Lean Roundup #76 – September, 2015

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of September, 2015.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

A Simple Method for Achieving the Vision – Gregg Stocker describes a way to determine and align to your vision.

Is Plan Do Check Act Dead? – Bill DuBois revisits PDCA some 60 years later with a supply chain slant.

5 Ways To Become A Complexity Assassin – Marci Reynolds shares 5 ways to avoid complexity that prevents collaboration and meeting objectives.

Burning Platform – Bruce Hamilton discusses the stressful, dehumanizing environment of a push system.

Is Quality a Result or a System? – Jamie Flinchbaugh discusses why you need a quality system in order to get a quality result.

People Copy Examples and Wonder Why They Don’t Succeed – John Hunter says while we can learn from others when we copy we lose the learning from the solution.

Confidence and Humility: Two Critical Leadership Characteristics – Gregg Stocker describes two leadership qualities that work together toward constancy of purpose.

Prediction Doesn’t Equal Understanding – Mark Rosenthal discusses why you can’t manage to KPIs and that you must seek to understand the process.

How Will You Motivate Your Team, Pascal-san? – Pascal Dennis shares some tips o motivate people to pull together for a long time toward a shared Noble goal, and thereby achieve the extraordinary things.

Searching For Lean Sustainability – Bob Emiliani says thinking that Lean management is sustainable will harm your Lean efforts. Searching for an end-point (sustainability) that does not exist will bias your Lean efforts against daily practice for improvement and result in underdeveloped critical thinking skills.

Improving Versus Getting Others To Improve – Michael Baudin talks about how you persuade others to improve.

Data is Not a Replacement for Observation – Janet Dozier says data gives you results and shows you where to focus improvement efforts, but observation shows you the waste and the details of the actual process being followed every day.

What Motivates People at Work? - Aaron Fausz shares a short list of things that motivate people in their jobs, regardless of role, position or industry.

The Pursuit of Imperfection – Jon Miller uses a food waste example to  show in the pursuit of perfection it is very important not be be blinded by our own beliefs about “perfection”.

Discovering the Value of People – Kevin Meyer shares a story that shows how people create value more than their cost offset, leaders need to discover this.

Methodological Errors In Lean Government – Bob Emiliani describes 14 methodological errors in the practice of Lean management in government that must be corrected.

Another Conversation About L.A.M.E. and Lean in Manufacturing and Healthcare – Mark Graban shares some not so Lean examples as lessons to us all.