00:00All right, today, we're going to dive into something really powerful, a problem-solving
00:04system called Lean Tries.
00:05It was developed by the brilliant Dr. H. James Harrington, and it's all about tackling those
00:10really tough, thorny challenges that businesses face.
00:13Welcome to Unified Consulting Solutions, where we're all about simplifying complexity and
00:18boosting performance.
00:19And Lean Tries, it's a perfect example of that.
00:22It's a system built for speed, for real breakthrough innovation.
00:25And in this explainer, we're going to pull it apart and show you exactly how it works.
00:30So, here's our game plan.
00:32We'll kick things off by talking about why we even need faster innovation in the first
00:36place.
00:37Then we'll really get into the nuts and bolts of Lean Tries, what it is, its core methodologies,
00:42the whole five-phase process.
00:43And of course, we'll wrap up by looking at the kind of amazing results you can actually
00:47get with it.
00:48Now, our goal here is pretty straightforward.
00:51By the time we're done, you won't just know the definition of Lean Tries.
00:54No, you'll really get it.
00:56You'll understand how its unique toolkit can drive some seriously transformative results
01:01in just about any organization.
01:03So, let's dive right in.
01:05Okay, so first things first.
01:07To really appreciate Lean Tries, we need to understand the problem it was built to solve.
01:12You know, what's the big deal?
01:13Why is this whole idea of faster innovation so incredibly important right now?
01:18In this quote from Dr. Harrington himself, it just hits the nail on the head.
01:21Everyone wants things faster, better, and cheaper.
01:25I mean, isn't that the truth?
01:26Just think about it.
01:27Product life cycles have gone from years to just a few months.
01:30We went from waiting days for mail, to overnight shipping, to instant email.
01:34And now, if a message takes even an hour, we get antsy.
01:37That relentless demand for rapid improvement, it's literally everywhere.
01:41So, the big question is, how does Lean Tries actually tackle this massive challenge for
01:46more speed, more innovation?
01:48Well, it all comes down to two incredibly powerful foundational pillars.
01:53Okay, the first pillar is something you've probably heard of.
01:56Lean, right?
01:57It's that whole philosophy that came out of Toyota's amazing manufacturing system.
02:01And really, it boils down to one simple idea.
02:03Create more value for your customers using fewer resources.
02:07And how do you do that?
02:08By being absolutely relentless in hunting down and eliminating waste from every single process you have.
02:13Now, the second pillar, this is where things get really interesting.
02:16It's called TRIZ.
02:17It's actually a Russian acronym for the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.
02:21And it's based on this, well, this kind of radical idea.
02:24What if those big aha moments, those breakthrough inventions, what if they aren't just random flashes of genius?
02:30What if they actually follow predictable patterns that you, that anyone, can learn and use?
02:35And this wasn't just some theory pulled out of thin air.
02:38The foundation of TRIZ is built on a mind-boggling amount of research.
02:42The founder, a guy named Jenrick Altrueler, went through over 200,000 patents from all over the world.
02:48But here's the cool part.
02:49He wasn't looking for new ideas.
02:51He was looking for the patterns behind the ideas.
02:53It's like he was trying to create a universal cheat sheet for innovation itself.
02:57So, what did he find?
02:59His research basically sorted inventions into five different levels.
03:03And get this, he discovered that more than 95% of them are just level one or two.
03:08You know, simple fixes, minor tweaks to stuff that already exists.
03:12But the real game changers, the inventions that create entirely new industries, they're super, super rare.
03:18So, you can think of TRIZ as the map.
03:21The map designed to help us systematically find our way to those higher, more impactful levels of invention.
03:26But here's the genius of Dr. Harrington.
03:29He didn't just take Lean and TRIZ and mash them together.
03:33No.
03:33He did something much smarter.
03:35He brilliantly blended them with other proven tools to create a single, incredibly powerful system.
03:41What we call the Lean-TRIZ methodology, or LTM for short.
03:45And this right here, this is the whole shebang.
03:48The full toolkit.
03:49LTM brings together five key methodologies.
03:52We've already touched on Lean for being super efficient, and TRIZ for that out-of-the-box inventive thinking.
