10 Lean Blogs to Follow 2023

A key part of Lean (or continuous improvement) is continuous education – learning new ideas to challenge your thinking. The Lean community of thinkers is a generous one that believes in paying it forward. Many share their knowledge and experience in blogs they write. Reading these Lean blogs can keep Lean principles and practices at the forefront of your mind as you make decisions in work and in life.

Here’s a list of ten Lean blogs you should follow, in no particular order…

1) Bobemiliani.com – by Bob Emiliani

Location: Providence, Rhode Island

About: Bob Emiliani is a professor of Lean management at Central Connecticut State University. He is an author of 17 books and 47 research papers based on his deep researches in the fields of leadership and management. Prior to his academic career, Dr. Emiliani has 15 years of industry experience and he is more than passionate about Lean management. All this knowledge converts into insightful articles presented in his blog. A gold mine for both, Lean practitioners and Lean enthusiasts.

Frequency: 7 posts / month

 

2) Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog – by John Hunter

Location: Houston, TX

About: In Curious Cat, John Hunter shares opinions and challenges derived from his professional and personal experience. John is an author, lean management practitioner, software development consultant and much more. Here you can find original commentaries related to different topics such as lean management, management improvement and etc.

Frequency: 3 posts / day

 

3) Gemba Academy Blog – by Jon Miller, Ron Periera, Kevin Meyer, Steve Kane

Location: USA

About: Gemba Academy offers online Lean Manufacturing, Lean Office, and Six Sigma training to companies around the world. They teach topics such as 5S, the 7 Wastes, Kanban, Standard Work, Value Stream Mapping, Quick Changeover, and how to leverage these methods in Kaizen Events.

Frequency: 2 posts / week

 

4) JFlinch Blog – by Jamie Flinchbaugh

Location: Lehigh Valley, PA

About: Jamie Flinchbaugh is a lean advisor, speaker, and author. He has advised over 300 companies around the world in a lean transformation. Previously he co-founded the Lean Learning Center, and he has helped build nearly 20 other companies as either a co-founder, board of directors member, advisor, or angel investor.

Frequency: 3 posts / week

 

5) Lean Blog – by Mark Graban

Location: Fort Worth, TX

About: Mark started this blog back in 2005. He is a veteran Lean management practitioner in the manufacturing industry and later he decided to dedicate his professional life to incorporating the principles of Lean in the healthcare industry.

Frequency: 1 post / day

 

6) Lean Pathways – by Pascal Dennis and Al Norval

Location: Toronto, CA

About: In this outstanding Lean blog, you can enjoy insightful articles, find interesting facts and curious points of view. The author often presents commonly accepted norms and theories related to Lean but from a different angle. Pascal Dennis is a professional engineer, advisor and author of several books. He has a solid background with Lean and has supported lean implementation at leading international companies from different industries.

Frequency: 1 post / week

 

7) The Lean Thinker – by Mark Rosenthal

Location: Washington

About: Mark is seasoned in lean manufacturing and has more than 20 years of professional experience. He has helped various organizations to implement and understand continuous improvement. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced professional, in this Lean blog you may find valuable information about broad or more specific topics.

Frequency: 1 post / week

 

8) Katie Anderson Blog – by Katie Anderson

Location: Massachusetts

About: For over 20 years, Katie has helped thousands of leaders around the world develop the mindset and capabilities to create organizational learning cultures that foster innovation, engagement, and longevity. She’s on a mission to empower leaders at all levels to lead with intention to achieve higher levels of performance, increase their personal and professional impact, and create a meaningful legacy.

Frequency: 1 posts / month

 

9) Old Lean Dude – by Bruce Hamilton

Location: Massachusetts

About: Bruce has been around the Lean scene since 1985, first as a practitioner and later as a consultant. He is passionate about learning and shares all his thoughts and learned lessons on his blog. As he says “Everyday there is something new to learn and to share.” His blog is an ongoing reflection on Lean philosophy and practices with an emphasis on keeping good jobs close to home.

Frequency: 1 post / week

 

10) A Lean Journey – by Tim McMahon

Location: Massachusetts

About: Tim is a Lean implementation leader, author, and blogger. Tim has more than 20 years of leadership experience implementing Lean manufacturing. A proven leader in high tech manufacturing companies, he is passionate about quality improvement methods by actively learning, thinking and engaging people.

Frequency: 3 posts / week

Note: I know this is my own blog, but I am partial to my own labor of love.

