People tend to want to blame individuals for mistakes. We want to “hold them accountable,” even if that’s a polite way of saying “blame and punish.” Healthcare organizations, being made up of people, also tend to blame individuals. Punishment is a hard habit to break. But we must. Lucian Leape, MD, one of the leaders […]

With a focus on actionable insights, host Jamie Flinchbaugh dialogues with Lorenzo Gutierrez, Director of Enterprise Excellence at Sandia National Laboratories. They offer valuable insights into leadership, intuition, and coaching. With over 20 years of leadership experience in diverse fields including semiconductor manufacturing and national security, Lorenzo is well-qualified to discuss these complex topics. He […]

We often describe Kaizen as a way of looking at the world rather than a prescription for how to achieve positive change. Kaizen thinkers seek to make small changes to operations daily in search of higher quality, more efficiency, and less waste. But because the concept of Kaizen is so philosophical, it can be a […]

Thanks to my friends at Catalysis for publishing an article that’s built around an excerpt from my book, The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. The book is now available through Apple Books, by the way. Here’s the article: Healthcare Excellence Requires Problem-Solving and Psychological Safety Here is Dr. Mayer’s […]

I’m supposed to be away on vacation right now. But, unfortunately, three days into a trip with family and friends, it was cut short when my mother-in-law fell in the airport outside of Milan, Italy — falling and breaking both left forearm bones. Visiting a public hospital outside of Milan was not part of the […]

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of September 2023.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.     Another Tale from the Past – Mark Rosenthal shares a story that questions whether kaizen events alone, no matter how many or how quickly they were run, would actually create […]

I revised an article on using wide-band delphi estimation for Business Value. See: Wide-band delphi estimation for Business Value – 1 Two parts. The link is to Part 1, and has a link itself to Part 2. It has links to two downloadable articles. Very useful. The post Priority Poker appeared first on Lean Agile Training.

Dashboards, in their many forms, are essential to track the performance of a production system. In this post I will talk more about the Toyota shop floor dashboard. A lot of the information is from Toyota in Japan, but the images are from Toyota UK. Keep in mind that the dashboards are not a rigid […]

Managers rely on 5 competencies that contribute to collective success. 1.     Translating the Strategy Into Actions Translating the strategy into actions means developing plans and making operational decisions, and mobilizing employees who will implement them. Managers implement this by: ·        Understanding the company’s strategy and sharing it with their employees. They keep their team informed […]

Data visualization is not just the art of presenting data to an audience. Upstream from this, you use visualizations in data cleaning to identify defective points, and in exploratory analysis, to identify patterns of interest. Then, you validate these patterns with a more formal analysis. Once confident that you have findings of value to communicate, […]

All manufacturing plants are home to various types of equipment and machinery. Moreover, these assets take up a huge chunk of a company’s budget, and some could even argue that they are what makes a whole production process run. So, it only makes sense to provide them with proper care and upkeep. But, choosing the […]

Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. Insights about improvement, innovation, and leadership… Operational Excellence, Improvement, and Innovation When to standardize (and when not to) Standardization is a cornerstone of improvement. It […]

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on […]

The lean community recently lost a brilliant mind and a warm heart, Chris Burnham. His sudden passing left a significant void that is still hard to come to terms with. Today, we want to pay tribute to Chris and celebrate his life and the profound impact he had on our company and our community. Chris […]

OK, so the gag gift giant eraser is kind of corny. When we make mistakes in life, we can’t erase them. But we CAN learn from them! In many situations, we can also expect to use SMALL mistakes (and our ability to learn and adjust) as a way to prevent LARGE mistakes. Chapter 7 of […]

We all make mistakes. That’s what makes us human but do we learn from them and how do they shape us to be who we are. We all have a choice about how we react to our mistakes. We can ignore them and likely keep repeating or we can admit to them, think about what […]

Scroll down for how to subscribe, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #485 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast is Erica Lee Garcia, a perfect blend of problem solver, leader, and entrepreneur. Join us as we explore her unique journey, from running a suggestion program to establishing her own business in 2011 across varied […]

Kent McDonald has done a lot of good work.  We all should thank him. Here is one very useful post about story splitting: Story Splitting The post includes a slide deck with 21 story-splitting examples.  Very handy. To me, it is wrong to think of these examples as the end-all-and-be-all.  These are helpful.  Your situation […]

A key part of managing your shop floor is understanding the current state of the shop floor. And KPIs are an important part of understanding the shop floor. But this is also not always easy. In my experience, the three most common pitfalls are to underestimate the effort (and hence the cost) of measuring a […]

Here is a summary of the webinar presentation by Mark Parrish titled “Building Cultures of Commitment.” In the webinar, Mark gave a 20-minute presentation that was followed by a robust Q&A period for the rest of the hour. View the entire webinar here. 

