Lean Blog Audio

Six Sigma and Lean Sigma has "belts." Some people in Lean call themselves a "sensei." Is that really appropriate? The term is supposed to be situational... it's a term of respect one chooses to use for another person... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

In this post, I look at the impact (or lack thereof) of targets, rankings, and incentives, when it comes to safe driving or PCI (angioplasty) procedures in a hospital cath lab. Are we improving? How do we know? How do we improve? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

It's time for another new, revised edition of my book! It was originally published in 2008 as Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

A few of you sent me this article... and you were correct to think I would be interested:"Inside Alabama's Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs The South's manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

It's been 10 years since I first wrote about my awkward acronym L.A.M.E. Is it helpful to distinguish between true Lean principles and "Lean As Misguidedly Explained?" Will we see more L.A.M.E. talk and behaviors in the future? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Today, I'm happy to share a link to a white paper that I co-authored for Catalysis (formerly the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value).The paper is titled: "Lean for Doctors." Appropriately, the co-authors are two physician leaders you might very well know: Dr. John Toussaint (founder of Catalysis) and Dr. Jack Billi (from the University of Michigan). --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Today's Post in&t;50 words: Lean thinkers don't blame individuals who in a bad system, whether that's a presenter at Oscars, a kicker in a football game, or a healthcare professional in a hospital. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

In today's post, I write about how Kaizen starts with you. I share some examples of "personal Kaizen," including the way I've streamlined my call scheduling process, for my benefit and for others. http://leanblog.org/audio186 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

While I'm writing here about Northwestern men's basketball learning from Duke (without copying everything), the same ideas apply if you're Ford learning from Toyota or a hospital learning from ThedaCare. http://www.leanblog.org/audio185 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Thanks to GoLeanSixSigma.com for asking me some questions for a discussion that they've posted on their website. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Today's Post in&t;50 Words: I get worked up about labeling a troubled surgical department as "a factory," but there are far more important issues of patient safety and hospital culture to be discussed related to a Seattle Times investigative piece. http://www.leanblog.org/audio183 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Art Byrne's latest book, The Lean Turnaround Action Guide, has a lot of great tips that he's trying to share, CEO to CEO. How many CEOs are reading this book and heeding his advice, in manufacturing or in healthcare? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Registration is now open for our "Kaizen Live!" event, where you can visit Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis to see what a "culture of continuous improvement" is like in a way that will help you in creating the same for your organization. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Today's Post in&t;50 Words: I continue sharing documents from the Don Ephlin library archive. What did Ford and the UAW learn when they visited Japan in 1981? Many of the things that made Japanese industry successful are the same things that make organizations successful with Lean today, including in healthcare. http://www.leanblog.org/audio180 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Today's post points to my guest blog post for the W. Edwards Deming Institute: Reflections on Dr. Deming's Hospital Notes - What Has Changed Since 1990? Why do the same problems that Dr. Deming experienced as a patient 30 years ago still happen so often today? http://www.leanblog.org/audio179 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

This post in&t;50 words: Are there parallels between medicine and organizations when we look at the tension between heroism and the sometimes boring work of preventing problems and improving things? I comment on an article... http://www.leanblog.org/audio178 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Lean sometimes gets, I think, an unfair rap that it's only a method for incremental improvement. See this article, from the NEJM website, for example: "Limits of Lean -- Transformative Care Redesign Must Go Beyond Typical Lean-Based Improvements." http://www.leanblog.org/audio177 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

http://www.leanblog.org/audio176 I saw this article a few days ago in one of the larger healthcare industry trade publications:How One Woman Saved IU Health $54 Million The headline is misleading, as addressed in the opening sentence / sub-headline of the story (via HealthLeaders): "With a little help from about 10,000 of her friends and colleagues, the head of Indiana University Health's office of transformation leanedin to cut waste and encourage value, one project at a time." That's more like it and more likely... Lean is a team effort that, ideally, engages everybody... so it's not surprising to hear about 10,000 participants and the need to share that credit. Like almost every health system, IU Health faced financial pressures. I'll give their board credit for pushing for a method other than traditional layoff-based "cost cutting." "IU Health had already tried some performance improvement projects, but they were scattershot and not based on a unified philosophy. In order to improve results and scal

When I talk to organizations about Kaizen, or continuous improvement, there's far too much self-defeating talk, where people say things like:"We're not going to try this Kaizen process because our culture isn't ready yet." That's not only self-defeating, it's self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't work on continuous improvement, you'll never have a culture of continuous improvement. http://www.leanblog.org/audio175 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Yesterday, the W. Edwards Deming Institute published the second in my series of three posts for them: "The Failure of "The Livonia Philosophy" at my GM Plant." Read more... http://www.leanblog.org/audio174 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support