This is the back story to the six-volume REAL LEAN book series. Soon after updating and publishing the second edition of Better Thinking, Better Results, I embarked on a journey to answer the most important questions that people had about Lean management and Lean leadership. Over the years it became clear that these questions were […]

The article “U.S. Private Colleges Face Enrollment Declines” illustrates the typical, non-Lean way in which schools deal with reduced revenues caused by declining enrollment: Closures Layoffs Cutbacks Mergers Outsourcing Shared services Increase fundraising from alumni and donors And how they try to improve enrollment: Reducing or eliminating enrollment exclusivity Scholarships for taking a campus tour […]

We often tell kids that honesty is the best policy. The truth of the matter is that philosophy holds true for employees, too, especially when it comes to the workplace. The expectation of honesty at work means you have to be clear and open with everyone. When you are, it demonstrates trust and creates an […]

As many of you have no doubt noticed, Lean is often used by top management as business decoration to appear fashionable or in-step with the times. The values associated with Lean are often missing (e.g. customer-first, developing people), as are the “Respect for People” principle and senior management engagement. Why is that? It is in […]

Here are some questions and answers that will help you understand who I am and what I do. What is your role and the intention of your work? My role is to expand people’s understanding of Lean leadership and Lean management through research and teaching. This includes critiquing various aspects of Lean — which some […]

While Lean successes are effective at keeping hope alive, they are even more effective at disabling the critical thinking that is needed to figure out how to generate vast numbers of Lean successes. Lean Number 1 ProblemDownload

Public university leaders and state legislators have gone assessment-crazy in recent years to answer the question: “What did students learn in the course or their degree program?” My question is different: “Does it make sense to assess student learning using methods that most students perform poorly on?” It seems to me that inaccurate assessments of […]

In universities, there is often a gap between what leaders think is happening and what students know is happening based on their daily academic experiences. Here is as example illustrated by two articles: one from a university publication (October 13) and the other from the student newspaper (30 October 13). In the first article, the […]

This is something from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation, that I shared on LinkedIn recently. Here’s something I figured out thanks to education in a combination of fields, including Lean management and psychological safety. I wish I had understood this much sooner: “Speaking up isn’t a […]

When we are talking about lean manufacturing, we often focus on the tools like kanban, 5S, SMED, and many more. Sometimes, but harder to grasp, is the underlying culture and philosophy of continuous improvement and PDCA. Part of this culture is what you could call the soft power of the Toyota Production System. This is […]

After about 4 months of study, the new president of Connecticut’s Board of Regents for Higher Education has put forth a “sweeping plan” (named Excel CT) whose main focus is to increase enrollments, calling it “very innovative.” Since when is increasing enrollments – doing what everyone else is doing – an innovative solution to financial problems […]

In the November 2013 issue of the Vanguard Newsletter, John Seddon, Managing Director of Vanguard Consulting Ltd., had this to say about me: More dumb lean I’m going to Sweden this month to speak at their annual public-sector jamboree. It will be my third time. I’m speaking alongside a public-sector client that has made profound improvements […]

As an engineer, my natural tendency is to look at things from the perspective of how something failed rather than why it worked (though in my writings about Lean, I do both). However, the factors that cause failure are merely the antithesis of why things worked. With that in mind, I offer you some guidance […]

By Pascal Dennis (Experience & Reflection) In earlier blogs I extolled the power of the “Q7” Indeed, they’re an indispensable part of our problem-solving arsenal. Caveat: the Q7 are an abstraction that exist in the world of Reflection. Good problem solving entails moving fluidly between the worlds of Reflection & Experience. Go See (genchi genbutsu) […]

Now that free MOOCs (massively open online courses) have been around for a couple of years, the organizations offering such courses have found the following to be true: MOOCs need a facilitator to improve the learning experience. MOOCS need a facilitator to improve completion rates (from 10 to 40 percent). In-person facilitated discussions of MOOCs […]

This is the back story to the book Moving Forward Faster. After finishing Volume Six, the last volume of REAL LEAN series, I reflected back on what I had done. The books were written for busy managers. They were short in length and the chapters could be read à la carte. But, at about 1200 total pages, […]

When I first became a manager, I really struggled with figuring out the best way to develop my team. I was so used to doing it all myself, that I didn’t realize that I had to unlearn a few of the practices that had gotten me to management level. I soon realized that as a […]

This article, “Teaching Clearly Can Be a Deceptively Simple Way to Improve Learning” (CHE, 22 November 2013, subscription required), advocates teaching “in a clearer and more organized way” to improve student learning outcomes. Here are three excerpts from the article: “While much of the pedagogical conversation in higher education focuses on innovations like the flipped […]

