I’ve put down my thoughts about how experimentation is one of the central tenants that separate TPS from it’s imitators. This Plan-Do-Check-Act structured approach requires well thought out specifications and a high degree of structure.

Conventionally this structured approach with a reliance on clear concise documentation would indicate a very ridged command/control approach with little flexibility given to the various organizations. At Toyota the opposite is true, organizations are challenged and left to get on with it with little management oversight while the project is unfolding.

To translate this to a production system is straightforward. There may be a number of good ways of doing something, experimentation will find the best. Once this best way is found, it will always be used unless something drives a change.

The operator putting wheel nuts on will put them on in a certain order, over a certain time, using specified tool.

The work is highly specified. The content, timing, sequence and expected outcome are clearly known to the operator, who happens to be responsible for his own quality. In this case the outcome is four wheels installed with twenty wheel nuts to a set torque value.

It sounds really simple, the difference is in the details. In a vast majority of production shops the sequencing of a job is not documented to this level of detail. Typically new operators are shown by experienced employees how they do a particular operation (like fitting the wheels). There is no clear, unambiguous specification to follow. No experimentation has been done to refine the best way and variability still exists, and where you have variability you allow room for errors to happen.

Toyota clearly does things differently. First a new employee is taught the right way to do the job they have been assigned by their immediate supervisor, not the person doing it last. No bad habits are handed down, only the correct sequence. The next part is possibly the biggest difference, each employee is required to be able to answer the following for each of the jobs they are required to do.

• How do you do this work? (Plan)
• How do you know you are doing this work correctly? (Do)
• How do you tell the output is free of defects? (Check)
• What happens if there is a defect? (Act)

This continual questioning of the process and how the operator is doing it brings us back in a full circle to the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” mantra that runs deep through the development cycle. We can see is also at the center of the production processes.

This is also where the moving line becomes so important, at any time anyone familiar with the system can look at the location of the car being put together and know exactly what state of build it should be in. It works just as well for 737 jet liners as it does for a Toyota Yaris.

If the car/jet has hit a certain location in the factory then the seats should be in the process of being installed. If the seats are still sitting on the side of the line waiting for another process to be completed then we have a problem and the line is stopped. The line is not restarted untill the issue is resolved. In the case of the 737 manufacturing, design and industrial engineers are collocated with in yards of the line and their sole job is to solve the issue and restart production.

In the mid 80s, English football was in deep crisis. For years those in charge of the game and the clubs themselves had invested very little into the game. At the center of all of this were the fans, and being a football fan in 1985 was similar to admitting that you spent Saturday afternoons fighting dogs, it was something to be slightly ashamed of.

Football supporters themselves had an appalling reputation. Some saw fights between home and away supporters as part of the game. Looking back this fight sub-culture had been around for at least a couple of decades, the difference was the media took notice of it and splashed it across the front pages. I recall the Daily Mirror newspaper published a tongue in cheek “English-Spanish phrase book for hooligans” prior to the World Cup in 1982.

It all changed in 1985. On May 11 a wooden stand at Bradford City caught fire and 56 died as a result because of inadequate training of stewards, crown control fencing and locked exit doors. While this tragedy had nothing to do with hooligans, it fitted into the emerging media picture of football grounds as a place of danger. I went to a game at Aldershot the following Saturday and I’ve never experienced an atmosphere quite like it.

Just a couple of weeks later Liverpool and Juventus fans clashed inside the Heisel stadium before the European Cup Final. 39 people were killed and 454 injured, most of them Juventus fans. The subsequent report put the blame primarily on the Liverpool fans, but went on to say the terrible state of the stadium and the inaction of the police had been serious contributing factors to the disaster.

These events along with the media coverage of the hooligan problem gave the government all the moral authority to act to rid the game of what the newspapers named “the English disease”

The government proposed a scheme that required anyone attending a football game would first have to acquire an identity card. This was unprecedented in a country that even today people do not routinely carry any form of picture ID. The Thatcher government assumed there would barely any opposition to their idea from a football fans themselves, a group it regarded as uneducated, apolitical and unorganized.

The game itself was in no to position to argue. Spectator numbers as well as television viewing figures had fallen dramatically during the past few years. The BBC and ITV, had reduced their football coverage and very few investors were willing to put any money at all into the sport.

The renaissance of the sport came from two rather unlikely sources. First the supporters, for possibly the first time there was something that required them to come together to defend the sport. This change was huge and millions of supporters spoke with a single voice.

