Kainexus Continuous Improvement Podcast

As you can probably tell from reading this blog or others about the Lean approach to business management, most of what is written about the subject is applied to manufacturing and healthcare organizations. We know, however, that its application is not that limited. We have clients in technology, education, agriculture, professional services, and more. One sector that is starting to embrace the Lean approach with increasing enthusiasm is construction. We have been delighted to see a new level of interest from leaders in the field. We thought it might be useful to share some of the questions we get asked most often about Lean construction.

March madness is in full swing, and we are not going to lie. We have basketball on the brain. The level of talent and dedication that players display even when they do not win the game is truly inspiring. As spectators, we see the game. What we do not see are the countless hours of practice, the sacrifice, the workouts, the strategy sessions, and all of the other hard work that goes into competing at this level. We are impressed. A Kaizen event is a bit like a basketball game. In order to win in basketball, there are some things you need to do during the game, but also a bunch of stuff that needs to happen off the court. The same is true for completing a successful Kaizen event. You must strive for great execution while the event is in progress, but much of the work happens before it begins and after it ends. Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind if you want your next event to be as easy as an uncontested layup.

It is important in any discussion of standard work to talk about what it is not, as a poor interpretation could mean results that inhibit improvement rather than supporting it. Leaders have an obligation to promote standard work in the correct way, so that staff will both respect the need for it and invest themselves in improving it.

Karen and David are the founders of Gimbal Canada Inc, a Lean practice management advisory firm that specializes in the legal industry. For the last three years or so, Gimbal has been working with law firms across North America on improving the way lawyers deliver legal services. They teach, write, and speak about Lean and the benefits of legal process improvement for law firms and in-house legal departments, and they work directly with their clients on improvement projects that focus on legal processes, as well as the business and administrative processes that support the work of lawyers. The question that comes up is, Why is innovation such a hot topic in law?

Lean organizations target 8 types of waste in an effort to create the perfect flow of value to the customer. Ideally, no resources are used unnecessarily and every task contributes something for which customers are willing to pay. Of course, achieving this is much more challenging than just saying it. That is why a set of Lean tools and techniques have been developed to aid Leaders who embark on this journey. We would argue that software designed to support this type of improvement is crucial to success.

In the United States, multiple estimates say over 100,000 people die each year in hospitals as a result of medical errors. There are an estimated 1.7 million care-associated infections each year and adverse medication events cause over 750,000 injuries and deaths per year. Beyond the human cost, if you look at the financial cost of these mistakes, we are looking at almost $20 billion annually.

Lean organizations target 8 types of waste in an effort to create the perfect flow of value to the customer. Ideally, no resources are used unnecessarily and every task contributes something for which customers are willing to pay. Of course, achieving this is much more challenging than just saying it. That is why a set of Lean tools and techniques have been developed to aid Leaders who embark on this journey. We would argue that software designed to support this type of improvement is crucial to success.

When we write the improvement cycle as linear, we start at P, which places the emphasis on the plan (noun) you intend to implement. But if P is understood to mean planning (verb), the emphasis is on first constructing a plan. Thinking of the P in this way, it becomes clear that you must first understand the current circumstances and make an honest appraisal of what can be done, given the way your organization works. In other words, when the cycle starts at Study, your Planning is much more likely to result in an ideal change - one that works and is workable to both address the issue at hand and be feasible given the way work is done. However, this leads to the question how much Planning should you do?

Gemba walks give leaders the opportunity to observe the processes that add value in their natural habitat. After all, talking about what happens on a factory floor or an emergency room in a board room is very different than observing work at the source. But like any other continuous improvement technique, the devil is in the details when it comes to Gemba walks. The best of intentions can be undermined by mistakes in execution. Here’s how a good Gemba Walk can go wrong.

Continuous Improvement in Education has been rapidly growing over the past couple years. Jake Sussman has recently talked about continuous improvement in higher education at KaiNexus, but one group that deserves mention is the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered by Congress in 1906, the Carnegie Foundation is an independent policy and research center that focuses on every level of education. The Carnegie Foundation is committed to developing a network of ideas, individuals, and institutions to advance teaching and learning. These stated missions and goals also mean that the Carnegie Foundation is at the forefront of Continuous Improvement in Education; they even hold an annual conference on Improvement in Education. This year’s conference is taking place this year in San Francisco, March 27th-29th.