One of the most important and practical things that nearly all teachers teach their students is how to do research, from elementary school to graduate school. The basic message from your teachers is this: “If you don’t know something, do some research. It will help you learn the topic, understand it better, and enable you […]

To celebrate the 200th Amazon rating for my book, Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, we’re giving away three (3) signed copies. Be sure to check out the ways you can earn more entries, including sharing this contest on social media platforms. One book per winner. Must have a U.S. mailing address. The […]

Why do teachers in higher education grade tests on a curve? When I worked in industry manufacturing widgets, we did not adjust product quality based on the average quality of the widgets produced (e.g. 70% of inspectable characteristics in conformance to requirements). If we did, all of our customers would have received defective products and […]

Higher education accreditation organizations have come under much criticism lately. A recent article, “Accreditors Now Find Themselves Under Critical Review” (CHE, 2 December 2013, subscription required) highlights some of their problems. A few excerpts: “Accreditation focuses heavily on process… with no ability to analyze what and how much students are learning. But students and employers […]

Let’s get rid of value stream maps. I can hear it now: “Why would you say such a thing? Value stream maps are great. We can’t see waste without them.” Precisely. Value stream maps have developed an outsized importance in relation to other types of basic information that one gathers when trying to understand the […]

Many institutions of higher education, especially the small privates and regional comprehensive public universities, are experiencing double-digit declines in enrollment. This is leading to a variety of actions by administrators, from layoffs of faculty and staff to efforts to increase enrollments. Here is an example of a enrollment recovery plan for a public regional comprehensive university. There […]

Progressive Lean management has long been misunderstood and, as a result, misapplied by managers, resulting in bad outcomes for key stakeholders such as employees. Two main points of misunderstanding are: 1) to recognize only the “Continuous Improvement” principle and ignore the “Respect for People principle,” and 2) to cherry-pick Lean methods and tools thereby altering the […]

The Financial Times recently ran an story in the print edition titled: “UK students cut back on boozing as study costs help focus minds” (FT, 21 November 2013). It is part of an in-depth series on higher education in the UK. Public university tuition used to cost £1000 per year in the UK (it is free in Scotland), but […]

A reader of my books recently asked me the following questions: Why is Lean important to an organization? Why should we introduce Lean to an organization with good performance? These are good questions. Most of the writing about Lean focuses on organizations that perform poorly and need to improve. So why is Lean important to an […]

The article “Dying on Our Swords” (IHE, 11 December 2013) presents a problem that has long concerned me. That is, adding marketing responsibilities to professors as enrollments decline. The article addresses the debate on whether faculty should engage in marketing to help their academic programs survive (which can appear self-serving), or whether marketing professionals should […]

How do you know when the leaders of a company understand Lean management? It is when they begin to treat their suppliers as valuable resources instead of entities to bargain with for lower prices. Executives start to see the key stakeholders – employees, suppliers, customers, investor, and communities – operate as an interdependent system, rather […]

Ashutosh Garg of “The Brand Called You” interviews me about Lean management. Have a look, I think you’ll enjoy it! 00:42 – About Dr. Bob Emiliani01:08 – Tell me about your journey in brief.02:06 – What made you become interested in the subject of lean management?03:01 – What would you describe as the core principles […]

Here is a very interesting article that describes how the department chair’s job has evolved over the years from something desirable, which many faculty aspired to, to a thankless and burdensome job that few faculty want: “For Chairs, the Seat’s Gotten Hotter: With new demands for fund raising and assessment, academe’s middle managers feel the pressure” […]

After decades of mismanaging costs and tuition pricing, university leaders have been forced by macroeconomic conditions to finally take action. These two articles on cost cutting (WSJ, 25 December 2013) and tuition pricing (NYT, 25 December 2013) outline the typical roads taken. Sadly, when it comes to tuition pricing, university leaders rely on expensive consultants to figure […]

As you may know, I have been collecting data for two teaching surveys: “45 Teaching Errors” and “The 10 Percent Problem.” Click on the image below to view a .pdf file presenting the interim data and analysis (special thanks to Kamna Tiwari for preparing the bar graphs). Key findings are summarized below (click on image […]

A little-noticed problem in Lean transformations is that senior managers keep using the language of conventional management, which inadvertently undercuts Lean efforts. So, not only does Lean require a different way of thinking and doing things, it also requires a different way of talking too. Leaders must abandon their verbal (as well as non-verbal) preconceptions. […]