Gemba Academy

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?

By Ron Pereira - July 2nd, 2021

One of my responsibilities here at Gemba Academy is to coach our Black Belt and Master Black Belt candidates. And, without question, the most common question I ask during the project selection phase of the journey is “What proble

The Five Steps to Getting Better at Anything

By Jon Miller - June 28th, 2021

Jerry Seinfeld is an immensely successful comedian. He has achieved fame and fortune through his skill at making funny observations about everyday things. An Inc. magazine article asks him why he still works so hard and receives a simp

Learning from a Blogging Experiment Failure

By Jon Miller - June 21st, 2021

We’re about ten weeks into running an experiment in blog post writing. The purpose is to be less deadline-driven, allow time for quality checks and make the writing process less of a weekly struggle. It was going well until this week

Respect for Soft Skills

By Jon Miller - June 14th, 2021

In lean circles we talk a lot about respect for people. Along with continuous improvement, it’s one of two core elements of the Toyota Way brand of lean thinking. In contrast to the tools and techniques of continuous improvement,

How to Think Long Term

By Jon Miller - June 7th, 2021

One of the 14 Toyota Way principles is to think long term. In fact, it’s the first on the list. What does it mean exactly to base decisions on the long term, in the context of lean management? Reading carefully, we can see that n

The Surprisingly Positive Power of Deception

By Jon Miller - May 31st, 2021

Recently I wanted to persuade an acquaintance to try something. It was a simple solution that I was pretty sure would work for them. There was very little practical downside. And yet as anyone who has ever tried to present a solution t

The Value of Lean Certifications

By Steve Kane - May 28th, 2021

It’s often argued that certifications are not required to practice Lean. This is absolutely true. Lean and other continuous improvement methods can and should be practiced by anyone in any organization without a certification or

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

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

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