Philosophies, Processes & Tools

I was discussing different approaches to improvement with a friend this week who is very keen on 'NLP' and he took the stance that 'Lean' was just a 'tool' for improvement.

Sadly, this is the perception of many who do not know the detail of how to make organisations better or only understand 'their' way (whether that is Six Sigma, Lean, NLP etc etc)

I would identify three levels of activity to be undertaken:

• Philosophy - what is the strategic approach that best suits your need
• Processes - what are the different ways that you might use to implement your philosophy
• Tools - what techniques or management tools might you use to support your processes

Taking a comparison of Six Sigma, Lean (and because it was raised NLP) at these three levels I propose the following:

Lean
- Philosophy - the elimination of 'waste' and creation of value, flow and pull
- Processes - Value Stream Mapping, Rapid Improvement Events etc
- Tools - 5S, SMED, TPM etc

Six Sigma
- Philosophy - the elimination of variation in process and through this consistency
- Processes - DMAIC, Process Analysis, Focused Improvement Teams etc
- Tools - SPC, TPM, SMED, DoE etc

NLP
- Philosophy - improving relationships between individuals and getting 'more done'
- Processes - coaching sessions, group facilitation etc
- Tools - Swish, Goal Setting, etc etc

Now, if you just assume that 'Lean' is a tool, which of the hundreds of improvement tools is it?

What do you think?