I wrote a post for the LinkedIn Influencers series: American Airlines Should Own Their Situation, Not Just Blame the Weather Looking at this problem (long phone hold times), it seems to be a simple mismatch between demand (the number of…
A few weeks back, USA Today published an article that made me think of some of the approaches being used by hospitals under the banner of “Lean Design.” In Lean Design efforts (see this great book), hospitals involve customers (patients…
In the Lean methodology, building upon the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming, we work hard to shift away from “naming, blaming, and shaming.” Dr. John Toussaint is one of many who provide alternatives to the “blame and shame” approach…
One of the more trivial things I saw on my recent vacation to Scotland and England was a badly designed toilet on a Virgin train. My wife and I were on our way to Birmingham to do a Range Rover…
tl;dr: Lean encourages learning and iteration, but PDSA is not a license to roll out poorly tested, customer-facing changes and promise to “fix them later.” I’ve added a new post to my LinkedIn Influencers series: “The Ability to Iterate is…
TL;DR: Headlines and two-point comparisons can’t prove a “sick out.” This post shows how Process Behavior Charts (PBCs) help distinguish real signals from normal variation–and why data alone can’t confirm intent or blame. As a frequent flyer on American Airlines…
As a very frequent flyer on American Airlines, I’ve learned not to expect much from the company and its employees in terms of customer satisfaction (yet alone anything that would unexpectedly delight a customer). It seems like a company culture…
I’m back in Ontario again this week, giving three more short workshops about Healthcare Kaizen at three different hospitals (after seven hospitals in five days last week). Last night, coming through customs at the Toronto airport, I was asked by…
When I was leaving the recent Shingo Prize conference, last week, I had what can only be described as a taxi ride from hell on my way from Covington, Kentucky to the CVG airport. The taxi driver, who had been…
This might seem like a random topic, but what the heck, it’s a Friday. I arrived in Orlando yesterday for the Society for Health Systems and HIMSS conferences and I picked up a rental gar from the garage. It’s a…
About a week ago, I was flying, and the passenger beside me knocked his water over right into my lap. Argh! I sent a Tweet posing a “contest with no prize” (as I didn’t want to stifle creativity with an…
Error proofing (aka “poka yoke” or mistake proofing) is such a powerful Lean method. Some people, unfortunately, think that Lean is only about speed or efficiency or cost. Going back to Toyota, the two pillars of TPS are Just…