03:57But it also throws in value engineering, which we'll get to, and streamlined process improvement to really fine-tune your
04:03workflows.
04:04When you put them all together, you get this amazing multi-angled way of attacking any problem.
04:09Let's talk about value engineering for a second, because it's a really important piece of this puzzle.
04:13It's a technique that's actually been around since World War II, and it's built on a beautifully simple equation.
04:19Value is just function divided by cost.
04:23The logic is just undeniable, right?
04:25To increase value, you have two choices.
04:28You either improve the function of something, or you reduce its cost.
04:32Either way you go, you're creating more value.
04:34It's brilliant.
04:35Okay, so we've got all these incredible tools.
04:39Lean, TRIZ, value engineering.
04:41But how do they actually work together in the real world?
04:44Well, that's where the LTM process comes in.
04:47It lays out a super clear, five-phase roadmap that turns all this powerful theory into real, concrete action.
04:54The whole thing is broken down into this five-phase structure.
04:57And what's really important to know is that this is not some long, boring, drawn-out analysis.
05:02Not at all.
05:02It's designed to be a rapid sprint.
05:04The whole idea is to guide a team from what's the problem all the way to look at these results
05:10in a really, really short amount of time.
05:12So in phase one, one of the key tools you'll use is something called the S-curve.
05:17You can think of it like the biography of a product or service.
05:20It has a beginning, a rapid growth phase, it matures, and then it declines.
05:24The trick is you want to launch your big innovation project right at stage three, at the very peak, just
05:30before things start to plateau.
05:31It's all about jumping to the next S-curve before the one you're on runs out of gas.
05:36Then, when you get to the phase three workshop, everything is about speed and clarity.
05:41Teams use a simple but super effective prioritization matrix like this one to sort through all their ideas.
05:47And the goal is crystal clear.
05:49Find the bell ringers.
05:50Those are the green dots, the ideas that give you a massive payoff with easy implementation.
05:55You want to zero in on those and just stay away from the red dots that drain your resources for
06:00almost no gain.
06:01It's all about getting the maximum impact with the least amount of friction.
06:04All right, so you've got a killer process, but we all know that a process is only as good as
06:09the people running it.
06:10And this is another place where LTM is really smart.
06:13It's very deliberate about how you should structure your team to get the absolute best performance.
06:19LTM breaks it down into three very distinct roles.
06:22You've got the facilitator, the team leader, and the team member.
06:26Now, the facilitator's job is super specific.
06:29They are the guardian of the process.
06:31They only care about how decisions are being made.
06:34Why is that so critical?
06:36Because it completely frees up the team leader and the members to focus 100% of their brainpower on the
06:42content, on what the decision should be.
06:44That separation is the secret sauce for a ridiculously focused and productive workshop.
06:49But okay, let's talk about the bottom line.
06:52The results.
06:53Because this isn't just some nice theory you read in a book.
06:56The average, the average LTM project in a big company saves about $250,000.
07:03I mean, that is just a staggering return on investment, especially when you remember that this often comes from a
07:08workshop that lasts just two days, followed by a 90-day implementation cycle.
07:13Incredible.
07:14All right, let's wrap this up and bring it all together.
07:17What are the key things you really need to remember about Lean TRIZ?
07:21So, what have we learned?
07:23Well, we've seen that Lean TRIZ isn't just one thing.
07:26It's this powerful combination of proven tools.
07:29It gives you a structured, super fast process for solving those tough contradictions.
07:33And the end game?
07:34It delivers real, significant financial results by taking your gnarliest problems and turning them into real opportunities for a breakthrough.
07:42So, I want to leave you with a question to think about.
07:45What is that one impossible problem that your team is wrestling with right now?
07:50You know the one I'm talking about.
07:51The one where every time you try to fix one part of it, you accidentally make something else worse.
07:56That, that is exactly the kind of contradiction, the kind of challenge that Lean TRIZ was designed to solve.
08:03Now, if you want to go even deeper on this, and I really recommend you do, Dr. Harrington's book, Lean
08:08TRIZ, is the definitive guide.
08:09It's where we got the information for this explainer.
08:11Thank you so much for joining us here at Unified Consulting Solutions.
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