Concrete Reflective Tools, the beginning

This is my first post describing Concrete Reflective Tools. I’m convinced they are a gateway drug to continuous improvement and cultural change.

Since I attended the Lean Kanban Conference in 2009 I’ve been focussed on understanding and finding more tools that fit the following criteria. This is my first time recording the thought on more than a note card (or cards… I keep scribbling down more variations.)

In this post I want to describe the basis for what these tools are, and reference some of the reasons they are so powerful. I’ll use Kanban as my running example, and plan to describe further tools in future posts.

Concrete Reflective Tools  

I believe that “Concrete Reflective Tools” are the most useful and powerful change agents – they are easy to adopt, encourage learning from doing, and provide a path to deeper principles. I think they are a gateway drug that invite people into participating in the team learning process.

A Concrete tool is a not abstract (think naval gazing) and immediately can be at least rudimentarily applied by many people.  (Read more…)

A Reflective tool is one that provides feedback to guide further use of the tool. An automatic thermostat both measures and adjusts the temperature, providing a closed-loop feedback system. (Read more…)

The Tools we are interested in are backed by principles. Getting from a practice to the guiding principles behind it offers immense leverage. (Read more…)

Why do other tools fail? A good idea (like a principle) can be too abstract and never acted on, a tool without thought is inappropriately applied, and thoughtful tools without foundation grow stale without change.