Following on from my blog post ‘Red is Good’, this post takes a look at the role the colour green plays in business in terms of Lean. The colour green is associated with all things positive –  go, start, progress, energy, growth, environment, finance etc. 

We use green in the Lean world to highlight when a target has been met, when something is on track, when a task has been completed, when we are happy with an outcome. As green is associated with positive outcomes, it would be normal to think that all green is good.

This is not always the case.

Problems exist in all processes and if all we are seeing is green then these problems are not visible.  In this case then ‘All Green is Red!’. Problems will be invisible if your measures are too high level, too low level or if your measures are not the correct measures.

Taiichi Ohno’s well known saying ‘No problem is a problem’ is so true. If you are not seeing problems in your process than this is a problem.

How do you make problems visible in your workplace?

Does your culture support problem identification, discussion and solving?

Thanks for reading, you might like my previous post on ‘Red is Good’,

Siobhain

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