Standardized work is often misunderstood as rigidity or control. In Lean thinking, it’s the opposite: a shared baseline that makes problems visible, supports learning, and enables continuous improvement. This archive explores standardized work as a living system—one that evolves through observation, experimentation, and respect for people.
Examples range from healthcare and service work to manufacturing and everyday systems, showing how clear standards reduce frustration, improve quality, and make meaningful improvement possible.
I received an email from a reader that I’m sharing and commenting on with permission. “Dear Mark: I am a lean coordinator for a manufacturing company and it was a real shock to see some of the waste during a…
First off, there’s nothing about “Lean” per se in this linked article from Quality Digest: “New York Pediatric ICU Ward Off Central-Line Infections for Entire Year“. That said, there are elements that are very similar to both Lean and the…
Mark’s Note: Here’s part 3 of a series by our guest blogger, Andy Wagner – a series that started here. Many of us work in an environment that our host, Mark Graban, would characterize as “non-Deming”: LAME more often than…
Mark’s note: Today is the first of a series of guest posts that will appear over the next two weeks from a variety of bloggers while I’m on vacation. Tracey Richardson is a consultant and LEI faculty member who previously…
ThedaCare, the health system in Wisconsin, often gets a lot of attention for the Lean improvements in their four hospitals, but they are also doing some excellent work in redesigning primary and specialty care, as well (as highlighted in this…
At last week’s Shingo Prize conference, I was very excited to meet Dr. Stephen Covey (my podcast is here), but I was just as excited, if not more so, to meet Dr. Brent James, the noted healthcare quality expert from…
Interesting news from Idaho, where an outside Lean consultant has been named interim CEO of St. Luke’s Magic Valley Medical Center (see “Consultant to fill in as T.F. hospital CEO“). From the article: Mike Reno, a consultant helping St. Luke’s…
You might be familiar with the case where the actor Dennis Quaid’s twins were harmed by an overdose at the famed Cedar-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. I blogged about it originally in late 2007 as the post “How Often Must…
What really motivates people to improve their work–especially in healthcare and other complex environments? Drawing on Daniel Pink’s Drive, Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s teachings, and Lean principles, this post explores why intrinsic motivation consistently outperforms incentives, rewards, and punishment in…
Unlike Thursday’s joke, this is real. It’s a video posted by the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME), featuring a full-time Lean professional, a “kaizen facilitator,” who is in the third year of coaching a youth (teenagers) hockey team in Ontario.…
Mark’s note: I am thrilled to be able to bring you this guest post from my friend and fellow lean healthcare author Naida Grunden. Her post (and Sully’s words) are far more important than anything I could write today. Read…
TL;DR: The Olympic gold-medal puck was almost lost not because of bad intent, but because the system relied on people remembering under chaotic conditions. The real lesson is timeless: leaders must design processes that account for human fallibility instead of…