Teaching lean in universities

Roberto Priolo: Lean focuses heavily on learning and hands-on experiments, while universities are widely perceived as institutions that predominantly teach theory. How do the two connect?

Peter Ward: Outside of a context, lean makes no sense at all. It is only when we apply it to work that it acquires substance. Even so, we always struggle to find ways to make teaching real for students. The challenge for universities is to find smart ways to bring the gemba into the classroom and to take students from the classroom to the gemba. And that part is a lot of fun!

RP: I take it that one way to “make teaching real” for students is to involve organizations?

PW: Indeed, there is enormous potential there – but there is work to be done by both sides to make collaboration less challenging. Universities are very hard to work with and, as institutions, they need to become more agile. At the same time, companies need to understand that it is in their interest to work with universities, and they need to be more patient and recognize that the takt time is different.

I also think universities should be more open to bringing practitioners onto the faculty, even if only for a short period. Having executives share their knowledge while learning more about how the university works brings great benefits. Higher education institutions currently do not have a good mechanism for welcoming these people when they come – in fact, the system tends to reject them. For their part, companies are reluctant to give up talent, so that is where we need to improve.

RP: When it comes to teaching lean at universities, what is the real problem we need to solve? What is the gap between the current and future states?

PW: It is the amount of time we need to develop a competent lean leader in a company. It takes years, and the university should work hard to find ways to reduce that lead time. We can start working on this when we teach students at universities, but it is equally important to provide education to people who are already working, which must, obviously, be supplemented with hands-on training.

RP: Is there a risk that, if the number of universities teaching lean grows, the lean message will become diluted and lose its purity?

PW: It is certainly a risk, and that is why we need to establish some kind of principle for lean thinking. To some extent, we already have one: “The Machine That Changed the World” and the work published by the Lean Enterprise Institute and others have clearly contributed to creating a common language that we all understand. However, if we want to teach it at universities without losing the thread, we have to put it into textbooks and make it accessible to everyone. We all need to make sure we do not develop courses that claim to teach lean when in fact they do not (we already see some consultants calling themselves lean facilitators when in fact they are not). In essence, we need some understanding of what the fundamentals of lean are and a reliable source people can turn to in order to reinforce the message.

RP: How can we facilitate the integration between university learning and hands-on training? Do government programs have a role in this?

PW: We currently have many programs that are subsidized by governments. They focus heavily on teaching tools when – in my opinion – they should concentrate on teaching problem-solving skills. If we think of the problems we face as social problems (and the benefits as well), I think governments can certainly help.

We already teach problem solving in primary and secondary school, but it is very abstract, and many students are left behind. We can, and should, get much better at teaching problem solving. If you become a problem solver at school, lean will become much easier to understand and embrace. Instilling problem-solving capabilities early on (long before university) has great potential – at that point, not only companies would benefit, but entire societies.

RP: Don’t you think that, in order to teach lean the right way, universities themselves should become leaner?

PW: There is, in fact, a lot of waste involved in university processes – think of all the rules, restrictions and bureaucracy – but I believe we can already get the job done. Universities certainly need to change, but it is a weak excuse to say we cannot do anything until they do. In fact, we need to start now. There are obstacles, but there is a lot that motivated faculty members can do. It will take years for universities to change, and we cannot wait.

RP: What would you like to see in terms of lean education? What is the ideal state you envision?

PW: We would learn lean throughout our entire careers. I would like to see a system in which, at different stages of our careers, we could go back to school and learn what we need on demand. Right now, we are batching students and learning, which unfortunately means that people also tend to forget in batches. It would be preferable to have shorter periods of intense learning in the classroom and at the gemba, and more learning throughout our lives whenever we need it. Our needs change over time, and we should be able to learn what we need when we need it, with the fundamentals being taught right at the beginning.