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The “lean communication four-step model”, developed by professor Sven Windahl at the Scandinavian communication consultancy Nordisk Kommunikation, was built to systematically deal with four key aspects of communication work:1. To assess what kind of communication yields

the most value for the organization and to concentrate all communication efforts on that.

2. To analyze and restructure the organization’s communication system in order to obtain optimal efficiency and results in line with the chosen mission.

3. To find out what departmental structure and what work processes would serve the chosen mission best.

4. To decide what kinds of communication processes would be optimal for the future, and how to be effective with a minimum of waste, i.e. work that does not create real value.

To a certain extent the model is inspired by the thinking of “lean production”. Originally developed in the Japanese car industry, the notion of lean production has in recent times been featured in several other areas of business sectors, though to a little extent in the field of communication. Its major concepts are creation of value and elimination of waste. It’s easy to agree with Bill Quirke, for the readers of SCM a well known expert on internal communication, when he states that a great part, perhaps a majority, of internal communication activities is not value-creating. As we’ll show in this article, value-creation is something that can indeed be addressed.

This is the story about what the corporate affairs department of Kraft Foods Nordic did to create more value to the business, and to work smarter with less waste in terms of time (people) and money.

The processFrom start to finish, it took about three months to complete the four stations (see Figure One, page 29). Every station goes through two phases: one is the research phase and the second is the discussion/decision phase. In the research period of each station, data is collected or retrieved, interviews with key persons are conducted and preliminary analyses are made. The discussion/decision typically takes a day, and involves a group of communicators and representatives from other relevant departments. In this case, it was HR and the managing director.

Focus on value-adding at Kraft Foods Nordic

These days many communication departments are up against demands for increased efficiency at a lower cost. This was also the case in Kraft Foods Nordic,

an area unit within Kraft Foods Europe. Its corporate affairs director, Annica Johansson, chose to make a thorough review of her department’s structure and processes, using the “lean communication four-step model”. The purpose was to ensure communication activities were focused on the most value-adding activities to drive the business.

Kraft Foods Nordic made a communication review choosing a “lean communication four-step model”

BY ANNICA JOHANSSON AND SVEN WINDAHL

scm FEATURES

1 2 3 4 5

Kraft Foods is the second largest food company in the world, with revenues of approximately $50 billion, sales in 160 countries, and more than 140,000 employees.

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Station One: Doing the right things. Formulating the communication mission/goalsFor any communication department it’s important to do the right things, not just doing things right. The process of Station One is built on the assumption that communicators aren’t necessarily the best people to decide what the most important and urgent challenges and possibilities faced by an organization are. In our case, the Kraft Foods Nordic Managing Director participated in Station One’s discussion/decision day, offering his views of what he saw as the most important challenges for the next couple of years for the business. Next, it was up to the communicators in the group to assess to what extent communication could contribute to reach the goals connected to each of the challenges. The process produced a ranking list of organizational goals for the communication department to commit itself to reach. The list also triggered a useful discussion on what activities should not be done, based on their level of value-creation.

Gains: • Beingsureofdoingtherightthings.• Buildingthecouragetosay“no”tolessvalue-

creating activities and assignments.

Station Two: Ensuring an efficient communication systemThe concept of communication system has proven to be very helpful. It denotes the sum of the organization’s most important communication channels, “actors” (such as managers and employees), “interfaces” (such as meetings and events) and “networks” (for example communities of practise). All organizations have their communication system and subsystems, yet few have made the effort to describe and analyze them, thereby losing invaluable insight into which tools to use and combine, and how to continuously improve their system.

While both the external and internal communication systems were analyzed – we found it, in this particular case, most relevant to focus on the internal part of the communication system.

Station Two included a thorough analysis of the communication system in Kraft Foods Nordic, both reviewing and evaluating each element and sub-system and the system as a whole. The main question was: have we got a communication system that fits the mission and goals that we agreed on in Station One? And: what elements and relationships within the system are most critical to meet the challenges and reach goals?

Unsurprisingly, we found out that some “actors” are more important and influential

than others. For example, it was striking to see to what extent the local managing director, as a communicator, was crucial in reaching the goals we had agreed upon. Also, the analysis pointed at the importance of creating a specific channel directed at managers in order to make more efficient use of face-to-face cascade communication. Some elements of the system turned out to be more of a disturbance – such as multiple international senders – than a useful tool and were excluded from future use. By focusing on the local context, messages were formulated in a way that made better sense.

