About Waiting and Re-Work

Another picture that got me thinking. The picture is taken from the book "Lean Teaching" by Bob Emiliani. Take a look at the pictures and think for a moment about your own work as a teacher. Here are two of the wastes (read: something that you want to get rid of) in Lean Thinking shown in the middle as "Waiting and Re-Work". These are things that you want to avoid both as a teacher and a student. Administration is then again necessary to some extent, but if you manage to minimize it, you will have more time for the students.  Here some of my thoughts on this.

The goal for me, and by the way for all of us, should in other words be to minimize both "Administration" and "Waiting and Re-Work" and give more room for "Value-Adding and Improving". How do I do that? First thing first. I need to clarify for myself what is "value adding" in my own work. What do I want to achieve? Who are my customers?
The answer right now are: I want (1) my students to succeed and (2) keep myself up-to-date both in terms of subject knowledge and skills and teaching methods. As I see it, these goals feed each other. OK, so I need to focus on those, keep in mind to respect people's time, be sensitive to what is happening around me and keep improving what I am doing.

I might have to analyze and rethink what I am doing and why? I will for sure return to these goals in future postings and especially to the question of who are my customers.