Monthly Archives: September 2017

Don’t Turn Your Performance Metrics into “Success Theater”

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One of the phrases and concepts that I love from Eric Ries and The Lean Startup is the idea of "success theater," which describes the efforts...

A Look Back at “The Good Jobs Strategy” – For Retail and Beyond

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Today, I'm looking back at at podcast from two years ago, sharing this written summary that hopefully better reaches an audience that doesn't listen...

A Discussion on “Practicing Lean,” My Work, and More

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I really appreciate what the team at LeanPub.com does, with their approach to "Lean Publishing." I've published a few compilations of blog posts and...

“Our Hospitals Are Killing Us” – From a 1966 Magazine

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Three or four months ago, in the midst of a discussion on LinkedIn about patient safety, somebody made reference to a 1966 cover story...

How “Process Behavior Charts” Save Us Time and Help Us Sleep Better at Night

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I've been writing blog posts about using "process behavior charts" - a form of "Statistical Process Control (SPC) chart" or "control chart" that can be...

Free Webinar Recording on Lean Collaboration Across Companies and Industries

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I hope you'll join me to view a KaiNexus webinar that I'm hosted today. The topic is near and dear to my heart (as...

Texas Hospital Saves Money Occasionally With Lean Six Sigma… But Can Do More, More...

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I saw this headline the other day about University Medical Center in Lubbock, Texas: "UMC finds savings through waste" The headline really should say "through waste...

Airplane Food: Flight Attendant Kaizen or a Violation of Standardized Work?

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Today's blog post is about airplane food. It's not about the quality of airplane food... it's not an SNL Seinfeld-ish "what's the deal with...

How Toyota Gets Organizations Started with TPS

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Last week, I mentioned it was the 25th anniversary of TSSC -- formerly known as the Toyota Supplier Support Center (it's now called the...

Safety Issues Plague Hospital(s) – Front Page of USA Today

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If this post is a bit of a rant, I apologize. The problems here are avoidable and fixable. That's one reason I get so...

Has the #Lean Movement Failed to Learn from Dr. #Deming’s Mistake?

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One book about the late, great W. Edwards Deming that's been on my shelf for a while is The Deming Management Method, which was written by Mary Walton, a journalist who spent some time with Dr. Deming in the 1980s. There's a section that really made me think about Lean over the past few decades (and it might seem familiar to those who use Six Sigma or other methods).

Podcast #288 – Dean Gruner, MD on ACOs and Healthcare Reform

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Joining me again for Episode #288 is Dean Gruner, MD, the recently retired CEO of ThedaCare, a health system in Wisconsin that has long been considered a worldwide leader in the practice of Lean in healthcare. Recently, in Episode #286, Dean shared his reflections on his work and ThedaCare's "Lean journey." Today, the topic is Accountable Care Organizations and other bigger-picture healthcare reform topics. Dean was also previously my guest in Episodes 119 and 144. I'm including a full transcript along with a three-page PDF summary, as I've been doing recently.