Gains: • AmorereliablepictureoftheKraftFoods

Nordic communication toolbox, facilitating faster strategic decisions.

• Reductionofwasteasaresultofnon-optimalcommunication means.

• Clarityonstrengthsandweaknessesinthesystem and how to leverage and/or address these.

Station Three: Right organization and smart work processesThis station considers the organization of the department and its work processes. Questions asked here:• Dowe,basedonourdecisionsatStation

One and Two, have the best possible work distribution within the team?

• Dowehaveaflexiblestructurewhichcanmeet the objectives at all times?

• Canadepartmentwithfewermembersofstaffcarry out the same tasks?

• Canwemakethemostimportantworkprocesses leaner, with less waste?

In this station, all employees in the communication department participated. We 3

KEY POINTS• TheKraftFoodNordiccorporateaffairsdepartmentadoptedthe“lean

communicationfour-stepmodel”–designedbyNordiskKommunication–ensuringthatcommunicationactivitieswerefocusedonaddingthemostvaluetothebusiness.

• Thereviewledtoabetterunderstandingofcommunicationgoals,andmoreefficientsystemsandworkprocesses.

• ThecommunicationdepartmentatKraftFoodsNordicwasabletodemonstratethevaluetheybroughttothecompany,andcannowusethetoolforcontinuousimprovement.

Annica Johansson is the Director of Corporate Affairs for Kraft Foods in Nordic & Benelux. She is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In this role, Annica and her team are responsible for defining and executing the communications strategy for Kraft Foods in Nordic and Benelux, which encompasses seven countries.

Sven Windahl is a Communication Professor and Consultant, and the founder of Nordisk Kommunikation, a consultancy specialized in internal communication with offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen. Sven has acted as a consultant for many major Scandinavian organizations such as Volvo, Ericsson, TeliaSonera, Carlsberg and Scandinavian Airlines Systems.

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thought it important for all to have their say and be able to influence the final outcome.

Among other tools we used a process commonly used in lean practise. We made a list of all major activities handled by the department today and clustered them in as many groups as the expected number of people. Some activities, such as meetings within and outside the department, were decisively restructured – something that turned out to be a surprisingly easy task to do.

Lean production development concentrates to a large degree on cutting waste, and making work processes more effective. Whereas most people may agree on how easy it is to describe and analyze recurring processes in industrial production, a lot of doubts have been voiced as to the possibility and usefulness of doing it in other

areas such as HR and communications. For Kraft Foods Nordic, however, our process exercises turned out to be both feasible and rewarding.

Three sample processes were chosen:1. The approval process of press releases.2. Translations; very time-consuming in

a department serving four countries in a publicly held company where communications are English-language based.

3. Content production for our different channels.

Each process was analyzed step-by-step with the aim of:• Reducingthenumberofstepsandpeople

involved.• Makingexchangesbetweendifferentactors

more efficient.• Makingiteasiertostopunnecessaryactivities

as early as possible in the process.

Gains: • Anagreed-upon,optimizedteamstructure

with fewer staff members focusing on themes rather than geographies.

• Centeringonthemostimportanttasks.• Considerablepotentialsavingsintermsof

work effort and time in the processes.

Station Four: Defining more effective communication processesFrom the task of making working processes more lean and effective we then moved to finding out whether we were thinking about communication the right way, that is, if we were using the right communication tools, the right theories and models. In this last station we discussed, among other themes:• Leanworkisn’tonlyaquestionofsavingtime

for the department. It’s even more important to save other people’s time. And we can do this by helping managers to communicate smarter with more useful materials, common messaging platforms and by being better at writing in a shorter and clearer style.

• Communicationusuallycreatesthemost value when it brings about action and changes behavior. But too many communication activities only reach at best knowledge effects that are of little or no value. Therefore, the communication department chose to shift focus and efforts from general content production to counseling/supporting the face-to-face communication cascade process.

• Thecascadingprocesswasfoundtobeeffective in change communication but less so when it came to general communication.

