A
selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of February,
2013. You can also view the previous
monthly Lean Roundups here.
No
Time For Heroes – Gregg Stocker explain how to deal with the problem of
hero worship and how it is a crutch for ineffective processes
Top
3 PDSA Mistakes - Michael Lombard shares the top 3 most common PDSA
mistakes from the frontlines of healthcare process improvements.
Redefining
Your "Real Job" through
Leadership Standard Work -Steve Taninecz defines 3 components of
leaders standard work that are critical factors for success.
The
Value of Mistake Proofing – Mark Rosenthal explains why mistake proofing
instead of blaming shows real respect for people.
Do
The Right Small Thing – Jim Benson explains the value and throughput of
breaking up projects to small manageable tasks.
Applying
Lean In Uncommon Ways – Jeff Hajek shares some examples of applying Lean in
companies outside the traditional manufacturing setting.
Lean
Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up? – John Smith talks about change from
those managers in the middle and how to get them to support the transformation.
We're
On The Hunt For Silos... And You Won't Believe What We've Found - Colin
Willis explains 4 negative effects of silos and shares some advice to eliminate
them.
Better
To Cause Problems Than To Solve Them – Bill Waddell says that creating new
problems instead of applying the same old solutions can truly open doors.
Leaps
of Faith – Evan Durant explains why Lean conversion takes a leap of faith
relating to a real life experience of sky diving.
We
Need To Understand Variation To Manage Effectively - Mike Stoecklein offers
an in depth look at variation from two points of views and the importance for
managers to understand it.
Productivity and Improvement – Art
Smalley says there is no perfect metric and it can’t replace observation and
improvement.
Who Needs To Use The Metric And To What
Purpose? – Michael Balle cautions the use of productivity and focuses on
how to make effective measures.
Lean and Productivity – Daniel Jones
says we need to avoid looking inward and shares some indirect measures of
productivity that add value.
The
Significance of Catchball – Gregg Stocker has a nice explanation of the catchball
process for what I call strategy alignment and execution.
Improving
Processes Helps Innovation Efforts – John Hunter explains how process
improvement increases innovation rather than stifles it.
Communicating
for Change - Aaron Fausz shares a number of guiding principles that should
be followed when creating and delivering your communications regarding change.
Kaizen
- Small Changes vs Monster Projects – Al Norval explains why Kaizen is
about small changes and why it is so beneficial to sustaining improvement.
Early Bloomers –
Bruce Hamilton explains stereotypes of those within transformations in terms of
seasonal changes.
TPM
Before Lean – Ellis New shares his thought on the importance of total
productive maintenance and why your improvement should start with TPM.
Try
Walking Before Talking – Liz Guthridge says while choosing and using the
right words are still important words don’t drive behavior actions do.
Toyota, Respect
for People (or "Humanity") and Lean – Mark Graban writes how
“respect for people” and “continuous improvement” (or Kaizen) are intertwined.
