Lean

1655 Articles

Why Repeat? Why Repeat? Why Repeat? Why..?

By Jon Miller - November 30th, 2015

As a part of our working lives, repetition gets mixed reviews. When we repeatedly do our jobs well, we are often rewarded. But increasingly, we are exhorted to do our jobs better. We call it continuous improvement, in which we repeat

Do Not Title this Blog Post

By Jon Miller - November 23rd, 2015

One of the unexpected pleasures of business travel over the years has been stumbling across well-intentioned but poorly executed visual controls. As a result I’ve written more than twenty posts based on “ambiguous visual c

5 Thoughts On Dealing With Leadership Resistance

By Steve Kane - November 20th, 2015

By Steve Kane Gemba Academy recently conducted a one-question survey. The question was “What are you struggling with on your continuous improvement journey?” The most common response was related to dealing with leadership resistanc

GA 085 | How to Incorporate Practice with Mike Wroblewski

By Jessica Bush - November 19th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. In this episode, I sit down with Mike Wroblewski at the Summit on Lean Leadership. Mike

What We Talk About When We Talk About Overburden

By Jon Miller - November 16th, 2015

We place high expectations on lean. Lean will make customers happier,  empower employees, enlighten leaders, spur business growth and deliver bottom line results. Lean can certainly enable organizations to accomplish all of these th

GA 084 | Practical Problem Solving: Part Five with Jon Miller

By Jessica Bush - November 12th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Jon Miller, GA Partner and accomplished lean consultant. This ep

What We Have Here is a Fluid Dynamics Problem

By Jon Miller - November 9th, 2015

This weekend I attended a community recital to hear my daughter play piano. There were 23 children playing solo and duet pieces on the piano, violin, cello, clarinet and saxophone. There were even a few singers. At the conclusion

How to Problem Solve with a Virtual Team

By Ron Pereira - November 6th, 2015

By Ron Pereira Brainstorming, done correctly, can be extremely powerful. In a traditional brainstorming session a group of people normally come together with a bunch of Post-It notes and/or a white board. Folks often log their ideas on

GA 083 | Getting the Board on Board with Lean with Jamie Flinchbaugh

By Jessica Bush - November 5th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Jamie Flinchbaugh, a return guest who I caught up with at the Su

Another Good Reason to Walk the Gemba

By Jon Miller - November 2nd, 2015

From factory floor to hospital floor, the people who work on the gemba have long suspected the existence of a negative correlation between how much time management spends in the office and the quality of the decisions they make. Now

GA 082 | Lean and Human Resources with Cheryl Jekiel

By Jessica Bush - October 29th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Cheryl Jekiel, who I was lucky enough to interview at the recent

What is the Opposite of Irony?

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2015

Suppose you are passionate about vacuum cleaners. New models. Vintage models. Sales. Repair. Perhaps you are even a genius when it comes to servicing vacuum cleaners. An artist. You find purpose in enabling others to move dirt and debr

GA 081 | Wiremold’s Lean Journey with Orry Fiume

By Jessica Bush - October 22nd, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Orry Fiume, who I had the pleasure of interviewing at the Summi

Review of The Lean CEO by Jacob Stoller

By Jon Miller - October 22nd, 2015

[Full disclosure: Jon Miller was involved in proofreading and providing suggestions to the author Jacob Stoller. Jon was not compensated and has no financial interest in the book.]   Most books about lean management are written by

Problem Solving Paradigms

By Jon Miller - October 19th, 2015

There is a story about an executive team of a certain U.S. automotive company that is very revealing about their problem solving paradigms, related in the book Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard Thaler. The au

Improvement Through Personal Fulfillment

By Steve Kane - October 16th, 2015

By Steve Kane Tony Robbins is well known for his motivational speaking, books, interviews and articles.  A consistent theme in his work is the six human needs. 1. Certainty: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure 2. Uncertaint

GA 080 | Leadership in Sustaining a Kaizen Culture with Mike Wroblewski

By Jessica Bush - October 15th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Mike Wroblewski, lean consultant and longtime friend of Gemba Ac

Change Management Lessons from Big Trees Transplant

By Jon Miller - October 14th, 2015

This may be the best unintentional video on nemawashi ever. For those new to nemawashi, it is a Japanese word meaning “preparing roots of a tree for transplant” but is known to us as part of the consensus-building and chang

Toolkits or Aids to Knowledge and Creativity?

By Jon Miller - October 12th, 2015

The great mystery in the history of lean is not so much how and why Toyota and a handful of Japanese companies were able to make large strides in business excellence, but why so many have failed to follow their example. In a word, th

Thomas Merton and Dalai Lama

Discovering the Inner Merton

By Kevin Meyer - October 9th, 2015

By Kevin Meyer If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted. ― Thomas Merton, Love and Living Sometimes there are dots just waiting to

GA 079 | Run Improve Grow with Ray Attiyah

By Jessica Bush - October 8th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is Ray Attiyah, author, consultant, and lean practitioner. Ray and

Ron’s Favorite Gemba Academy Podcast Episodes

By Ron Pereira - October 2nd, 2015

On April 30, 2014 we released the first two Gemba Academy podcasts. To be 100% transparent, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. When we started the download “numbers” weren’t huge but, as you can see in the graph, we’ve see

GA 078 | How Flying Relates to Lean with Steve Kane

By Jessica Bush - October 1st, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. Today’s guest is our own Steve Kane. Formerly our Director of Sales and Marketing

A Rational Plan is a Prediction

By Jon Miller - September 28th, 2015

One question that I hear a lot is, “Can you show me an example of success in my specific environment?” with lean, continuous improvement, agile and so forth. My most common answer is, “No.” Although I would lik

GA 077 | How an Engineering Manager Practices Lean with Rob Connelly

By Jessica Bush - September 24th, 2015

Press the play button above to listen to the episode. If you’re reading this via email or RSS click the image below to listen to the episode. This episode features Rob Connelly, an Engineering Manager and fantastic lean thinker o

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