All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
TL;DR: A healthcare organization’s Lean hiring exercise reveals deep misunderstandings about Lean. By forbidding candidates from talking to staff and emphasizing stopwatches, clipboards, and solo assessments, the process violates Respect for People and misses how improvement really happens. Lean in…
I've blogged about football before - I should say "American football," since I have many international readers.
I should say I've blogged about events on the football field and the approaches of football coaches that remind me of Lean thinking.
Here are a few of those thoughts from last weekend -- topics include "lack of urgency," "that's not my job," and "the process."
When I was recently considering switching from an iPhone 6S to a newer iPhone 8 Plus (or an iPhone X), I wrote this post on LinkedIn, which I’ll expand upon a bit in this post. I ended up buying an…
it's great to see an 11 year old thinking like an engineer and an entrepreneur. He's the son of a Toyota "operational excellence" consultant. For those who try to unfortunately equate Lean to a "clean desk policy," the father's desk is a great argument against banning family photos and an illustration of why Lean isn't about putting tape around everything...
The Lean Enterprise Institute (a former employer of mine from 2009 to 2011) has announced a new CEO, the third in their history following founder James P. Womack and his successor, John Shook.
Their press release:
Lean Enterprise Institute Names Eric Buehrens New CEO
The start of the release:
"The nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute, a global leader in lean thinking and practice, today announced the appointment of Eric Buehrens as its new CEO. The appointment took effect October 1, 2017.
A proven lean thinker and leader, Buehrens led lean transformations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he served as COO and Interim CEO, and at Reliant Medical Group, a Massachusetts group medical practice, where he was COO."
TL;DR: Cherry-picked metrics can make performance look better without actually improving it. Process Behavior Charts help leaders distinguish real improvement from noise, stop overreacting, and focus on improving the system instead of explaining fluctuations. One of the phrases and concepts…
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 to podcasts. I love The Good Jobs Strategy book and approach and I hope you’re inspired by it,…
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 podcast interviews there and the site was also the first place I published our book Practicing…
TL;DR: A 1966 magazine exposé documented widespread, preventable patient harm caused by system failures in American hospitals. While some areas have improved, many of the same problems–errors, infections, lack of transparency, and blame instead of learning–still persist today. Three or…
TL;DR: Leaders lose sleep because they react to every up and down in their metrics. Most fluctuations are just noise. Process Behavior Charts help filter noise, identify real signals, and focus leadership attention on meaningful improvement instead of constant firefighting.…
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 well as to others at KaiNexus): collaboration, learning, sharing. Effective Collaboration Across Organizations and Industries Our…
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 reduction.” Reducing waste is, of course, a good thing. Reducing waste usually saves money…