 

Bonus:

The Lean Post – by The Lean Enterprise Institute (collection of authors)

Location: Worldwide

About: LEI brings together authors from around the world sharing articles about making the world better through lean thinking and practice.

Frequency: 3 posts / week

 

KaiNexus Blog – by The KaiNexus Team (collection of authors)

Location: Texas

About: This blogs brings shares articles from KaiNexus consultants who’s mission is to use their technology and experience to foster and help spread continuous improvement.

Frequency: 3 posts / week

 

The blog landscape has changed a lot over the last decade and likely will continue to evolve. I have chosen to focus on personal blogs here, my preference. Yet, there are many other helpful Lean blogs that are not on this list. Let me know the blogs that you enjoy reading.

Quality Costs: A Guide to Managing Them

The business climate is becoming increasingly more competitive. With multiple options for consumers companies must stay competitive to survive. Many organizations consider improving quality as the best way to enhance customer satisfaction, to reduce manufacturing costs and to increase productivity. For this, the cost of quality (COQ) must be reduced.

The costs associated with making sure that your product is of good quality are called quality costs. It includes preventing, detecting, and fixing any issues with the product. It's crucial to ensure that your product meets the customer's expectations, which is not just a matter of making it look nicer.

As defined by Philip B. Crosby in his book Quality Is Free, the cost of quality has two main components: the cost of good quality (or the cost of conformance) and the cost of poor quality (or the cost of non-conformance).

Cost of Poor Quality

External failure costs are associated with deficiencies that are found after the customer receives the product. Also included are lost opportunities for sales revenue.

• Sales returns and allowances
• Replacing defective products
• Service level agreement penalties
• Complaint handling
• Field service labor and parts costs incurred due to warranty obligations
• Product recalls / Legal claims
• Lost customers and opportunities
• Downgrading
• Processing of customer complaints

Internal failure costs are the cost of deficiencies discovered before delivery that are associated with the failure to meet explicit requirements or implicit needs of customers. Also included are avoidable processes losses and inefficiencies that occur even when requirements and needs are met. Internal failure costs consist of: (1) the cost of failure to meet customer requirements and needs and (2) the cost of inefficient processes.

• In-process scrap and rework
• Troubleshooting and repairing
• Design changes
• Inventory required to support poor process yields and rejected lots
• Re-inspection / retest of reworked items

Cost of Good Quality

Appraisal costs are incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements.

• Test and inspection (receiving, in-process and final)
• Supplier acceptance sampling
• Product Audits
• Calibration

Prevention costs are incurred to keep failure and appraisal costs to a minimum.

• Quality planning
• Education and training
• Conducting design reviews
• Supplier reviews and selection
• Quality system audits
• Process planning and control
• Product modifications
• Equipment upgrades

The Total Quality Cost can be summarized as all investments in the prevention of defects, the testing of product to assure Quality, or the failure of a product to meet a customer requirement.

Many of the costs of quality are hidden and difficult to identify by formal measurement systems.

The iceberg model is very often used to illustrate this matter: Only a minority of the costs of poor and good quality are obvious – appear above the surface of the water. But there is a huge potential for reducing costs under the water. Identifying and improving these costs will significantly reduce the costs of doing business.

It is important for companies to understand what they need to do to reduce their overall cost of quality. This will help them improve their business processes and operations, which ultimately lead to better profitability.

The worst type of cost out of these four categories of the cost of poor quality is the external failure costs. Organizations should make their best effort to reduce the external failure cost.

Spending more on prevention and appraisal costs usually leads to a reduction in internal and external failure costs.

Lean Quote: Instill Confidence Among Employees

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Outstanding leaders go out of the way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel.  If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish."   —  Sam Walton

All people have a need for confidence and a positive self-image. How individuals respond to problems almost always reflects their feelings about themselves at that time or their general perception of self. Research indicates that two-thirds of the population suffers from generalized low self-esteem. They have negative feelings about aspects of themselves or attributes they possess. This focus on one’s deficiencies makes it difficult to feel energetic, to be motivated, or to make positive changes.

It has been said that Henry Ford had tremendous self-belief and he constantly preached on it. He would hire workers that didn’t understand the meaning of impossible and would keep pushing the limits of their imagination. This was the ingenuity behind his continuous improvement.

