Gemba Academy

More Than Metrics

By Steve Kane - March 18th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve had some conversations recently about what a successful lean journey looks like. Of course, we talked about key performance indicators and monitoring metrics. As the saying goes, not everything that can be coun

Coaching in Sports and at Work

By Jon Miller - March 14th, 2016

In the sporting world the separation of duties between the coach and the players on the team is pretty clear. The players play, the coaches coach the players. For professional sports there is also the general manager who handles the bu

Looking Back on All My Children Have Taught Me

By Ron Pereira - March 11th, 2016

I’ve been blogging since 2007 and have written hundreds of articles. And while I definitely have some favorite lean thinking articles like the value stream mapping series I wrote back in 2008… the articles I cherish the m

Why Leaders Don’t Counter Biases for “Why Organizations Don’t Learn”

By Jon Miller - March 7th, 2016

A November 2015 Harvard Business Review article titled Why Organization’s Don’t Learn did a good job of outlining the main cultural reasons that organizations fail to learn and adapt. The concepts introduced can be equa

The Other Flow of Csíkszentmihályi

By Kevin Meyer - March 4th, 2016

Those of us in the Lean world are accustomed to discussing “flow” – where work is performed in an even manner to reduce mura. Activities are synchronized, layouts are optimized, resources are available exactly where a

The Fog of Waste

By Jon Miller - February 29th, 2016

Last week I made a stunning discovery. There are literally bucketfulls of water in the air around me. For months this winter, I thought nothing of mopping up the condensation off of the windows every morning using paper towels. To put

The Skills Sought in a Lean Graduate

By Jon Miller - February 22nd, 2016

Matching the content, quality, cost and speed of delivery of a product or service to what the customer wants is the key for business success. This basic lesson is taught in business schools both as theory and through real-life case s

Say No

By Steve Kane - February 19th, 2016

By Steve Kane I’ve recently committed to more short-term responsibilities in and out of work than I should have. We’ve all be in this situation before, leaving ourselves with insufficient time to meet all the demands we’ve put

Learn How to Present Like Steve Jobs & Simon Sinek

By Ron Pereira - February 12th, 2016

Over the last few years I’ve started to do more and more keynote presentations in front of live audiences. And, while I love doing these live talks it’s much different than shooting a video in our studio or on the road during a

Weighing the Waste of Waiting

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2016

TIMWOOD is a mnemonic, or memory aid, for reciting the seven types of waste that lean aims to reduce. At its geographic if not spiritual center is W – waiting. This indicates time people spent unproductively while waiting for so

The Liberating Lessons of Less

By Kevin Meyer - February 5th, 2016

By Kevin Meyer My twenty plus year Lean journey has changed my life in many ways, but perhaps none as significant as a creating a pervasive recognition of and disdain for waste. Coupled with respect for people, this has changed my care

Meal Preparation as a Metaphor for Lean

By Jon Miller - February 1st, 2016

In recent weeks my opportunities to prepare meals for my family has increased. I have planned meals, purchased the groceries, followed recipes, prepared the food, served the food, received feedback, and filed this information for futu

Respect for People: Roommate Edition

By Jessica Bush - January 28th, 2016

As a young lean enthusiast, I have yet to experience a greater example of the need for Respect for People than living with roommates. From a cramped dorm room shared with one other person, to a more “grown up” house shar

Peak Stuff and the Hierarchy of Useless Things

By Jon Miller - January 25th, 2016

In a radio interview this week the Chief Sustainability Officer for IKEA, Steve Howard, introduced the interesting idea that the West has arrived at “peak stuff.” He observed that consumption of “stuff” such

Surviving E-mail Overburden with Seven Ds

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2016

A recent Scientific American article on the strain of always being on call summarizes the stressful effects of always being connected to work. The modern workday may be unique in human history, in that we receive hundreds of messages p

The Only Genuine Knowledge Is That of Actual Experience

By Steve Kane - January 15th, 2016

“The only genuine knowledge is that of actual experience.” ~ Chinese proverb Training is a big part of lean transformation. Countless hours and dollars are spent in training rooms, seminars, and classrooms every year. It’s comm

GA 093 | How to Start a Lean Initiative with Blake Watermeier

By Jessica Bush - January 14th, 2016

Today’s guest is Blake Watermeier, Regional VP of Operations at ARC Document Solutions. Blake and I discuss the process of starting a new lean initiative and the obstacles that often follow. This episode complements last weekR

Putting Things on Top of Other Things

By Jon Miller - January 11th, 2016

One of my favorite comedy sketches is the “Royal Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things” by Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Over the years I have grown to appreciate its insight into organizational behavio

How Applesauce Saves a Hospital $30,000 per Year

By Ron Pereira - January 8th, 2016

2016 definitely started with a bang for the Gemba Academy video production team! We just recorded another Gemba Academy Live! episode at Franciscan Health in Indianapolis. It was the first time we’ve visited a hospital and let

How I Stopped Making New Year’s Resolutions

By Jon Miller - January 4th, 2016

A friend asked me this past weekend about my resolutions for 2016. To our mutual surprise my answer was, “I don’t have any.” This caused me to reflect on why I had not set any New Year’s resolutions for 2016.

A Goal to Explore Out of the Box

By Kevin Meyer - January 1st, 2016

By Kevin Meyer Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. – Ralph Emerson It’s that arbitrary time of the year when many folks reflect on the past and set goals for the coming yea

Lessons from The Past Year on Lean Coaching

By Jon Miller - December 21st, 2015

Looking back on 2015, it was a career transition year. After 20+ years of being in the travel-based lean consulting and training field, I decided to take the travel out of the equation. It was a self-imposed constraint, forcing me to

Happy Winter Solstice

By Steve Kane - December 18th, 2015

By Steve Kane I always enjoy the holiday season. Not only because of the holidays themselves, but also because of the renewed energy I get from ending one year and beginning another. This is the time to reflect on the year that was

Gaming Our Way to Lean Management

By Jon Miller - December 14th, 2015

Gamification is a relatively new buzzword for the application of features of game-playing such as point scoring, competition with other players and so forth, into business activities. Game-playing involves rules, scoring, opportunities

Now, at the Gemba

By Kevin Meyer - December 11th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. – Thich Nhat Hanh Many people have a problem with letting go of the past – whether painful or pleasant. Not me. I’ve always been able

Gemba Academy Blog

Blog Archive