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Developing a Culture of LeanTech Excellence

Henko offers advisory services and event facilitation to establish attention to excellence in the operating model and develop excellence-focused leadership.

Service type:

LeanTech Excellence

Audience(s):

Large and Mid-Size Organisations

System for Continuous Change:

Business Workshops, ChangeHub, Spirit Development, Meaningful Coaching

The challenge:

Everybody expects quality in digital business, but the reality rarely matches the expectations. You will hear about tech debt and new features feel like they take twice as long as they should.


Yet, everybody is focused on delivering; there isn't time to address the problems, and the shortfalls in excellence cost you every day. In the worst case, the shortfalls in excellence could substantially impact your organisation in a cyber incident as well.


As an industry, digital is still relatively new, and it has not been figured out how to balance quality consistently compared to other industries like automotive. Tech has much to learn from more mature industries, yet manufacturing production is not directly transferable, as tech mixes product development and production in all activities.


We help you design an intentional operating model and focused activities to put excellence firmly on the radar of collaboration.


Henko's differentiated approach:

Our approach is not to dictate what you should do or how you should do it but to create the context in your business that those discussions happen and alignment results.


We are guided by a very simple and fundamental principle that people will work at a standard and take ownership and initiative if they are involved in setting and continually improving the standards. It creates a culture that sharpens the critical spirit and attention to detail and drives collective accountability, all critical aspects of high-performing teams.


Our interventions generally start with an initial advisory part reviewing when and where Kaizen takes place and how to make relevant headroom for it, at team level and at system level:

  • We review the state of quality from data available, quality boards, and work organisation boards, and we "Go Genba" (i.e. Visit several team sessions, from planning to retros) to take stock of the engagement ownership,

  • From this review, we'll engage with various levels of leadership to understand their radar and proactiveness with excellence about the product as well as the ways-of-working and engagement/attitudes,

  • We work with leaders (and Champions) to shape Excellence sessions (or Kaizen / Continuous Improvement sessions) in the operating model and start running them, at team level (retrospective) and at system level,

  • We support you in determining the visualisation of improvements so they become an integral part of the work.


We can offer some training to your teams, although the most effective approach is to work straight from the practice of Kaizen and embed the education as part of the workshops:

  • We can facilitate the initial Kaizen events, bringing some education, uncovering challenges, and converging initial actions to improve,

  • We coach Kaizen leads and Kaizen sponsors in preparation to the Kaizen events, during the event and post-event,

  • Over time, we get your leadership to own the organisation of Kaizen and we reverse-shadow and coach them to fine-tune their leadership.


Our approach brings the pragmatic thinking and techniques of the Lean senseis, adapted to the work of digital and services, to create the ownership of quality within the teams and the leadership. In alignment to this ethos, we co-design the approach with you.


Expected outcomes: 

Our approach brings a continuous improvement culture as a DNA of the organisation (which is the only way to make it sustainable).


It will result in:

  • Better Agile retrospectives at the team level concluding with improvements that the teams will make, 

  • Measures of quality that inform the attention to detail, daily choices and better performance,  

  • Reduction in disruption and technical debt contributing over time to better Flow, 

  • Kaizen (Continuous Improvement) events at multiple levels of the system: product level, domain level, and cross-functional level, to create cadences and develop an organisation that improves itself continually as a DNA, 

  • Education of people to challenge themselves towards a better quality and generally raising the standards, 

  • Most importantly, a new energy and mutual accountability for quality and the belief in everybody that they can make a difference, 


Warning: Kaizen is for the long haul, and it is not easy. Expect hard work and to be challenged. 


Your next steps: 

Kaizen is not something that can be implemented in a templated fashion. It will be highly dependent on your operational, technical and leadership contexts. Kaizen is also highly practical and should be implemented through the practice of it. As a consequence, we would look to with an initial assessment to tailor an approach to your context.


Please get in touch to design an approach that works for your context.


We also offer some turn-key services that will focus attention on Kaizen and develop leadership ownership of Kaizen.

Your next steps with this service 

Let's design your change. Book a consultation

Let's design your change. Book a consultation

Initial consultation with our change specialists to discuss your challenges and options.

LeanTech productivity in services and tech businesses

LeanTech productivity in services and tech businesses

Initial review of your landscape for productiivity and excellence with Kaizen and LeanTech and design of an approach to improve.

Kaizen and LeanTech operating model design

Kaizen and LeanTech operating model design

Design your operating model to collaborate on excellence with Kaizen and LeanTech for services and tech. Advisory service to integrate Kaizen practices in your operating model.

Executive sparring partner for change

Executive sparring partner for change

On-going Assistance to help C-level executives & directors navigate the decision landscape of change.

LeanTech leadership coaching

LeanTech leadership coaching

Specialist coaching of senior roles to LeanTech and Kaizen leadership competencies to become an effective LeanTech leader.

LeanTech leadership supervision lab

LeanTech leadership supervision lab

Internal coaching labs focused on developing LeanTech Leadership skills with your people in practice.

Kaizen retro excellence lab for Agile teams

Kaizen retro excellence lab for Agile teams

Recalibrating the performance of retrospectives in Agile teams by implementing Kaizen practices.

Coaching supervision for Agile leaders

Coaching supervision for Agile leaders

Supervision for Agile leadership roles, Agile coaches and practitioners working with Agile change.

Frameworks used in this service 

The LeanTech Manifesto
The LeanTech Manifesto

The LeanTech Manifesto brings the Lean concepts into digital and tech.

Lean IT Kaizen
Lean IT Kaizen

We offer unique Kaizen training and facilitation in the space of Service and Digital Tech business. 

Agile Business Consortium
Agile Business Consortium

We work with the Agile Business Consortium for Business Agility.

The Flow System
The Flow System

We are qualified with the Flow System and it is core to all our offerings.

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