A great leader can easily instill confidence among the staff. In order to maintain the positive work atmosphere which inspires creative thinking and new ideas, staff members have to feel confident about their work. A leader that simply nitpicks about everything and demonstrates extremely negative reactions for every mistake made will eventually ruin the positive energy in the work environment and ruin the self-confidence of the majority of staff members. A great and effective leader can inspire staff members to improve their performance and productivity by actively working on their confidence improvements. Publicly acknowledging those who perform well in certain areas can significantly contribute to this cause.

Your self-belief as a leader is infectious. What do you believe about yourself? What do you believe about your ability? What is possible and what is impossible? Your willingness to try the impossible will inspire your team push the limits as well.

Although important, managers and supervisors must do more than give praise and provide meaningful work. To empower employees, supervisors must continually build employee self-esteem. 

Lean Roundup #167 – April, 2023

A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of April 2023.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

 

Toyota Kata: Coaching vs a Report Out – Mark Rosenthal asks as a coach if you are challenging the learner.

 

On Big Data – Pascal Dennis says before we grasp at the straws of Big Data, let’s build our management systems so we can understand our ‘small data’ – like the world’s best organizations do.

 

On the Team Structure at Toyota – Christoph Roser talks about the importance of team size and structure.

 

What kind of bureaucrat are you? - Michael Ballé and Klaus Beulker explore the essence of bureaucracy and explain why, with Lean Thinking, it can be leveraged as a force for good.

 

Tiered Huddles: Structured Communication in Healthcare – Maggie Millard discusses tiered huddles provides a structure for robust collaboration and cross-discipline communication.

 

Making the Problem go Away Is NOT Improvement - Christoph Roser explains why taking care of the problem (hopefully) makes the problem go away but actual kaizen ensures that the problem should not come back.

 

What Will Be the New Social Contract for the 21st Century? – Jeffrey Liker say the current volatility in tech employment portends a shift from the sector’s earlier people-centered visions — and that’s concerning.

 

It Starts With BELIEVE - Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement – Mark Graban talks about how Ted Lasso inspires them to BELIEVE in continuous improvement.

 

Why ‘Framing’ is Crucial to Leadership and Encouraging Team Unity - Michael Ballé and Nicolas Chartier explores the fundamental thinking that drives how leaders lead — and explains why the Toyota Production System, aka lean management, is the most effective management framework.

 

How Continuous Improvement Influences Sustainability Efforts - Emily Kauten says continuous improvement offers a powerful framework for addressing environmental sustainability.

 

 

Remote Leadership and the Employee Experience

Image Source: Pexels.com

When businesses were forced into remote work a few years ago due to the pandemic, many were just focused on making their operations work in a digital environment. They were hardly focused on revamping their company cultures to support such a transition.

But now, we’re seeing remote work become a staple in the workforce. As more and more employees seek it, establishing an intentional remote work culture is critical if you want to offer this option in your company. 

Before we cover ways leaders can create a remote work culture that supports a positive employee experience, let’s dig into why the employee experience is critical for remote work.

Why the Employee Experience Is So Important for Remote Work

Remote teams offer so much to any business. For example, the flexibility of remote work inspires employee productivity and engagement. Businesses can save money on overhead costs. In addition, remote work gives employers access to a global talent pool. 

If you want to reap these and the many other benefits that come with having remote workers,  you must create a workplace environment that supports them unequivocally. And if you think your employees should be grateful to you for simply providing the opportunity and no other provisions, you might be wrong. Some may even be lonely and struggling with their mental health.

Recent research from Zippia on remote work revealed that 50% of the remote workers surveyed reported feelings of loneliness at least once a week. In addition, 19% cited isolation as their number one issue with remote work, and 70% said they felt left out of the workplace.

Feeling isolated, lonely, and left out doesn’t equate to a highly engaged, happy employee. That’s why it’s so important to address any challenges you’re having with creating the proper culture for remote work.

A supportive, positive remote work culture is what sets the tone for a good employee experience.

In addition, the employee experience is directly tied to the experience your customers will have. When your remote employees feel wholly supported and prepared to do their jobs well, they're more enthusiastic and productive in their roles — which translates into communicating with and serving customers well.

Ultimately, you must embrace your remote work culture to ensure your work-from-home employees are at their best.

How Leaders Can Improve the Remote Employee Experience

Your remote team deserves just as good of an employee experience as your in-office workers. Aside from that, the business and team benefits mentioned above should entice you to provide the culture they need to thrive.

Here are three ways you can improve the employee experience for your remote team.

