LMC Workforce Development & Team Leadership 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is a 'skills matrix' used for in Lean team management?
- Ranking employees for annual performance bonuses
- Visually mapping team members' current skills and identifying training gaps (Correct answer)
- Scheduling shift rotations based on seniority
- Documenting complaints and disciplinary actions
Correct answer: Visually mapping team members' current skills and identifying training gaps
A skills matrix (competency matrix) provides a visual overview of who can perform which tasks, helping managers identify cross-training needs and ensure operational flexibility.
Question 2: In Lean leadership, what does 'leader standard work' refer to?
- A checklist that leaders use to evaluate employee productivity
- Defined, repeatable daily routines for leaders that sustain Lean behaviors and systems (Correct answer)
- The minimum output quota leaders must achieve each quarter
- Standard job descriptions approved by HR for all management roles
Correct answer: Defined, repeatable daily routines for leaders that sustain Lean behaviors and systems
Leader standard work consists of structured daily routines — such as gemba walks, board reviews, and coaching moments — that help leaders consistently support and sustain Lean practices.
Question 3: When implementing Lean changes, which strategy is most effective for overcoming employee resistance?
- Mandating changes through top-down directives without discussion
- Involving employees early in the design and testing of changes to build ownership (Correct answer)
- Offering financial bonuses contingent on immediate adoption
- Bringing in external consultants to manage the transition independently
Correct answer: Involving employees early in the design and testing of changes to build ownership
Involving employees in change design increases ownership and reduces resistance because people are more committed to changes they helped create.
Question 4: What is the purpose of a 'tiered daily meeting' structure in Lean organizations?
- To replace all email communication with verbal updates
- To escalate issues and share performance data from the team level up through management tiers (Correct answer)
- To conduct formal disciplinary reviews on a daily basis
- To provide company-wide announcements from senior leadership
Correct answer: To escalate issues and share performance data from the team level up through management tiers
Tiered daily meetings (e.g., team huddles, supervisor reviews, manager reviews) create a rapid communication cascade that surfaces problems at the right level and ensures accountability.
Question 5: In Lean workforce development, what is 'yokoten'?
- A Japanese term for employee termination procedures
- The practice of horizontally sharing successful improvements across teams or sites (Correct answer)
- A formal audit process for verifying process compliance
- A structured onboarding program for new Lean practitioners
Correct answer: The practice of horizontally sharing successful improvements across teams or sites
Yokoten (meaning 'across everywhere') is the practice of spreading successful kaizen results or best practices laterally throughout the organization to multiply gains.
Question 6: Which of the following best supports psychological safety in a Lean team environment?
- Encouraging competition between team members for performance rankings
- Creating norms where team members can raise problems and ideas without fear of blame (Correct answer)
- Limiting improvement suggestions to senior team members only
- Maintaining anonymous suggestion boxes without follow-up discussions
Correct answer: Creating norms where team members can raise problems and ideas without fear of blame
Psychological safety allows team members to surface problems, challenge assumptions, and experiment — all of which are essential for a thriving continuous improvement culture.
Question 7: A Lean manager notices that improvement ideas from frontline workers are rarely being implemented. What is the most likely root cause?
- Workers lack the intelligence to generate viable ideas
- There is no structured system for capturing, reviewing, and acting on employee suggestions (Correct answer)
- The company's products are already optimized and need no improvement
- Workers are compensated too well to care about efficiency
Correct answer: There is no structured system for capturing, reviewing, and acting on employee suggestions
Without a formal idea management system (like a kaizen suggestion board with defined review cycles), employee ideas fall through the cracks and engagement quickly declines.
LMC Workforce Development & Team Leadership 2
What is a 'skills matrix' used for in Lean team management?