Lean Learning Approach

Dimensions

Lean Learning is the Learning & Development (L&D) process of getting the right learning, to the right audience, at the right time, in the right quantity to achieve perfect work flow, while minimizing waste and being flexible to change. Lean learning focuses on L&D efficiency (learning inputs-to-outputs ratio)—specifically, Returns on Learning Investments (ROLI).

The approach to Lean learning is based on those of lean manufacturing and lean software development. L&D departments that would want to transition to lean learning must operate on these three dimensions:

1. Support for L&D People: L&D managers must eliminate “overburden” on their stakeholders—learners and sponsors. All the unreasonable activities imposed on learners and systems because of poor organization—such as cumbersome training equipment, traveling to classroom locations, dangerous tasks, even learning significantly faster than normal—must be first eliminated. L&D overburden pushes learners or systems beyond their natural limits. The management may simply be asking a greater level of performance from a process than it can handle without taking shortcuts and informally modifying decision criteria. Unreasonable work is almost always a cause of multiple variations.
2. Streamlining of L&D Products: L&D managers must eliminate “unevenness” from L&D deliveries. The flow (or smoothness)-based approach aims to achieve just-in-time (JIT) deliveries by removing the variation caused by L&D scheduling, and thereby providing a driver, rationale, or target as well as priorities for implementation, using a variety of techniques. The effort to achieve JIT exposes many quality problems that are hidden by buffer programs; by forcing smooth flow of only value-adding steps; these problems become visible and must be dealt with explicitly.
3. Simplification of L&D Process: L&D managers must eliminate “unproductiveness” from L&D activities. A process adds value by producing goods or providing a service that a customer should/ would pay for. A process consumes resources and waste occurs when more resources are consumed than are necessary to produce the goods or provide the service that the customer actually needs/ wants. Process simplification has been given much greater attention as waste than the other two, which means that whilst many L&D practitioners have learned to see “unproductiveness”, they fail to see in the same prominence the dangers of “unevenness” and “overburden”. Ergo, whilst they are focused on getting their process under control they do not give enough time to process improvement by redesign.

Connecting the 3S Lean Dimensions: “Support” focuses on the preparation and planning of the process, or what work can be avoided proactively by design. “Streamlining” then focuses on implementation and the elimination of fluctuation at the scheduling or operations level, such as quality and volume. “Simplification” is realized after the process is in place and is dealt with reactively. It is seen through variation in output. It is the role of management to examine the “unproductiveness” in the processes and eliminate the deeper causes by considering the connections to the “overburden” and “unevenness” of the system. The “unproductiveness” and “unevenness” inconsistencies must be fed back as “overburden”—to the planning stage for the next project.

Principles

Lean learning embodies seven principles, which are very close in concept to lean manufacturing principles:

1. Eliminate waste: In order to be able to eliminate waste, one should be able to recognize and see it. If some activity could be bypassed or the result could be achieved without it, it is waste. Typical wastes include overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion, over-processing, and defects. The clear identification of non-value-adding work—as distinct from wasted work—is critical to identifying the assumptions behind the current work process and to challenging them in due course.
2. Amplify learning: A key postulate of adult learning is that “experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for learning activities”. “Lessons learned” should not just be a management fad, but a sincere effort to eliminate recurrence of historical mistakes. Iterative development enables joint learning with the customers. Such learnings have a cumulative effect, and the collective learnings of the team add tremendously to organizational learning—surely a “force multiplier”.
3. Decide as late as possible: As L&D is always associated with certain level of uncertainty, better results could be achieved by delaying decisions as much as possible, until they could be made based on facts and not uncertain future predictions and assumptions. The more complex the L&D process, the more capacity for change to be built into it, thus enabling important and crucial commitments even at a later stage. The iterative approach promotes this principle—the ability to correct mistakes and adapt to changes, which might be very costly if discovered after the release of the process.
4. Deliver as fast as possible: The sooner the end product is delivered, the sooner feedback can be received—and incorporated into the next iteration. The shorter the iterations, the better the learning and communication within the team. Without speed, decisions will be delayed. Speed assures the fulfilling of the customer’s present needs and not what they required yesterday. This gives them the opportunity to delay making up their minds about what they really require until they gain better knowledge. Customers value rapid delivery.
5. Empower the team: Experienced L&D managers know the key to a successful learning program—“Find good people and let them do their jobs.” This does not mean considering the staff as “resources” requiring just the list of tasks and the assurance that they will not be disturbed during the completion of the tasks. People need motivation and a higher purpose to work for—purpose within the reachable reality, with the assurance that the team might choose its own commitments.
6. Build integrity in: Discrete components of the L&D organization should work well together as a whole with balance between flexibility, maintainability, efficiency, and responsiveness. This could be achieved by understanding the problem domain and solving it simultaneously, not sequentially. The needed information is received in small batch pieces—not in one vast chunk, preferably via face-to-face communication and not any written documentation. Information flow should be constant in both directions—from learners to L&D staff and back, thus avoiding the large stressful amount of information after extended activities in isolation.
7. See the whole: Today’s L&D organizations are not simply the sum of their parts, but also the product of their interactions. Dynamic L&D systems tend to accumulate defects; so by decomposing the larger tasks into smaller ones, and by standardizing the different components, the root causes of defects should be found and eliminated. The larger the L&D organization, the more teams are involved in its performance. The more outputs are generated by different groups, the greater the importance of having well-defined relationships between different vendors, in order to produce a system with smoothly interacting components.

Look Before You Lean: Lean principles have to be understood well by all L&D stakeholders, before implementing in a concrete, real-life situation. “Think big, act small, fail fast; learn rapidly”—this summarizes the importance of understanding the field and the suitability of implementing Lean learning along the whole L&D process. Only when all of the above principles are implemented together, combined with a strong “common sense” with respect to the working environment, is there a basis for expecting success in L&D.

Techniques

Lean management tactics that enable process improvement in L&D are candidate techniques for Lean learning implementation. Some of these techniques are previewed below:

1. Value Stream Mapping: In Lean learning design, the VSM technique helps understand and improve the material and information flow within the L&D organization. VSM captures and presents the whole L&D process from end to end in a method that is easy to understand by those working the process—it captures the current issues and presents a realistic picture. Through a simple-to-understand graphical format, the “future state” (a diagram showing an improved and altered process) can be formulated and defined. This format clearly highlights areas of waste within a process and therefore enables the L&D organization to eliminate these activities. VSM also has the benefit of categorizing process activity into three main areas—Value Add, Non Value Add (But Necessary), and Waste.
2. Agile Development: In Lean learning development, the Agile framework enables development iterations throughout the life-cycle of the project. Content developed during one unit of time is referred to as an iteration, which typically lasts from one to four weeks. Each iteration passes through a full courseware development cycle—analysis, design, production, and testing. An iteration may not add enough functionality to warrant releasing the product to the market, but the goal is to have an available release (without bugs) at the end of each iteration. After each iteration, the team re-evaluates project priorities.
3. Just-In-Time Scheduling: In Lean learning delivery, the JIT execution improves L&D ROLI by reducing in-process inventory and its associated carrying costs. The technique shortens cycle times, decreases the amount of content in storage, leads to low in-progress activities, and creates a flexible atmosphere for the type or amount of programs that the L&D organization need to administer, and—most of all—streamlines process flow through the L&D facility. In order to achieve JIT, the L&D process must have “signals” of what is going on elsewhere within the process.