Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

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.

1485 Articles

The Importance of Problem Breakdown for New Year’s Resolutions

By Jon Miller - January 14th, 2019

Endings and beginnings are both good times for reflection. Many people set goals for the new year around now. My habit is to carry over most resolutions or personal goals from year to year. A positive way to view this is that there is

The 10 Commandments for a Lean Journey

By Jon Miller - January 7th, 2019

Raymond Chandler was an early 20th-century novelist of detective fiction. Most of his books were turned into movies. Fans of the genre may recall Humphrey Bogart’s iconic portrayal of Chandler’s detective Philip Marlowe. As

A Day in the Life of a Gemba-focused Executive VP

By Jon Miller - December 17th, 2018

One of the essential principles of lean management is go to gemba. This is far more than literally going to the scene of the problem when doing root cause analysis or going the occasional gemba walk. It is an “ism” or philo

Respect for “Respect for Human Nature”

By Jon Miller - December 10th, 2018

There are three main perspectives on the lean thinking pillar of respect for people. First, respect for people means that all stakeholders deserve respect. A business does not prosper long-term focusing only on a few of them while igno

What Does it Mean to Measure Twice, Cut Once?

By Jon Miller - December 3rd, 2018

Last week I was appreciating some of our old podcasts and video interviews with lean practitioners. Our interviewer Ron Pereira always likes to ask a series of short, rapid-fire questions. One of my favorites is, “What is the bes

Lean Thinking and Embodied Cognition

By Jon Miller - November 26th, 2018

In the study of the mind through philosophy, psychology and biology, there is a theory called embodied cognition. Unlike the assumption that the mind is generated only by the brain, embodied cognition claims that many features of cogn

Three Ways to Slice the Social Loaf

By Jon Miller - November 19th, 2018

Humans accomplish things in teams. From the most basic unit of the family to local community to sports clubs to for-profit and non-profit organizations, people working toward a common goal is how we get big things done. Things one pers

How does Lean Thinking Help Us to Prepare for the Unpredictable?

By Jon Miller - November 12th, 2018

One of the goals of lean problem solving is to prevent recurrence of problems by finding and addressing its root causes. We identify the factors that are critical good outcomes. We learn when and how they vary outside of desired para

How to Use Trees and Fish to Diagram Root Causes

By Jon Miller - November 5th, 2018

How effective we are at solving problems and keeping them solved depends on our ability to address them at their source. When we put out fires but fail to put in measures to prevent similar ones in the future, we fight the same fires a

Five Questions to Reflect on Both Process and Results of Problem Solving

By Jon Miller - October 29th, 2018

When an organization’s culture is results-driven it is easy for people to receive the signal that it is okay to get results at any cost. This can lead to hiding poor results or problems. It can lead to false or shallow problem so

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