I have argued that the Toyota Production System (TPS) and knowledge work do not fit.
One aspect of the TPS is tact. Production lines are synchronized by using tact. There is a temptation to try to synchronize knowledge work by tact as well. I do not know how many out there try to do this, but I know of at least two companies.
Nobody is against recurring meetings to synchronize tasks and progress. This is no new invention and certainly not rocket science. We also can discuss SCRUM. But today I want to point out the limitations and difficulties with trying to synchronize knowledge work by tact.
There is a concept – I see it as a law of nature – called irreducible complexity. It means, that there is a minimum complexity for a system to be functional that cannot be reduced without harm. For example a car engine – if there is but one part missing, the engine very probably is not functional. The car engine must be absolutely complete before it is functional. It does not make any sense to assemble an engine into a car, if the engine is not absolutely complete or perfectly functional. In car assembly the “wedding” – i.e. the moment when the engine is assembled into the chassis, follows a strict tact. Thereby the chassis and the engine together become the car. So the engine line and the chassis line are synchronized by this tact.
What happens, if due to any small unpredicted deviation the engine can’t reach the “wedding” in time? The chassis line must be stopped as well. There is no other way. So the whole system works well as long as all work complies with the predicted times and if the work is executed completely perfect.
It becomes clear now, why knowledge work does not fit into this pattern. Knowledge work has many unpredictable components, be it the needed preconditions, the workitems themselves, their duration and their deviation from the expected duration. Imposing tact over knowledge work often results in odd behavior like delivering a half-baked document or installing a half-finished software patch. In Germany we say: “Verschlimmbessern”. This means making it worse by trying to make it better. This is especially the case, if the work does not create a new work result from scratch, but does modify an existing work result – which in my opinion is the main case.
Does this mean I argue for not synchronizing at all or to not plan at all? No! This is far from true. I only argue that the type of synchronizing and planning must respect the laws of nature that we find in knowledge work. This relieves the knowledge worker from the odd feeling and produces more reliable results for the project or management.