Before they started using KaiNexus, JC Cannistraro used their own internal continuous improvement program, in which they tracked improvements with Google Sheets, but at some point this program went dead, flatlining in the number of improvements adopted over time. To combat this, they started using 5S training to make new improvements. Cannistraro stressed that the important thing 5S gave their teams a shared understanding of what they tried to improve, which in turn allowed them to see more opportunities for improvement. In fact, the result was too many opportunities to manage and soon a better solution was needed.

The education system in America faces an enormously complex set of challenges. Educators find themselves faced with community and government pressure to improve student performance, but often without corresponding funding or influence over policies and expectations. In short, our school administrations and teachers are being asked to do more with less. That is why it is not surprising to find that education professionals are turning to a business management approach that has proven very effective in other sectors such as manufacturing and healthcare.

Mark Graban interviews Karyn Ross, coauthor, with Jeff Liker, of the Shingo Award-winning "The Toyota Way to Service Excellence: Lean Transformation in Service Organizations." Karyn is doing a webinar on March 28 titled "How to Coach for Creativity & Service Excellence." To register, visit www.kainexus.com/webinars.

I was not up-to-speed on continuous improvement, or Lean, or any of those concepts. So I was learning with the organization, and basically they said, we are doing Lean, and here are the tools, go do it. Tools work, people use them, we do not really have a lot of overall vision or direction.

Those who have been working in and around construction for quite some time will know the construction industry has suffered deeply from a lack of innovation and systems improvement for as long as most can remember.

Here at KaiNexus, we believe that each person in our company plays a critical role in the success of our company - and our customers. We’ve grown rapidly over the past couple of years, but we’re still a small team, making each person’s contributions critical. When most people think of a tech startup, they envision a bunch of dudes in the break room wearing virtual reality headsets chugging Red Bull at 3 am. This stereotypical version of a tech startup exists somewhere, but that’s not us. We have no Foosball table, we don’t drink energy drinks all day (well, unless you count good coffee and tea), and we don’t sit around playing video games and high-fiving.

All my life, I have been an avid basketball fan. In my younger days, some would say I was a decent player, though many moons have passed since then. Every time we stepped on the court, one of my team’s goals was to get into a rhythm. The dictionary definition of rhythm is a regular repeated pattern of beats, sounds, activity, or movements. For any non-sports aficionado reading this, imagine a group of individuals working together to achieve a common goal. Each person in this group is moving fluidly through their individual responsibilities, and their entire activities are synced together in unison; much like a choir singing beautiful four-part harmony.

The best part about being involved in a Lean Community is the community - and we have been thrilled to discover a thriving Lean community here in our own backyard in Austin, Texas. KaiNexus is part of the Austin branch of Lean Construction Institute. Lean Construction Institute (LCI) is a non-profit organization, founded in 1997. The Institute operates as a catalyst to transform the industry through Lean project delivery using an operating system centered on a common language, fundamental principles, and basic practices.

If you are considering investing in strategy deployment software to support your organization's efforts to achieve your most important objectives, we congratulate you. Too many leaders talk a big game when it comes to strategy, but fail to provide the company with the tools and information necessary to effectively carry it out. (Here’s a good example of what can go wrong.) There are a lot of systems out there that could be sold as a strategy deployment solution. You can find everything from glorified spreadsheets to purpose-built improvement platforms. We have had the chance to chat with lots of folks who have been through the selection and implementation process, so we thought it would be useful to share a few of the features that make all of the difference.

If you are considering investing in strategy deployment software to support your organization's efforts to achieve your most important objectives, we congratulate you. Too many leaders talk a big game when it comes to strategy, but fail to provide the company with the tools and information necessary to effectively carry it out. (Here’s a good example of what can go wrong.) There are a lot of systems out there that could be sold as a strategy deployment solution. You can find everything from glorified spreadsheets to purpose-built improvement platforms. We have had the chance to chat with lots of folks who have been through the selection and implementation process, so we thought it would be useful to share a few of the features that make all of the difference.