Annual Management Improvement Carnival: 2013 - Lean Pathways

In my next review for the 2013 Annual Management Improvement Carnival I have chosen another favorite, Lean Pathways. This blog came on to the scene several years ago but the authors aren't new to writing. Four time Shingo Prize winning author Pascal Dennis and his colleague Al Norval are the primary contributors to the blog of the same name as their company.

Perhaps the most notable element of the Lean Pathways blog is the custom artwork that illustrates most posts. Many posts focus on the real meaning of Lean and leadership. They take every attempt to explain their interpretation of Lean thinking such that we can all understand it and implement it.

Here are some of Pascal and Al's most notable posts from this past year:

Good Lean organizations recognize shared learning creates faster more effective solutions and orchestrate many ways for teams to share and learn from each other. Al  explains what
Yokoten - Rapid, Shared Learning Across An Organization  is and how to use this approach to share the learning within your organization.

Pascal reminds us that reflection is key to continuous improvement as an aspect of plan-do-check-adjust. Reflection - The Breakfast of Champions  entails, honest, humble acceptance of successes & failures, strengths & weaknesses.

Is Inventory A Waste Or Cover Up Of Deeper Waste? – Al says inventory always hides a deeper source of waste. We need to be able to learn to see that and understand the root cause that’s driving the waste of inventory.

True Lean is about waste reduction but the purpose is to provide more value to our Customers. To do this we need to understand what Customers truly value. Al disputes the common misconception of Lean and illustrates how Lean is business growth strategy rather than only a waste reducer in his post Lean as Growth Strategy.

To engage people in improvement work, we need to create an environment that is conducive to problem solving, one where we engage both the hearts and mind of people, one where the problem solving is “Easy on the people and hard on the process”.

Aligning across disparate silos might be our biggest challenge. Pascal Dennis shares 7 thoughts that can help align Lean across disparate silos in his post Develop A Shared Language For Improvement.

It’s quite common for people to ask for advice on how to best implement Lean. Al shares 3 pieces of advice for implementing Lean in your business. All sound easy but take hard work. There is no shortcut or easy path.

As I said at the beginning of this post Lean Pathways is one of my favorite blogs. If you have enjoyed the musings of Pascal Dennis as much as I have you will enjoy this blog, too.  They pack so much experience into each nugget the share you’ll feel rich with knowledge.