My recent foray into Appreciative Inquiry was spawned by Ankit Patel, principal partner with The Lean Way Consulting firm. While doing some work with the Cleveland Clinic, he discovered Appreciative Inquiry and saw an opportunity to blend it with his work in Continuous Improvement. I found the work fascinating and this is the subject of Read More …
Value Stream Mapping has been a practice that was first introduced in the book Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Add Value and Eliminate MUDA by Mike Rother and John Shook. This groundbreaking workbook, which has introduced the value-stream mapping tool to thousands of people around the world, breaks down the important concepts of Read More …
I find one of the problems that exist in Leader Standard Work practices is not at the Team Leader Level nor even the Supervisor Level but many times right at the top. In David Mann’s book Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions, Second Edition (which I consider the bible for Leader Standard Read More …
Leader Standard Work is becoming more commonplace and the standard for the development of a Lean Culture. It is extremely adaptable and found both in trade and professional services. It excels in experienced based professions but it may struggle in what I would call knowledge-based services. The problem is there are more knowledge-based jobs being Read More …
People struggle with Lean in sales and marketing because they don’t believe that many of the fundamental concepts of Lean, such as Standard Work can apply to the S & M discipline. If you review the slide shows under the Lean Engagement Team section on Slide Share, I think you will find how much they Read More …
Tracey Richardson’s How to implement “Lean Thinking” in a Business is my third and final blog review for the John Hunter’s Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival. Tracey is a trainer, consultant and principal of Teaching Lean Inc. She has 22 years of Lean experience and worked at Toyota Motor Manufacturing KY as a team Read More …