KaiNexus: Continuous Improvement, Leadership, and More

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 a...

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...

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 pat...

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,...

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 parti...

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 busin...

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...

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 improveme...

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 Pitts...

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 indi...

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 fr...

Webinar presented by Harry Kenworthy of QPIC, hosted by Mark Graban and KaiNexus on September 13, 2016. Ten Commandments for Lean in Government (and Beyond) In this webinar, you will learn: - The top 10 commandments for creating a Lean culture - The benefits of creating Dynamic Daily Data Collection for greater employee engagement - The only 3 things Lean leaders truly need to do - The "True North...

A Q&A to follow up the webinar presented by our guest Sam MacPherson on 8/23/16. That webinar audio is in episode #46 or you can find the webinar in our on-demand section on kainexus.com.

Webinar presented by Sam MacPherson on The Art and Science Behind Successful Lean Transformations

For the Want of a System Better Than a Sticky Note, a Car Sale Was Lost How did a salesperson losing a sale remind Mark Graban of problems with using sticky notes to track employee ideas in the workplace?

In episode #9 of our series, Greg & Mark talk answer questions such as: - You're busy guys, where was your last vacation? - What book have you most recently read? - What key company culture promotes continuous improvement? - What's one element? - For more than 10 years, our full time OE group has followed a ground up approach. A combination of the competitive climate in our industry and some recen...

See https://blog.kainexus.com/continuous-improvement/a-call-for-a-fundamental-change-to-our-medical-culture

Presented by Mark Graban on July 27, 2016 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm EDT In this webinar, you will learn: How organizations use Strategy Deployment (or Hoshin Planning) to create alignment and focus The iterative PDSA-based cycles of this management approach Four key hypotheses that senior leaders make during the annual cycles and ongoing reviews How KaiNexus can support these methods to better create al...

Read by Jeff Roussel, VP of Sales: If you are striving to become a Lean organization, waste elimination is probably near the top of your list. In fact, Lean practitioners have identified very specific types of waste, known collectively as the 8 Wastes of Lean. Certain types of waste are really easy to spot and fix, while others can remain unnoticed. We thought it might be helpful to share some pra...

A KaiNexus Webinar by Mark Jaben, MD. Hosted by Mark Graban on June 28, 2016. The Science Behind Resistance to Change: What the Research Says & How it Helps You June 28 from 1:00 - 2:00 pm EDT In this webinar, you will learn: How people form opinions about the validity of continuous improvement The neuroscience behind why it's so hard to change minds Why simply getting "buy-in" doesn't always work...