Kainexus Continuous Improvement Podcast

Read the blog post The process you use to develop your strategic plan is as important as the plan itself. Many organizations adopt the Hoshin Kanri method (also known as Hoshin Planning or Strategy Deployment), which integrates daily management with the strategic breakthroughs needed to propel the organization forward. Hoshin Kanri helps create specific, actionable plans and allocates the resources necessary to achieve them. An important element of Hoshin Kanri is not just the setting of top-down objectives but also ensuring a two-way dialogue between leadership and employees, known as "catchball." This ongoing feedback loop ensures that strategic objectives are both communicated effectively and adjusted based on input from all levels of the organization. The entire process becomes an iterative cycle that aligns with the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust (PDSA) framework, fostering continuous learning and improvement. Here are the seven steps typically followed in the Hoshin Kanri process:

Video, slides, and more Presented by Melissa Sherman Why is change so hard? Change is a complex and multifaceted process that often evokes a wide range of emotions and challenges. Despite these challenges, change is an inevitable part of life and is often necessary for growth, progress, and adaptation. By acknowledging the difficulties associated with change and providing support, encouragement, and clear communications, we can help individuals and organizations embrace change and Continuous Improvements more effectively. As continuous improvement practitioners, we don’t always think about the impact our continuous improvement initiatives will have on the employees. Learning objectives: Throughout this session, we will look at various ways to improve the sustainability of our projects. Let’s discuss the importance of making sure we are embedding change management into your continuous improvement efforts. We will look at what change is, the resistance to it, the journey/change curve an individual goes through,

The blog post In this episode, we discuss how to create a culture of continuous improvement in the workplace. We'll cover seven surefire ways to promote improvement, including making it ongoing, involving all employees, removing barriers to improvement, celebrating all types of improvement, providing resources and recognition for improvement efforts, and leading by example. By following these tips, you can create a workplace where everyone is constantly striving to be better.

In today's episode host Mark Graban, a senior advisor with KaiNexus, chats with Yehor Skorodumov, a senior web application developer who joined our team earlier this year. In the episode, Yehor talks about his rigorous and analytical approach to researching companies, including KaiNexus. He also shares about the interviewing process, a little bit about what he does in his role, and what his first few months at the company were like. Learn more about KaiNexus: https://kainexus.com/ And KaiNexus careers: https://www.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/kainexus-team

Mark Graban of KaiNexus talks with Melissa Sherman to preview her webinar... Register here Why is change so hard? Change is a complex and multifaceted process that often evokes a wide range of emotions and challenges. Despite these challenges, change is an inevitable part of life and is often necessary for growth, progress, and adaptation. By acknowledging the difficulties associated with change and providing support, encouragement, and clear communications, we can help individuals and organizations embrace change and Continuous Improvements more effectively. As continuous improvement practitioners, we don’t always think about the impact our continuous improvement initiatives will have on the employees. Learning objectives: Throughout this session, we will look at various ways to improve the sustainability of our projects. Let’s discuss the importance of making sure we are embedding change management into your continuous improvement efforts. We will look at what change is, the resistance to it, the journ

Welcome to the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast, hosted by Mark Graban, Senior Advisor at KaiNexus. In today's episode, we share insights from one of our YouTube videos, featuring two esteemed leaders from UMass Memorial Health. Cathy Burke and Jeff Marks discuss how KaiNexus, known internally as "Innovation Station," helps them drive leadership and continuous improvement in their organization. Cathy Burke shares her leadership approach of inviting team members to raise opinions, identify obstacles, and work collaboratively—values that Innovation Station enables through its platform. Jeff Marks adds how the platform supports their weekly commitment to optimize performance, leveraging both new ideas and past solutions to avoid redundant efforts. Together, Cathy and Jeff highlight the impact of empowering every employee, regardless of role, to contribute ideas that can affect change on a larger scale. Discover how Innovation Station tracks, monitors, and facilitates execution on these impro

