Lean

Management Improvement Carnival #106

By Jon Miller Updated on May 29th, 2017

The Management Improvement Carnival is a roundup of recent articles of interest on that subject. John Hunter has invited me to host Carnival #106. Read all past episodes here at the Curious Cat blog. I’ve not been able to enjoy certain of my favorite writers because several blogging platforms are blocked here in China. These are a few of the articles I have enjoyed over the past couple of months.
Valid or Reliable by Jamie Flinchbaugh
Jamie forces us to think about how we design effective measurements. This starts an investigation of the implications for culture, managing the tradeoffs and decision making in the board room across several articles. Does it matter and do we measure it properly? These are important questions.
3 Observations of Healthcare vs. Construction by Mike Lombard
Lombi gives us his fresh view on the differences between construction businesses and healthcare organizations, two months after moving to a healthcare lean leader position. Culture is all about people and how they look at the world. I’m looking forward to more observations from Lombi on the culture in healthcare as he continues to explore and support process improvement.
Trusting the Front Line Improvement Team by Erika Fox
Erika gives us an update on the lean journey at Group Health. She tells us why front line improvement is like fishing in a bucket and why it might be better to leave the fish in the bucket if you’re not prepared to clean it and cook it up before it starts to smell.
Cenek Report Litmus Test for Commitment by Mark Rosenthal
Mark makes the connection between Robert Cenek’s leadership commitment checklist, the importance of intellectual curiosity in a leader and what it really takes to change culture.
How to Design Poor Service – Expect 100% Utilization of People or Resources by Mark Graban
Mark gives us a primer on how to show customers you hate them by making sure you optimize one performance metric at the expense of others. It’s a fine object lesson in reverse. It sounds like American Airlines could benefit from a bit from some valid metrics…
The Power of Ideas by Bill Waddell
Bill tells us how much fun it can be to travel 600 km to deliver important teachings to a completely uncaring audience. How is it that such a lonely road can be so well-traveled, Bill? He manages to snatch victory from defeat’s proverbial jaws by reminding us of the power of a learning culture.
10 Tips for Re-energizing Your Day, Every Day by Matthew May
This article is full of everyday wisdom on keeping our energy level high. These practices and habits are so easy to pick up yet so easy to drop during our busiest days. Thanks Matt for bringing these back to the front of our minds. Have you taken a few deep breaths today?

Jon Miller

Jon has dedicated his 25+ year career to the field of kaizen, continuous improvement, and lean management. Jon spent the first eighteen years of his life in Japan, then graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s in linguistics.

Hersh Sanghavi
August 10, 2010 - 6:07 pm
Reply

Jon, Great collection of articles. I particularly enjoyed the “10 Tips for Re-energizing Your Day, Every Day” piece.