Do you remember the rather bizarre statement made by Donald Rumsfeld about the Iraq War? He said something along the lines of "There are known knowns, there are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns." He was paraphrasing an interesting and useful concept that I have chosen to form the basis of this blog and it goes like this........

Prior to becoming aware of Lean/Service Improvement and how it can benefit organisations, individuals can be said to be Unconscious (as in they are unaware that they do not know about Lean) and Inexperienced (in that they have no experience of doing it).

When someone goes on a training programme, they suddenly become 'Conscious' of Lean and yet are still Inexperienced, but often will not realise that they are in a dangerous state in that they believe they know how to 'do Lean' because the concepts are easy in the head, but much harder in the hand.

Alternatively, if they don't go on a training programme, they might be lucky and pick up some of the concepts - so they are Unconscious (in that they do not know about Lean) but have acquired some Experience. This is also a dangerous state in that when they do become aware of Lean they may think they already have the capability to do it properly because they have learnt some of the tools.

Lastly, there are those who either acquire the skills through training or become aware of Lean through another route and who then acquire the right experience over an extended period to be classed as proficient. This lucky group consists of the Conscious & Experienced leaders of Lean.

Probably still as confusing as Donald Rumsfeld but I thought it was interesting......what do you think?

Are you following Mark Eaton on Twitter yet? If not, visit http://twitter.com/markeaton