In this video, Mark Graban, senior advisor at KaiNexus, chats with Marc Haberer, a process engineer at one of our customers, Polytainers. At KaiNexus, we believe our success is best reflected in the achievements of our customers. Each year at KaiNexicon, we honor some of our most outstanding customers through the Nexie Awards. This Annual Nexie Award Ceremony is a cherished highlight of KaiNexicon, celebrating our customers' dedication and exceptional accomplishments over the past year. Learn more: https://blog.kainexus.com/customer/announcing-our-2024-nexie-award-winners This year’s Award for Top Turnaround goes to Polytainers. The Top Turnaround is awarded to the organization that has displayed the most progress using KaiNexus to build its improvement culture since last year’s conference. The Polytainers team has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to collaboration and their willingness to work with us on redefining their processes has led to a fantastic partnership. Building from the ground up is

Read the blog post When leaders consider implementing a structured business process improvement methodology, one of the challenges they often face is explaining to employees what types of opportunities to consider. Usually, there are some apparent needs that people attack immediately. Still, once those are addressed, it can be challenging to recognize the flaws in processes, especially ones you operate every day. A practical approach for overcoming this issue is providing employees with categories of improvement potential to keep in mind. Sharing a few examples with your team — and asking lots of questions — can help spark ideas, get people thinking creatively, and foster innovation.Of course, recognizing the opportunities for improvement is only the first step. Next, your team will need to leverage various improvement techniques to implement positive change.This post breaks down common improvement needs into several categories and then covers several practical tools for problem-solving.

In this webinar, we’re mixing up the format a bit to maximize time for Q&A and discussion. Please watch this longer webinar first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wwlaxfN8AE In this video, Mark Graban will give a short presentation that recaps and updates his thoughts on some of these concepts. We’ll also conduct some live polling (and see the results) related to the level of psychological safety that attendees feel in their organizations. Mark is also joined by KaiNexians Kaleigh Krauss and Linda Vicaro for discussion and their insights and stories. The rest of the webinar was a Q&A discussion moderated by Morgan Wright, where you can ask your questions related to how leaders can cultivate a culture where everybody feels safe enough to speak up about problems, ideas, mistakes, and more. Learning Objectives: Define psychological safety and explain its significance in the workplace. Identify the relationship between psychological safety and continuous improvement. Develop strategies for leade

In this episode, Mark Graban previews an upcoming webinar live event. Register here I'm excited to invite you to join me on August 21st for a special webinar titled “Ask Us Anything! Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement.” This session, running from 1:00 – 2:00 PM ET, is designed to be highly interactive, with a focus on your questions and insights. You can also view this as a LinkedIn Live streaming session. But we'll only be able to take and answer live questions from the Zoom Webinar crowd. Psychological safety is a crucial foundation for any organization striving to foster continuous improvement. When team members feel safe to speak up–whether it's to share ideas, report problems, or admit mistakes–they are more likely to contribute to a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Without psychological safety, the fear of blame or retaliation can stifle innovation and lead to missed opportunities for growth. In our previous KaiNexus webinar, I discussed the importance of psycholo

Welcome to the Continuous Improvement Podcast with Mark Graban! In this episode, we celebrate Justin Self, Performance Improvement Manager at Barnes Jewish Hospital, and recipient of the prestigious Nexie Award from KaiNexus. Join us as Justin shares his decade-long journey in continuous improvement at BJC Health, highlighting the importance of standardization, grassroots efforts, and leveraging KaiNexus for both top-down and bottom-up improvements.

Welcome to the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast with Mark Graban! In this special episode, we celebrate Mike McGowan, Director of Process Excellence at Memorial Health System in Marietta, Ohio, and recipient of this year's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Nexie Award from KaiNexus. Join us as Mike shares his inspiring journey in continuous improvement, the evolution of process excellence at Memorial Health, and the impactful integration of KaiNexus into their system.

Welcome to the latest episode of the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement podcast! In this engaging conversation, Mark Graban, Senior Advisor with KaiNexus, sits down with Greg Jacobson, CEO and co-founder of KaiNexus. They chat about various topics, including lean principles, continuous improvement, and the significant impact of the recent CrowdStrike software glitch on multiple sectors, including healthcare. Mark shares his personal travel delays caused by the glitch, while Greg discusses the broader implications, such as the disruptions in emergency healthcare services. They explore the importance of psychological safety and how KaiNexus fosters a culture where employees feel safe to speak up about mistakes. The discussion also covers the value of mistake-proofing, robust testing processes, and learning from both internal and external errors to enhance continuous improvement practices. Join Mark and Greg as they reflect on lessons learned, the importance of a kind and constructive response to mistakes, and th