This single voice was aided by the growing number of football fanzines, Fan produced magazines that could be irreverent, critical about underperforming players, gave real interviews and told it how it is. Realistically maybe a couple of thousand people who spent their Saturdays in the shed end really cared how defender Glen Burvil was still being picked week-in-week out for Aldershot Town (speculation at the time was that he had pictures of manager Len Walker with a couple of sheep), but there was photocopied fanzine for us to disagree with.

Today fanzines have largely gone from the game with one notable exception, When Saturday Comes. WSC still has some of the edgy, irreverent coverage of the game, but it also has consistently good writing and a great understanding of the world game at all levels. For fans of the game it’s well worth the money for a subscription (www.wsc.co.uk).

The second (and even more unlikely place) was Rupert Murdoch and his fledgling satellite broadcasting company, Sky. Rupert Murdoch was one of the three or four media tycoons that controlled the newspapers in the UK and one of his papers, The Sun, were probably the most vocal critic of the fan and supported the introduction of ID cards.

Murdoch satellite channels needed something that would get people to buy dishes and subscribe to premium channels. Sky successfully went after football and signed lucrative deals to show live games on Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Sky put money into the game, a lot of money. The premier league was formed and 15 years later it was by far the richest league in the world.

I sat down for coffee with a couple of friends who facilitators workshops internally (AIW and 3P for those who speak LEAN+) and discussed project close out. A lot of projects seem the just trail off after the item or process is delivered and eventually vanish into the ether when the SharePoint site is closed and archived.

Closeout is the final phase of the project and is the first time we can really judge the success of all the work put into chartering, change management, the begging for resources and execution of the plan. I think it’s an important part of the project and determine the completeness of the project against the objectives we agreed upon up front.

One issue that seems to happen again and again is people leaving the project after their deliverable is completed, often prior to the closure of the project. While the customer primarily cares about the deliverable, the PM organization and project team members miss out on a post-project review and sharing the understanding of what worked and what did not.

Conducting a post-project review and capturing best practices to share with the PM community should be an essential part of the closeout phase. By not having a formal lesson learned or project review archive a significant amount of experience is not available for and important material is lost.

The PM community at work has an informal lesson learnt database and monthly lunch time “brown bag” meetings to share as a group, but there is not a formal process to manage the close out process and archiving.

I’m interested in seeing how other organizations handle this close out, recording and sharing lessons learned with their PM community.

In ’95 the European Court of Justice ruled that Standard Liege, the Belgium FA and UEFA had broken all sorts of EU employment rules when they refused to allow jouneyman player Jean-Marc Bosman to move to French club Dunkerque after his contract has expired.

However Liege did not like the transfer fee Dunkerque offered and said no to the move. At this time (1990) players out of contract that took a transferred to another federation the clubs involved had to agree a fee.

Bosman was forced to rejoin Liege, however he was no longer a first team player and took a significant salary cut. Bozman filed his case, and the rest is history.

The Bosman ruling created a single marker place for European footballers. It meant that any player that was a citizen of a European Union country could move to any other club in the EU with no compensation owed to the club that lost the player.

In some countries (notably England, Scotland Germany, Portugal and Holland) transfers of out of contract players was restricted. In the UK there was an independent transfer tribunal that would decide how much compensation a club should receive for loosing out of contract player.

The doomsayers said that this was the end of he smaller clubs that rely on transfer fees generated by their selling promising players to the bigger clubs to stay in business.

A second effect was ending quotas set by leagues for a certain number of home players to start games. In European competition for example only three foreign players were allowed to play. After Bosman the rule was changed to three non-EU players and the big clubs took full advantage of this.

In the 2003-2004 season Chelsea fielded a team with not a single British born player in it.

The economics of the game has shifted, a few clubs have gone under and many more have altered their structure to live with in their means, but the wholesale carnage never happened.

Today the FIFA and UEFA are trying to get a quota of a sort set up, requiring six players eligible to play for the national side of the home country. They want this (known as 6+5) to apply to all clubs worldwide, not just within UEFA.

Fairness, reducing cost, developing youth players and national identity are all given as reasons this needs to happen. The EU has said it’s illegal and violates the Bosman ruling, other NGOs have said maybe it can be implemented.

Chelsea and Real Madrid have both made it clear they are willing to take it to the European Courts if needed to keep any type of quota system from happening.

1) Seattle wins at Kansas City – they are in, does not matter what anyone else does (and guess whose been playing with logic circuits this morning).

