Best of Lean Blog 2012

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• About the Author
• 1 January 2012
  • 1.1 Blame the Stanford Kicker! Blame the Kicker?
  • 1.2 Book Review: One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
  • 1.3 Lean in Your Life – Preventing Health Problems with Technology
  • 1.4 This Commercial is Not Exactly the “Five Whys”
  • 1.5 Kaizen Videos from a Franciscan “Kaizeneer”
  • 1.6 An Inc. “Best Small Company Workplace” & Their Lean Culture
  • 1.7 Steve Jobs as a Model Leader? As a Manufacturing Leader?
  • 1.8 Suggestion Boxes are Disliked & Ineffective Around the World
  • 1.9 Guest Post: Finding Waste at the Stadium
  • 1.10 A Lean Guy Watches Moneyball
  • 1.11 A Lean Lesson from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
  • 1.12 A Nice Kaizen Example from the PACU
  • 1.13 A Vivid Example of Gaming the Numbers on “The Office”
  • 1.14 Guest Post: Talking Lean at the Baseball Winter Meetings
  • 1.15 Lean in the Livonia Public Schools
  • 1.16 ThedaCare’s “Business Performance System” – and a 10% Target
  • 1.17 Guest Post: Is your management system the constraint in Kaizen?
  • 1.18 “The speed and flexibility is breathtaking” – But in a good way?
  • 1.19 A Reinforcing Loop of Kaizen and Respect
• 2 February 2012
  • 2.1 Guest Post: Some Tips & Advice for Young Change Agents
  • 2.2 My Podcasting Gear, Setup, and Process – Lean Blog Podcast
  • 2.3 Reader Question: “No layoffs due to Lean” extends to “no demotions?”
  • 2.4 Reader & Book Reviewer Question: The Business Case for Lean Healthcare?
  • 2.5 Kaizen on the Boeing 737 Line
  • 2.6 The Fall and Rise of Automotive (and Healthcare) Quality
  • 2.7 Mental Models and How We View the Gemba & Workers: GM & Dell
  • 2.8 WSJ: How to Be a Better Boss? Spend Time on the Front Lines
  • 2.9 What People Think a Lean Healthcare Consultant Does
  • 2.10 Continuing Experiments in Self Publishing & Lean Publishing
  • 2.11 Hello from the SHS Conference & a Question for the Readers
  • 2.12 10 Tips from a Hospital CEO – from the #SHS2012 Conference
  • 2.13 ASQ Influential Voices: Young People and the Future of Engineering and Healthcare
  • 2.14 Guest Post: Demand for #Lean Professionals Now Exceeds #SixSigma?
  • 2.15 Failure to Follow Process Leads to NL MVP’s Suspension Being Overturned
  • 2.16 Weekend Fun – Quality Related Band Names (#QualityTermBandName)
  • 2.17 “On the Mend” Wins Shingo Award
  • 2.18 Lots of Great Lean Healthcare Progress in Iowa
  • 2.19 Reader Questions: Lean and Process Improvement in Healthcare
  • 2.20 My Conference Kaizen
  • 2.21 Today Would Have Been Taiichi Ohno’s 100th Birthday
• 3 March 2012
  • 3.1 Wasted Data Entry on my Microwave – Why Enter the Date??
  • 3.2 Public Radio Story on VIBCO Helping Rhode Island Healthcare
  • 3.3 Management Lessons from Zingerman’s CEO Ari Weinzweig
  • 3.4 1 in 7000 – What are the Odds for Lean Healthcare Transformation?
  • 3.5 Staff Ideas Improving Freeman Health System
  • 3.6 Preview of the KaiNexus iPhone App – making improvement easier, anywhere
  • 3.7 Farewell to the “Move to Healthcare” Ning Group; Sharing a Success Story
  • 3.8 Learning to See (and Spell) in the NHL
  • 3.9 Thoughts on National Patient Safety Awareness Week
  • 3.10 Momentum of Lean Healthcare Design Continues to Build
  • 3.11 Guest Post: Healthcare Kaizen in The Netherlands
  • 3.12 Standardized, but Not Identical – College Basketballs
  • 3.13 Transcript of Podcast #142 – @EricRies on Taiichi Ohno & #LeanStartup
  • 3.14 94% of Problems are Really Caused by…
  • 3.15 The More Sophisticated Brains – Robots or Employees?
