Mark Graban

Jeff Hunter and I have taught related workshops before, him on the first day (teaching about strategy and Lean), and me on the second (teaching about Measures of Success). We are working to deliver our first COMBINED workshop that integrates topics of strategy and metrics. We're thinking of doing this in Orlando in March 2019. Please see this page for more information, to sign up to be notified when registration opens, and to give input on what dates would work best for you.

I'm presenting a webinar on December 18th at 1 pm ET. You can register here: How to Use Process Behavior Charts to Improve: Case Studies Learn more about how to register in this post.

I really don't enjoy the type of "Throwback Thursday" posts that are triggered by something in the news that reminds me of something that I've blogged about in the past. Sometimes, it seems people are doomed to keep repeating the same preventable errors instead of learning from others, improving systems, and mistake proofing things in life. In this post, we look back at repeated errors in pathology, building demolition, and emergency alert systems...

I take no joy in the troubles of any automaker, be it Tesla, Nissan, GM or any others over time. Of course, Nissan and GM have been in the news most recently, with the firing (and jailing) of Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn. And now, GM has announced major layoffs, the cancelation of some passenger car programs, and the shutdown (and possible closure) of five plants in North America. I was talking to a friend the other day and I predicted that we'd see news headlines about something like "GM to get Leaner." These headlines would be using the word "lean" to mean "get smaller" instead of referring to "Lean" (which I capitalize as a proper noun) as a synonym for the Toyota Production System. I was disappointed to hear GM's CEO, Mary Barra, a long-time GM employee using the word "lean" in the context of the company getting smaller.

Our anthology book Practicing Lean has raised more than $4,000 for the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation. The book has been available as an eBook, a paperback, and an audiobook. Now that it has been available for a while and sales have slowed, I thought it might help promote the book (and the good cause it supports) to make the audiobook chapters available, over time, as a podcast.

Joining me for Episode #325 of the podcast is Andrea Hardaway, an operational leader and the executive director of the Association for Vocal Disorders. Andrea and I first crossed paths through LinkedIn, seeing what she shares there and vice versa. We also had a chance to visit a hospital together in Florida last year to learn about their Lean improvement work. We have enough professional interests in common, I thought it made sense to record a conversation and share it here with the listeners. Andrea has worked in manufacturing, healthcare, and other parts of the service sector and has seen common themes across industries. This includes the opportunity to better use metrics in a way that resonates with staff and is connected to improvement work, something I'm also very interested in. So, we talk about that and more in this episode.

Here is a new article that I posted on LinkedIn... don't worry, it's not political, but it does look at recent voter turnout rates through a statistical lens. And I think it's a lens that's helpful for looking at metrics in our own organizations: "How to Tell the Difference Between ‘Signal’ and ‘Noise’ in Voter Turnout Numbers or Your Organization’s Metrics"

I'm happy to be hosting, via KaiNexus, another free webinar. Click the link below to register: How One Community Hospital is Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement November 28 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm ET Presented by Mike McGowan, Director of Process Excellence at Marietta Memorial Hospital This post also includes thoughts from the KaiNexus community about challenges and barriers to improvement and innovation.

My guest for Episode #324 of the podcast is Art Smalley. Art was one of the first Americans to work for Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan and, since then, has been helping other organizations with the Toyota Production System (a.k.a. "Lean") methods and approaches. You can also visit his website to learn more, www.ArtOfLean.com. Art is a fellow faculty member at the Lean Enterprise Institute. He has written two Shingo Publication Award-winning books: Creating Level Pull and (co-authored with Durward Sobek) Understanding A3 Thinking. Art later wrote Toyota's Kaizen Methods: Six Steps to Improvement with Isao Kato. I own all of these books and have only met Art briefly in the past, so I'm happy to finally have him here as a guest. Today, we'll talk about Art's career and his most recent book, Four Types of Problems, published by the Lean Enterprise Institute (note: LEI provided me a free electronic copy of the book).

Eric Ries and Lean Startup Co. have been really helpful friends in spreading the message about "Process Behavior Charts" in their community. They invited me to give a talk at last year's Lean Startup Week and Eric was kind enough to endorse my book Measures of Success (paperback coming soon - get notified or pre-order)... Recently, they invited me to be a guest for their webcast series, where Marilyn Gorman asked me questions about my book and the Process Behavior Chart methodology. It was a challenge to talk about this visual method without slides and charts, so I did my best to create air charts with finger gestures :-)

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you know that the practice of "Motivational Interviewing" has been a big interest of mine for a few years. Although this method comes from the clinical practice of addiction counseling, there are many applications in the workplace. This week on the Lean Enterprise Institute's "The Lean Post" site, former Toyota leader Ron Oslin is asked about Motivational Interviewing and how leaders might be "addicted to the status quo" (a phrase Ron has trademarked). 

You might remember the podcasts that I did with my friend Skip Steward, the Chief Improvement Officer at Baptist Memorial Health Care in Tennessee (links below). Skip recently created some excellent videos that explain the basics of "Process Behavior Charts," a method that I explore in my book Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. See those videos below the podcast links.