Lean Blog: Sports
Lean Blog: Sports
Lean Concepts in Sports and Lean Lessons from the Sports World
About the Book
This e-Book is a collection of posts from Mark Graban's LeanBlog.org that focus on Lean concepts found in professional and college sports, as well as Lean lessons from players, coaches, and other leaders that can be applied in our own workplaces.
The posts have been freshly edited and updated, with updated links and new reflections being added at the end of some posts. Content has been organized into sections for different sports: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and miscellaneous.
What can David Stern and the NBA, Rex Ryan of the New York Jets, and the Atlanta Braves teach us about Lean leadership? What can we learn about Lean by observing the beer concession stands or other stadium operations? What does a missing Olympic hockey puck teach us about problem solving? Read this book to find out.
The book is the equivalent of 266 pages in paperback form.
It can also be purchased in the Amazon Kindle store.
Last updated February 2017.
About the Author
About the Contributors
Table of Contents
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Introduction
- What is Lean?
- The Typical Goals of Lean
- What Lean Is and Is Not
- Respect and Leadership
- About this Compilation
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1. Baseball
- 1.1 The Culture of Winning — Baseball and Lean
- 1.2 Standard Work for Baseball Umpires??
- 1.3 Long-Term vs Short-Term in Sports
- 1.4 Safety, Quality (Starts), Delivery (to the Plate), and Coaches
- 1.5 Waste in the New Yankee Stadium Layout?
- 1.6 Washington “Natinals” Error
- 1.7 World Series Defect: Wrong Pitcher
- 1.8 ‘Moneyball’ Lessons – Listen to Your Front-Line Staff
- 1.9 A Lean Guy Watches Moneyball
- 1.10 Guest Post: Talking Lean at the Baseball Winter Meetings
- 1.11 Failure to Follow Process Leads to NL MVP’s Suspension Being Overturned
- 1.12 Robert Andino of the Baltimore Orioles & Dr. W. Edwards Deming
- 1.13 Guest Post: Lacking Baseball Specs Leads to Offensive Explosion (and MLB Scouting Problems)
- 1.14 Stephen Strasburg & the Washington Nationals – Long Term vs. Short Term
- 1.15 Fighting “We’ve Always Done It This Way” in Workplaces & Baseball
- 1.16 Learning Not to Blame: Baseball Edition
- 1.17 Lean Thoughts at a Toronto Blue Jays Game
- 1.18 CUBS Win! Chicago Hospital Implements First Staff-Driven Improvement in 108 Years
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2. Football
- 2.1 Lack of Clear Visual Controls and Training in the NFL
- 2.2 NFL Kaizen
- 2.3 Lessons from Northwestern Football
- 2.4 How Much of Football is VA?
- 2.5 Learning from Super Bowl Coaches
- 2.6 The Cost of Unsold Uniform Inventory
- 2.7 The Patriots are like Toyota?
- 2.8 Sunday Night Muda
- 2.9 The Sun Devil Suggestion System
- 2.10 “Not Conducive to Suggestions”
- 2.11 American-Made Footballs in the Super Bowl
- 2.12 Reducing the Waste of Waiting in the NFL Draft
- 2.13 A Funny Example of Not Delivering “Value”?
- 2.14 Another Uniform Inventory Story
- 2.15 Taking Responsibility for Mistakes – On the Field, and Off
- 2.16 More Proof that Exhortations Don’t Work?
- 2.17 Great Piece on the Failings of Incentives
- 2.18 One Purple Audacious Goal…
- 2.19 Jerry Jones is NOT a Lean Thinker, Apparently?
- 2.20 Only 11 Minutes of Value in an NFL Game?
- 2.21 Safety First – Even at a Northwestern Football Game?
- 2.22 Individual NFL Player Incentives – Why Are They Necessary? Do They Distort the Game?
- 2.23 Super Bowl Footballs – Made in America (Ohio!)
- 2.24 Coach Vince Lombardi on Striving for Perfection
- 2.25 So What If You Don’t Have Stats for Offensive Lineman?
