All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
The cancelation of a meaningless NFL exhibition pre-season game is probably one of the least important problems in the world. But, it happened recently and the “comedy errors” is interesting to think about. You might notice the headline of my…
My guest for Episode #260 of the podcast is Brad White, author of the recently-released book Lean Daily Management for Healthcare: A Strategic Guide to Implementing Lean for Hospital Leaders. He is currently a Senior Process Improvement Advisor at Grady Health System…
As I occasionally do, I’ve written blog post for KaiNexus: For the Want of a System Better Than a Sticky Note, a Car Sale Was Lost I hope you’ll enjoy the post… not just me complaining about a car dealer…
One thing I enjoy is the opportunity to basically be a “value adding” worker in a process. The work is pretty repetitive (but, again, it’s a very enjoyable environment) and it lets me think like an industrial engineer or a “Lean thinker” when I’m not talking with...
It’s one thing to hear Lean professionals or specialists talking about the power of this methodology to improve healthcare. To me, it’s not just theory, it’s something I’ve seen in practice. Sure, there are many engineers and former business people working in…
I've written a lot about suggestion boxes, and usually in the context of how they don't work well. Many aspects of traditional suggestion box systems sound great, but don't work in practice. What doesn't work: Boxes not being opened very often, being reviewed by a committee or executives...
Continuing my series of blog posts about my July trip to China, today’s post is about the second city I visited: Shanghai. This post has some photos and descriptions of the high-speed train trip and other travel-related details. You can…
Today’s episode #259 is Part 2 of a discussion I started with Steve Bera in episode #256. Steve was one of the original 16 “NUMMI Commandos” that General Motors sent to work with Toyota in the 1980s, as discussed in the…
I’m always happy to hear current-day Toyota leaders (like Jamie Bonini) or recent Toyota leaders (like Gary Convis) share perspectives on leadership. It’s not that Toyota’s perfect, but we’re hearing about Lean concepts “straight from the source,” in a way.…
This article caught my eye at Becker’s Hospital Review: We asked 13 physicians what they really think of their hospital Even though organizations do formal physician and staff satisfaction surveys, the questions posed here is one that we should ask people frequently…
I want to preface this post by saying it’s mostly about questions, not answers. I’ve had many readers and acquaintances ask me about what’s been going on at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. The short answer is: “I don’t…
The BBC radio program “The Science Hour” recently aired a program with a segment where an unexpected person (Dr. Kevin Fong) to an unexpected place (UCLA Harbor Medical Center) to look into “Lean.” You might remember UCLA Harbor from my…
