Instant Pudding

W. Edwards Deming is credited with popularizing the term “instant pudding” in continuous improvement. More accurately, he states that there is no instant pudding in CI, and that you should not expect immediate results.

He lists this desire for quick and easy fixes as an obstacle to improvement in his book, “Out of the Crisis.” Of note, he credits James K. Bakken, of Ford Motor Company, as the source of the term for him.

The desire for instant pudding in Lean causes several problems.

1. Leaders dramatically underestimate the amount of time and money a Lean transformation will take. They don’t provide enough resources, and don’t clear the calendar properly.
2. Leaders don’t prepare their teams for change Employees are led to believe that the transition will be quick and easy. In reality, it is hard and takes a long time. That disconnect can erode trust.
3. Leaders are more likely to abandon Lean. Once they realize that it is far harder than expected, it raises the likelihood that the leaders who spearheaded the effort will cut bait and go back to the old ways.
4. It can be discouraging for companies. If they think Lean is supposed to be extremely fast and easy, they think they should be able to quickly catch up to Lean competitors. When they don’t, it can cause conflict as the leadership team looks for what went wrong. It becomes easy to point fingers and cast blame on people when the expectation is immediate results and they don’t deliver.