Lean Management is a further development of Lean Production, which in turn has the avoidance of waste as its object. Lean management is about the fact that all processes in the company should serve to satisfy customer needs; simplified: if the customer does not need this process, does not perceive it, then it is superfluous. With customer are meant internal as well as external („real“) customers.
A few years ago when I was supposed to (was allowed to) go through a Lean wave with my department, my first reflex was: „Hey, we are not an industrial company!“
The second reflex was: „Why not?“ We put so much energy into solving individual problems, both externally and internally – and afterwards we regularly get annoyed that processes or interfaces don’t work. The automotive industry has done quite well with the platform strategy, so it makes sense to take a look at what is dispensable or where „wild growth“ can be cut back. (And do individual solutions always mean that you have to confuse product variation with product development?)
Of course, 100% are not blunt and always applicable to every team situation, but most of them are:
- Goal definition of what effect the measure should bring for the team
- Collect pain points from the teams to identify potential and need for improvement
- Systematic clarification of these pain points with the interface partners and definition of responsibilities (result objects, lead times, SLA)
- Survey of the working hours used in the various team roles in order to compare target and actual figures
- Use of leanboards for transparency in the team (who is working on what, where is the problem, how is the team achieving its goals)
- Development of KPIs for each team to make success and performance visible
- Hold meetings while standing, for more dynamism and shorter duration
- A project framework gives high attention to the optimization fields and at the same time leaves the responsibility for identification and implementation on the operational level.
- It is important to sow the seeds of the continuous improvement process (CIP); It is easier for everyone to think in terms of processes and to talk about them – and so continue to work sustainably on continuous optimization.
The model of lean management can therefore also be transferred very well to banks and financial services. Due to its bottom-up approach, it is actually predestined for very complex or abstract organizations. Lean is open and flexible for adjustments – as long as you keep the goal and the guiding principle in mind.
Vertriebsmanagement 