lean teaching

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lean teaching
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Toyota

• Brilliant process management is our strategy.
• We get brilliant results from average people
  managing brilliant processes.
• We observe that our competitors often get average
  (or worse) results from brilliant people managing
  broken processes.

Source quoted by Dan Jones
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Lean Thinking - Principles

• Defining Value
• Value Stream Analysis
• Flow
• Pull
• Perfection

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Defining Value

• Value can only be defined by the ultimate
  customer
• Value is created by the producer. From the
  customers standpoint, this is why producers
  exist. Yet for a host of reasons value is very
  hard for producers to define.
• Womack Jones, 1996
• Never mind defining value we struggle to define
  customer!

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Customers
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Indicators of Value to Customers student demand
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Indicators of Value to Customers destination of
leavers 2003
University average (2003) 70
UK averages (2005) Business 86, Accountancy
84, Economics 65. Law 50
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Do we need so many courses?

• Even though students are mostly combined into
  other groups for teaching, this still produces
  admin complexity
• Timetabling classes makes timetables worse for
  staff and students
• Timetabling exams
• Course admin handbooks, academic health reports
  etc
• Suggestion should we close some of the smaller
  courses?

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Value Stream Analysis

• The value stream is the set of all the specific
  actions required to bring a specific product
  through three critical management tasks
• Problem-solving concept, design, engineering,
  product launch
• Information management order-taking,
  scheduling, delivery
• Physical transformation from raw materials to
  finished product

Womack Jones, 1996
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IGOE for HE
Course module specifications, GEAR, QAA
Qualified applicants
Graduates
Staff, rooms, IT, library
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Value Stream Analysis
Womack and Jones propose that types of action
occurring along the value stream can be
categorised into those that

• Unambiguously create value
• Create no value but are unavoidable with current
  technologies and assets (Type 1 muda waste)
• Create no value and are immediately avoidable
  (Type 2 muda)

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A new interpretation
High
Resource (including staff and student time)
Low
Low
High
Value
Source Turner Rospigliosi, 2005
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Getting out of the swamp
High
Resource (including staff and student time)
Low
Low
High
Value
Source Turner Rospigliosi, 2005
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Example 1

• To get an extension current process
• Student gets four-part form and completes it
• Student finds course leader
• Course leader approves extension
• Form goes to admin office
• Admin office records extension date on assessment
  tick-sheet
• Copies sent to student and module leader
• Module leader bins the forms

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Example 1 - from Swamp to Tundra

• To get an extension future process
• Student emails extension request to course leader
• Course leader replies with approval and date, and
  sends copy to admin office and module leader

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Example 2

• Student feedback that doesnt reach the student
• Green student receipt now only used to tick
  names on tick-sheet
• White student feedback attached to student
  report, dumped in office, student does not
  collect so gets no feedback
• Pink office copy binned
• Yellow tutor copy binned

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Example 2 from Swamp to Rainforest

• Suggestion feedback by email an example from
  Geoff RS (group assignment)

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Example 3

• The first time you are asked a question about a
  coursework assignment it adds value
• Every subsequent time you answer the SAME
  question from another student you are wasting
  your time (but not the students!)
• Only students who find you hear the answer
• The answer may change

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Example 3 - from Swamp to Meadow

• Suggestion
• As useful questions arise (or even before) create
  a FAQ and post on studentcentral
• Not only do you save time, all students get the
  benefit of a consistent answer
• You can of course recycle the FAQ for other
  modules and/or in future years
• When youre asked a question, you just say Read
  the FAQ

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Flow

• How do you make value flow?
• Focus on the product and never let it out of
  sight from beginning to completion
• Ignore traditional boundaries of jobs, careers,
  functions
• Rethink specific work practices and tools to
  eliminate backflows, scrap and stoppages

Source adapted from Womack Jones 1996
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Do our students flow?Analysis of student
timetables
Very good but what about travel times?
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Do our students flow?Coursework deadlines

• Currently set by module leader
• Very few before Xmas
• Concurrent projects for students, possibly with
  very close hand-in dates leads to
  non-attendance
• Students get little feedback before exams
• Suggestion
• coursework deadlines set by Programme Board in
  September?
• first hand-in immediately after reading week in
  first term?
• minimum 2 weeks between hand-in?

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Pull

• no-one upstream should produce a good or
  service until the customer downstream asks for
  it.
• So dont give stuff out, let the student pull
  the resource from studentcentral
• Give the students tasks, let them pull the
  information they need.

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Perfection

• is never achieved, but you can always improve.
• Continuous Radical and Incremental Improvement
• Apply the four lean principles
• Decide which forms of muda to apply first

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I want to be lean

• A possible starting point
• If you dont have an electronic copy of your
  teaching material, either
• Download from the online library, or
• Scan a good quality original, or
• Create one
• Now throw out ALL your handouts soon after the
  lecture/seminar(s) including the master copy
• Put all handouts on studentcentral
• Now throw out your filing cabinet

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References

• Jones DT Womack PJ, Lean Thinking, Simon
  Schuster, 1996
• www.leanuk.org
• Website of the Lean Enterprise Academy (free
  registration)
• Womack PJ and Jones DT, Lean Consumption, HBR,
  March 2005 (available as free download from
  leanuk.org)