  • 3.16 Guest Post – #LeanProblems
  • 3.17 How hospitals are implementing lean healthcare practices
  • 3.18 Protecting Patients IS Affordable Care
  • 3.19 ASQ Influential Voices: Selling Quality?
  • 3.20 Danger vs. Hysteria — “Pink Slime” & Medical Errors (and a Guest Post)
• 4 April 2012
  • 4.1 April Fool: Back to the Future: Hospital CEOs and Virtual Reality “Gemba Bots”
  • 4.2 Paul O’Neill Video, Speaking to Healthcare Leaders on Quality
  • 4.3 Ending the Home Kanban System (For This Home, At Least)
  • 4.4 Emergency Department Wait Times are Down, but not Being Measured?
  • 4.5 Guest Post: Lean is Patient
  • 4.6 My Essay in Naida Grunden’s New Book on Lean Design – Be Lean not L.A.M.E.
  • 4.7 Quotes from Lean Healthcare PowerDay
  • 4.8 Robert Andino of the Baltimore Orioles & Dr. W. Edwards Deming
  • 4.9 Is McDonald’s Really the Big Problem in Hospitals? Or Preventable Infections and Healthcare Quality Problems?
  • 4.10 Visual Management in a Prepared Foods Counter
  • 4.11 Move to Healthcare Wrap Up – “Feels like Bias” to a #Lean #SixSigma Pro
  • 4.12 Mistake Proofing the Home Alarm System
  • 4.13 Update on KaiNexus – Making Improvement Easier in New Ways & Places
  • 4.14 Mistake Proofing Designed Into a Lock
  • 4.15 To Better Protect Patients, Healthcare Needs More “Lean Thinking”
  • 4.16 My Trip to the Apple Store was Like a Hospital Visit
  • 4.17 ASQ Influential Voices: Happy Quality Professionals?
• 5 May 2012
  • 5.1 TED Video: Atul Gawande: How do we heal medicine?
  • 5.2 Blame Outsourcing or Bad Processes & Bad Management?
  • 5.3 Not Exactly News – TSA Wastes Money
  • 5.4 All Saudi hospitals to report serious errors online
  • 5.5 What’s Wrong with “What’s Wrong With the Lean Start-up”
  • 5.6 Scared to Death: Worry about hospital errors, not pink slime
  • 5.7 Changing Leadership Styles with Lean
  • 5.8 “Lean Effort Pays Big” in a Colorado Springs Hospital
  • 5.9 My Flight Attendant’s Coffee Kaizen
  • 5.10 Lean on Alaska Public Radio
  • 5.11 DirecTV Makes it Hard to Cancel & Move
  • 5.12 Goodbye Dr. House, Hello “Respect for People”
  • 5.13 A Hard Habit to Break
  • 5.14 New eBook Compilation – Lean Blog: Sports
  • 5.15 Guest Post: Book Review – “Adventures in Leanland”
• 6 June 2012
  • 6.1 Weekend Fun: This Park Puts the K in Quality
  • 6.2 A Lean Guy Listens to NPR – Waste & Problems in Healthcare
  • 6.3 Virginia Mason’s Improvement Cited in NYT Editorial; Their New Blog
  • 6.4 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit 2012, Day 1
  • 6.5 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit 2012, Day 2
  • 6.6 Interview with Former ThedaCare Leader Kathryn Correia
  • 6.7 The Passing of Dr. Genichi Taguchi: January 1, 1924 – June 2, 2012
  • 6.8 Lean at the Peterborough (Ontario) Regional Medical Centre
  • 6.9 Meeting Masaaki Imai Today in Seattle
  • 6.10 Notes from Meeting Masaaki Imai
  • 6.11 A Lean Guy Watches “CNN’s 25 Shocking Medical Mistakes”
  • 6.12 Moving Beyond “Be More Careful”
  • 6.13 Healthcare Kaizen: You Mean Everyone Isn’t Doing This?
