Lean Archives | Page 24 of 68

It’s Your Duty to Make Things Right

By Steve Kane - January 24th, 2020

I completed US Army basic training at Fort Dix in May of 1990. Immediately after, I went to advanced individual training (AIT) at the US Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. Drill Sergeant Smith was my platoon drill se

GA 303 | Running a Successful Kaizen Event with Adam Lawrence

By Jessica Bush - January 23rd, 2020

This week’s guest is Adam Lawrence. Ron and Adam discussed everything that goes into running a successful kaizen event, including team selection, engagement, and increasing the chances of “winning.” A MP3 audio versio

Making Meetings Less Terrible

By Jon Miller - January 20th, 2020

Studies estimate that we spend an hour or more each day in meetings or preparing for them. On the one hand, it’s good that humans are communicating, making decisions and solving problems together. On the other hand, unproductive

GA 302 | Continuous Improvement at Halliburton with Chris Rodriguez

By Jessica Bush - January 16th, 2020

This week’s guest is Chris Rodriguez, Continuous Improvement Lead at Halliburton. Chris described their journey, including some of the lessons they’ve learned. A MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download h

Sustaining Gains with the Continuous Improvement Ratchet

By Jon Miller - January 13th, 2020

The PDCA wheel held in place on a slope by a wedge is a common representation of how standards are essential to sustains continuous improvement. On the one hand, this is intuitive and easy to demonstrate. On the other hand, it’s

Refining and Reinforcing Principles

By Kevin Meyer - January 10th, 2020

Earlier this month Ron discussed his top ten lessons from the last decade and Jon what he believes is the most important word of the year (“daily”). Although I have tried to divorce myself from the arbitrary boundaries of

GA 301 | Navigating Lean Trends with Karen Martin

By Jessica Bush - January 9th, 2020

This week’s guest is Karen Martin. Karen described some of the lean trends she’s observed, and how we can best prepare for and learn from them. A MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In this epi

The Word of the Year for 2019

By Jon Miller - January 6th, 2020

Looking back on the previous twelve months, there is one word that ties together my lessons learned and aspirations. The word is daily. It’s the humblest of words, suggesting commonplace, regular, routine, of no special note. In

Ten Lessons I’ve Learned Over the Last Decade

By Ron Pereira - January 3rd, 2020

The last decade has, without question, been the most transformative time of my life – personally and professionally. To be sure, I’ve made more mistakes than I can count…but with these mistakes have come valuable le

GA 300 | Leadership, Teamwork, and Taking Flight with Richard Sheridan

By Jessica Bush - January 2nd, 2020

We’re celebrating our 300th episode by sitting down with Richard Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations. Ron and Richard discussed the company’s unique culture, the similarities between flying an airplane and running a business

Remain Detached from the Outcome

By Steve Kane - December 27th, 2019

I’ve been working on my Black Belt certification for several months. The past few have been devoted to a project related to understanding how improvements over the years have impacted business performance. Many of the improvement

GA 299 | Lean and Strategy in the U.S. Air Force with Reza Zeinalpour

By Jessica Bush - December 26th, 2019

This week’s guest is Reza Zeinalpour. Ron and Reza talked about applying continuous improvement in the U.S. Air Force, including how they integrate performance metrics, innovation, and virtual reality. A MP3 audio version of this

Was the Standard Clear Enough?

By Jon Miller - December 23rd, 2019

While observing a morning huddle meeting last week, I heard a senior leader ask, “Was the standard clear enough?” several times as they discussed the previous day’s quality, safety and delivery problems. That’s

GA 298 | Defining Standardized Work with Mike Thelen

By Jessica Bush - December 19th, 2019

This week’s guest is Mike Thelen. Ron and Mike explored all things standardized work, including the components, how often it should be improved, and more. A MP3 audio version of this episode is available for download here. In thi

Go See, Show Respect, Ask “What Do You Need from Me?”

By Jon Miller - December 16th, 2019

Last week we took a day at the Gemba Academy office in Fort Worth to map and improve our content development process. It was a humbling reminder of the importance of going to the gemba, asking the internal customer what they need and m

Empirical Evidence for the Power of Kata

By Kevin Meyer - December 13th, 2019

We’ve long known that embracing failure with an aim toward learning and improvement can create future success. Organizations that see failure in that light, and support their people with cultures and systems to learn from failu

GA 297 | The Importance of Hansei and Revitalization with Katie Anderson

By Jessica Bush - December 12th, 2019

This week’s guest is Katie Anderson. Katie described what it’s like working with former Toyota leader Mr. Isao Yoshino, and why the practices of reflection and revitalization are so critical. A MP3 audio version of this epi

How to be Tough on Process, Easy on People

By Jon Miller - December 9th, 2019

One of the guiding principles for practicing continuous improvement, or good leadership in general, is to be tough on the process but easy on the people. The idea is to create a blame-free but problem-aware environment. This removes fe

How to Run Kata in the Classroom

By Ron Pereira - December 6th, 2019

If you’re interested in learning how to think scientifically I strongly recommend the Kata in the Classroom (KiC) exercise. I’ve personally run a number of KiC workshops. On one end of the spectrum I’ve run workshop

GA 296 | How Toyota Uses Agile with Nigel Thurlow

By Jessica Bush - December 5th, 2019

This week’s guest is Nigel Thurlow. At the time of this recording Nigel was Chief of Agile at Toyota Connected. He has since moved on from Toyota Connected. Nigel explained how Toyota has used agile, and why it’s so imp

Practicing Gratitude within the Daily Accountability Process

By Jon Miller - December 2nd, 2019

One of the better ideas I saw this year was during a tour of a lean company. It saw that “Appreciation” was one of the items on the agenda for the tier 2 daily accountability meeting. Each morning the area team leaders and

GA 295 | What’s New at LEI with Jean Cunningham

By Jessica Bush - November 28th, 2019

This week’s guest is Jean Cunningham. Recorded at AME Chicago, Ron and Jean discussed what’s happening at LEI, some of Jean’s book recommendations, and more. A MP3 audio version of this episode is available for downlo

Which Lean Behavior or Tool Should We Adopt?

By Jon Miller - November 25th, 2019

This week during an interview for a Lean newsletter I was asked a hypothetical question. If I had to choose one Lean behavior or tool for an organization to adopt, what would it be? Easy answers might be “5S because it’s fo

Leading Lean from the Middle of the Organization

By Steve Kane - November 22nd, 2019

This article was originally posted a couple of years ago. Questions about getting other people to change their thinking come up fairly regularly, so I thought I’d revisit the topic here. A common struggle in the lean community

GA 294 | Using Improv to Improve with Mary Lemmer

By Jessica Bush - November 21st, 2019

This week’s guest is Mary Lemmer. Mary leveraged her unique background in improv comedy and entrepreneurship to create a fun and effective training methodology that has helped countless organizations overcome all kinds of obstacl

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