LMC Professional Standards & Ethics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A lean practitioner discovers that a process improvement she implemented is saving time but producing slightly out-of-spec parts that have not yet caused customer complaints. What is the ethical course of action?
- Wait for a customer complaint before taking action
- Immediately escalate the issue and revert the process pending investigation (Correct answer)
- Document the issue privately and monitor it for 30 days
- Adjust the specification limits to match the current output
Correct answer: Immediately escalate the issue and revert the process pending investigation
Ethical lean practice requires immediate transparency and corrective action when a defect is identified, regardless of whether customers have complained yet.
Question 2: Which principle best describes a lean practitioner's obligation when sharing kaizen results with stakeholders?
- Report only improvements that met their original targets
- Report all results accurately, including partial successes and failures (Correct answer)
- Omit failures to maintain team morale and management confidence
- Summarize results at year-end rather than in real time
Correct answer: Report all results accurately, including partial successes and failures
Transparency and honest reporting — including setbacks — are cornerstones of lean professional ethics and enable organizational learning.
Question 3: A consultant certified in lean is asked by a client to implement a tool that the consultant has studied but never applied in practice. What is the most ethical response?
- Proceed without disclosure since the client hired an expert
- Decline the engagement entirely
- Disclose the limitation and offer to co-facilitate with an experienced practitioner (Correct answer)
- Bill at a reduced rate but proceed independently
Correct answer: Disclose the limitation and offer to co-facilitate with an experienced practitioner
Professional ethics require practitioners to be transparent about the boundaries of their competence and to seek collaboration when needed.
Question 4: In lean management, 'respect for people' as an ethical standard most directly applies to which situation?
- Selecting the most cost-effective raw material supplier
- Involving frontline workers in designing their own standardized work (Correct answer)
- Prioritizing customer requests over supplier relationships
- Automating repetitive tasks without worker input
Correct answer: Involving frontline workers in designing their own standardized work
'Respect for people' means engaging those closest to the work in improvement decisions, honoring their knowledge and dignity.
Question 5: A lean manager notices a colleague falsifying data in an A3 report to make a failed project appear successful. The correct ethical action is to:
- Ignore it since the project is already closed
- Correct the data yourself without informing anyone
- Confront the colleague and, if unresolved, report to the appropriate authority (Correct answer)
- Mention it informally at the next team social event
Correct answer: Confront the colleague and, if unresolved, report to the appropriate authority
Lean professionals have an obligation to uphold data integrity; addressing misconduct directly and escalating when necessary is the required ethical response.
Question 6: Which behavior best demonstrates ethical use of lean authority by a value stream manager?
- Directing teams to skip standard work steps when behind schedule
- Accepting gifts from suppliers in exchange for favorable kaizen timing
- Empowering team members to stop the line when they identify a defect (Correct answer)
- Setting improvement targets without input from the affected team
Correct answer: Empowering team members to stop the line when they identify a defect
Empowering workers to exercise jidoka authority (stopping the line) embodies ethical lean leadership and respect for people.
Question 7: When a lean certification body publishes a code of ethics, its primary purpose is to:
- Increase membership fees by adding value to certification
- Establish enforceable standards of professional conduct for certified practitioners (Correct answer)
- Differentiate the certification from competitors in marketing materials
- Satisfy ISO documentation requirements for the body itself
Correct answer: Establish enforceable standards of professional conduct for certified practitioners
A professional code of ethics sets binding behavioral expectations that protect clients, employers, and the public from practitioner misconduct.
LMC Professional Standards & Ethics 2
A lean practitioner discovers that a process improvement she implemented is saving time but producing slightly out-of-spec parts that have not yet caused customer complaints.
What is the ethical course of action?