Karen Martin > Quotes

“When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.”
― Karen Martin, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence

“Chaos is the enemy of any organization the strives to be outstanding.”
― Karen Martin, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence

“If you want engagement, you must engage.”
― Karen Martin, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence

“Chaos is NOT a condition of doing business.”
― Karen Martin, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence

“term Lean was coined by John Krafcik in a 1988 article based on his master’s thesis at MIT Sloan School of Management1 and then popularized in The Machine that Changed the World and Lean Thinking. Lean Thinking summarized Womack and Jones’s findings from studying how Toyota operates, an approach that was spearheaded by Taiichi Ohno, codified by Shigeo Shingo, and strongly influenced by the work of W. Edwards Deming, Joseph Juran, Henry Ford, and U.S. grocery stores. Lean Thinking framed Toyota’s”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“People are typically more comfortable talking with others in their own environment; being asked to come to a conference room to help a leadership-heavy team evaluate work flow can evoke understandable anxiety and make them feel like they are on a witness stand. It is much more effective to go to them.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Continuous improvement is a mindset and a culture that is always—every employee, every day—looking for opportunities to do the job better, even when the organization is performing at the highest level it ever has.”
― Karen Martin, The Outstanding Organization: Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence

“Sequencing and Pacing Is the work sequenced and synchronized properly? Are processes being performed too early or too late in the value stream? Are key stakeholders being engaged at the proper time? Can processes be performed concurrently (in parallel)? Would staggered starts improve flow? How can we balance the workload to achieve greater flow (via combining or dividing processes)? Do we need to consider segmenting the work by work type to achieve greater flow (with rotating but designated resources for defined periods of time)?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“What to Do with Freed Capacity Freeing capacity is a vital way for labor-intensive organizations to increase the proportion of revenue to labor. The effort, though, should not result in layoffs. Rather, freeing capacity enables an organization to accomplish one or more of the following outcomes: Absorb additional work without increasing staff Reduce paid overtime Reduce temporary or contract staffing In-source work that’s currently outsourced Create better work/life balance by reducing hours worked Slow down and think Slow down and perform higher-quality work with less stress and higher safety Innovate; create new revenue streams Conduct continuous improvement activities Get to know your customers better (What do they really value?) Build stronger supplier relationships Coach staff to improve their critical thinking and problem-solving skills Mentor staff to create career growth opportunities Provide cross-training to create greater organizational flexibility and enhance job satisfaction Do the things you haven’t been able to get to; get caught up Build stronger interdepartmental and interdivisional relationships to improve collaboration Reduce payroll through natural attrition”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Goethe asserted, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Quality How can higher-quality input be received by each process in the value stream (to improve the %C&A metric)? Is there an opportunity to standardize and error proof work?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“General Questions What are the business issues (service quality, product quality, speed, capacity, cost, morale, competitive landscape, impending regulations, etc.) we wish to address? What does the customer want? What measurable target condition(s) are we aiming for? Which process blocks add value or are necessary non-value-adding? How can we reduce delays between processes? How can we improve the quality of incoming work at each process? How can we reduce work effort and other expenses across the value stream? How can we create a more effective value stream (greater value to customers, better supplier relationships, higher sales conversion rates, better estimates-to-actuals, lower legal and compliance risk, etc.)? How will we monitor value stream performance?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“the purpose of value stream mapping is to design a strategic improvement plan that will be executed over a period of time; it’s not designed to address problems at a detailed level.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“it’s critical that an organization approach the freed capacity that is realized through process time reductions in a way that enables growth rather than viewing it as a labor reduction exercise that leads to layoffs.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In many cases, simply getting the basics in place across an entire value stream—standardizing the work, building in quality at the source, and installing visual management—can yield significant results,”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“No matter how urgently improvement is needed, how skilled the facilitator is, or how well-intentioned the mapping team is, it’s unrealistic to expect work systems that have existed for years or even decades to be completely transformed in a matter of months. Any consultant who tells you that it’s likely, or even possible, should be shown the door. Change takes time.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Until holistic thinking begins to replace siloed thinking, improving the value stream will prove more challenging.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Depending on the organization, designing an improved state can also require thick skin, intestinal fortitude, and a hefty dose of courage.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“a typical value stream map has three key components: information flow, work flow, and a timeline.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“You need to choose wisely: what are the two to five metrics that provide the best reflection of overall value stream performance?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“seeing the value stream in action a second time allows the team to learn more deeply. Team members nearly always make additional discoveries during the second walk.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Value stream mapping often demonstrates that, at a macro level, there isn't as much variation as it "feels" like there is”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“The visual nature of value stream maps enables consensus-building conversations across the organization, from the front lines to senior leaders.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“the facilitator’s role shifts from a coach who helps a team uncover and analyze “what is”—a left-brain activity—to a coach who inspires a team to innovate and design “what could be”—a right-brain activity. Skilled facilitators can easily shift between these two roles.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Companies that have the greatest success with sustained Lean transformation make an up-front commitment that eliminating work won’t result in eliminating people. It’s the work that’s non-value-adding, not the people.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“The problem is that most organizations have established neither value streams KPIs more process-level KPIs. This is the primary reason why organizations continue to fight fires, don't capture greater market share, don't generate as much profit as they could, have burned-out workforces, and create self-inflicted chaos that they could otherwise avoid.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“Value Stream Management Do policies need to be changed to enable improved performance? Are there organization departmental reporting structures that can be changed to reduce conflicting goals or align resources? Do existing performance metrics (if any) encourage desired behaviors and discourage dysfunctional behavior? What key performance indicators (KPIs) will we use to monitor value stream performance? Who will monitor the KPIs? How frequently? Who else will results be communicated to? What visual systems can be created to aid in managing and monitoring the value stream? Are the key processes within the value stream clearly defined with their own KPIs, standardized appropriately, and measured and improved regularly?”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“It represents how work flows, who does the work, and how the value stream is performing on the day the map is created.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“In those rare circumstances where layoffs are the only way for a business to survive (e.g., extreme market conditions), the organization should perform the reduction in force before embarking on a transformation journey that relies on creating a safe environment for the workforce to make innovative decisions.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation

“You want those closet to the work designing tactical-level improvements rather than leaders who are too far from the work to determine exactly what should be done to reach a target condition.”
― Karen Martin, Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation