Ever since the outbreak of COVID-19, those of us in Continuous Improvement roles have had to rethink how we can continue on our improvement journey. For many of us, team collaboration in the same physical space has proven to be a very effective way to engage employees, surface problems, collaborate…
I recently spoke at Lean Frontier’s Lean Leadership Week Summit, which focused on lean people development and lean accounting. This summit traditionally attracts a lot of HR professionals working in organizations undergoing a lean journey. During a concurrent session, I shared some of the ways that I’ve exercised with clients…
In Part 1 & Part 2 of this 4-Part Series we explained how to create Mission and Vision Statements and conduct a SWOT Analysis for a Lean Six Sigma Program Office. These are critical inputs for Part 3: How to Set Goals, Objectives and Measures. Before setting goals, objectives and measures…
How do we get our employees excited about our organization’s Mission, Vision and Values? I’ve heard this concern from organizational leaders before and I wanted to share an example of a government organization successfully using a powerful but simple approach. The Usual Way A typical method of building an organization’s…
Catchball is an approach, inspired by Hoshin Kanri, designed to incorporate feedback from employees when determining organizational direction. It's often used when developing things like mission statements and goals with the expectation that leadership and employees "toss" and "catch" each other's ideas and collaborate on the end result. For a…
Hoshin Kanri (aka Policy Deployment) where “hoshin” means “compass needle” and “kanri” means “management,” is the process of ensuring that organizational strategy results in relevant priorities supported throughout the organization. The technique of "Catchball" ensures involvement and input for goal setting at every level of the organization from leadership to…
Here are our top picks for Lean success stories and news from around the web for the week of January 26, 2015. Emergency Rooms Busy With Medi-Cal Patients Last week, Mercy Medical Center in Merced, California almost reached a new record of emergency room patients seen in 24 hours.…