Celebrating A Lean Journey's Third Year With Some Hansei

Hansei is Japanese for "self-reflection". It is the practice of continuous improvement that consists of looking back and thinking about how a process can be improved. Without this activity you stop learning and improving. So it is important as I celebrate my third year blogging that I take some time to reflect on this achievement.

Three years ago today I started A Lean Journey Blog and it truly has blossomed into a labor of love.  As I have said before I never realized the opportunities blogging has afforded me. But, what I am amazed about most is the ability for continuous learning.  Both from the great fans and other colleagues online that I exchange with and from the process of distilling my own learning with you.

A Lean Journey Blog continues to grow as you see from this quarterly chart of visitors to the site:

For those of you data analysts out there who may be wondering what the spike in the first quarter of this year is.  Well, that is is two fold: 1) the addition of ASQ readers from my work on their Influential Voices Blog and 2) ASQ ran a couple of my posts in their publications to their members.

In my second year there there were about 57,000 visitors: 

and this past year there were nearly double the amount of visitors at 113,000: 

I should hit the 200,000 visitor mark next month which for a small genre specific blog is a good milestone. This past year I have also nearly doubled the number of Facebook fans to 580 people. I have published nearly 500 Lean Tips in what continues to be a popular feature.

The Top 3 Posts this past year were:
1. 10 Characteristics of a Good Measure
2. 6 Pillars of 6S (Free Posters)
3. Lean Leadership Lessons From Abe Lincoln

In looking back at last year's goals I wanted to 1) Increase engagement 2) Do more on LinkedIn and 3) Provide more guest posts.  Engagement I would say is about the same as last year with the same percentage of comments per posts.  The LinkedIn Group continues to grow each week but since starting a new job last fall my focus has been primarily on posts for the website.  There has been 25% more guest posts this year but I would still like to have more.  While I can't say each goal was totally successful I am not unhappy with the progress considering the changes this year.

So what will my fourth year bring?  Well, I plan a couple of new features for the blog to start in the next few weeks.  One will be an opportunity to learn about the bloggers in the Lean community that I highlight in the monthly round-up.  Another will be a look back at some posts from the past so that new readers can easily learn from these.  I will continue to pursue new guest bloggers since I think there is great value in sharing this platform. And of course I am always open to feedback because in the end your opinion has a great deal to do with content and the success of A Lean Journey Blog. 

I would like to thank all the visitors and contributors to A Lean Journey Blog this pat year.  It has been a successful Journey this past year. Please, share your feedback so that A Lean Journey can be even more successful next year.