One of the benefits of the current situation is being able to spend quality time with my new baby daughter Zelda. Unfortunately my lack of familiarity with her nighttime ritual was landing us in a pile of tears. My wife has (thankfully!) taken the lead on childcare, establishing routines and…
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead Fellow Lean community practitioners, as the recent Coronavirus outbreak is showing us, there is a tremendous gap between the current situation and the state of…
I reached out to the broader Lean Six Sigma community to find out how they’re putting their collective skills to use during the COVID-19 fallout. I wanted to hear from them for myself, but also to bring that wisdom to our learners. This group is experiencing the pandemic in different…
The other day I was invited to coach a two-and-a-half hour visioning meeting. I was super excited for the event. The group was working to create three innovative ways to serve future customers—and the meeting was planned to be totally interactive. Problem was, I was going to be five hundred…
Led by Operations Director Paulo Maldonado, a recent 100-day waste walk yielded $3.7M in hard savings for the 2017 budget at UMC Health System. "It's the small things," says Lisa Barrington, Lean Six Sigma manager for UMC Health System, as she exclaims the impact of hundreds of submitted process improvement…
What Is a Process Walk? Process Walks are also known as “Going to Gemba.” Gemba is a Japanese term that translates to “go to the real place.” A Process Walk means an improvement team physically walks the whole process together while conducting interviews with those that work in the process.…
“Gemba” is a Japanese word that translates into “the site” or “the place of work.” There is a related word, “Gembutsu” which means the “actual thing.” We “go to the Gemba” to find out what is really happening. That might be a nice piece of philosophy, but what does it…
How often have you worked on fixing what seemed like an obvious problem but found yourself frustrated with how much time you had to spend convincing others it was worth solving? Have you ever sponsored a Black Belt, a Green Belt or a Lean practitioner in solving a process issue…