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.
Joint Commission Changes Requirement for Patient ID during Blood Draws | Dark Daily Thanks to my friend Robert Michel and the Dark Daily for bringing this story and issue to my attention. Definitely check out his web site if you…
I recently invited questions for Michael Balle, the author of the Shingo Prize winning book The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround. He has a new book (published by LEI, my employer), recently published, called “The Lean Manager.” Here…
It’s a not-so-regular feature, but it’s time to clean up the Lean Blog Backlog (say that 10 times fast), the stories that I’ve tucked aside but haven’t gotten the full blog post treatment. Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of…
It has been over 10 years since the publication of the Institute of Medicine’s study on preventable medical errors: To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System. So how are we doing? Are there still nearly 100,000 patients dying…
I’m very pleased to present a guest post from Arizona about the successful use of Lean concepts and, more specifically, the “Training Within Industry” methodology. You may recognize Dr. Pete as a regular commenter here on the blog. We’ve spoken…
I have always learned a lot from John Shook. As I’ve blogged about before, I’ve seen John present about TPS and management (leadership, really) a few times and probably learn more “insights per hour” than anyone else in the Lean…
… or if it’s too easy to make mistakes. One of my favorite books of all time is Donald Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things. Not strictly a Lean book… even if you’re not a product designer, the book teaches…
The Myth of Multitasking – Dave Crenshaw I am long overdue on a review of this book, which I feel bad about because I really enjoyed it. Maybe I didn’t get to it because I was too busy multitasking… First…
I’ve struck a chord with a few nurses with this post from late last year: Why Do Hospitals Have to Rely on Vigilant Patients and Families? I asked: I’ve written before about my questions of why so many hospitals abdicate…
Why ‘Quality’ Care Is Dangerous – WSJ.com Yesterday’s WSJ opinion piece by Dr. Jerome Goopman (author of How Doctors Think) and Pamela Hartzband caught my eye. Thanks to the four or five of you who also emailed me the link…
From our good friend, Mike Micklewright, shared with permission. What does the Octo-Mom have in common with many American CEOs? She outsourced the main process, she made more inventory than she can properly care for, and she expects bail-outs. ———————————————–…
Starbucks Gossip: Starbucks tests “lean” operations in Ohio and Kentucky stores We’ve known for some time that Starbucks has been trying to figure out how to use Lean principles in their stores. If you click on the “Starbucks” tag at…
