All posts from Mark Graban’s LeanBlog.org, including podcasts, announcements, articles, and more.
The traditional model of business leadership has the CEO as the most important decision maker. Generally, the higher up you go, leaders make more decisions and they make more important decisions. Information flows up to people who make the decisions.…
Here’s a great essay from Tom Peters, a chapter from his book The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. The email that was forwarded to me with this content said, “Sharing is permitted,” so if you like this…
It seems to be an annual event to see a news story about a New Zealand emergency department, Dunedin Hospital (not pictured at left) as reported by the Otago Times. It’s year three and the board “wants some traction” and…
I had a good long chat with a former client (from my J&J days) the other day. I call him “The Synthesizer,” and no he’s not an electronic keyboard. We’re working together on a business journal article about their Lean…
I don’t often do a “cranky blog post,” but I’ve got a head cold (as I write this on 9/30) and I’ve gotten sucked into watching some free online “lean healthcare white belt” training that just makes me want to…
One of the books that’s had the biggest impact on my work is Donald Wheeler’s Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos. It’s the best guide for applying simple and powerful “statistical process control” (or SPC) practices to management data…
There’s a series of airplane photos, of South Africa’s Kalula Airlines, that have been going around the web, including being posted in some blogs as an example of the Lean principle of “visual management,” like this one: It made me…
When I read John Seddon’s book Freedom from Command & Control: Rethinking Management for Lean Service, I was a fan. I thought, “Here is someone from the Dr. Deming lineage who has a good message about what’s wrong with traditional…
Thanks to FierceHealthcare.com for publishing my guest article on the front page of their site: “How lean management helped hospitals avoid layoffs.” The article features quotes from two of our Healthcare Value Network organizations, ThedaCare and Akron Children’s Hospital, and…
Again, I’m very happy to host the Carnival for John Hunter and his Curious Cat blog. My job here is to share some noteworthy and thought provoking posts from the past few weeks from the blogs I try to keep…
It’s time for another in my Reader Questions series, this question comes from Brian via email. If you have a question or topic that you’d like me to address, you can contact me via the web or by leaving a…
When I was traveling last week, a magazine caught my eye, one I don’t normally read: Scientific American Mind and the article “Cubicle, Sweet Cubicle: The Best Ways to Make Office Spaces Not So Bad ( Preview )“. The whole…
