Are you a hunter or a farmer | A metaphor to discuss Lean & Operational Excellence styles

In continuous improvement, there are two key approaches: the "hunter" and the "farmer." These metaphors describe different mindsets and strategies for achieving performance improvements in an organisation. In this video, I explore these two approaches and how they relate to Continuous Improvement initiatives, providing a framework to help you identify which strategy suits your organisation best—or if a combination of both is needed.

Hunters are those who actively seek out the biggest losses or problems, focusing on fixing them quickly for immediate results. This approach is about solving urgent issues and delivering short-term gains. Farmers, on the other hand, are all about cultivating long-term improvements. They focus on building systems, developing capabilities, and ensuring that processes become more stable and efficient over time. While hunters chase immediate fixes, farmers aim for sustainability and continuous growth.

By understanding these two styles, you’ll be able to tailor your improvement strategy, balancing short-term performance boosts with long-term capability development. Whether you lean more towards the "hunter" mentality or the "farmer" approach, this metaphor can help guide your improvement activities and organisational culture.

#continuousimprovement #kaizen #leanmanagement

00:00 Introduction: Hunter vs Farmer in Continuous Improvement
01:04 The Hunter Approach: Chasing Losses for Immediate Gains
03:45 The Farmer Approach: Cultivating Systems for Long-term Growth
06:12 Balancing Short-term and Long-term Strategies
08:40 When to Use Hunting or Farming in a Factory
10:42 How to Integrate Both Approaches in Your CI Programme
12:50 Conclusion: The Importance of Both Mindsets in CI

[paulallen]

As always good Stuff Tom....Have you thought that maybe you should start as a Hunter and then become more of a Farmer as time goes on? To continue the analogy, most of my clients are starving! so we need a couple of quick kills to save them from diasaster. A bit of roasted wild boar is always a good way to get some interest! But once that pressure is removed and we see the need for process improvement we can take a bit more time plan our next moves and gradually move on the farming, Just my experience though. Inside a company you might be able to start farming from day 1...

[lunizparlein]

The " farmers" are easyer to " program" and control..