Kainexus Continuous Improvement Podcast

How to Manage Your Improvement Metrics More Efficiently and Effectively In this webinar, you will learn: Some of the common mistakes people make when looking at performance metrics and the resulting problems Simple, but statistically valid and effective methods for creating, maintaining, and reviewing charts over time When to react and ask “what happened?” when reviewing new data points in a chart When to stop overreacting to individual data points and improve the overall system, instead How to integrate this into your use of KaiNexus or for charts you create in Excel

Kaizen events are an effective way to implement significant improvements in short order. They are used to tackle all sorts of issues from workplace organization, to process optimization and everything in between. Because Kaizen events are resource intensive, usually pulling people from their ordinary work for three to five days, it is essential to get the most out of every one. We’ve had lots of in-depth conversations with clients who’ve conducted rapid improvement events of all sorts. Some of them exceeded the goals of the projects, while others didn’t work out very well at all. Here are some of the things our clients have shared that can make all the difference.

Strategy Deployment is a hot topic in continuous improvement circles these days. We’re delighted to see that because effective strategy deployment can make the difference between reaching the goals of the organization in the expected time frame and failing to achieve the breakthrough objectives. Of course, strategy deployment isn’t easy and few companies really excel at the practice. Strategy deployment software has been developed to help provide a structure for the practice and keep organizations on track. We’ve had lots of productive conversations with leaders about how strategy deployment software can help smooth the path to success. Here are the questions that we get asked most often.

A post by Jeff Roussel, read by Mark Graban Every time we walk into a facility and see a Kaizen board, we are reminded about the excitement and sense of anticipation that most teams have when the Kaizen board is first introduced. But very often, when we ask front line employees about them the response is tepid at best. There may still be huddle meetings where the progress of each improvement is discussed, and a card might get moved from one stage to another from time to time, but the initial excitement wanes quickly and the whole thing becomes a chore. In many cases, we look a little closer and see that no new improvement work has been added for months or that work is stalled out with no movement in sight.

When I sat down to write about sustaining innovations, the word that popped into my mind was “entropy.” While entropy is a scientific term related to the degradation of the matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity, it is also used to refer to a process of degradation or running down or a trend to disorder. Entropy is a very real thing in organizations. Practices are implemented and improvements deployed, yet over time, things seem to revert to the way they were always done.

A common mistake companies make when rolling out a new culture of continuous improvement is to fail to provide leadership training to the people leading it. When you're responsible for leading a cultural transformation, there are a lot of unique leadership skills that you need to employ. You need to be firm and empathetic, have high but reasonable expectations, communicate effectively, be present - the list goes on and on. It's a hard balance to strike, particularly for people who don't have a lot of experience in a leadership position to fall back on. As such, many leaders cave under the pressure and are either too hesitant to be effective or become huge jerks that no one likes or respects.

Once organizations realize the value of daily continuous improvement and learn to leverage employee ideas for innovation, they often turn their focus on how to accelerate the pace of improvement. There are many ways that teams can get the most out of their improvement efforts. Workflow software is one tool that helps companies manage more improvement projects at the same time and pave a faster path to tangible results.

There’s an interesting thing about the definition of the word culture - it shares a root with the word “cultivate,” which means, “to foster the growth of; to improve by labor, care, or study.” Cultivation requires intention, action, and attention. Kaizen culture does as well.

Earlier in the day, at one of her company’s regular monthly meetings, she decided to offer a $100 bill to the first employee who could name all four of the company’s top-level strategic goals. What she got was crickets. Not a single person could name them all and few could come up with any of them at all. Ouch.

A blog post by Matt Banna Think about all the points of contact that customers go through with your company throughout their time in your sales pipeline and then as customers. Smart organizations realize that every one of these points of contact, frequently called touchpoints, are extremely important and valuable. Whether it's the first time you talk to someone, a customer changing their service, or a prospect buying your product, every touchpoint a person goes through shapes the way they feel about your company and influences their lifetime value.

Post by Sam Turner: "Achieve Performance Excellence with Baldrige: The Framework You've Been Needing"

Kaizen events are a big deal. They pull people away from their regular jobs for a number of days; they require training, leadership must make necessary resources available, and internal or external facilitation is needed. Not every improvement project should involve a Kaizen event. But there are some situations that call out for them. To determine if a Kaizen event is the right approach to a particular situation, ask yourself these questions.

A blog post from 12/30/16 by Mark Graban Toyota famously changed automobile manufacturing forever by focusing on continuous improvement, particularly on the never-ending process of waste elimination. Over the years, eight specific types of waste were identified. They are now referred to as the 8 wastes of Lean. While Lean was originally developed in the automotive manufacturing sector, every business experiences waste in one form or another. In fact, if you keep your eyes open, you’ll notice waste is all around you. Here are a few examples that our team has observed:

One of the many things we love about this time of year is the opportunity to reflect back on what we’ve accomplished (or survived) over the past twelve months. It’s also a great moment to set the stage for success in the year to come. If you practice the Lean management approach or plan to do so in 2017, one way to ensure that you get the most out of your improvement and waste reduction efforts is to invest in Lean software. Doing so gives you a number of advantages that will amplify your results and ease the path to achieving your most important goals. Here are some of them.

Two posts by Dr. Mark Jaben

Continuous Improvement Resolutions for the New Year As 2016 draws to a close, our thoughts turn to what’s ahead in the coming year. Many of us vow to hit the gym or lay off the Doritos. We might even resolve to be a little kinder and more generous in the months to come. This is a good time of year to make some business-related resolutions as well. If you are reading this blog, continuous improvement is probably something that matters to you, so we’d like to offer some ideas for continuous improvement New Year’s resolutions.

Presented by Jeff Roussel, Hosted and Moderated by Mark Graban In this webinar, you will learn: - The importance of measuring and reporting the ROI of continuous improvement - What metrics to use to measure your success - How to report your impact in a way that senior leaders will care about - How to justify increasing your budget for continuous improvement

Hosted by Mark Graban of KaiNexus, presented by Tania Lyon from St. Clair Hospital. In this webinar, you will learn: The preconditions for a successful rollout The levers for driving KaiNexus adoption How to develop and rely on the organizational helpchain to manage training Tania Lyon Dr. Lyon has spent the last 7 years leading St. Clair Hospital, a large award-winning community hospital in Pittsburgh, PA, through a “lean” transformation as their first Director of Organizational Performance Improvement. She has trained over 1600 hospital employees in Toyota principles and methods. Her own background in Lean healthcare comes from 5 years with the nonprofit Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative (PRHI) where she helped to develop their nationally acclaimed curriculum for health care professionals and coached lean improvement efforts in a variety of healthcare settings. Dr. Lyon is also interested in Lean Healthcare applications for low resource settings like hospitals in Malawi and Haiti. She earned her P

In episode #10 of our series, Greg Jacobson, MD & Mark Graban talk answer questions such as: - What would you tell high school juniors about healthcare improvement? - Why can it be hard for some experienced leaders to understand or embrace Lean? - How does one make time for documenting processes? - How can we identify the leading indicators (daily measures) at Gemba that contribute to lagging indicators (monthly or quarterly measures)? - What methodology would you recommend for an organization to get back to black from red, financially?

In this webinar, you will learn: How communication breaks down silos and to create a cross functional effort for continuous improvement The value of communication when it comes to educating vs. cheerleading How to leverage PMO and CI efforts for key strategic projects Get a snapshot of a new innovation team model that merges the best elements of CI and a PMO Originally Aired: September 20, 2016 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm EDT Length: 1 hour Hosted By: Mark Graban and Erin Edwards