Lean and the art of Pre-Visualisation

Over the weekend I send some time down in Twizel which is in middle of New Zealand South Island. It is nestled not far from Mount Cook, NZ's highest peak and Queenstown, the adventure capital and is home to some of the most traumatic scenery and stunning views around, especially in autumn as the leaves turn golden and start to fall to the ground.

I spent time there are part of a photography trip with a group f about 25 other photographers from our local photography club. How lucky we are to be able to get out and around in groups of people in this covid world? My passion is landscape photography, which to be fair in NZ is easy, you can almost just point your camera in a particular direction, and you will get a decent image. Photographers however as perhaps a little more demanding than most. We want the light to be right, we want to try and convey a mood, to emote some form of emotion with the image. One of my photography mentors (affectionately known as photo yoda!) is a big believer in as approach called pre-visualisation. That is where before you even get the camera out you know what the end result of the image you want it. You know what lens you are going to be using, you know roughly the exposure you are going to want to use to get the level of focus, of sharpness in your image. You think about what the light should be doing, the angle of the sun, where the shadows should be falling, the parts of the landscape you want to pull out and so on. You can do a lot of prep to help this, you can obviously watch the weather forecasts, you can simulate things in apps and view exactly the path of the run, the moon and even the stars over a piece of landscape so that when you do pull out the camera you are as well prepared as you can be for that image. Of course, mother nature always has the final say.

Begin with the end in mind

Why am I explaining the thinking behind my photography in a blog about lean? It is simple, the process is the same. You may not be thinking about things like light, although in many cases you really should be, but you must think about what the end result of your process should be. Over the last while I've been contemplating a little on how the Covey 7 habits of highly effective people actually aligned to lean as well and habits 1 (be proactive) & 2 (begin with the end in mind) really play a part in both my photography and in lean.

Being proactive is about focusing on what you can control and actually letting go of what you can't. When you think about it from a photography point of view you just cannot control the weather, but you can do your best with everything else. When it comes to lean there is so much you cannot control and focusing on there is just creating waste, focus on what you can control, what you can influence, and you will have a far better outcome.

Habit 2, begin with the end in mind is all about pre-visualisation. You are thinking deeply about what the ends result should look like, what it should feel like for you and those involved. When you start a business change on your lean journey you need to do the same. You need to think about what it will look like in the end. How will it impact the user of that area, of the operation? How will it impact the previous and next operations? Where will you put the work in progress? (you won't need a lot of space for this!) How will you deliver to and remove from the operation, what tooling is needed and how will it be stored and presented, how will raw materials be presented. How much light do you need in the work area and what direction do you need it to avoid shadows that could impact the ability of the operator to see what they are doing correctly?

The questions can go on and on, and should go on, but there does come a point where it is time to go and do it in real life You have prepped as much as you can, you have explored your options and now it is time to act.

You can always try again

So, what happens when you get up at 4 or 5am to head to the hills and get your image and mother nature has decided instead of some patchy clouds and sun you are getting grey skies and rain. There are of course three options, you can just go back to bed and try again tomorrow, you can go out and do the best you can with what you have, or you can come back again next year, when the light is going to be right.

It is the same in your organisation, although you certainly should not wait a year, if it does not work you get to try again, you take the learnings from the 1^st attempt and apply that to the next attempt to improve your chances of success. We call that Continuous improvement.

You can visualise and plan as much as you like, and you must do that to give yourself the best chance of success, involving all of those who work in the area you are changing, but at some point, you just must try things. See what develops, decide if you like the outcome and if not try again, this time applying the learnings from the 1^st attempt to improve the 2^nd.