Lean Blog Audio

http://leanblog.org/audio113 This article, from December, was floating around social media the other day (hat tip to Paul Levy):Don Berwick Offers Health Care 9 Steps to End Era of 'Complex Incentives' and 'Excessive Measurement' Among the points that Berwick makes, here is the one most directly related to Deming, Lean, and continuous improvement: 5. Recommit to improvement science: For improvement methods to work, you have to use them, and most of us are not. I'm trying to be polite, but I am stunned by the number of organizations I visit today in which no one has studied [W. Edwards] Deming's work, no one recognizes a process control chart, no one has mastered the power of testing PDSA (plan-do-study-act), Nathaniel's Method or the route to the top. You can see the proof of concept. This is beyond theory now. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

How is it that we have two realities out there in healthcare... in parallel, Lean is awesome and Lean is horrible. It depends on where you are, unfortunately. I had an amazing day yesterday with a major health system... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Humility is an important part of the Lean management philosophy... it also means being willing to admit that there is a problem. Humility means "we don't really know so we must understand and then try many things to see if we have the right solution." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

When we see a simple error, even in something as silly as sports memorabilia, we would ask "why?" or "how?" instead of "who?" Blaming individuals doesn't help... http://leanblog.org/audio110 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

When I was at the recent Lean Startup Conference, somebody I know somewhat randomly introduced me to another attendee. As we chatted, I learned her background was social work and she was founder of a technology startup that solves a problem that was important to her and her work. I never met people like that when I worked in manufacturing... again, I've really grown to appreciate the perspectives and experiences of those who have different educational backgrounds than my own.We were talking about healthcare, continuous improvement, and such topics and she suggested that I look into a framework called "motivational interviewing" (MI) as something that might be helpful in my Lean coaching. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

How many times do we hear people say things like“We don’t have time for Lean” or “We don’t have time for Kaizen“? It happens a lot, right? As I’ve said before (and this video) a “lack of time” is a problem to solve... so how did I get hospitals to dedicate staff time for 12 to 16 weeks? http://leanblog.org/audio108 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

The "five" in the "five whys" methodology is not a magic number, be it Lean or Lean Startup approaches. http://leanblog.org/audio107 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Why do we need to move beyond "The Five Whys" into a more robust problem solving model for Lean or Lean Startup settings? http://leanblog.org/audio106 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

In discussing Lean and working with people in different organizations, I so very often hear things like "we don't build cars" or "we're different." I know I'm not the only one who hears that. The implication is "Lean won't work here, because we're different" in some way. Different country, different industry, different hospital department, different patient or payer mix, etc. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Lean healthcare really is a global movement. Last year, when I went to Japan, we had people in the group from all across Asia, Denmark, Canada, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia. Health systems all around the world need to improve quality and patient safety, reduce waste and create better work environments, reduce waiting times, and get costs under control. These are universal challenges.Thankfully, Lean is helping. Here's a story from Malaysia that caught my eye: "How assembly lines inspired Asia's hospitals." --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

http://leanblog.org/audio103 Through our practice of Lean, we're looking at processes and our management system, looking to identify waste and opportunities for improvement.Lean is about engaging people to have them ask why we do things a certain way or if things could be better (it's not about finding fault from on high and telling them what to do). The answer to why we (frontline staff or leaders) do something a certain way is often: "We've always done it that way." The fact we've always done something that way doesn't automatically mean it's a bad practice. But, we should be willing to challenge things to figure out if we should reinvent that process or tweak it. The same question applies to management practices. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

http://leanblog.org/audio102 The world (especially the world wide web) is full of surveys. Tell us how we're doing! Your satisfaction is important to us! We see this so often, it's easy to become numb to it in our Yelp-ified world.It's definitely a "first world problem," but I've been shopping for a new car over the past few months and I finally bought something. I won't disclose what I bought, but it's replacing a 2004 Saab 9-3 that I've had for 11 years now. The car shopping and buying experience has its frustrations - that's nothing new... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

http://leanblog.org/audio101 I'm going to be attending the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco next month, as a "faculty member," a moderator for a session, TBD, and maybe serving as a mentor. The organizers asked me to write a post introducing myself to that audience.Eric Ries, author of the book The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, makes it very clear that the Lean Startup methodology has its roots in the Toyota Production System and Lean manufacturing. Ries writes about factory settings and gives credit to giants like Taiichi Ohno (listen to our podcast talking about this). There are some in the Lean Startup circles who seem pretty unaware of the industrial roots of Lean. This often causes confusion. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Many of you don’t care about football, but you might find it interesting, as I did, to learn that Northwestern’s defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz is apparently a fan of Kaizen... http://leanblog.org/audio100 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

These Donald Trump hats (and hats for other candidates including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush) are made by a Newark company, Unionwear. Lean is their strategy and their production system. That’s how they are competing against China. http://leanblog.org/audio99 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

http://leanblog.org/audio98 There's a really good article that was published by Modern Healthcare as a special report, written by Sabriya Rice. Sabriya spent a week observing a rapid improvement event (RIE) at the Sts. Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in Illinois. It's an in depth article that, I think, very accurately reflects the reality that Lean is helpful, but the process isn't easy for a number of reasons. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

I have many experiences in healthcare that I haven't blogged about. I try not to write posts that say, "Hey, you won't believe what happened yesterday," for a number of reasons. But, sometimes, my memory gets jogged and a story comes back to me. That's what I'm sharing today as a Throwback Thursday. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

Having a model like this helps prevent errors, such as jumping to implement Lean tools before the organization understands WHY change is necessary. You have to engage and enroll people in change, not just force things on them.I am convinced that the ExperienceChange simulations, either Lakeview or GlobalTech, are a great way to learn and practice. http://leanblog.org/audio96 --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

My two previous trips to Japan have been incredible experiences, both personally and professionally. I'm planning to go back in December with a tour group I'm helping organize with Kaizen Institute. When people go to Japan, I think they are expecting to see perfect Lean practices. But, no... --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support

I was very saddened earlier to receive an email from an employee of a great leader, Dr. Michel Tétreault, informing me that he had passed away. Michel was, since 2005, the CEO of St. Boniface General Hospital in Winnipeg. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lean-blog-audio/support