I was surprised that GEO CEO Larry Culp’s opening remarks weren’t shared in the YouTube recordings from the GE Lean Mindset event held in New York and live-streamed earlier this month. His comments were brief, but he had a lot of great things to share, which I’ll share from my notes. Larry said that customers […]

All the organisational scopes you identify with Before you begin, think about all the organisational scopes you identify with. Formally-recognised or otherwise, your scopes bring together people, their value-creating work, and a sense of shared identity. Yours might include: Teams, teams-of-teams, or bigger Scopes smaller than teams Cross-cutting scopes that intersect with multiple other scopes […]

By Pascal Dennis Hi folks, recently I spoke with Brad Jeavons and the fine Enterprise Excellence podcast. Topic: Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World: Ambidexterity Requires Navigating Aristotle’s Two Worlds. Hope you enjoy it! 2 minute tip: Best regards, Pascal In case you missed our last few blogs… please feel free to […]

For my Facebook fans you already know about this great feature. But for those of you that are not connected to A Lean Journey on Facebook or Twitter I post daily a feature I call Lean Tips.  It is meant to be advice, things I learned from experience, and some knowledge tidbits about Lean to […]

Effective plant maintenance management is essential in optimizing productivity, enhancing operational efficiency, and reducing costs in the modern industrial sector. To achieve this, a comprehensive management concept has been developed, which covers eight key areas ranging from manufacturing support activities to maintenance skills training. Each of these areas is accompanied by critical questions that aid […]

This is the first in a series of posts about the sessions from the GE Lean Mindset event that I was able to attend recently. You can read my initial summary of the event’s themes and check out all of the videos. GE CEO Larry Culp’s opening remarks included his comment about the company always […]

Knowing how to appreciate employees and their hard work might be one of the last things most organization focuses on. However, if you want to keep your employees engaged, productive, and motivated to do their best, you need to make sure their contributions don’t go unnoticed. In fact, 82 percent of employees “strongly” or “somewhat” […]

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on […]

What is a “Lean Mindset”? How can you create a culture of continuous learning? How do you pursue excellence – through learning from failure – for yourself and your team?  The answer to these questions – and more – were the focus of a special event called The Lean Mindset: Pursuit of Progress, hosted by […]

According to a study conducted by the International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC), businesses that prioritize process improvement experience an average of 20% increase in operational efficiency within the first year of implementation. Over five years, these organizations typically see a 40% reduction in production defects, a 30% decrease in operational costs, and a 25% […]

In a recent podcast, host Jamie Flinchbaugh sat down with guest Ron Pereira to explore various facets of leadership, teamwork, and problem-solving. The conversation kicked off with the two discussing the communication challenges faced by remote teams that include both introverted and extroverted members. Ron emphasized the role of digital tools like Miro boards in […]

Here’s the latest roundup of blog posts, articles, and interviews / videos related to learning from mistakes and my book The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. I wrote this article that was published by Quality Digest online: Stop Spending Money on Problem-Solving Training; Focus on psychological safety instead In […]

I’m excited about this special KaiNexus Webinar that I’ll be hosting and moderating on Thursday, September 14th at 1 pm ET. It’s going to be a short 15-minute presentation by six-time CEO Mark Parrish on the theme of “Building Cultures of Commitment.” REGISTER NOW Then, the rest of the session will be a lengthy Q&A […]

In his latest column in Quality Digest, Mark Graban wrote the following about psychological safety: “How do leaders cultivate the conditions in which employees feel safe enough to speak up and participate in continuous improvement? Clark argues that leaders need to: 1) model vulnerable acts; and 2) reward vulnerable acts. For example, leaders must model […]