All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
There’s a fun game you can play online in your browser… and it’s free. Start typing a phrase into the Google search box (or into the top bar of your Chrome browser, as I tend to do). The “autocomplete” suggestions…
I enjoy “gemba visits” (of sorts) to wineries and vacations often focus on this walking, tasting, and learning. I usually read the wine column that’s in the Wall St. Journal each Saturday, and this one stood out to me: “Do…
Joining me for Episode #285 is my friend and colleague, Karen Martin. She was previously a guest on Episode #151 where we discussed her book The Outstanding Organization and #190 we discussed her book Value Stream Mapping book. We'll be doing another podcast later this year about her next book, which is titled Clarity First: How Wise Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance.
Karen reached out with a provocative question that's easy to discuss, but hard to answer: "Is Lean Dead?" The reason she asked is that she's heard murmuring and read articles that ask "is it time for something new?" or if we're somehow in a "post-Lean" world.
I am always happy to see something even vaguely related to the practice of Kaizen in mainstream publications. Here’s a recent essay from the New York Times: The Best Path to Long-Term Change Is Slow, Simple and Boring The author,…
I’m speaking in Iowa today at a “Lean Healthcare Exchange” event hosted by the Iowa Lean Consortium. Please say hello if you’re there and you’re a blog reader. As part of the prep for the event, I was a guest on…
On Thursday, August 10, I hosted our latest KaiNexus webinar. It’s being presented by Warren Stokes, Director of Process Improvement at HonorHealth, a health system in Arizona. The title of the webinar is: How to Leverage Lean for Long-Term Success (Under…
Today, we’re looking back at a podcast that I did back in 2015 with Alan G. Robinson, PhD, co-author of many books including The Idea-Driven Organization. I’m talking about Kaizen today at the Studer Group annual “What’s Right in Healthcare” conference, so…
Mark’s note: I somehow stumbled across this 2002 HBR article, Read a Plant–Fast, so I asked regular guest blogger Paul Critchley to write a post about it and his thoughts. Personally, I think it’s fair to refer to Lean transformations as…
I was invited to give a talk at a gathering of improvement teams and Kaizen Promotion Offices within the NHS in England. It wasn’t feasible for me to attend in person… and presenting live over the internet would have meant…
Update: See the end of the post with some photos I took at the game yesterday where Beltre got his 3000th career hit – quite a milestone! Those who study and practice Lean often know about Taiichi Ohno, one of…
The team at KaiNexus has asked me to talk about a topic that's near and dear to me... the need to engage everybody in bottom-up improvement. Why do we find "strength in numbers" when we engage everybody? See this post for info about how to register.
Back in 2012, I blogged twice about aspects of Dr. Donald M. Berwick's 1989 article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled “Continuous Improvement as an Ideal in Health Care.” The full text is only available to subscribers.
As I posted on LinkedIn, another aspect of this article caught my eye when I was reviewing it the other day in advance of my talk at the Studer Group "What's Right in Healthcare" conference next week.