- 2.26 “Like Lean” – NY Jets Coach Rex Ryan
- 2.27 Blame the Stanford Kicker! Blame the Kicker?
- 2.28 Coaching, not Berating, when Mistakes are Made
- 2.29 BCS & College Football Coaches Poll Shenanigans – Bad Voters or Bad System?
- 2.30 Visiting and Teaching at Ohio State – Meeting Archie Griffin, Reflecting on Values and Winning
- 2.31 Alabama Coach Nick Saban - National Champion & Lean Thinker?
- 2.32 Error Proofing an NFL Coach
- 2.33 Rob Gronkowski’s Back Surgery and Post-Op Infections
- 2.34 Denver Bronco Loses Touchdown for Not Following Standardized Work
- 2.35 Parallels Between Philadelphia Eagles’ Coach Chip Kelly & A Lean Leader
- 2.36 Standardized Work? Why Are NFL Concussion Guidelines Not Always Followed?
- 2.37 Process Problem: NFL Super Bowl Coin Toss, A Defect & Rework
- 2.38 Lean is Not About Cutting Costs; 2 Data Point Comparisons in EDs & the NFL
- 2.39 Safety is “always our top priority,” except when it isn’t… in football and hospitals
- 2.40 Lessons from the Football Coaching and Leadership Styles of the Oregon Ducks and Ohio State Buckeyes
- 2.41 The Patriots, Coach Belichick, Aspects of Lean Thinking, and Dr. Deming
- 2.42 Football, Holistic Systems, and Challenging the Way It’s Always Been Done
- 2.43 How Kaizen & Continuous Improvement are Key to Northwestern’s Stellar Defense
- 2.44 Like Lean: An NFL Head Coach Gets Out of His Office, Listens, Learns
- 2.45 Bad Systems & Training, Weak Problem Solving, and Poor Supervision Cause Cancelation of NFL Pre-Season Game?
- 2.46 Patriots’ Coach Bill Belichick : Surface Tablets :: Some Doctors : EMR Systems
- 2.47 Emmitt Smith, An Inadvertent #Lean Coach at AME Dallas?
- 2.48 What the World’s Best Organizations (in Business or Sports) Do…
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3. Basketball
- 3.1 The NBA Not Involving Its Employees?
- 3.2 NBA Listens to Employees
- 3.3 NBA’s David Stern on Listening
- 3.4 Bad Systems in the News: NBA
- 3.5 “Bad Systems in the News” Update
- 3.6 Lean Elements in NCAA Hoops?
- 3.7 NVA in the NBA — It’s “Value Added”-tastic?
- 3.8 Leadership Thoughts from Late Great Detroit Pistons
- 3.9 Are Slogans Always Bad or Can They Inspire?
- 3.10 NBA Has Learned Its Lesson?
- 3.11 Do Good Coaches Brush Off Feedback from the Team as Whining?
- 3.12 Standardized, but Not Identical – College Basketballs
- 3.13 Gaming the System: Graduation Rates & Pneumonia Rates
- 3.14 Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich, Deming, and Lean Leadership
- 3.15 Spurs Win the NBA Title: Systems, Learning, Teamwork, & Leadership
- 3.16 What We Can Learn About Teamwork and Culture from the San Antonio Spurs
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4. Hockey
- 4.1 Suboptimizing the New NHL Uniforms?
- 4.2 NHL Backing Off like the NBA Did?
- 4.3 How the Gold Medal Puck Was Almost Lost
- 4.4 No Joke: Lean Methods Applied by a Hockey Coach in Ontario
- 4.5 Learning to See (and Spell) in the NHL
- 4.6 Would the WSJ Blame “Just in Time” for the Stanley Cup Being Late?
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5. Miscellaneous Sports
- 5.1 Quick Changeover for American Airlines Center
- 5.2 Not following the “Standard” lets an athlete off the hook?
- 5.3 Changing Glass vs. Pouring a Glass
- 5.4 I’d Like to “5S” the Wimbledon TV Broadcast Screen
- 5.5 Matthew May’s Encounter with Tiger & Goals of Perfection
- 5.6 Guest Post: Finding Waste at the Stadium
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Mark Graban
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