Initially, this sentence met with resistance, from my own self. I was sure that everything I did was important and of great benefit. But after I got involved with this thesis, I was able to re-sort my thoughts.
Today, Lean Management is the most powerful tool I know of to get by. Lean management is great and can be applied again and again to improve everyday life.
Lean management divides our work into three areas: Value Creation, Necessary Waste, and Waste. Often you find the same proportions of time in these three areas. I introduced this concept in my leadership workshop. Immediately, a doubter came forward, just as I had been: this could not be. Everyday life is timed and everything is important.
A thought experiment helps to understand: What if we look at everything that happens in the hospital with the question: Does it benefit the patient? Does it benefit them? Does it make them healthier?
That way it becomes clearer and you will find many things or processes that do not benefit the patient. They can even be eliminated without any loss of quality for the patient.
In my clinic I found many such processes. For example, tracking books in the operating theatre in which the operations were additionally documented by hand. These were simply relics from a bygone era, never questioned and of no value to the quality of treatment. Or meetings that are not useful for all involved and do not directly add value to the treatment. If you walk through the clinic with alert eyes, you will find many such relics or structures that you can actually do away with.
The point about "necessary waste" is exciting. Necessary waste is understood to mean, for example, routes, transport, waiting, oversized processes. The patient doesn't benefit directly, but you can't eliminate the processes without a replacement. I found an example in my own ward. It stretches over a long corridor. When a patient rings the bell in room 23, for example, it is quite a long way from the nurses' station to there. So the patient rings the bell, the nurse runs to the room, and the patient asks for a medicine.
The person in charge runs back to get the medicine and then back to the patient to give it to them and finally back again. We surely agree that half of the way can be saved - for example through intercoms or digital solutions that can be used to talk to the patient. In my clinic we even had intercoms. They were just not used.
The longer I studied the concept of lean management, the more possibilities I found to improve the working situation of my team. Finally, we decided together to run a Lean Management project through the clinic. As a team, we looked at numerous everyday processes, questioned them, optimised them, and gained time in the process. One of the tools of Lean Management is the so-called board, to which each employee can attach a process that he or she considers worthy of optimisation. Little by little, we looked at different parts of our work and changed them to a more appropriate way of working.
The preparation of blood draws, for example, was previously started by female doctors or nurses in my department. The process was not clearly defined and led to blood samples sometimes being prepared twice, sometimes not at all. This disrupted the work flow. After a precise definition, it is now clear who is responsible. We were able to optimise the process. So we kept finding more structures and processes that we could optimise. Because the truth is that we in the hospital are often half artists, we come every day and always design our "everyday work of art" a little differently, and in some ways, anarchy and freestyle prevail. This is a hindrance to optimised processes.
My senior consultant is a specialist in lean management. The other day I met her at the coffee machine and wanted to impress her. I put two cups under the machine and looked at her. She smiled mildly and said: "Real lean managers don't stir and pour the milk into the cup first and then let the coffee in... I humbly realised that you can always optimise yourself further, even if you think you have already reached the end level.
With this in mind, I wish you success along the way!
Yours truly,
Mandy Mangler