Jon Miller, Author at Gemba Academy

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

Three Core Beliefs Fundamental to Standard Work

By Jon Miller - October 22nd, 2018

Standard work and kaizen are often described the two cornerstones of the Toyota Production System house, a.k.a. lean management. The various systems, methods and tools that make up the lean way of working rely on setting provisional st

Review of Four Types of Problems by Art Smalley

By Jon Miller - October 15th, 2018

The new book by leading lean thinker Art Smalley titled Four Types of Problems is available from the Lean Enterprise Institute. Problem solving is one of my favorite topics. I found myself both delighted by and disagreeing with parts

What’s the Best Way to Deploy Lean? TPS? DBS? HOS? Other..?

By Jon Miller - October 8th, 2018

The General Electric company has had a rough year. They were removed from the Dow Jones list after more than 100 years. Their stock price has dropped to half. This week they abruptly fired their CEO. On the bright side, Larry Culp, a G

Lessons in Problem Solving from the NFL

By Jon Miller - October 1st, 2018

As we wrap up week #4 for the 2018 season of America’s favorite athletic competition-based entertainment, the National Football League has already given us an important lessons in effective problem solving. More precisely, they a

How to Win with 80% Effort

By Jon Miller - September 24th, 2018

There is an old Japanese saying that I have always liked. It is hara hachibu ni isha irazu (腹八分に医者いらず). It advises, “Eat until 80% full and you’ll need no doctor”. The equivalent English proverb is

How to Manage Continuous Improvement without Authority

By Jon Miller - September 17th, 2018

People with the title of “Continuous Improvement Manager” or similar often find that they have broad responsibilities but without the matching authority. The CI Manager may need to identify improvement projects. They may be

Top 10 Differences between Traditional and CI-Infused Problem-solving

By Jon Miller - September 10th, 2018

A customer asked last week whether Gemba Academy had a video comparison of solving a problem using a non-CI approach vs. solving the same problem with some basic CI tools and thought processes. While this is one of our favorite topics

Why We Need Standard Work on Vacation

By Jon Miller - August 27th, 2018

For over twenty years I traveled a lot on business and got pretty good at it. These two things almost must go together. A person who travels a lot and does so badly won’t be able to sustain it for very long. It becomes exhausting, st

An Argument in Favor of Jargon

By Jon Miller - August 20th, 2018

When a group of people use jargon, or specialized language to express ideas or concepts, it can make communication more efficient. On the other hand, Jargon can be difficult for people outside of the group understand. People who use j

How a Little Compassion Improves Outcomes

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2018

In an inspiring TED video Stephen Trzeciak, a critical care doctor at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, N.J. explains How 40 Seconds of Compassion Could Save a Life. He begins, “In healthcare we in the midst of a compas

Why Do We Need to Set a Hypothesis?

By Jon Miller - August 6th, 2018

Why do we need to set a hypothesis? Because that’s how the scientific method works. Why do we need to follow the scientific method? Because that’s how we solve complex or novel problems most effectively. Why is that true? B

Review of The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2018

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle examines how groups of various sizes and shapes form into great teams. He offers practical pointers on what we can do to improve our relationships within coopera

When Fish Fly

By Jon Miller - July 23rd, 2018

For more than 20 years fish have been flying through the middle of downtown Seattle. Locals come to the Pike Place Fish Market to buy fresh fish. Tourists come for the novelty of seeing the fishmongers throw 10-pound salmon to each oth

How to Set a Rational Frequency for Earnings Forecasts

By Jon Miller - July 16th, 2018

In June of this year, financial titans Jamie Dimon and Warren Buffet argued in the Wall Street Journal that short-termism is harming the economy. They called on public companies to reduce or even eliminate their quarterly earnings guid

Deeply Understanding Improvement with Edgar Schein & John Shook

By Jon Miller - July 2nd, 2018

The Lean Enterprise Institute has put together the transcript of a dialogue between Prof. Edgar Schein and John Shook during the Lean Healthcare Academic Conference at Stanford in September 2017. The fifteen pages are full of stories a

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