Mirror the in-office employee onboarding experience

Think about the typical onboarding experience for in-office employees. You show them to their desk and introduce them to the team. They fill out HR paperwork and go over their roles and responsibilities. They also get to explore the office and settle into the culture.

New remote workers hardly get the same onboarding experience. A Zoom meeting to introduce them to everyone on the team. After that, a quick overview of the tech tools and software they’ll be using. And finally, a summary of the work they can get started on.

If you want to build a strong remote company culture, focus on providing a meaningful onboarding experience for new employees. It should mirror the in-office employee onboarding experience in that new workers get a virtual tour of the office and a memorable welcome from the team.

Set aside time for them to video chat with HR to ensure all necessary paperwork is complete. They can also get lingering employee-experience questions answered.

Lastly, set aside time to thoroughly cover:

●       The tech tools they’ll use;

●       How to contact the team;

●       Their role and daily responsibilities;

●       The details of their first few projects;

●       Upcoming events and projects that will facilitate them getting to know their coworkers.

You may have to extend the onboarding experience for a few weeks to ensure there’s enough time to get everything done.

Pair remote workers with in-office team members

As mentioned above, many workers feel lonely and left out of the workplace when they work from home. This affects their attitude and the quality of the work they produce. It also affects their ability to form meaningful relationships with coworkers and managers.

Pairing remote workers with in-office team members could be a solution to this. Having that ally in the office can help remote employees feel more connected to in-office co-workers. It can bridge that gap to feel like an integral part of the team.

Assign an in-office team member to every remote worker. Be intentional about who’s paired up with who. Account for personalities, skillsets, experiences, similarities, and differences that can drive a good connection.

Make the introduction the first day a remote worker joins your team and stay on top of how the relationship blossoms.

Connect with remote workers daily

Being the leader of your team includes the responsibility of nurturing a genuine relationship with each of your employees. It’s easier to do this in an in-office setting because you have more opportunities to interact with the employees there.

You don’t have as many organic opportunities to engage with remote workers. If you don’t make the effort to connect with them regularly, it could result in them feeling unsupported and unappreciated.

Set a goal of connecting with remote workers daily. This could be a quick one-on-one video meeting every morning to check in and establish expectations for the day. It could be recognizing them for their work on a project. It could be an email or instant message exchange.

However you do it, let them know you’re there to support them every day.

You shoulder much of the responsibility for the kind of experience your remote workers have at your company. Establish a welcoming, supportive company culture to set the foundation for a positive remote employee experience they’ll want to stick around for.

About the Author: Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and business topics are his favorite. When he isn't writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.

Lean Quote: Effective Leadership Includes Being Resilient

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving, we get stronger and more resilient."   —  Steve Maraboli

Life is difficult, which means work is challenging. You can accept this or get aggravated, but you cannot change it. Every manager experiences stress and adversity, but must be able to bounce back in order to meet new challenges.

Resilience is the human capacity to meet adversity, setbacks and trauma, and then recover from them in order to live life fully. Resilient leaders have the ability to sustain their energy level under pressure, to cope with disruptive changes and adapt. They bounce back from setbacks.

Glenn Sanford, CEO SUCCESS Enterprises shares eight guiding principles for leading through challenging times. (excerpts from SUCCESS – September/October 2022).

1. Play to Win – Set a clear vision and mission with defined goals for your team to rally around together. (We’re pretty sure you’ve heard this before!)

2. Be Continually Learning – The best practices that worked a couple of years ago are probably irrelevant today . . . find new and innovative ways to succeed.

3. Break What Isn’t Broken – A comfortable business is one that will get left behind. Encourage your team to challenge, question, and scrutinize everything.

4. Don’t Under-Estimate Your Competition – Keeping your competitive advantage means iterating your product or service before the market requires it.

5. Know When You Have An Advantage and Double Down – Identify what makes your company unique and capitalize on it.

6. Balance Operating Expenses With Growth – Keep your costs low and your focus sharp.

7. Be Agile To Adapt – Leaders should create room for key team members to move in and innovate (and stay out of the way!).

8. Embrace Chaos To Drive Change – Get comfortable with chaos; it’s a byproduct of fast growing organizations.

Team resilience is crucial for high performance, but it's largely dependent on leadership resilience. Leadership resilience isn’t about toughing up. It’s the ability to recover from setbacks. To adapt to change. To keep forging ahead even in the face of adversity. It’s about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, while still being able to lead others with empathy, courage and conviction.  

