Gemba Academy

Breaking the Weak Link in the Value Chain

By Jon Miller - April 1st, 2019

In the lean way of thinking, the value we deliver to the customer increases in proportion to effort when we connect processes and keep the activities moving along smoothly. Instead, Harvard Business School professor Thales Teixeira wri

Avoiding the Productivity Paradox

By Jon Miller - March 25th, 2019

Lean thinking and practice have the potential to improve outcomes in healthcare, software development teams, government services, business performance and even individual growth and well-being. For something that is so powerful and eff

What’s the Follow Up Plan?

By Steve Kane - March 22nd, 2019

Covey said it best: “Begin with the end in mind.” The adoption of a lean practice sometimes starts with a problem to solve. Other times it starts with a new tool (“To a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail&#

Introducing the Value Stream Management Resources Page

By Jon Miller - March 20th, 2019

When Mike Rother and John Shook wrote the book Learning to See, it represented a major step forward in the awareness among practitioners in the lean community. Prior to the activity of Value Steam Mapping, it was more challenging for

Lean Literacy

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2019

Michael Ballé wrote a thoughtful reply to the question of what should be included in an MBA-level course to teach Lean concepts. It is a tough question because as Michael points out, there are some deep differences that must be recon

What Meetings Reveal About a Leader’s Beliefs

By Jon Miller - March 11th, 2019

One of the simplest and most impactful things an organization can do in the pursuit of excellence is to reform how they hold meetings. And yet this is one of the most challenging changes. A recent conversation reminded me of this. The

The Most Important Lesson I’ve Learned the Past 20 Years

By Ron Pereira - March 8th, 2019

My kids range in age from 3 to 16. And, as long time Gemba Academy followers may know, I have quite a few kids in between these two. And while my wife and I have learned a lot about parenting over the years we’re still learning.

Amazon’s New Waste Reduction Strategy: Batching

By Jon Miller - March 4th, 2019

Amazon is trying something new in an effort to reduce packaging materials as well as the amount of fuel burned by making fewer deliveries. According to the article Amazon’s new waste reduction strategy: deliver only once a week, whe

The Limits of Learning From Failure

By Kevin Meyer - March 1st, 2019

Experienced leaders know that failure is not necessarily a negative, and can lead to both individual and organizational learning. We try to embrace failure and create a culture where appropriate failure is accepted as long as it̵

What is the Right Amount of Slack?

By Jon Miller - February 25th, 2019

The Kraft Heinz company reported poor financial performance this past week, causing its stock price to dive more than 20%. It has lost nearly half of its value over the past year. A Wall Street Journal article said of Kraft’s man

Vision, Values, and Principles

By Steve Kane - February 20th, 2019

Labor and work environments have continually changed since the dawn of employment. These topics are like just about any other aspect of the human experience in that they have changed more rapidly over the past century than any other pe

Words of Taiichi Ohno: Build a System that Loses Money

By Jon Miller - February 18th, 2019

At one level, a lean transformation means improving existing systems and building new systems where required. People and organizations cannot avoid systems. We all work within systems, be they regulatory, financial, logistical, politic

Not All Costs Exist To Be Reduced

By Jon Miller - February 11th, 2019

Taiichi Ohno declared, “Costs don’t exist to be calculated, costs exist to be reduced.” His point was that traditional accounting can fool us into justifying inefficient operations, building up inventory or acquiring

Teaching Thinking

By Kevin Meyer - February 8th, 2019

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. – Shunryu Suzuki A couple of recent Harvard Business Review articles have discussed how higher education isn’t preparing g

The Life-Affirming Science of Tidying Up

By Jon Miller - February 4th, 2019

When book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was published a few years ago, I read it with interest. It describes an unintentional application of 2S principles in the home (sort & straightening / set in order). Author and consu

7 iPhone Tips to Boost Your Personal Productivity

By Ron Pereira - February 1st, 2019

Over the last month I’ve begun to experiment with some personal productivity boosting techniques. You see while I have developed some decent Leader Standard Work practices over the years I still waste(d) far too much time on no

How Wrong Should We Be?

By Jon Miller - January 28th, 2019

A Scientific American article titled How Wrong Should You Be? offered an answer to a question that has been in the back of my mind for a long time. Like many answers, this one raises further questions. Taiichi Ohno’s wrote in Wor

What’s the Thinking Behind the Tools

By Steve Kane - January 25th, 2019

I have a small hobby business I run on the weekends. It involves some simple assembly and kitting, which I do in my basement. I’ve come to the point where flow has become the next problem to solve. What’s the Convention

New Toyota Kata Resources Page

By Ron Pereira - January 23rd, 2019

Starting this month we are publishing a monthly article on a continuous improvement topic, with an accompanying resources page with resources, videos, and tools to support it. This month’s topic is Toyota Kata (TK) and the Scientific

How to do Direct Observation of Knowledge Work

By Jon Miller - January 21st, 2019

Knowledge workers are people who make their living primarily by thinking. They include software programmers, scientists, academics, physicians, lawyers, engineers, managers, architects, designers, accountants and various other white-co

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

Herb Kelleher: Creating Economic Value Based on Human Values

By Kevin Meyer - January 11th, 2019

A legendary CEO, Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines, passed away last week. Many articles have already been written memorializing him, including this one by Bill Taylor in the Harvard Business Review and this one by our friend Mark

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

The Best of Gemba Academy’s Blog – 2018 Edition

By Ron Pereira - January 4th, 2019

Happy New Year! I pray 2019 is a fantastic year of personal growth and learning for you and yours! Now that 2018 has come and gone I wanted to take the opportunity to revisit the top blog articles from last year. Before we get to t

Small Improvements Instead of Resolutions for the New Year

By Steve Kane - December 28th, 2018

We’re closing in on the new year, a time when big ideas about improving our lives come to mind. It’s common knowledge that new year’s resolutions typically abandoned by Valentine’s Day. Taking on too much

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