Comments on: A Kaizen Event is one of the most popular ways to rapidly improve a process and make the gains stick. Or is it? http://business901.com/blog1/a-kaizen-event-is-one-of-the-most-popular-ways-to-rapidly-improve-a-process-and-make-the-gains-stick-or-is-it/ Using Lean, Service Design, Agile and Design Thinking, Six Sigma to optimize the Customer Experience Wed, 02 May 2012 11:55:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Mark Graban http://business901.com/blog1/a-kaizen-event-is-one-of-the-most-popular-ways-to-rapidly-improve-a-process-and-make-the-gains-stick-or-is-it/#comment-5349 Mark Graban Sat, 17 Dec 2011 23:25:00 +0000 http://business901.com/blog1/a-kaizen-event-is-one-of-the-most-popular-ways-to-rapidly-improve-a-process-and-make-the-gains-stick-or-is-it/#comment-5349 Kaizen Events (or "Rapid Improvement Events," as they are often called in healthcare) are notorious for the high occurrence of "backsliding" or the process degrading back into the old way of doing things. One cause of this is the lack of proper engagement during the Event process... if a new process (even assuming it's better) is forced at people (as often happens in the rush of an Event week), then they are likely to not buy in and they might want to keep doing things the old way. Even when the new process is agreed upon widely, the best way to not fall backward is to continue improving little by little on top of the old process... incorporating daily continuous improvement on top of the Event. Additionally, not everything has to be a formal weeklong Event. Again, that's where daily improvement comes in, for the smaller stuff. Mark Graban Co-Author "Healthcare Kaizen" (2012) Chief Improvement Officer, KaiNexus Kaizen Events (or “Rapid Improvement Events,” as they are often called in healthcare) are notorious for the high occurrence of “backsliding” or the process degrading back into the old way of doing things. One cause of this is the lack of proper engagement during the Event process… if a new process (even assuming it’s better) is forced at people (as often happens in the rush of an Event week), then they are likely to not buy in and they might want to keep doing things the old way. Even when the new process is agreed upon widely, the best way to not fall backward is to continue improving little by little on top of the old process… incorporating daily continuous improvement on top of the Event. Additionally, not everything has to be a formal weeklong Event. Again, that’s where daily improvement comes in, for the smaller stuff.

Mark Graban
Co-Author “Healthcare Kaizen” (2012)
Chief Improvement Officer, KaiNexus

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