It was during the fabulous Mifune masterclass that the anecdote came back to me. In the Toyota literature, I had already heard about these zealous workers who try to show their dexterity to their manager: "of course I can go faster, I can even gain a few seconds with each cycle". Except that this would mean doing everything with the right hand (if the worker is right-handed) and would lead to musculoskeletal disorders in the long term. Of course the sensei would insist on using left and right hands at all time.
During the gemba walk, Umemura-san (an ex-Toyota employee and now Mifune’s founder) stopped at the workstation of an operator and invited us to look at what was happening (off course there was way too much noise for anything else). As the virtual tour continued, he stressed how important the use of both hands was important.
I've been struggling for a long time with how to translate this remark to our digital world. There is of course the posture on the chair or the position of the screen to consider. But that seemed too far removed from the actual moves made by operators. Until one day I saw an employee from my own team typing on her keyboard: off course, she was using both hands but only a couple of fingers.
A brief aside: at the end of my own adolescence, my mother forced (or was it convinced? My memory fails me on this point) me to learn typing. It was on an IBM PC under DOS 6.1 with one of those heavy and dense keyboards that make new generations envious. And just like a bicycle, you never forget it. Despite switching back and forth between QWERTY and AZERTY keyboards, between PC and Mac keyboards, I still type naturally with my two hands and ten fingers. Even though I’m not at the speed of secretaries of old, and probably never will…
So we started a little experiment at No Parking, Chloé and Ewen take 5 to 10 minutes on their work schedule every other day to learn how to type. There are many websites to help you progress: the progression curve is easy to gamify, you "just" have to master the position of each finger, then follow the movements for each letter and finally forget these combinations by repeating them. The fingers will get their own memory.
In a few months' time it will be time to check the effectiveness of the experiment on the first two guinea pigs and with a bit of luck (or relevance) the rest of the team should follow.
