The Lean Information

Management Toolkit
ANDY Ibbitson (Executive editor)
and ROBIN SMITH

Published by

In association with

The Lean Information Management Toolkit

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The Lean Information

Management Toolkit
ANDY Ibbitson (Executive editor)
and ROBIN SMITH

Published by

In association with

Contents
Executive summary.............................................................................................................VII
About the author................................................................................................................IX
About the executive editor...................................................................................................XI
Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................XIII
Part one: Understanding and implementing lean information management
Chapter 1: Introduction to lean information management................................................... 3
The improvement imperative................................................................................................... 3
Information threat assessment................................................................................................. 4
Introducing the idea of lean.................................................................................................... 5
The orgins of lean.................................................................................................................. 6
Value to waste ratio............................................................................................................... 7
The further development of lean............................................................................................. 7
Five core lean themes............................................................................................................ 8
Understanding the lean workplace.......................................................................................... 9
Introducing LIM................................................................................................................... 10
The goal of LIM................................................................................................................... 11
Chapter 2: Lean information management concepts.......................................................... 13
Cui bono?.......................................................................................................................... 13
Beginning the journey....................................................................................................... 14
Introducing the LIM framework.............................................................................................. 14
Components of LIM framework............................................................................................. 14
Tackling information waste.................................................................................................... 19
Total LIM framework............................................................................................................. 20
Chapter 3: LIM techniques................................................................................................ 21
Introducing LIM techniques................................................................................................... 21
Technique one: Pull versus push............................................................................................ 22
Technique two: Kanban........................................................................................................ 24
Technique three: 5S method................................................................................................. 25
Technique four: Value stream mapping (VSM)........................................................................ 26

III

Contents

Technique five: Visual management....................................................................................... 28

Technique six: Kaizen blitz..................................................................................................... 29
Technique seven: Cause and effect analysis........................................................................... 31
Blending the LIM techniques................................................................................................. 32
Chapter 4: LIM Projects..................................................................................................... 35
Achieving a lean workplace.................................................................................................. 36
Portfolio of LIM projects........................................................................................................ 36
Project one: Deploying pull/push review to assess policy requirements..................................... 36
Project two: Using kanban to develop information technology systems requirements.................. 37
Developing e-mail optimisation kanban................................................................................. 38
Project three: Deploying 5S to develop classification strategies................................................ 39
Lean insight five5. ................................................................................................................ 41
Project four: Improving information handling processes with value stream mapping.................. 42
Project five: Visual management to support performance management and knowledge sharing.43
Project six: Kaizen events to improve legacy content management........................................... 45
Project seven: Cause and effect analysis to produce strategic information risk assessment for
improved business intelligence.............................................................................................. 46
LIM projects key success factors............................................................................................ 47
Chapter 5: Implementing LIM............................................................................................ 49
Managing change............................................................................................................... 49
Lean information and change management........................................................................... 50
Implementing a change management strategy....................................................................... 51
Interview with a lean implementation expert........................................................................... 52
Stage one: Plan................................................................................................................... 54
Stage two: Do..................................................................................................................... 55
Stage three: Check.............................................................................................................. 56
Stage four: Act.................................................................................................................... 56
Key definitions..................................................................................................................... 57
Lean master schedules......................................................................................................... 58
Critical success factors......................................................................................................... 59
Chapter 6: Lean information and performance management............................................ 61
Introducing lean performance management........................................................................... 62
LIM performance management process................................................................................. 62
Implementing a LIM performance strategy.............................................................................. 63
Tools supporting LIM performance management.................................................................... 64
Linking performance and benefits management...................................................................... 65
Chapter 7: Lean information and knowledge management............................................... 67
Knowledge management defined.......................................................................................... 67
The need for lean knowledge management........................................................................... 67
Exploding three LKM myths................................................................................................... 68

IV

The Lean Information Management Toolkit

Lean knowledge management techniques.............................................................................. 68

LKM skills and competencies................................................................................................. 70
Chapter 8: The improvement journey................................................................................ 71
Back to the beginning....................................................................................................... 71
The future of LIM................................................................................................................. 71
Chapter 9: Final reflections from the executive editor........................................................ 73
Part two: Case studies
Case study 1: Interview with UK Formula One design guru, Graham Swinton.................... 77
Lean design......................................................................................................................... 77
Case study 2: Lean Aerospace Initiatives approach to information and
knowledge assessment . ................................................................................................... 83
The history and development of lean..................................................................................... 83
Introduction of lean production and design............................................................................ 83
Lean Aerospace Initiative...................................................................................................... 84
Getting started LESAT........................................................................................................ 85
Gap analysis results............................................................................................................. 85
Impact and results................................................................................................................ 86
Case study 3: St Andrews Universitys total lean methodology and its impact on business
information management.................................................................................................. 87
Context............................................................................................................................... 87
JISC information projects...................................................................................................... 87
Organisational context......................................................................................................... 88
Implementing lean within the organisation............................................................................. 89
Case study 4: Implementing 5S technique within a UK NHS acute trust as part
of national strategy........................................................................................................... 93
Systematic change............................................................................................................... 93
NHS and the lean journey.................................................................................................... 93
Lean information strategy..................................................................................................... 94
Corporate information principles........................................................................................... 95
Introducing lean information technique 5S.......................................................................... 96
Results and impact............................................................................................................... 96
NHS lean strategy................................................................................................................ 98
Part three: Appendices
Appendix 1: Lean information management resources.................................................... 101

Contents

Appendix 2: Seven waste evaluation form template......................................................... 103

Appendix 3: 5S evaluation form template........................................................................ 107
Appendix 4: Kaizen blitz evaluation template.................................................................. 113
Appendix 5: Cause and effect diagram template............................................................. 115
Appendix 6: Improvement tracking template................................................................... 117
Appendix 7: Master schedule example............................................................................ 119
Index.............................................................................................................................. 121

