All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
I learned about this the other today via Twitter (hat tip to @agile_memes), but today is “World No Resources Day” (see hashtag #WorldNoResourcesDay). See the small website at and their thoughts on “why should I join in?” I’m not sure who is behind…
Mark’s note: Today’s guest post is by Gert Linthout, from Belgium. Gert and I were part of the same Lean healthcare study trip to Japan back in 2012. He was the co-creator of this creative video on Kaizen that I featured in this…
As I sometimes do, I’m going to close out a bunch of browser tabs (which makes my Mac run faster) and I’ll do that by sharing some articles that caught my eye but maybe don’t merit full blog posts of…
I was quoted in two articles that appeared in “Today’s Hospitalist”: Reducing Waste The author, David A. Frenz, MD, points out that it’s a “collective delusion” that the U.S. spending so much more on healthcare leads to safer or higher…
Last Wednesday and Thursday, I collaborated with Joe Swartz and a countless number of his colleagues to host 24 visitors from different health systems (and an Indiana state government organization) to learn about the “Kaizen” approach to continuous improvement first hand…
To the left is a young baby me. I don’t think I was thinking about Dr. Deming as a baby, but thankfully my parents had a lot of intrinsic motivation to take care of me! One of the many things…
Sometimes, continuous improvement sparks something bigger than anyone expected. In this story from Franciscan Health’s NICU, a nurse named Kelly turned a heartbreaking event–a baby developing a pressure ulcer–into an inventive solution that made care safer, easier, and more human.…
Joe Swartz and I have been working for a while to put together our first onsite Kaizen workshop at his health system, Franciscan St. Francis Health – all day tomorrow and Thursday morning. We’re excited that the workshop / conference sold…
In manufacturing, the term Lean has far too often been synonymous with layoffs. Doing so is more L.A.M.E. than Lean. People get anxious and throw around an acronym LEAN – Less Employees Are Needed. Ironically, Toyota (the inspiration or model for Lean)…
Back in 2007, I had my first opportunity to travel to England, a country I really love visiting. I had the chance to attend the “First Global Lean Healthcare Summit” that was produced by Dan Jones and the Lean Enterprise…
(And Might Not Even Be Real) TL;DR: People sometimes hope for the Hawthorne Effect, treating it like a positive driver of improvement. That was always misguided–because it would only imply short-term gains from attention, not better systems. And to make…
Organizations put up slogans because they want to inspire better performance. The intent usually isn’t the problem. The problem is that slogans assume the issue is with workers’ effort or attitude rather than with the system they’re forced to work…
