Help Manual

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Sigma Magic Help Version 17

Leader Standard Work

Overview

Leader Standard Work is critical for the success of lean deployment within an organization. Any major change management effort requires support from the top management. What better way to ensure leader commitment and support than for the leaders to follow standard work? This ensures that the leaders walk the talk. It is not just about leaders appearing at the beginning of a lean deployment journey and disappearing afterward. Leaders must be constantly present during the lean journey, remove roadblocks, and ensure that the expected results from lean deployment will be realized. If we don't have standard work from the leader, then there will be variation in the actual work done by the leaders across divisions, and the results will vary. We don't want to leave the success of Lean to the availability of time and commitment of the leaders. Hence, we must document all the activities a leader is expected to do regularly (daily, weekly, monthly, annually, etc.) and ensure the leaders' compliance with these activities. This ensures standardization across the organization. The use of leader standard work puts the highest focus on processes - a leader's primary responsibility is to ensure processes are performing as expected - the results will automatically follow. Standardization is key for any lean deployment, and leader standard work ensures that the work done by leaders is standardized. Each leader within the organization should have leader standard work. Depending on the level of leaders, the standard work content will be different.

This particular tool helps with a simple format for leader standard work. The user can customize the form to meet their needs and use it for their lean deployment. It may also be a good idea to make the leader's standard work visible so that if things are not happening as they should, root causes can be identified, and corrective action can be taken to bring the process back into control.

To add this tool to your workbook, click on Lean and then select Leader Standard Work.

Inputs

Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.
Input Dialog
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Analysis Type: Specify the tool format for this analysis. This selection is not enabled since there is only one format available.
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Num Tasks: Specify the number of tasks you would like to assign to the leader. This dictates the number of rows that are formatted on the worksheet. Note that all data below the table has been cleared.
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Month: Specify the plan month. This information is used to format the worksheet and place weekly markers such as weekends, holidays, etc.
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Year: Specify the plan year. This information is used to format the worksheet and place weekly markers such as weekends, holidays, etc.
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Weekly Marker: Specify the markers to place on the monthly calendar. If you specify None, then no markers will be placed. However, if you specify the day of the week, say Sunday. Then, all Sundays in that given month/year are marked with a gray bar.
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Current Date: Specify the date to use for analysis. If you specify the current date, the software will calculate the plan's performance for the given date. If you specify a date for the end of the month, then the plan will give you a snapshot of the performance of the leader activities by the end of the month.
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View Example: Click on this button to open the example file. You can view the example to get an idea of how to fill out this tool, or you can use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your project needs.
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Help Button: Click on this button to open the help file on this topic.
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Cancel Button: Click on this button to exit without saving any changes.
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Create Design: If this is your first time using this template, click this button to format the worksheet template. You can also update the worksheet format any time, but remember that you may lose any data entered on this worksheet. Once you are happy with the worksheet template layout, you must enter any required data on the worksheet. When the data entered into the worksheet is complete, you can click on Analysis Setup and then Compute Outputs to generate analysis results.
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Analyze Design: Click on this button to save all changes and compute the outputs for this analysis. Review the results of your analysis and make changes to your inputs if required to update analysis results.
Outputs Outputs On the worksheet, enter the following information:
NumDescription
1On the activity portion of the worksheet, specify the activities you would like the leader to execute. Make sure you don't skip any important activity. Ensure that you benchmark with other areas to see the content of their leader standard work and replicate as appropriate. It is also recommended that activities be duplicated or overlapped between different leaders.
2Specify the frequency for each activity - how often the activity should also be listed. It would be best to list daily, weekly, and monthly activities in this column. We don't want to do each activity too often or too few times.
3Specify the timing for each activity in the when column. For example, you can say that for an activity such as daily work through the work area, the timing could be 4:00 - 4:15 pm every day.
4On the right-hand portion of the worksheet, create a plan for the specified activities by marking with a 5. Note that this character contains an empty square using the Wingdings font. For example, all days of the month will be marked with a 5 for daily activities. One day of the week will be marked with a five for weekly activities. This plan needs to be created by the lean deployment leader.
5Ask the leader to track each activity and update the worksheet as and when the activity is completed. This will ensure the highest accuracy of the information on this sheet. They can make notes for the activities in the Observations & Comments column. If an activity has been completed, they mark it with an R (checkmark inside the square). This indicates that they have completed the market activity. If only a five exists on a given day, it indicates that the leader did not execute the plan for that day. If this action is past due, you can change this to a Q (cross mark inside the square). Ideally, if you have planned to execute an activity ten times in a month and you execute it ten or more times, then there is no gap.
6At the end of the month, the leader shares the results of their standard work with the lean deployment leader, who analyzes the report for any follow-up actions and continuous improvement. This worksheet can also be placed in a shared drive, so other leaders can view the status if required.

Checklist

You will see the following dialog box if you click the Checklist button. Checklist The checklist contains a few pointers on things you must pay particular attention to while performing this analysis. The checklist has been derived from experience working on past projects. Not all the checklist items need to apply to you. However, you should carefully review the checklist and apply any recommendations that make sense for your project. Make sure to read each checklist item and mark it as completed after you have read and taken actions as appropriate for your project.
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Item: The items on the checklist are listed on the left
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Status: The status of whether the checklist has been answered is listed on the right.

Verify

If you click the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. Verify The software checks if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, they are shown as green-colored checkmarks. If the verification checks fail, they are shown as a red-colored cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange exclamation mark, and finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.
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Item: The left-hand side shows the major tabs and the items checked within each section
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Status: The right-hand side shows the status of the checks.
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Overall Status: Shows the overall status of all the checks performed. If all the checked items are okay, the status image in the header will show a green checkmark. If any checks fail, then the status image in the header will show a red cross mark.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the outputs. Any changes to the settings on the input dialog box are updated, and the colors on the worksheet will change based on whether the activity meets the minimum number of times an activity is expected to be completed in a month. If the leader completes more actions than the plan, the software will mark no gaps in execution, and the following screenshot will be displayed. Outputs 2 Just review the colors for the different activities. Those activities shown in red (where we don't meet the minimum expected number of times per month) may require some corrective action.

Notes

Here are a few notes regarding this analysis:
  • We track and report monthly to keep the format simple. You can use this tool and update it daily if you like. One option for more frequent tracking is to track it manually using a visual management board and then transfer information on a weekly or monthly basis to this worksheet.

Examples

The following examples are in the Examples folder.
  • Select a department and create a leader standard work for that department (LSW 1.xlsx).



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