6 Mistakes to Avoid When Problem Solving

Every day we face challenges and problems in life, both big and small, and so it’s very important to be good at tackling them. However, that can be easier said than done, and if we make one of these mistakes when trying to solve a problem, we might make the situation worse instead.

Finding the best solutions to problems is a necessary skill for navigating the changes that are continuously affecting our company. Organization that take a proactive and structured approach to problem solving position themselves to overcome obstacles and take advantage of opportunities. This approach comes from making a concerted effort to avoid the following six common problem-solving mistakes.

Mistake 1: Not Involving the Right People

When the right people are excluded from the problem-solving process, the proposed solutions can be one-sided or limited. Different perspectives help to better understand the problem at hand. Resist the trap of allowing busy schedules and a desire for quick resolution to allow people to be excluded. However, this doesn’t mean that everyone needs to be involved. Progress may be slower when too many people participate. The most effective problem solving teams include representatives from various levels in the firm who share their perspective and insights.

Mistake 2: Lack of Alignment

Certain people may agree that a problem exists, but that doesn’t mean that everyone has the same problem in mind. People often have different expectations, opinions on issues and goals, and potential solutions. Effective problem solving requires getting everyone on the same page. When this doesn’t happen, there is a risk of running in different directions – this means that everyone may cross a finish line, but no one wins the race. Take the time to define and document issues and get alignment before attempting to solve a problem. The result will be better solutions.

Mistake 3: Looking for Blame Instead of Prevention

People don’t wake up intending to create problems during their work day. Errors do occur at work, but the overwhelming majority is unintentional. “Blame” is sometimes confused with “accountability,” and accountability within an organization has come to refer to disciplinary action. Accountability actually means taking responsibility for actions and instigating specific steps so the problem is less likely to occur again—and it does not require punishment. The blame-and-punish approach teaches others in an organization that, if they make a mistake, they should make sure no one finds out.

Mistake 4: Lack of Clarity

Many times, a problem solving team is assembled and they immediately discuss possible causes or solutions. Team members may have different information or a different understanding of the problem. Discussions are confusing, disjointed and inefficient. We do not have a common purpose. Rushing into analysis with a vague problem statement is a clear formula for long hours and frustrated customers.

Create a clear problem statement devoid of an unnecessary or distracting description. A clear problem statement contains an OBJECT (the thing which has the problem) and the DEFECT (undesirable condition or defect). The famous inventor, Charles Kettering, stated, “A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” Once we have this statement, we can start asking “why” questions to dig deeper into the causes, and all team members have a common focus and understanding.

Mistake 5: Assuming There is A Singular Cause

Most incorrectly believe that root-cause analysis ultimately finds one cause. When asked to define a root cause, they typically say, “It’s the one thing that caused the problem to happen.” A longer explanation might go as follows: “Root cause is the fundamental cause that, if removed or controlled, prevents the problem from occurring.” More significant than just a “cause,” they say, the root cause, if eliminated, prevents the problem from occurring. This seems reasonable, but in reality it’s just not accurate.

Mistake 6: Lack of a Problem Solving Method

Rather frequently, companies – notably management – demand swift action when facing a problem. Well, there is nothing wrong with a bias for action but what often results is “cutting corners” in the rank and file. Finding the best solutions starts with having a structured approach to problem solving.

Root cause analysis is a fact-based methodology. Many of the problem solving tools are similar. 5Whys, Ishikawa Fish-bones, 8Ds for automotive, A3 for Lean, PDCA, DMAIC for Six sigma….All “logically” based fact systems and follow how the basic "instinctive" brain works, you set a goal, brain storm ideas, evaluate it, you do it, and see whether it works. The difference is the level of complexity. This is why PDCA is a cycle, in every turn you can understand different parts of the problem. The more complicated the problem or the improvement, the more you need to repeat the cycle.

Of all things needed to foster a problem solving culture, training is the most important, allowing and expecting associates to be systematic. Socratic questioning works best! The reason is simple: the problem is usually smarter than us and will always win over shortcuts.

Effective problem solving doesn’t happen by accident. It takes time, commitment and a methodical approach. Businesses can fall into these pitfalls with problem solving if they fail to give the issue at hand the correct level of priority and importance. Remember, for every month this problem continues, your business could be losing out!

People love to solve problems. However, people will avoid problem solving situations when they are unsure of how to approach the issue. If we keep in mind the practical rules of problem solving, we shouldn’t shy away from any business puzzle.

Just don’t put the cart before the horse.