New! LeanBlog Message Board

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Message Board Direct Link

Update July 2010 – I've shut this board down, see my blog post about this.


This is something I've wanted to try for a while — a LeanBlog Message Board at www.leanboard.org. If you're not familiar, a “message board” or a “forum” is a website that is much more interactive than a blog. I'm not sure if we'll get much participation, but we can try. If you have a question like “Do most people use software/Excel for standard work or do you do it manually?”, you can post that on the Message Board and people can respond directly too more easily than they can here on the Blog. The standard work question is a topic we're also going to cover here, with David Meier, on the LeanBlog, so don't quit coming here.

The Lean Enterprise Institute has a message board that you can access via www.lean.org. As much as I like the LEI, I have a few issues with their “new and improved” message board:

  1. It requires a large “Java” download to work properly — my work computer doesn't cooperate well with that. The LeanBlog Message Board doesn't require a slow download or Java this-and-that.
  2. You have to register just to read posts. The LEI obviously values your contact information for their mailing lists. I don't care who you are if you're reading. But, if you want to participate, then you have to register — but I won't ever use that information, unless I need to block your access because you're misbehaving (posting spam, etc.)

Let's see how this develops. Let me know if you have any ideas, it will evolve over time, obviously — in the spirit of kaizen. Any feedback, please post it here. It's very light on content at the beginning, but let's see if we can get it going.

I'm hoping that blog readers will:

  • Ask questions of their lean peers
  • Post pictures and lean tools (you can attach files)
  • Share lean tips, success stories, and challenges

I hope that this can be a valuable resource for the lean community.


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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker, and podcaster with experience in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.

5 COMMENTS

  1. Hi Mark,

    that’s excellent:-))

    Looking forward to great discussions.

    Best regards from Leipzig (again;-))

    Ralf

  2. I am really excited about the Message Board. The interesting thing, from a social standpoint, is that in order to get really good, honest discussion, you need a certain degree of anonymity. (To make sure that others in your organization can’t trace perceived negative comments to you.) However, typically, the more people hide their identity, the less credibility they seem to get. I’ll soon be hanging out there under cloak and dagger to help learn more and contribute to the discussions.

    Thanks for always working to build and develop the lean community.

  3. That’s a good point about anonymity. I’m going to post a first draft of some board rules and suggestions. One suggestion I’ll post is that people keep their email private (it’s in the registration settings). Another suggestion is that people be careful about what they post in a public forum — trying to be as specific as they can without revealing company names, etc.

  4. Looking for some to talk about lean in the transactoinal world. HR / AP / AR / etc.

    Looking forward to to info.

Comments are closed.