real. So, why did we not buy enough?

We didn't buy enough because we didn't measure our actual need to determine our oatmeal purchase. Now here is something we can sink our teeth into. We can definitely work on this, and guess what? If we work out a quick and easy way to fix our problem at this level, we'd be able to apply our lesson to other items in the pantry, and we gain much by this little exercise. But, why didn't we measure our actual need?

Because we have implemented a static buying list that we rarely, if ever, review. Now, there are four of us eating a bowl of oatmeal every day, not just three. Our consumption increased, but we never revisited how we decide our purchase quantities. Fixing this issue will help manage over- or under-purchasing for any consumable item in the house.

Should we implement just the last solution? No, I'd still be hungry until the next grocery store run in eight days. We need to implement the solutions at most (if not all) levels. But the power is that we get smarter about everything because we thought deeply about the oatmeal problem. This is why 5-Why Analysis (which we just performed) is so strongly pushed by its advocates.

Not only will I eat this morning, but I'll have oatmeal available every morning. We can get similar results with other problems. And that's motivating.

Another Roadbump

The challenges each morning seem a little different. This morning, the big time-eaters were two-fold. First, there's some stupid program on this computer that keeps showing ads on every website, and it slows things down greatly. It takes time to uninstall junk. Second, a lot of the evening food prep checklist was never completed. A big part of this was because the dishes weren't done until late in the evening, so the bibs, sippee cups, and bowls were not filled and placed, so I did that this morning.

I think I'll start using some 5-Why analysis next week to capture these emergent issues and bring them under control.

Less Backsliding

All right, getting back on track. I woke up at 5am this morning, got everything done in plenty of time to take care of some honey-do items before sitting down to fold clothes and read. It's exciting!

What's even more exciting is that my wife seems to be totally on board with taking care of morning preparations in the evening. I wrote that we already had an evening checklist; this was focused entirely on setting up the kitchen and the dining table so she could get the kids through breakfast and lunch (and, to some extent, dinner) with a minimal effort. Now that it's expanded a little, she's really enjoying the benefit of knowing much of the house is in order before she goes to sleep. She even thinks we should try to knock out all the preparation as early as possible! This is looking good for improving the number of hours I sleep a night, which has been a problem for a while.

The next step for me is to start following the chart I made to gather the next day's necessary items in the evening. Here's how I filled it out:



Now I need to post it somewhere where I'll see it.

More Backsliding

Monday night, I mowed the quarter-acre lawn.
Tuesday night, I did the grocery shopping, and my wife made baby food for the 8-month-old proto-man.

These activities took up tremendous amounts of time, and the morning preparations suffered as a result. Additionally, I left my three alarms set to wake me up at 5:30 instead of 5:00, so I robbed myself of possible recovery time yesterday morning, and there was no blog post. One more thing: I haven't been making it a point to start the diaper wash load as soon as I get home; that'll be a focus for the next day or so.

A few missteps, but it won't take much to get back on track.

And all that bragging I did on Monday, it sounds so arrogant now. "I guess this blog still has a purpose." It sounds high-pitched and nasally in my head right now. :-)