Lean Archives | Page 17 of 68

Roundabout Lessons on Scaling Lean Solutions

By Jon Miller - May 24th, 2021

Traffic roundabouts are one of my favorite flow management devices. There is a physical WIP limit. They’re visual. Look to the left for oncoming traffic, if there is a gap, this is the “pull signal.” No oncoming car in the ci

GA 372 | Lean and Mental Health with Jessica House

By Jessica Bush - May 20th, 2021

This week’s guest is Jessica House. Jessica’s background is in both continuous improvement and mental health, and she explained to Ron how the two worlds intersect. This episode is another great example of the universal app

How to Solve Hard Problems with Kaizen Events

By Jon Miller - May 17th, 2021

Many people are familiar with kaizen as a philosophy and practice of continuous improvement based on making many small changes repeatedly towards a long-term ideal. Often this takes the form of a creative idea suggestion scheme, a simp

On Learning, Listening, and Wisdom

By Kevin Meyer - May 14th, 2021

I’ve long felt that the single best indicator of leadership success, especially at the executive level, is whether the person is a voracious learner. Bonus points if the person intentionally looks for opportunities to learn new

GA 371 | Adopting a Learning-Based Approach to Lean with Scott Keenan

By Jessica Bush - May 13th, 2021

This week’s guest is Scott Keenan. Scott described his continuous improvement journey, and the work he’s been doing with Alan Wire. Ron and Scott also discussed our Toyota Kata course, and Alan Wire’s experience with

Lessons from Twelve Years in Pursuit of Zero

By Jon Miller - May 10th, 2021

We often see a visual display of the safety performance metric “days since lost time incident” in workplaces. It’s common where the job requires physical labor or where there is injury risk. The more days, or the long

GA 370 | Improving Quality of Life with Lean with Rick Foreman

By Jessica Bush - May 6th, 2021

This week’s guest is Rick Foreman. Ron and Rick covered a lot of ground, including Federal Heath’s lean journey, and creating a strong culture of continuous improvement. Rick also gave some advice on “selling” o

How to Save the World Using Gantt Charts

By Jon Miller - May 3rd, 2021

There are many tools available to project managers for coordinating work and keeping their projects on schedule. Small and simple projects may use task lists or spreadsheets to track the status of work items. Teams working on longer te

GA 369 | Developing an Internship Program with Brent Weichers

By Jessica Bush - April 29th, 2021

This week’s guest is Brent Weichers. Brent, who has a ton of continuous improvement knowledge, shared how he developed two different internship programs. He also explained why having interns benefits everyone, and how you can sta

How to Avoid Zoom Fatigue

By Jon Miller - April 26th, 2021

Academics, executives, and mental health professionals are growing aware of something called Zoom fatigue. Zoom is a popular brand of online video chat, but the phenomena is not limited to that platform. People are reporting tiredness,

Break the Habit of Breaking Good Habits

By Steve Kane - April 23rd, 2021

There are countless books, YouTube videos, and other media on topic of building good habits and breaking bad ones. So often the desire to change our ways comes light because of our realization that a problem exists. We learn and we fin

GA 368 | The Balance of Tools and Culture with Jonathan Jones

By Jessica Bush - April 22nd, 2021

This week’s guest is Jonathan Jones. Jonathan shared his background in the culinary, hospitality, and manufacturing industries. Jonathan also described his continuous improvement journey at Moog, his favorite continuous improveme

Going Out of Our Minds with Lean Thinking

By Jon Miller - April 19th, 2021

The expression, “walk a mile in their shoes before judging them,” means gaining understanding or empathy for another person’s experience or point of view. It’s mainly a mental exercise. But there are many practical

GA 367 | The Dichotomies of Continuous Improvement with Ron Pereira

By Jessica Bush - April 15th, 2021

This week’s guest is Ron Pereira. Ron discussed two books by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, specifically their teachings on dichotomies and balance. Inspired by this, Ron described three of the dichotomies he’s observed in c

The Coaching Cycle Is Not a Judgement-Free Zone

By Jon Miller - April 12th, 2021

Planet Fitness famously calls itself a judgement-free zone. This is an effort to combat the image of gyms as aggressive, competitive spaces. Beginners or casual users may not feel as comfortable. We are all beginners at one time, and w

Uncovering New Perspectives

By Kevin Meyer - April 9th, 2021

We often talk about the importance of getting “out of the box” to supposedly free ourselves of bias and be better at making informed decisions and capitalize on new opportunities. In reality, we often just barely ease our

GA 366 | Implementing a Lean Daily Management System with Liam O’Malley

By Jessica Bush - April 8th, 2021

This week’s guest is Liam O’Malley. Liam shared his continuous improvement journey with us, specifically his experience with Lean Daily Management Systems. Liam explained the benefits and offered some great advice for those

Addressing Toyota Kata’s Counting Problem

By Jon Miller - April 5th, 2021

Toyota Kata is the name Mike Rother gave to the set of routines used at the company to teach and practice scientific thinking. There are two practice patterns, the improvement kata for the learner and the coaching kata for the coach.

The Dichotomy of Continuous Improvement

By Ron Pereira - April 2nd, 2021

Every weekday morning my 14-year-old son and I take the 25-minute drive to his school. Neither one of us are big talkers in the morning so we typically listen to audiobooks to pass the time. The topics of the books we’ve listened

GA 365 | Adopting a Growth Mindset with Nik Kottha

By Jessica Bush - April 1st, 2021

This week’s guest is Nik Kottha. Ron and Nik covered several important topics, including what Nik has learned from yoga, what excellence means to him, and where his passion comes from. Nik also stressed the importance of coaching

Blog Writing Experiment

By Jon Miller - March 29th, 2021

Since 2003, I’ve been putting my thoughts on kaizen, lean, continuous improvement, and related topics down in blog posts. For the past five years it’s been on a weekly cadence. My deadline is Monday at 4:59 AM Pacific Time.

Did Standardized Work Originate Thousands of Years Ago?

By Steve Kane - March 26th, 2021

Armies around the world and throughout history have many common practices and traditions. One practice, in particular, started thousands of years ago and is deeply rooted in what we today would characterize as Lean practices. This prac

GA 364 | Why Continuous Improvement Programs Fail with Peter Christian

By Jessica Bush - March 25th, 2021

This week’s guest is Peter Christian. Ron and Peter talk all about why Lean & Six Sigma programs often fail. They also explain what you can do to prevent some of these pitfalls. A MP3 audio version of this episode is availabl

Seven Policy Questions for Shaping a Lean Future

By Jon Miller - March 22nd, 2021

A Scientific American article from November 2020 looked ahead to how the election would shape the future of the U.S. and the world. The article asked seven questions related to how the election’s outcome would affect policies in

GA 363 | Lean, Loss, and Lessons Learned with Lee Houghton

By Jessica Bush - March 18th, 2021

This week’s guest is Lee Houghton. Lee shared one of the most personal, moving stories we’ve had on this podcast. This one will stay with you for quite a while. A MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download

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