Focus on value-adding at Kraft Foods Nordic

7

“THELEANPROCESSISATOOLFORCONTINUOUSIMPROVEMENT,WHICHCANHELPCOMMUNICATIONSDEPARTMENTGROWTHEIR‘WORTH’TOTHEBUSINESSOVERTIME”

SMARTER COMMUNICATIONStationFourdealswiththecommunicationprocess.Inacommunicationenvironmentcharacterizedbyasteadilyincreasingamountofcompetingmessagesandaneedtogeteffectsfaster,ourtaskascommunicatorsgetstougher.

TheLeanCommunicationconceptsuggeststhatgreaterefficiencycanbegainedbyimplementingthefollowingprinciples:

• Try to stay away from indirect communication processes.Forexample,ifyouwanttochangepeoples’behaviour,askyourselfifyoucanavoidusingthetraditionalknowledge-attitude-behaviourmodel.Instead,theremightbewaystodirectlytriggerthedesirablebehaviour.

• Think twice before you initiate cultural change projects and value platforms. Choosetosupportprocessesthatarefast,expectsmallornilimmediateeffectsfromprocessesthatneedprofoundpsychologicalandbehaviouralchanges.

• Don’t disturb those in the organization that are not concerned with your communication. Usesegmentationinyourinternalcommunicationasmuchasyoudoexternally.Alwaysavoidcommunicationprocesseswhere“innocent”peoplewillbeexposedanddisturbed.

• Do right from the beginning. Ensurethatthemessagesfromthetopoftheorganizationarewellformulatedalreadyatthesource.Badlyformulatedmessageswillforceyouaswellasmiddlemanagerstoputunnecessaryamountsofworkreprocessingthemateriallateron.

• Communication can be condensed.Toolsforshrinkingare,forexample:keyfigures,storytelling,visualization,metaphors,intranetinformationdeliveredonlyonceortwiceaday,shortbutintelligibleversionsofinformation.

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The group decided to make the cascading process of general subjects more structured and monitored.

Gains: • Aroutineofthinkingtwicebeforechoosing

a tactic or strategy, including a series of questions, including: to what extent does this create value? Is this the best way to obtain desired effects? And, are we really trying to get the right effects?

• Furthermorefindingasmarterwayofreaching internal audiences with general content.

SummingupThe project was finished in January 2010, and with some months’ hindsight it’s possible to make the following reflections:• TheLeancommunicationprocesshasbeena

powerful tool to get both the communication department and management aligned in terms of what to deliver. It’s easier to say “no” now, and to demonstrate what value the department brings to the business.

• Acommunicationdepartmentcan’tdoeverything; this process has greatly helped Kraft Foods Nordic communications department focus on what is most important in order to achieve business targets.

• Focusshouldconstantlybeonissuesandtasks where the communication department and communication have the most, or a unique, impact.

• TheLeanprocessisatoolforcontinuous improvement, which can help communications department grow their “worth” to the business over time. scm

CONTACT DETAILS

Annica JohanssonKraft Foods Nordic & BeneluxDetails tbc

Sven WindahlNordisk Kommunikationsw@nordisk-kommunikation.com

LESSONS FROM LEAN PRODUCTION• Timeawarenessisessentialinleanproduction.Acaseinpointisthejust-

in-timeconceptthatreferstotheprincipleofhavingmaterialsuchasmotorpartsdeliveredjustadayorhoursbeforetheywillbeassembled,therebylesseningthedependenceofkeepinglargestocksofparts.Incommunication,carefulplanningandtiminggetincreasinglyimportantforobtainingmaximumeffects.Somecommunicationdepartmentsuseversionsofkanbanplanningboardsusedinleanproductiontosteertheproductionprocesses.

• Whileprocessfocusistheheartofleanproduction,professionalsofoursphereoftendismissthenotionanduseofmoreorlessstandardizedworkprocessesincommunicationwork.AsthepresentationoftheKraftFoodsexampleshows,analysesofworkprocessesinthecommunicationdepartmentmaybeusefulandrewarding.Removingbottlenecksmaybeasimportantinaninternalcommunicationcontentprocessasitisatacarassemblyplant.

• Inorganizinginternalcommunication,theleanproductionprincipleofbuildingaflexibleworkteamshouldbeused.Themorerigidtheteamstructure,themorepeopleyou’llneed,resultinginunnecessarywasteofresources.

Figure One: The lean communication four-step model.