This week, I was able to drop by the annual Lab Quality Confab event since it was being held in here in San Antonio. There were some things I heard during a few presentations about Lean or change management, such…
TL;DR: Many “Lean Six Sigma” programs misrepresent Lean as a set of tools layered onto Six Sigma. Lean is not a toolbox–it’s a management system and culture rooted in flow, quality, and respect for people. When Lean is reduced to…
Preventable medical mistakes remain one of the most serious challenges in healthcare, yet many hospitals still struggle with learning from medical errors and preventing them from happening again. From emergency departments to pathology labs, the same types of errors continue…
Did anybody else see this show hosted to Elizabeth Cohen on CNN last weekend, titled “25 Shocking Medical Mistakes“? You can see a video preview or read the transcript online. I’m not sure if the whole show is available online…
This time of year, every publication under the sun (print and web) has a “Holiday Gift Guide” to share. In that spirit, I am happy to present the first Lean Blog Holiday Gift Guide. This guide is a mix of…
I don’t often go back to write about GM, the first company I worked for out of college. Thanks to my dad who sent this article from the Detroit paper: “GM delays 2nd shift at Detroit-Hamtramck.” You might think, as…
As a student of Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s books and teachings, I’m not a big fan of slogans and posters in the workplace. Last week, visting a hospital laboratory to do research for my upcoming book Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line…
On a recent Sunday morning, I was watching cable news channels and two different commercials had a word jump out at me, words that are commonly used in the Lean management system. One commercial featured the term “mistake proofed” and…
I am happy to share, with permission, a new journal article that I co-authored with Jim Adams (“The Synthesizer“), the senior director of laboratory operations at Children’s Medical Center Dallas. It is now published in the Wiley journal “Global Business…
When an organization sets a target for the number of kaizen ideas employees should submit, it usually gets exactly what it asked for — a number. What it doesn’t get is genuine improvement. The ideas come in to hit the…
Today’s post isn’t strictly about Lean, but I was reminded by a reader to mention something really cool that I saw in Wired Magazine late last year. In the Lean methodology, we focus a lot on “visual management” of processes…
Short post today, but a simple message, I think. One of the best lessons I’ve learned about Lean management is about the need to ask “why?” Don’t assume, don’t blame – ask why. It’s a very common situation in a…
