Huddle Observation

The central huddle is exists so we accelerate the flow of high quality “interactions” between and through the sections.

• GM team = owner of the system

• Focus = Aim for 50% today and 50% tomorrow in our discussions

• Everybody is on mute except to speak

• Post Trello cards before the start of the meeting and do not move during the meeting except to move to Today

• Cover columns 1-4 from top to bottom, left to right

  • If a help card is being taken, it should be moved before moving on to today column so we ensure it moves (this is more important that it is accountable system than the visual clutter)

  • For cards that get the answer commented in the card, we briefly speak to the card and share the “answer” so that learning can be shared across the multi-disciplinary team

Help requests almost always occur when someone is missing one of the KRAF’s and are therefore unable to keep the work flowing forward.

This system works best when it eliminates emails, interruptions and rework caused when information is not shared or understood in a timely fashion.

Of course, if one can get help via the other tools we have in our system, it is not necessary to use a help card here. However, it may be a good thing to use as a share card.

These are cross-functional shares that impact other sections of the business.

This can be:

• A decision & communication plan

• Customer or vendor visits

• Status & metric share outs

• Tour information

• Upcoming time off

• Updates to projects

• Training

Appreciations: This is a place to share stories of people going above and beyond to shine their light. We tie an appreciation to our values, behaviors & competencies, or statement of purpose.

Growth Stories: This is a place to share examples of growth so that we can celebrate people growing.

These are actions that will be completed Today. They can be standalone tasks or chunks from a larger project/task.

The person(s) responsible for taking action puts in an expectation before the huddle and shares their expectation when it is their turn. Upon check-out, they will share what actually happened and what they learned. This makes learning intentional and prompts them to share their learning with the rest of the team.

Only if it is necessary to be shared with majority of the people on the call

If fyou miss the check out move your card to share and report out the next time you are on the call.

DO:

• Action items from Help or Share that are being taken today (if not today, tomorrow with date)

• Actions items that would be interesting for others to know (contract negotiations, client meetings, product review, applying for loan/grant)

• Linestop escalation that is being handled (what is the linestiop, what is the plan today to attack it)

• NCRs / CARs that are yellow or red

• Action items that involve multidisciplinary teams (Connect Grow Go People Development Program activity, Multi-Disciplinary Team meetings)

• Tours or reciprocal tours

• Today-sized chunks from tomorrow cards

DON'T:

• Daily habits

• Share that you are doing daily habits (such as huddles, kata coaching cycles, etc.

Future action items that have a date in the future.

Extensions may be given by the customer of that card or the GM.

• Goal is to start at 7:30 sharp, and guide the discussion to end on or before 7:45, hard stop at 8:00

• Host stops the meeting after the HELP column and the team Moves necessary cards to today

• If it doesn’t sound like someone is walking away with an action item from an open issue on a card, ask who has an action item and where should it be moved to

• If a conversation on any card appears to be going long, the host should speak up and ask if we should consider taking it offline afterwards

• Listen for items that are essential for us to talk about in this huddle (multi-disciplinary or growth conversations). If it is valuable for people to hear the conversation, let it play out. If it is going long, request that we find another time to work on it together. If it does not or should not involve the team, ask if it should go offline with a smaller group. Any team member can propose moving this to another time

• If the person missed stating the Kata format on cards what we are doing today (What do they expect? What actually happened? What did we learn?), ask those questions to build in Kata thinking

• Host has opportunity to give input to GM, OS Designer, and OS Curator on the huddle system

• Avoid reading the cards, rather speak to the content of the cards

• When done, direct it to the next card owner

• Add kata details in the card details for the Today cards

• The expectation is to bring problems with proposals to review together

• Each central huddle team members must have a backup in place when they are unavailable. Ideally, this backup has equal or less authority in the org chart to provide a growth opportunity and reduce hand-off waste

  • For leads, this is by default the backup lead

  • For managers, this is one of their direct reports who is backing them up for the day/week

  • The GM can not be a backup so that he can focus on optimizing the system and “listening to the music”

• Duties:

  • Represent their cards in their place

    • Example 1: When Kelly is out on PTO, Sarah joins the Central huddle and represents AM during the Daily Bookings and Jobs Due To Ship cards

    • Example 2: When Jacob is unavailable, Jason backs him up and represents shipping in the Jobs Due to Ship Report

  • Take action items on behalf of the primary

    • Example 1: Tyler is on a call with Buzzi and Kelly is there on behalf of Tyler, sharing his cards and taking action items that he would normally get taken by Tyler

    • Example 2: Oliver is on PTO and has identified Bert to step in for him

• Listen to the music

• Ensure the right section is playing the correct note (the right owner takes the right card)

• Coach the teams

• Provide feedback to the host

• On Monday, coach asks the learner what their focus will be for the week (examples: ending on a positive note, ending on time, letting a couple of conversations develop)

• Coach has opportunity to give input to GM on the system at the end of the week. Format is top 2 takeaways from the week, any surprises that you experienced, and any ideas for improvement consideration

• Be on time to both meetings

• Must have an understanding of the host standard work

• Listen, no coaching during the meeting

• Focus on in the AM:

* Did the host keep the meeting on track for the time commitment

* Did the help cards become action items, if applicable

* Did the appreciate cards address which Toyota principle was met

* Did the to-do cards share an expectation

• Focus in the PM

* Just Listen for potential feedback tomorrow

• Read the one key learning to share with the team

• Do not share the micro-learnings, the team will pull if they are interested

• Share the next Target Condition once it is set