  • 6.14 Analyzing the Kaizen Improvements in Our Book “Healthcare Kaizen”
  • 6.15 More Than Grammar in This WSJ Grammar Quiz
  • 6.16 Are Suggestion Boxes Really Going Away? What Say Amazon?
  • 6.17 New Book by @PaulFLevy – “Goal Play!” with Lessons for Healthcare
  • 6.18 Even with “ObamaCare” Upheld, Much Hard Work Remains to Protect Patients and Make Care Affordable
• 7 July 2012
  • 7.1 Weekend Fun: My Ironic Home Office
  • 7.2 Google Nexus Q – Made in the USA
  • 7.3 Jerks Can Be Creativity Killers, Alright
  • 7.4 Reader Question: Hiring for a Lean Culture in Healthcare?
  • 7.5 Dr. Gary Kaplan, CEO of Virginia Mason, on Healthcare Morale
  • 7.6 “Blame & Shame” is Shameful
  • 7.7 Lifeguard Saves Swimmer, Gets Fired
  • 7.8 Should Have a Question Mark: Inc’s “The Leanest Startup?”
  • 7.9 “Why Charter Schools Work” – Questions of Autonomy, Responsibility, Standardized Work & Results
  • 7.10 KaiNexus Gives People a Voice
  • 7.11 I Wish American Airlines Would Error Proof This on Their Website
  • 7.12 RIP, Dr. Stephen Covey (1932-2012)
  • 7.13 “Living Lean” Vignette – Good Illustration or a Bit of a Stretch?
  • 7.14 10 Common Problem Solving Mistakes
  • 7.15 ASQ Influential Voices: Quality & Social Responsibility (& Lean)
  • 7.16 Looking at Medical Mistakes – Learning and Preventing or Repeating?
  • 7.17 Quoted in: 7 Ways Lean Healthcare Management Reduces Cost
  • 7.18 MD Anderson Presentation: W. Edwards Deming: The Man and the Message
  • 7.19 CBC on Lean in Saskatchewan Hospitals
• 8 August 2012
  • 8.1 The Two Root Causes of Everything?
  • 8.2 For the Want of a Screwdriver…
  • 8.3 Dr. Donald Berwick – Ahead of his Time on Kaizen in 1989
  • 8.4 I’m Sorry, Did You Blame Me?
  • 8.5 A Brave Analogy from Dr. Atul Gawande
  • 8.6 Dr. John Toussaint Says “Don’t Kill Me!”
  • 8.7 Dr. Berwick’s 1989 Advice on Making Kaizen Happen in Healthcare
  • 8.8 Counting the Ways to Solve the Counting Problem w/ Hospital Supplies
  • 8.9 Looking Back – What Dr. Deming Taught the Japanese
  • 8.10 Paul O’Neill Talks ThedaCare, Lean Healthcare on CNBC
  • 8.11 Fun Stuff from the #LeanMeme Contest
  • 8.12 For Real Improvement, You Need Honesty & Transparency, Not Anonymity
  • 8.13 A Kidney Accidentally Trashed – More Questions Than Answers
  • 8.14 Characteristics of Lean Leaders
• 9 September 2012
  • 9.1 How @KaiNexus is Different Than “Collaborative Ideation” Software
  • 9.2 Labor Day Reflections for a Safer Week (and Years) Ahead
  • 9.3 Stephen Strasburg & the Washington Nationals – Long Term vs. Short Term
  • 9.4 Reader Question: Getting Clinical Education to Transition into Healthcare?
  • 9.5 Reader Question: Lean Healthcare Conferences I Like
  • 9.6 My Article: “Lean as an Alternative to Mass Layoffs in Healthcare”
  • 9.7 Do You Foster Innovation? Ask Your Employees
  • 9.8 More Improvement Requires Less “Change Management”?
