Hello everybody,
it’s been a few months now since the 1. LTT took place at the HTW Dresden (FH) (in English: University of Applied Sciences) right in the middle of the wonderful city of Dresden beside the railroad tracks. The university used to be the national university for railroad engineers during the GDR-times and the closeness to Dresden Main Station can be explained.
Out of a number of about 700 participants -I don’t know about the activity of the people in the group- a small -but nevertheless ruthless- group of eleven people joined the 2-day sessions on the 15. and 16. of September. They came from all around Germany, either by plane, train or car and starting points of their journey were Lippstadt, Hannover, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Leipzig, Berlin, the Odenwald and -not to forget- Dresden. To make it a real lean knowledge expanding experience a hotel for all us was looked for with a special flair.
At first there was the idea of staying on a boat (Die Koje) in a small harbor in Dresden on the river Elbe. Because this was sold out we moved the location to the Mezcalero, a backpacker hostel close to the Königsbrücker Straße right in the heart of Dresden-Neustadt (the most vivid suburb of Dresden). After everybody had arrived that Friday night we strolled in the Neustadt to take something to eat and chat about what was coming the next two days. At around 1 am we left the place and moved back to Mezcalero , we agreed on breakfast at 7:30am the next morning and starting from there down to the HTW.
It was a peculiar feeling for myself "coming back" to the place where I had finished my studies some 10 years ago (almost on the spot). Anyway we met with Professor Eberle who had made the 1. LTT possible through lending us the discussion space over the weekend. As we had not decided on a fixed agenda we started off with a personal introduction of everyone and the drivers that drawn everybody towards "Lean Thinking". The span was covering students to long-term practioners. Next was the agenda for the coming days that had to be discussed. Everybody's ideas and wishes were brought together on a whiteboard and then we decided which course to take.
The Beergame became the main point of interest and we decided to start with a session of it right away (knowing that it could take some hours if played intensely with debriefing). We played from around 10 am to 7 pm (the reason we had to stop was that there was table reserved at Luisenhof at Dresden-Weißer Hirsch) and gained deep understanding what is going on in a supply chain (can be seen as a production line as well) and what countermeasures could undertaken to smooth the fluctuations (see also the LTT video and The Business Cycle). The Beergame offers various chances -even though not initially intended when invented at MIT for use in system dynamics- to analyze several phenomens from a lean point of view (e.g. kanban, levelling, communication, visual information, one-piece flow).
Just before we left we played the so-called "Five Easy Pieces" (German: Quadratspiel) where teams of five persons have to put some pieces of paper together in order to get equal squares. It sounds easy but it is not and the learning effect is amazing (so be suprised at the 2. LTT).
Sunday started a bit later as some of us had enjoyed the Dresden nightlife. The "Lego Game" stood on the agenda, a great game for making clear the necessity of standardization. In between during the breakes there were lots of discussion and looking through the vast book reservoir (some books can be found for short check on: Lean Books).After a few other games and a nice lunch at the "Kugelhaus" we all moved home with the feeling that there is more to come.
Feel free to comment on the postings -especially if you have attended the 1. LTT.
Best
Ralf