Seattle in playoffs= TRUE if SEA>KC

2) Sounders get a point Saturday then they are still in if Columbus beats DC, and Colorado wins or draws against DC, and Salt lake or Toronto drop points (and they play each other Saturday at 12:30 so someone is dropping points).

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND (NY=>RSL AND RSL =>TOR)

3) Seattle loose they will still be in if DC and Dallas loose and Salt Lake or Toronto draw.

Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus=>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND ((NY=>RSL AND RSL=>TOR) OR (NY=RSL AND RSL=TOR)

NY host RSL Wednesday, RSL are eliminated of they loose. RSL host Toronto Saturday afternoon (assuming RSL beat NY Wednesday) the looser is eliminated (or potentially both if they draw). Even ignoring the playoff implications this is a decent looking game played by two of the more entertaining teams in the league.

Colorado host Dallas Saturday – Dallas are eliminated of they loose and RSL or Toronto win. A draw in the RSL/TOR along with Dallas dropping points means everything to play for in the final week.

At this point it gets complex (and I do not have that much time), bottom line is Seattle controls their own destiny and only needs two points in the last two games to make everything else immaterial.

Win at Kansas City Saturday, get it over with and look forward to celebrating when Dallas come into RBP for the loudest game since the opener.

At the beginning of the year I was not a fan of play offs, however after thinking about it a little more I’ve come to like it. It makes the end of season games mean something for more sides and gives the MLS a particularly American flavour at the end of the season. I’m not saying it’s going to work for every league, but any team that hits form can win the championship, having that hope heading into the play offs is rather fun.

I think most of us have that moment, we were exposed to something special and many years later it’s influence is still felt.

For most May 14^th 1982 was just another Saturday night. For a 13 year old in Guildford, Surrey it was he evening that shaped their album, cassette, CD and now I-pod music collection for decades to come.

Status Quo played the Princes Trust Concert at the NEC in Birmingham and the BBC showed it live.

My parents are not hugely into music. I recall some Boney-M, Mum’s Tom Jones fascination, Neil Diamond, the soundtrack from Grease, mum humming along to the Beatles on the radio, listening to Life of Brian and Dad occasionally putting on The Old Grey Whistle Test when there was really nothing else on. Nothing embarrassing to look back on, but certainly no John Peel like discovery sessions either.

In a slight side note, I like to think I’ve done more to steer my mothers CD collection than she did for me. A couple of months ago I noticed there were some Queen, Dire Straits and Meatloaf CD’s hanging around in their kitchen. Clearly she was never going to develop a taste for the Sex Pistols, Ratt and Motorhead, but I’d like some credit for what she hums along too now.

The Quo were a gateway band, they were acceptable for the BBC and my parents, yet I liked them…

Quo are a good band to listen too, the music is straightforward 12 bar blues and most of the songs have aged remarkably well. However they are at their very best as a live act, and the concert that started me along this road became the CD “Live at the NEC” and is a great concert recording from a band that did not release many.

I’ve seen them 5 or 6 times and after almost 40 years of touring there are no surprises. They play a 90 minute set, plus two encores. Everyone in the audience knows every song and we’ve come to have fun, wave inflatable guitars and scream along with Rick and Francis.

I just spent 10 minutes scanning my I-tunes library. Listening to that concert in 1982 to took me along a twisted path that led to an I-pod full of Queen, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Foo Fighters, Clash, Jam, Thin Lizzy, Who, Stones, Oasis, The Alarm, Pink Floyd, White stripes and so many others.

In contrast to Toyotas and their often vague, but challenging goals NASA uses a very different requirement process.

They break the goal setting into four distinct actions before authorizing a project.

Need – every requirement for a program or project should be fully understood and how this requirement is needed to fulfil he project goal. The idea is clearly to stop unnecessary items (or work statement padding) before it starts. NASA feels each initial requirement should be examined as closely as any change coming through a robust change management process.

Attainable – If the project goal is unattainable with the assigned project resources then the project is a waste of time and effort. There may a need for feasibility studies, technology demonstrators to prove concepts or firm up what started as an educated guess. These risk reduction activities need to be part of the project plan and the results of which may drive gate decisions.

Verifiable – Each requirement needs to be examined closely and clear criteria included in how it will be verified. There should be clear pass/no pass criteria that are not subjective and therefore unverifiable.

Accountability – This is seen as important for each individual requirement and ownership of each requirement should appear on the charter or requirements document. NASA feels the owner should be a person with a stake in, be knowledgeable about, and understand how success will be measured for each requirement. The owner needs to be involved in all change managmenent activity that affect their requirements.