  • 9.9 Two Blog Posts About “Healthcare Kaizen”
  • 9.10 “L.A.M.E.” in the News; These Three Articles Get Lean Wrong
  • 9.11 Weekend Fun: LeanMemes.com #LeanMeme Contest Winners
  • 9.12 Improving “Door to Balloon” Times and Patient Care – in Some Hospitals, Why Not Every One?
  • 9.13 “Lean Management” Debated in the Washington Gubernatorial Race
  • 9.14 Can SPC Show if American Airlines Pilots are Staging a “Sick Out”?
  • 9.15 Notes from the 2012 Northeast Shingo Prize Conference, Day One
• 10 October 2012
  • 10.1 Back from Vacation; Chinese Translation; Champagne Gemba Time
  • 10.2 KaiNexus Update – User Badges & Sharing Improvements Widely
  • 10.3 Google’s Early Earnings Release – “Human Error” or Process Problem?
  • 10.4 Just Call it “5S Six Sigma” Instead of “Lean Sigma,” Please
  • 10.5 Make Patients Responsible for Reporting Medical Errors? Really?
  • 10.6 Elon Musk Pooh-Poohs Process
  • 10.7 Learning Jazz (and Lean?): Imitate, Integrate, Innovate
  • 10.8 The Invisible Waste in Healthcare Leads to Visible Harm to Patients
• 11 November 2012
  • 11.1 A Test for Executive Candidates – It’s Time to Power Off and Stow…
  • 11.2 Guest Post: Showing True Respect by Going to the Gemba
  • 11.3 The Gemba and Respect for People
  • 11.4 Getting to the Root Cause on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy
  • 11.5 Watching the Steve Jobs “Lost Interview,” Part 1
  • 11.6 Watching the Steve Jobs “Lost Interview,” Part 2
  • 11.7 A Panel of Early Lean Lab Innovators
  • 11.8 Lean Startup Conference Talk – Parallels to Lean Hospital Design
  • 11.9 Visiting the Toyota Museum in Nagoya
  • 11.10 Tweets from Japan, Day 1
  • 11.11 Andon Cords at the Toyota Takaota Plant – It Doesn’t Come Naturally?
  • 11.12 “Unity in the Essential, Liberty in the Non-Essential…”
  • 11.13 A Japanese Hospital CEO on Kaizen, Innovation & Breakthrough
  • 11.14 The “Gold Prize” Kaizen QC Project Saved How Much?
  • 11.15 A Small Batch of Bread, Other Random Japan Pictures
  • 11.16 Article on Lean Design and Evidence-Based Design
  • 11.17 “5 Questions” for Mark Graban on the Evolving Excellence Blog
  • 11.18 Hospital Workers, Flu Shots & Standardized Work
  • 11.19 A Lean Thinker Watches the Documentary “Escape Fire” – A Review
  • 11.20 Dr. Gary Kaplan’s Piece on Lean for the Institute of Medicine
  • 11.21 Guest Post: The Risk of Ignoring Muri
  • 11.22 5 Questions on “Healthcare Kaizen”
• 12 December 2012
  • 12.1 Lies, Damn Lies, and Vanity Metrics – in Policing and Healthcare
  • 12.2 BCS & College Football Coaches Poll Shenanigans – Bad Voters or Bad System?
  • 12.3 #LeanStartup Conference 2012 Notes – Get Out of the Building
  • 12.4 Patient Participation in Lean Renews Her Faith in Health Care
  • 12.5 Japan Tour Reflections: Taking Home Lean Artifacts or Lean Thinking?
  • 12.6 The Newtown Tragedy – Our National Response and Problem Solving
  • 12.7 Visiting and Teaching at Ohio State – Meeting Archie Griffin, Reflecting on Values and Winning
  • 12.8 My Human Error with my Keurig
  • 12.9 Start 2013 with “The Spirit of Kaizen”