The Three Tenets of Applying Lean to Knowledge Workers

Our first tenet of applying lean to knowledge workers is to measure results, not tasks. Peter F. Drucker taught us that knowledge workers are people who have jobs defined by results rather than quantity of work. “The knowledge worker thinks- and yet thinking is his specific work: it is his ‘doing’…The imposing system of measurements and tests which we have developed for manual work- from industrial engineering to quality control- is not applicable to knowledge work.” (Effective Executive, Harper & Row, 1967)

Our second tenet of applying lean thinking to knowledge workers is to replace simple jobs and complex processes with simple processes and complex jobs. We help achieve results quickly by helping you design simple and lean processes. This is somewhat a reversal from Gilbreth’s and Ford’s scientific management approach of reducing the scope of individual jobs into smaller and simpler tasks. The more you break a process down into more and narrower jobs (tasks), the more complex the overall process becomes. This increased process complexity requires more management and coordinating activities to ensure that the individual jobs are organized properly to complete the process.

This means that the role of the individual may be more challenging- potentially a hurdle for the skills of a knowledge worker. But your reward is much simpler processes with fewer management and coordinating resources required to improve and operate the process. Our clients also tell us that the morale of their knowledge workers significantly increase because of their expanded responsibilities.

Our third tenet of applying lean thinking to knowledge workers is to adapt the Toyota Production System concepts of takt, flow, and pull. Takt, flow, and pull are not intuitive concepts for value streams with no material flow, yet when properly applied, they can achieve a significant breakthrough in speed, agility, and productivity.