Lean Roundup #45 – February, 2013

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of February, 2013.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

No Time For Heroes – Gregg Stocker explain how to deal with the problem of hero worship and how it is a crutch for ineffective processes

Top 3 PDSA Mistakes - Michael Lombard shares the top 3 most common PDSA mistakes from the frontlines of healthcare process improvements.

Redefining Your "Real Job" through  Leadership Standard Work -Steve Taninecz defines 3 components of leaders standard work that are critical factors for success.

The Value of Mistake Proofing – Mark Rosenthal explains why mistake proofing instead of blaming shows real respect for people.

Do The Right Small Thing – Jim Benson explains the value and throughput of breaking up projects to small manageable tasks.

Applying Lean In Uncommon Ways – Jeff Hajek shares some examples of applying Lean in companies outside the traditional manufacturing setting.

Lean Transformation: Top Down or Bottom Up? – John Smith talks about change from those managers in the middle and how to get them to support the transformation.

We're On The Hunt For Silos... And You Won't Believe What We've Found - Colin Willis explains 4 negative effects of silos and shares some advice to eliminate them.

Better To Cause Problems Than To Solve Them – Bill Waddell says that creating new problems instead of applying the same old solutions can truly open doors.

Leaps of Faith – Evan Durant explains why Lean conversion takes a leap of faith relating to a real life experience of sky diving.

We Need To Understand Variation To Manage Effectively - Mike Stoecklein offers an in depth look at variation from two points of views and the importance for managers to understand it.

Productivity and Improvement – Art Smalley says there is no perfect metric and it can’t replace observation and improvement.

Who Needs To Use The Metric And To What Purpose? – Michael Balle cautions the use of productivity and focuses on how to make effective measures.

Lean and Productivity – Daniel Jones says we need to avoid looking inward and shares some indirect measures of productivity that add value.

The Significance of Catchball – Gregg Stocker has a nice explanation of the catchball process for what I call strategy alignment and execution.

Improving Processes Helps Innovation Efforts – John Hunter explains how process improvement increases innovation rather than stifles it.

Communicating for Change - Aaron Fausz shares a number of guiding principles that should be followed when creating and delivering your communications regarding change.

Kaizen - Small Changes vs Monster Projects – Al Norval explains why Kaizen is about small changes and why it is so beneficial to sustaining improvement.

Early Bloomers – Bruce Hamilton explains stereotypes of those within transformations in terms of seasonal changes.

TPM Before Lean – Ellis New shares his thought on the importance of total productive maintenance and why your improvement should start with TPM.

Try Walking Before Talking – Liz Guthridge says while choosing and using the right words are still important words don’t drive behavior actions do.

Toyota, Respect for People (or "Humanity") and Lean – Mark Graban writes how “respect for people” and “continuous improvement” (or Kaizen) are intertwined.

Heard on the Gemba: We are Great Problem Solvers, But... – Jon Miller explains the 8 steps of Toyota’s Business Process synonymous with practical problem solving and mapped against the PDCA cycle.