In this insightful webinar, Karen Friedenberg, Founder and Managing Director of Performance Improvement Consulting, explores how to leverage a Strategy to Execution Framework to achieve sustainable business results. The webinar delves into the critical aspects of strategy execution, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, organizational alignment, and operational consistency. Strategy Articulation: Karen emphasizes the need for strategy to be communicated in a clear and powerful way. This ensures that all stakeholders understand the direction and objectives of the organization, fostering a unified approach towards achieving goals. Organizational Alignment: The importance of aligning the leadership team and the entire organization to the company's goals is highlighted. Karen discusses methods to ensure that everyone understands how their contributions align with and support the overall strategy. Operational Alignment: Ensuring that processes and operations are consistent and al

Link to the blog post Leaders who want to develop a culture of rapid continuous improvement have many tools at their disposal. So many that it can be challenging to keep them all in mind when deciding how to execute an opportunity for improvement or address a difficult challenge. Most organizations don't use all of these techniques simultaneously, but each can be remarkably effective when applied to the right situation.We put together a list of the most common and helpful business process improvement tools and techniques that you can start implementing today. Each will help your team improve product quality, increase customer satisfaction, and achieve optimal performance with minimal waste.

Register here In this video, Mark Graban (webinar host from KaiNexus) talks with Karen Friedenberg about her webinar. Scheduled for: July 23 from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm ET Presented by Karen Friedenberg What is a Strategy to Execution Framework? How can this be leveraged to achieve sustainable business results? Learn more about how to execute a journey of Transformation from: 1. Strategy Articulation – How to ensure strategy is communicated in a clear and powerful way. 2. Organizational Alignment – Is the leadership team and the organization aligned to how they contribute to the company goals? 3. Operational Alignment – How to ensure processes and operations are consistent and aligned to strategy. 4. Executing with Excellence – Is there a structure and method in place to ensure strategy and key initiatives are managed? 5. Organizational and Culture Change – How do you build a culture of performance improvement and bring people along for the journey? About the Presenter: Karen Friedenberg is the Found

Read the blog post Here at KaiNexus, we get the opportunity to chat with organizations across all industries and write about many different continuous improvement tools and techniques they use. Lately, I’ve been thinking about two things that most have in common. First, the tools they use are generally simple but not easy. And second, the key to success lies in the planning phase. Both of these observations apply to Kaizen events. The concept is straightforward. A team sets aside other responsibilities for a few days to focus on solving an important challenge in short order. That’s pretty simple, but getting results requires a significant amount of planning and preparation Fortunately, there is a well-defined path to success. Here are the seven simple steps to follow before you kick off your next event.

Today, host Mark Graban (a Senior Advisor) with KaiNexus is joined by our new Manager of Customer Enablement, Andrea Beidl. We'll learn about her background, why she joined KaiNexus, and what appealed to her during the recruiting and interviewing process. Learn a little about her onboarding process -- and what she thinks are the best things and the worst things about living in Austin — oops, I mean San Antonio. Learn more about KaiNexus: https://kainexus.com/

It's time for another lively and informative "Ask Us Anything!" webinar. This time, we're featuring Linda Vicaro and Lynn Howell, the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team, joined by host and moderator Mark Graban. Learn more about our webinars: https://www.kainexus.com/webinars It's time for another lively and informative "Ask Us Anything!" webinar. This time, we're featuring Linda Vicaro and Lynn Howell, the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team, joined by host and moderator Mark Graban. Learn more about our webinars: https://www.kainexus.com/webinars Related Content: Watch all three Habits webinars and more Mark's "Lean Office Gone Wrong" video Questions: Linda and Lynn , could you tell us about your professional background and career? Feel free to add a fun fact if you'd like. How can we effectively communicate the value of continuous improvement to leadership and secure their buy-in? How can we engage leaders to support ongoing daily continuous improvement or small

Join us for another exciting and insightful "Ask Us Anything!" webinar featuring the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team. This interactive session is scheduled for June 20 from 2:00 - 3:00 ET. Register here Presenters: Linda Vicaro Lynn Howell Host and Moderator: Mark Graban In this live event, our experts will tackle your questions about continuous improvement, lean methodologies, and more. Whether you submit your questions in advance or ask them during the webinar, our team is ready to provide valuable insights and practical advice.