NASA, like the rest of aerospace, works extensively with specifications as a risk reduction strategy. A specification control document identifies the final functionality, environmental quality, foot print, interface and so on of the final product. Be it a complete launch vehicle or a small component of that launch vehicle.

The accuracy of a specification is every bit as import as any other requirement document.

This contrasts with Toyotas approach where goals are purposely left rather vague to encourage organizations to explore options and encourage groups to collaborate with others (both internally and externally) to find the best solution.

In a far more risk adverse industry the goals are very clearly stated and the way in which they will be met is left open a little more.

It’s an interesting contrast in style.

Last night evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins did a book reading at the University of Washington Hec-ed pavilion. Something over 5000 people turned up to hear him read from his latest book “The greatest show on Earth”.

Dr Dawkins is something of a controversial figure to many people and is sometimes known as “Darwin’s Rottweiler” in the media for his staunch and often eloquent defence of evolution.

During the Q&A session the first statement from someone in the crowd was an apology on behalf of Seattle for the Discovery Institute. Clearly this was not a crowd that was hostile to Dr Dawkins evolutionary/humanist/atheist point of view.

I have read a number of Dr Dawkins books, it started with the “The God Delusion”, a very challenging book. Any book that has so upset fundamentalists that 4 or 5 books were written to point out where the author got it wrong, clearly has something going for it.

I identify with Dr Dawkins athiest/humanist view. I don’t have faith, I don’t believe in a god or benevolent being, omnipotent or other wise. There is as much proof for the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn as there is for any other all seeing deity.

It’s the engineer in me, I need to see some empirical evidence. I am staggered that something like 40% of the population believe in n earth less than 10,000 yeas old, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I am astounded the creationist/evolution debate even exists, let alone command the place it does in mainstream US life.

To be clear, I’m for personal beliefs and actually admire the way the creationist lobby have gained political power in some very specific places to even make this a debate. In the UK, a country with no separation of church and state, there is no creationism in school only Evolution, even a church school.

I grew up in a marginally christian house, my mother went to church semi regularly, we celebrated Christmas and for some reason my brother and I were sent to Church of England school for 4 years. Yet whenever I’ve been to church over the last 24 years for me it’s just never been there and I’ve felt like a fraud sitting there. I’m happy to share in the singing of the hyms, listening to the readings at weddings and funerals. I clearly identify as a cultural Christian, beyond that there is nthing there for me.

A short Youtube video of a song about the ongoing Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission looking for water on the Moon. It was written and recoded by John Marmie one of the mission project managers.

LCROSS PM sings about the mission

Experimentation is a significant part of TPS and is one of the ways in which Toyota achieves the rather impressive targets it sets for itself. Organizations are encourage to test, learn from the results and out of the groups comfort zone.

Using an iterative design and test philosophy it allows the company to meet the significant goals that Toyota sets itself through a series of small steps in a very straightforward and pragmatic way. With in Toyota this is known as Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) and is the cornerstone of the development cycle.

One very well documented product development cycle was the Prius hybrid model.

The goal set was to design a production ready environmentally friendly car that increased efficiency 100% over the benchmark.

The team went off tested, researched, modelled and tested some more. They researched  advanced petrol, direct injection diesel, turbocharged small engines technology even cutting edge fuel cell technology and nothing could deliver much more than a 50% efficiency improvement.

The team was sent back to do some more work. They ended up going to another division and looking at hybrid technology that was largely theoretical and a long way from production ready.

The first experimental drive train did not work. Then second started, but was not enough. With each round of testing something new was leaned and these results were used to modify the engineering test articles for the next round of testing.

The same series of small steps and testing was being repeated in battery design, again in chassis development and once more in production processes.

There were significant issues that were over come. Batteries would not hold a charge if they were too hot or cold. The stressed small engines failed prematurely. The constanly variable gearbox drained too much power. The first running prototype broke after 120 meters on it’s first run.

One by one these were over come, sep by step the team had created a production ready hybrid in less than 3 years from concept to production ready.

One of the aspects of the TPS that allows the experimentation to carry on at a comparatively frenetic pace is the open communication (it keeps coming back to the open communication). Mistakes are acknowledged, problems are re-examined all ideas are considered and a decision is made using all date and considering all viewpoints. This means the system is tolerant of failures, the open communications makes it a learning experience for all involved.