Episode #238 is a conversation with somebody I’ve wanted to talk with for a long time, Kevin Cahill. He is the executive director of the W. Edwards Deming Institute. He’s also a grandson of Dr. Deming! ...
One of the first people in healthcare to be influenced by Deming’s work is Dr. Don Berwick, founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (at right in that picture). Berwick wrote about Deming’s ideas back in...
Hopefully you've already seen the famed 1980 NBC documentary "If Japan Can, Why Can't We?" that featured Dr. W. Edwards Deming. I posted a link to the video and some notes on Part 1 of the broadcast. Today, I'd like to blog about Part 3 of the program...
Thanks everybody for reading my blog throughout 2015! It's been a great year and I appreciate you taking time out of your busy lives to read and participate in the discussion. I hope this site will continue to be a part of your life in 2016. Here are the ten most-read posts of the year...
Thanks to everybody for reading Lean Blog this year! As Christmas approaches, I’m taking off this week and probably next to enjoy time with family and some downtime. I hope you’ve had a successful year and I wish you nothing but the best for 2016...
In this episode, Dr. John Toussaint explains why Lean healthcare transformation fails when it’s treated as a set of tools instead of a leadership responsibility. Drawing on his experience as former CEO of ThedaCare, he discusses CEO accountability, patient safety,…
How many times do we hear people say things like “We don’t have time for Lean” or “We don’t have time for Kaizen“? It happens a lot, right? As I’ve said before (and this video) a “lack of time” is a problem to solve...
This page contains the different "Ask Us Anything!" sessions we’ve done and are continuing to do....
The W. Edwards Deming Institute and Dr. Deming's grandson Kevin Cahill worked with NBC to make the 1980 program available, giving the institute perpetual rights to it (see their blog post). To the institute's credit, they've made this freely available on YouTube.
There’s no magic about the number five. I’ve seen some people write that five is somehow a “magic number.” No, that’s not really the case. Ask why more than once, probably more than twice…
Lean is, of course, not about a better way to build cars. It's a transferrable philosophy, management system, and methodology that is being applied in many different settings and industries, including healthcare. I'm often told (sometimes by somebody who is being sort of huffy): "Patients are not cars." [...]
Through our practice of Lean, we’re looking at processes and our management system, looking to identify waste and opportunities for improvement. Lean is about engaging people to have them ask why we do things a certain way or if things…
