Lean Blog Audio

It's a pretty common facilitation technique to do a "plus / delta" discussion at the end of a meeting, exercise, etc.In the plus column go the things that went well, were enjoyable, were helpful, and should repeated. The "deltas" (which is meant to seem more positive than saying "minuses," I guess) are the things that could be improved upon. A "delta" is a gap between where you are and where you want to be. After being in the doctor's office for just over an hour, nobody said "let's plus / delta your visit before you go." That never happens in a clinic setting. At best, you might get some sort of survey after the fact. But, the point of a good constructive "plus / delta" discussion is to give immediate feedback to those who might be able to make some improvements.

http://leanblog.org/audio19 This article caught my attention the other day: "Philly VA employees ask for golf shirts in suggestion box for improving veteran care." I hesitate to throw stones, but there are some very predictable dynamics involved here... and I will provide some ideas about a better approach and not just criticize.

I'm planning two different workshops in the coming months:Boston 3/31: "Successful Lean Teams" - Personal Kanban (with Jim Benson) and Kaizen Indianapolis 4/22-23: On-site Kaizen Workshop at Franciscan St. Francis Health System

It's easy to point fingers at others who don't do what they know they're supposed to do. It's sometimes helpful to be reflective and introspective instead of just trying to figure others out...

What is the "productivity paradox" as coined by Erik Brynjolfsson of MIT and is there also a "Kaizen paradox?" http://leanblog.org/audio17

I recently re-watched parts of a DVD I helped produce a few years back for the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value -- Thinking Lean at ThedaCare DVD: Strategy Deployment, Alignment&Leadership.In the video, ThedaCare's CEO, Dr. Dean Gruner, is talking about their "True North" objectives. First and foremost in that list is safety. We can include patient safety and provider/employee safety in that discussion.

http://leanblog.org/audio15 I have lived in Boston two different times, but I'm hardly a New England Patriots fan. I realize they have been accused of cheating (the previous "Spygate" controversy where they violated league rules by videotaping the hand signals of opposition defensive coaches and the recent "deflategate" controversy).For an organization to be truly admirable, integrity has to come first. Integrity is non-negotiable. There are many questions about the Patriots... But, there were a few things that jumped out at me in a Saturday WSJ article on the Patriots and head coach Bill Belichick: "Deflategate Masks the Many Virtues of Belichick."

My wife and I were late to the wildly popular podcast "Serial," but we listened to the first six episodes while traveling over the holidays. I ran hot and cold on the serialized non-fiction story about a murder... it was somewhat interesting, but a bit drawn out. The show requires a lot of patience (and at least eight hours of listening).I wonder how many of you were hooked on Serial, as many of my friends seemed to be? Saturday Night Live did a Christmas/Santa-themed parody of the show. That, and some free time after the holidays, inspired me to create a short Lean parody (no, I'm not doing an entire series).

Here's look back at a post from 2011 that talks about some of the misunderstandings that are thrown around about Lean and Six Sigma, with some new content and an audio clip from a speaker who gets this very wrong.

A look back at my visit to a Toyota plant in Japan, with a group of global healthcare leaders, in November 2014 (part 2 of episode 11 of this series). Topics include andon cords, proper breaks, and 5s (or is it 4s?).