VI

Executive summary
The new reality for all organisations,
whether public or private, is that all business
processes need to be optimised. With the
world economy contracting by three per cent
in the next 18 months, every organisation
must manage information as an asset
throughout its operations and develop
leaner information processes to deliver
better intelligence. This will underpin the
retention of competitive advantage during
tough times.
Added to the global economic
depression there are a number of
specific information risks and threats to
organisational performance arising from the
fact that:
The volume of information maintained is
doubling every 18 months;
Forty per cent of professionals' time is
spent trying to manage or repurpose
unstructured data; and
Eighty per cent of this information is
created and managed by individuals at
the desktop.1
The days of accepting certain overheads
arising from information management are
over, from costly storage of paper records
to poor intelligence development that limits
collaboration and improvement. Information
management and its practitioners across
all industries must now become lean.
Few information professionals have really
embraced improvement as a way of life. This
has to change.

But what is lean and why is it relevant?

Lean is all about leveraging assets to gain
the most value, a key activity in the current
economic downturn. Lean is basically all
about getting the right things, to the right
place, at the right time, in the right quantity
while minimising waste and being flexible
and open to change. This is based on
improving business flows whilst reducing
costs arising from operations to a minimum
level. For example, the inability to share
business knowledge amongst information
workers due to technical limitations within an
organisation is a clear example of waste. This
has profound implications for information
professionals who are still struggling with risks
and issues relating to information flows across
departments and services.
Lean information management (LIM)
is the latest development that marries lean
flow manufacturing process concepts with
excellence in information and knowledge
management practices. Separately both
practices enable businesses to operate
efficiently and effectively however when they
are married together the results can
be dramatic.
At present information professionals
struggle to deliver improvement using
current techniques such as information
auditing. Technology can merely mirror
poorly functioning processes in a digital
environment. LIM solves the conundrum
of how to meet complex compliance
requirements with the need to reduce costs
and deliver improvement. LIM centres on

VII

Executive summary

using the minimum amount of resources

people, materials, and capital to produce
solutions and deliver them on time to
customers. It is a team-based approach to
identifying and eliminating waste through
continuous improvement by flowing the
product at the pull of the customer in pursuit
of perfection.
Introducing LIM allows progressive
organisations to start taking control of paper
and electronic information processes as well
as enterprise information management. LIM
draws on best practices from a range of
sectors to create a new approach to raising
the value and flow of business information
and knowledge.
The techniques integrate excellence
in the capture and realisation of business
information with innovative tools to enhance
flow and value including visual management
and rapid action reviews. This integrated
techniques portfolio can offer information
professionals new ways of tackling risks
and threats that have impeded information
strategy for many years.
LIM also places a specific focus on value
across an organisation, which information
professionals have had little success in
achieving to date. Value evidently has many
dimensions but in the eyes of the customers,
shareholders and stakeholders it can mean
delivering processes and services that identify
the value stream and eliminate waste. LIM
can also provide information and support for
the development of new products and services
providing organisations with the opportunity
to enter new markets. The aspiration of LIM is
to deliver continuous improvement in pursuit
of perfection in all activities.
This report will provide a comprehensive
guide to LIM, from assessing the
organisations information process flows
through the lean implementation process,
to the end result of accessible, secure

VIII

business knowledge. The objective is to

provide a complete techniques portfolio
for implementation of LIM within any
organisation that is struggling with rising
costs during recessionary times.
The report consists of two parts. Part
One provides an overview of LIM concepts,
methods and techniques, with a step-bystep process presented to help information
professionals deliver projects that reduce
costs and improve information flows. Part
Two consists of four case studies from a
range of international organisations, both
public and private, which have addressed
LIM in a diverse number of approaches.
Finally, a series of appendices are
provided to outline key resources and
adaptable templates for information
professionals to use as part of a LIM project.
Reference
1. Woollacott, E., Digital content doubles every
18 months, TG Daily, 19 May 2009. For
further information visit:www.tgdaily.com/
hardware-features/42499-digital-contentdoubles-every-18-months.

About the author

Robin Smith is currently head of information governance for Northampton General Hospital.
He has worked extensively in the UK police service as a senior information management change
manager. He is an established writer, masterclass leader and lecturer in the development of the
open information society. He also authored the information risk and intelligence model (IRIM). He is
currently completing his PhD in information risk management following his innovative studies of the
global banking crisis.
Robin was formerly marketing director of the Information and Records Management Society UK
and will shortly publish his new book, Blackout; the coming collapse of the digital society. He is also
the author of Information Risk Management: Valuing, Protecting and Leveraging Business Information
(Ark Group, 2009) and Digitising Records and Information Assets (Ark Group, 2010).
Robin can be contacted at robinsmith64@hotmail.com.

IX

About the executive editor

Andy Ibbitson is currently business improvement director at Carillion Local Government Services
based in the West Midlands. He has worked in a number of companies delivering improvement through
lean and Six Sigma methodologies, including Jaguar Land Rover and the National Health Service.
He holds an MBA and an MSc from Coventry University, and is a member of the Chartered
Management Institute. Andy is currently leading on the delivery of major improvement programs for
his present employer in the civil engineering sector using lean and Six Sigma.
Andy can be contacted at andy.ibbitson@tiscali.co.uk
.

XI

Acknowledgements
Certain material reproduced in this report is Crown copyright.
Andy Ibbitson would like to thank Robin Smith for his patience and enthusiasm, and his wife Tina
for her constant encouragement.
Robin Smith would like to thank Andy Ibbitson for his constant stream of great ideas and his wife
Joy for her grace and support throughout this project.

XIII