Comments on: Of Team Size, Social Loafing and Lack of Direction

By: leansim

leansim — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:37:22 +0000

I like small, intimate groups, especially useful for one-on-one training. Depending on the scope of the kaizen, I prefer a facilitator and 4 or 5 others. Each person can be involved in the problem at hand.
Of course, when doing large scale training, you can run great simulations with 10 to 20 people competing in teams. Due to the “loafing” aspect you mention, this is works best with generic overview style training.

By: markrhamel

markrhamel — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:32:35 +0000

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the comment and the sharing of your experience!

Team size is a fairly basic concept, but it gets complicated when we don’t do a good job scoping the target or carefully getting proper team representation without including “everyone.” Team selection is critical within a number of different venues and vehicles – strategy deployment sessions, kaizen events, mini-kaizens, daily kaizen activities, etc.

Best regards,
Mark

By: Matt Wrye

Matt Wrye — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:13:35 +0000

Mark, you are right on with this. I have seen teams get too large many times. I have coached managers in selecting appropriate teams for the kaizen events but sometimes they go against the advice, trying to get everyone involved. Instead, too many people end up standing around and you are trying to keep them busy or the group is too big and not as many ideas are shared because most employees don’t want to share in front of a big group.

I really like you suggestion that if the scope is too big, have a core team and then smaller subteams. I have seen that work.

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Sat, 26 Jun 2010 12:37:54 +0000

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