Lean Roundup #121 – June 2019

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of June, 2019.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.

The Worst Lean Advice - Bob Emiliani explains from experience typical poor advice to starting a Lean journey.

How to Choose a Continuous Improvement Approach – Jon Miller provides a brief summary of TQM, BPM, Lean and Six Sigma methods of continuous improvement.

What is Courage & How does it relate to True North? – Pascal Dennis says achieving True North requires all the cardinal virtues and none more than courage.

Back to Basics – Customer Value – Al Norval explains Lean as engagement of all people in driving continuous improvement through the elimination of waste to improve Customer Value.

Observe with Purpose – Jamie Flinchbaugh explains why direct observation at the gemba needs to be purposeful.

Why Checklists are Important – Anthony Manos explains the importance of using a simple tool like a checklist to avoid factory machine breakdowns, not just for productivity purposes, but also safety reasons.

Creating Continuous Improvement with Lean Metrics - Leyna O'Quinn shares Lean metrics that are instrumental in helping teams deliver continuous improvement.

3 Tips for Overcoming Confirmation Bias – Ron Pereira says an excellent way to counter the need to seek out confirmation bias is to stop worrying about what you, or others, think and run your own experiments in order to see what can be learned.

Lean: A Combination of “Why?” and “Why Not?” – Mark Graban says while we can ask “why?” we can also ask, “Why not?” in a way that triggers and encourages improvement, innovation, and a break from “the way we've always done it.”

Cost Saving is Tired--Value Creation is Hot! – Jean Cunningham says Lean affects financial outcomes, don’t fixate on cost reduction or product cost, look at the real numbers.

Go and See: Where The Magic Is - Nicolas Chartier explains why the magic happens at the gemba where you will discover unexpected opportunities for growth.

Ask Art: How Can I Engage All Our Leaders to Learn and Teach Lean? – Art Byrne says that  kaizen will get you  a lot of “learn by doing” gains among the people who you need to drive lean forward and will not only build great teamwork but start to build the learning environment necessary to become a lean enterprise.

Lean Graft Incompatibility – Bob Emiliani shares a practical way to understand how Lean management usually fails to take hold in brownfield organizations that have for years been governed by classical management thinking and practice.