GPI 454 – Ask, “What is the biggest waste of materials, outside cost or time that you see every day connected to your job?”

Most employees do not see the overall corporate pictures every day.  They are each assigned different pieces of the organization process.  What they do see personally are those tasks, assignments or processes that consistently take an extraordinarily large amount of their time and effort at work. You need to find out what these process delays are and how much havoc and trouble they cause every day.  In order to ferret out truly honest and genuine responses, ask a few of these questions without judgement, be quiet while they formulate their answer and then listen.

Questions to identify sources of waste:

• QUESTION:   What interruptions, inactions, unanswered questions or other unfinished tasks cause you the largest delay(s) performing your job on time every day?    We are not interested in terminating people but improving the process. The people responsible for delaying your position may be held up themselves because someone else is holding them up.”
• QUESTION:   What process or task that you see in your daily job clearly seems to be costing more money than it should?  Do not worry if your guess is wrong or not perfect because sometimes your gut feel is enough to provide evidence of a problem.
• QUESTION:   What task that you do every day seems to take much longer than it should?   You may be wrong on your guess but say it anyway. You may uncover something else causing the company problems and cutting into the bottom line.
• QUESTION:   Please think about first then answer this question. If you could change one thing that affects your position, what would you cut, improve, streamline or speed up to improve your own job?  Please answer in terms of tasks or processes and not just employees’ names you do not like.  If there is an employee who holds you back from completing your job, mention his or her name.  They may seem slow because they are also being held up by other flawed processes.