Gemba Academy

Why the Only Way to Think is Long-term

By Jon Miller - November 20th, 2013

Lean principles are hard to live by. It is far easier to use Lean methods to drive for and achieve results, cash in on performance incentives and leverage that success for a promotion or even a new job, quickly before the lack of susta

What Problem Are You Trying to Solve?

By Ron Pereira - November 15th, 2013

The most frequently asked question we receive at Gemba Academy goes something like this, “What videos should we watch first?” A close second is, “”What lean tools or philosophies should we focus on first?” How to Respond Of c

Lean Gurus Womack, Jones & Shook in 70-minute Video

By Jon Miller - November 14th, 2013

The Lean Enterprise Institute in cooperation with Gemba Academy has produced a free online 70-minute video discussion among Lean gurus and thought leaders James Womack, Dan Jones and John Shook. The 11 videos cover a range of themes in

Process, Results & the Anti-Portfolio

By Jon Miller - November 13th, 2013

What’s an “Anti-Portfolio”? It’s what students or organizational culture would call an artifact. The anti-portfolio is a collection of terrible decisions and costly mistakes, in the same way that a portfolio of

Does Jim Womack Regret Calling it “Lean”?

By Ron Pereira - November 13th, 2013

If they had to do it over again… would Jim Womack & Dan Jones still support calling it lean? And what did John Shook originally think about the book title “Learning to See?” Finally, what is the “Great Stagn

Gemba Online Learning Content Update

By Jon Miller - November 10th, 2013

Video-based Lean training pioneer Gemba Academy has steadily built up a library of learning modules over the past four years. With over 500 high definition videos that can be accessed via DVD or from ain internet connection, new conten

AME Toronto, Lean Accounting, and BMW X5 Seat Manufacturing!

By Ron Pereira - November 6th, 2013

We’ve been EXTREMELY busy over at Gemba Academy! Here’s a short list of what we’ve been up to: We talked all things lean with John Shook, Jim Womack, and Dan Jones at the recent AME conference in Toronto. This 70 mi

How to Engage People

By Jon Miller - November 4th, 2013

A recent Gallup poll showed that a whopping 70% of American workers were either not engaged or actively disengaged from their work. That’s about 70 million people who don’t care about or hate their job. More than the entire

It’s So Good Because It’s So Mutual

By Jon Miller - October 27th, 2013

Over the last couple of years both the application and meaning of “Lean” has been broadened, stretched, and even re-imagined quite a bit. This is largely thanks to its discovery and adoption by people from the software deve

Lean Thinker Challenge #3

By Ron Pereira - October 15th, 2013

Welcome to this week’s Lean Thinker Challenge! The Situation Your cousin, Shane, works for the NCAA and has been tasked with improving a critical aspect of the college football experience. Specifically, Shane has been asked to find a

What Culture Supports a Lean Startup Approach?

By Jon Miller - October 8th, 2013

Today I was fortunate to have the opportunity to sit in on a webinar titled Bringing Lean to Established Companies by lean startup gurus Eric Ries, Brant Cooper, and Patrick Vlaskovits. The webinar was not about bringing Lean per se bu

Process, Result and Value for the Community

By Jon Miller - October 6th, 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to speak in front of group of people learning and leading continuous improvement paired with respect for humanity, at the Lean HR Summit. One of myths of Lean that I attempted to bust was that the prime

Lean Thinker Challenge #2

By Ron Pereira - October 2nd, 2013

Well, it’s safe to say our first Lean Thinker Challenge was a hit… as of a few minutes ago there were 56 comments. Thank you to all of you who joined the conversation! Now, let’s get to this week’s Lean Thinker Challenge! The S

Kaizen Song: Come All You A3 Thinkers

By Jon Miller - September 29th, 2013

Based on “Come All You Coal Miners”, this is the kaizen song… Come All You A3 Thinkers Come all you A3 thinkers wherever you may be And learn of a storyline, from circles of QC The name is nothing special, but its ste

The Man Who Saved Kaizen

By Jon Miller - September 20th, 2013

It is with love and gratitude that we remember Eiji Toyoda, the man who forever changed how the world improves the way we work. He passed on this week, aged 100. He engineered the successful Toyota-GM join venture in California known a

OH NO You Didn't Really Say That!

By Jon Miller - September 16th, 2013

It pains me to even write these words again: “All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the

Lean Thinker Challenge #1

By Ron Pereira - September 12th, 2013

OK, so I thought I’d start a new, hopefully fun, series of articles called the Lean Thinker Challenge. This is the first edition! The Situation You’ve just been hired as the VP of Operations for a 200 person manufacturing

8 More Lean Concept Clarifications

By Jon Miller - September 12th, 2013

Everyday conversations with lean learners and lean practitioners make me think that this problem of the erosion of meaning, or even extensions of transference is not unique to A3 thinking. In fact we could list lightly-learned or misin

The Great A3 Thinking Fallacy

By Jon Miller - September 8th, 2013

What lean or six sigma practitioner doesn’t love A3 thinking? It’s versatile, low-tech, and seemingly easy to learn and teach. The trouble is that just about every plan or report or problem solving summary on a page is gett

Mercury Marine Video: 8-minute Lean Manufacturing Wake-up Call

By Jon Miller - August 27th, 2013

Thanks to YouTube, it is possible to view the classic Lean awareness video of the Mercury Marine continuous improvement program called Quest. I have used this many times to great effect. In less than 10 minutes you can show this video,

Why Organizational Culture is a Monster

By Jon Miller - August 20th, 2013

Organizational culture matters because culture makes the difference between whether we execute good ideas or not. Good ideas abound, but the world sorely lacks in evidence for the increase in the adoption and long-term follow-through o

The ABCs of Organizational Culture

By Jon Miller - August 15th, 2013

Like the light of our sun on the dark side of the moon, the light of critical inquiry falls too rarely on organizational culture during a lean startup launch or a lean enterprise transformation. We have made organizational culture, its

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Artifacts of Cultural Assumptions

By Jon Miller - August 13th, 2013

Clear and effective visual controls need to alert the viewer of normal versus abnormal conditions and/or provide guidance towards acting in accordance to the norm or standard. The street sign above is provided by the Tokyo metropolitan

Why Workarounds Happen

By Jon Miller - August 8th, 2013

A recent experience while attempting to depart from an equatorial country made me reflect on why workarounds happen. As I checked in to my flight, the airline staff asked to see my yellow fever card while entering my passport informati

Standard Work for Astronauts

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2013

Here is a good example of standard work for knowledge workers. Astronauts are probably some of the best educated and best trained people on the planet (and off-planet for that matter). Those of us who think that we can’t have dai

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