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Akio Toyoda Articulates Toyota Way Principle #15

By Jon Miller - May 18th, 2020

Imagine the head of your organization admitting, in the middle of a global crisis, that it’s become necessary to loosen strict adherence to some of your fundamental business practices. These practices are ones rooted in deeply he

The Point of Pointing and Calling

By Jon Miller - May 11th, 2020

A colleague pointed out and called attention to a question about the practice of shisa kanko so I thought it worth a few words. This is the safety practice of “pointing and calling”. Its roots are obscure, but it has been s

Metrics from the Perspective of the Customer

By Kevin Meyer - May 8th, 2020

A core concept of lean is that value is defined from the perspective of the customer, and therefore waste is as well. We are familiar with both types of muda, waste that is unnecessary and must be removed and waste that is necessary

Applying Lean Thinking to Demand and Supply

By Jon Miller - May 4th, 2020

Lean management is mainly associated with making operations more productive, improving safety, quality, speed and thereby lowering cost. Lean management originated from innovations in the supply chain. More recently, lean thinking has

What Are Hypothesis Tests and Why Should We Care? – Coronavirus Edition

By Ron Pereira - May 1st, 2020

As more and more medical studies related to potential Covid-19 treatments are released in the coming days, weeks, and months, you’re sure to hear terms like “significance” and “P-values” mentioned many tim

Condition-Based Management, in Times Like These

By Jon Miller - April 27th, 2020

The format of the 2020 NFL draft was different due to social distancing requirements. Instead of players and announcers on stage, spectators in the audience, and live interviews, we tuned into the home offices of coaches, personnel man

Be Deliberate About Your New Normal

By Steve Kane - April 24th, 2020

We’re at a point with the world’s current events that some governments are beginning to relax isolation orders and business restrictions. It would be easy to think that we might be getting back to normal soon. The harsh rea

Extremely Long-Cycle Standard Work

By Jon Miller - April 20th, 2020

The benefit of standard work, and good standards in general, is that it frees us to from having to figure out or to remember how to do things correctly. Good standards help us quickly distinguish between normal conditions and abnormal

Vaccination, Knowledge Reuse and Organizational Learning

By Jon Miller - April 13th, 2020

Animals and other organisms that are capable of learning acquire problem solving ability in several ways. They may do so through trial-and-error, via observation and social learning, or even from the sudden appearance of insight on how

Restart to a Future State, Not the Previous State

By Kevin Meyer - April 10th, 2020

One of my favorite books is Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown. When I first read his book several years ago it put a new spin on lean’s perspective on waste and value by applying similar concepts to

Reflections on Four Weeks of Sheltering in Place

By Jon Miller - April 6th, 2020

Washington State has been officially sheltering in place since March 23rd. It feels like six week ago. Perhaps this is because we eased into social distancing a couple of weeks earlier, seeing the writing on the wall. The governor exte

How to Manage Chaos & Uncertainty

By Ron Pereira - April 3rd, 2020

One of the most efficient ways to work through an obstacle, or uncertainty, is to learn as fast as possible through experimentation. I think it’s safe to say that most of us have been facing lots of change and uncertainty over the la

Now More Than Ever, Huddle Daily as a Team

By Jon Miller - March 30th, 2020

One of the challenges we face when working from home, or as part of a virtual team, is staying connected with people on the team. Today more of us than ever are in this situation for the first time due to stay-at-home orders related to

Give People a Sense of Certainty Through New Routines

By Steve Kane - March 27th, 2020

The Power of Routine So much of our daily activity is performing routines, even though we may not be aware of it. Getting out bed and ready for work; picking up the phone, wallet, and keys on the way out the door; stopping for coffee;

Respect and Gratitude to the Base of the Pyramid

By Jon Miller - March 23rd, 2020

One of the most important geometric shapes in lean management is the inverted triangle. Pyramids are commonly used to represent an organization chart. The boss is at the tip of the pyramid, with senior leaders immediately below, and th

Did You Find Yourself Working from Home All of the Sudden?

By Ron Pereira - March 18th, 2020

This article was written by Brita Quella, an Account Manager here at Gemba Academy. So, you have a laptop, a phone, pens, paper, what else do you need? Your meetings are all now going to be online. Your travel, conferences and interact

What is Exponential Growth and Why Should You Care?

By Ron Pereira - March 16th, 2020

Like many companies my dentist recently sent out an email outlining the steps they’re taking to keep their patients safe. And while it was a “normal” COVID-19 related email there was one line that really struck me.�

The Unexpected Benefit of Cancelling Everything

By Jon Miller - March 16th, 2020

In the past week an unprecedented wave of closures, cancellations, and restrictions on the movement of people has passed over the world. No doubt there is more to come in the following days as local and national authorities work to con

Five Reasons Why It’s Hard to Stay Lean

By Jon Miller - March 9th, 2020

Many organizations find that they don’t always sustain the gain they make from continuous improvement activity. Over the long-term, this is one of the greatest challenges to keeping management committed to building a Lean culture

Deepening the Lessons of Crisis

By Kevin Meyer - March 6th, 2020

I’m sure all of us are paying close attention to the evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) situation and thinking about how it has and will affect our families, organizations, and society. It’s too soon to say whether this will

One Point Lesson: How to Wash Your Hands

By Jon Miller - March 2nd, 2020

This is a public service announcement with a touch of Lean learning. One of the best ways to avoid infection from the novel corona virus known as COVID-19 is to wash our hands. Should we be exposed to the virus, proper hand-washing can

The Difference Between Naive, Purposeful, and Deliberate Practice

By Ron Pereira - February 28th, 2020

In 2008, Malcolm Gladwell popularized what many refer to as the “10,000 hour” rule in the book Outliers. Gladwell explained that in order to master a particular skill a person would need to practice that skill for approxi

Productivity, the Three-day Weekend the Future of Work

By Jon Miller - February 24th, 2020

An interesting news feature on NPR reported on a company called Perpetual Guardian which launched successful 4-day work week program for their employees. People are paid their full five-day wage, as long as they get their work done in

How Mindfulness Practices Enable Lean Culture

By Jon Miller - February 17th, 2020

The popularity of mindfulness has spread beyond self-help and personal wellness. Many organizations in fields such as business, healthcare and government are providing their leaders with mindfulness education and practices. The claimed

Medical interns at hospital with patient

Leverage Learning Environments to Create Customer Value

By Kevin Meyer - February 14th, 2020

A couple weeks ago a consultant friend of mine, who coincidentally focuses his practice on lean in healthcare, was complaining about issues with his healthcare providers. It’s a story we hear often – doctors running late,

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