

KaiNexus: Continuous Improvement, Leadership, and More
KaiNexus
We deliver practical insights and real-world strategies for Lean, Six Sigma, and Operational Excellence. Through lessons from KaiNexus webinars and conversations with customers, improvement leaders, and team members, each episode explores what it takes to build a resilient culture of Continuous Improvement. Learn how organizations engage employees, strengthen problem-solving capability, and sustain meaningful operational results across industries. Whether you're new to CI or leading major transformation, this podcast offers tools and perspectives you can put to work immediately.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 19, 2016 • 6min
What is Visual Management? It's Not Just Visual…
... it's Management.
Post by Mark Graban from Jan 18 2016

Jan 18, 2016 • 1h 2min
Jon Miller Webinar, Go Slow to Go Fast
To see the webinar:
http://info.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/practical-problem-solving/webinar
Using Practical Problem Solving to Spread Kaizen: Going Slow to Go Fast
In this webinar, you will learn:
The origins of the "Practical Problem Solving" approach and the connections to PDSA
How a formal problem solving methodology can give a big boost to your Lean or continuous improvement efforts
Why root cause analysis is more complicated than it might seem and why problem solving isn't always linear or straightforward
How to avoid jumping to conclusions about problems or jumping to solutions
The difference in mindset around "countermeasures" versus solutions
How to develop your problem solving skills and coach others
Webinar host Jon Miller co-founded the lean consulting and training firm Gemba Research in 1998, which merged with Kaizen Institute in 2011. Jon has led dozens of lean transformation projects in a wide range of industries and has helped thousands of people across 20+ countries understand and apply Toyota Production System principles. He co-authored the Shingo Award-winning book, Creating a Kaizen Culture.
Originally Aired: January 12, 2016 at 2p EDT
Length: 1 hour
Hosted By: Jon Miller and Mark Graban

Jan 8, 2016 • 4min
A Short List of Easy and Effective Ways to Spread...
... Improvement.
A blog post by Maggie Millard:
http://blog.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/innovation/a-short-list-of-easy-and-effective-ways-to-spread-innovation

Jan 8, 2016 • 4min
The Neglected Aspect of Lean: Practical Problem Solving
See this blog post by Mark Graban:
http://blog.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/practical-problem-solving/why-you-should-learn-about-practical-problem-solving-in-this-webinar/webinar/why
To register for the webinar:
http://info.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/practical-problem-solving/webinar/signup

Jan 8, 2016 • 3min
Happiness & Engagement (Maggie Millard)
This appeared as a blog post titled "Happiness Is Not The Goal Of Employee Engagement Activities" by Maggie Millard
http://blog.kainexus.com/employee-engagement/employee-engagement-activities/happiness-is-not-the-goal-of-employee-engagement-activities

Dec 16, 2015 • 34min
Ask Us Anything! Part 3
We recently hosted a webinar called "Ask Us Anything" in which we asked people to, well, ask us anything. It was so popular that we hardly made a dent in the number of awesome questions everyone submitted.
So, we've been answering more questions in a series of videos (see our playlist: https://youtu.be/GHnUsV_UYoo?list=PLscA9mcmPxeDXL5HdKKDosfXFoc4X3STO
Watch this recording to hear us talk about:
Informal problem solving methods that are effective with the front line staff
Rolling out technology along with a methodology and leadership behaviors. What happens if you get a huge flood of ideas at first?
How can continuous improvement, in the form of Lean, or Lean practitioners become part of the strategy or the decision-making process of high level management?
Considering a company with a Balanced Scorecard and KPI in place, what are your recommendations to define the most effective connection with Lean?
How to help move the executive team from "I support" to "I commit"?
Best advice for coaching leadership towards an environment that promotes respect and trust for people in turn giving the people the foundation to bring ideas forward safely.

Dec 14, 2015 • 59min
21 - How Leadership Commitment and A Systematic Approach...
Webinar - How Leadership Commitment and A Systematic Approach Spread Improvement
A webinar hosted by KaiNexus, presented by Karen Kiel-Rosser, Vice President / Chief Quality Officer at Mary Greeley Medical Center and Ron Smith, a Process Improvement Coordinator.
Does your organization struggle with engaging everybody in daily continuous improvement? Is it difficult to figure out how to combine formal improvement events, projects, and "WorkOuts" while engaging all employees to bring forward their ideas? Are you unsure how to spread improvement methodologies across departments?
In this webinar, you will learn:
- How MGMC has combined Lean tools and methodologies with a "managing for daily improvement" approach
- How leadership and technology enable and support successful improvement methodologies
- MGMC's vision for leaders getting everybody engaged in improvement
- How MGMC has systematically (and successfully) spread continuous improvement methodologies across the hospital over the past 12 months
- Why it's important to engage leaders and to educate them about improvement and the role they need to play
Mary Greeley Medical Center (MGMC), a 220 bed acute care facility in Ames, Iowa, has received "Gold" level recognition in the Iowa Recognition for Performance Excellence (IRPE) program, the top honor in the IRPE program (the state level Malcolm Baldrige award).

Dec 6, 2015 • 59min
Ask Us Anything! Part 2
This is part 2 of our webinar Q&A series, with Mark Graban and Greg Jacobson. Part 1 was released as Episode #18 of this podcast series.

Nov 22, 2015 • 3min
The First KaiNexus User Conference
When I first joined the KaiNexus team in 2011, we were just coming to market and had no paying customers. The vision of our co-founders, Dr. Greg Jacobson and Matt Paliulis, was compelling and they had taken significant steps toward bringing KaiNexus into the world.
Last month, we had our first ever KaiNexus User Conference in Austin. We've grown to the point where we had about 30 customers join us to learn from each other. The map, below, shows the home locations represented by the attendees.

Nov 12, 2015 • 1h 2min
Ask Us Anything! Q&A Webinar
Do you have any burning questions about continuous improvement? What about leadership, or employee engagement, or how to manage innovation and improvement? Curious about what continuous improvement software is, or what it does?
Tune in to this webinar for answers.
In feedback about past webinars, people often comment that there should be "more time for Q&A."
In the spirit of the popular "Ask Me Anything" series, we're going to conduct a webinar that is built around your questions - submitted in advance or submitted live. If you have questions about continuous improvement, kaizen, Lean, or any other topics, tune in for this unique webinar.


