As promised I want to finish the discussion about the Toyota Production System (TPS) and knowledge work with some reflections about goal-driven and waste elimination.
One goal of the TPS is to eliminate waste – i.e. to eliminate materials, tools and activities that are not needed for the production of the end product. This in itself is goal-driven, because waste is defined as not contributing to the goal. I think this is a good principle in general. But there is a major difference between producing cars and knowledge work.
As we already discussed, the production of a car is completely pre-planned and the process is repetitive. Therefore the process is planned by different people than those that execute it. As we have discussed in knowledge work the same people that execute the process are those that plan the process – at least they work together in small teams. And the knowledge work processes are often not repetitive and often not predictable. There is some repetition and some predictability, but the degree of it is much less as in car manufacturing. Therefore it is clear, that it is the task of the knowledge worker himself to eliminate waste. This is done by re-evaluating priorities of sub goals in relation to a goal or by withdrawing or postponing sub goals. It is not done by a process designer that does it for the knowledge worker.
Also there is a danger in knowledge work about eliminating waste. It is not possible a priori to judge what is waste and what not. Knowledge work is creative work. This also means that experiments must be made and the outcome of the experiments is unknown at the start. Creative minds need freedom to experiment and an atmosphere that primarily eliminates waste can be very counterproductive in this environment. Imagine a soccer match that is only optimized towards eliminating waste. Nobody takes any effort, if the success is not guaranteed. That is boring and that is the sure road to losing the match. If you have seen the match Germany – England you might remember the first goal. Miroslav Klose delivered a brave sprinting fight against the english defense before he scored the first goal. He did not know in advance that he would score. He had to fight for it, even if the result was unpredictable. Only he was able to decide in this situation, if it was worth a try or not.
Ok – I admit the coach does also decide. He does knowledge work on a different level. It is his responsibility to judge if a player does not or is not able to contribute towards the goal of the match and exchange players. The players obviously are not completely autonomous. The team only works as a team if the players fulfill their role within the team. This is in part predictable.
I don’t have all the answers in this discussion and I am also interested in your opinion. Today I only want to make clear that in knowledge work eliminating waste can be dangerous while it is still desirable to a degree and eliminating waste itself is knowledge work because it needs situational judgments and many of the decisions must be done by the knowledge workers themselves.