Creating a Lean R&D System

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12

Reflections

In building this book, I have focused very little on describing how tools

of Lean manufacturing can apply to the innovation space. Instead, I have

focused on the purpose of research and development (R&D) itself and

have developed areas of Lean research that address, very specically, the

needs of innovation for both individuals and communities as well as the

managers and systems that operate within them.

Lean invariably arises from purpose, and as we have seen, the purpose

of R&D is dierent from that of manufacturing. It is dierent from every

other business construct, in that its sole purpose is to innovate by creating

new, valuable packages of knowledge that the company can use to (a) cre-

ate, sell, or improve its existing products and processes or (b) sell, through

license or direct means, to other people and organizations.

To serve this purpose well, we also went back to the basic core of Lean

thinking and the purpose of Lean. In manufacturing, the purpose of Lean

was to create clean (5S—sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain),

eective (ow, Kanban, low waste), exible, people-centric manufacturing

environments. e purpose of Lean manufacturing is to create a manu-

facturing environment in which people (and their companies) can our-

ish. It does not take a lot of eort to generalize this purpose to Lean in any

endeavor by stating simply that the purpose of Lean is to create environ-

ments in which people can ourish.

Taken together, Lean in R&D is the science of creating innovation

environments in which people can ourish. Unfortunately, ourishing

manufacturing environments have a dierent purpose than ourishing

innovation environments, and concepts and tools that support the former

do not always support the latter. As a result, I have described several ideas,

some of them new, that specically support the creation of an innovation

226 • Creating a Lean R&D System

environment. Each of these concepts, in its own way, supports creative

thought, innovation, and/or the innovation community in a quest to build

valuable knowledge packages that serve their purpose.

e rst of these new Lean concepts is the seeing, reframing, experienc-

ing, and growing learning loop. Like all learning loops, it describes, in

a dierent way, the same underlying thought process that humans have

always engaged in creating. But of course, language helps emphasize a

new range, even in old concepts, and the “seeing, reframing, experienc-

ing, and growing” learning loop emphasizes that our learning and innova-

tion are primarily hindered by how we currently see the world and frame

it in our minds. It is axiomatic that we cannot reframe our world in an

easier and more eective way until we can see our assumptions about it

and the context in which our current beliefs arise. at we can learn to see

that context and its associated beliefs and assumptions in a structured and

teachable way debunks the self-defeating belief that creativity, innovation,

and ashes of brilliant thinking cannot be learned.

By keeping the “seeing, reframing, experiencing, and growing” con-

struct in mind, the A3 process—already well established in the Lean com-

munity—takes on new and profoundly useful meaning within the R&D

community. A3 is ideally suited to the improvement of scientic thought.

It creates simultaneous rigor around the scientic learning loop, support-

ing rigorous “regular science” and, at the same time, the “eureka!” process

represented in the “seeing, reframing, experiencing, and growing” learn-

ing loop. A3 is a fast, concise format that makes it easy to practice, easy to

share, and easy to engage others. It serves to instill rigor; to create a think-

ing structure; and to support mentoring, scientic communications, and

community building.

Creative, structured thinking, of course, is not enough to deliver

good innovation. An innovation community must be able to integrate

new knowledge from dierent experiments, usually developed by sev-

eral researchers over the course of time. Many innovations, particularly

those bringing basic research to the marketplace—whether in consumer,

manufacturing, or pharmaceutical realms—integrate experiments over

years and sometimes decades. Entire waves of researchers will work on

such projects. ese facts of R&D lead to information and coordina-

tion diculties not generally seen in other areas of business. Moreover,

research builds and integrates knowledge, ideas, and trains of thought