The Lean English Podcast

As a break from my normal podcast topics, I spoke with Christine Woodard-Weithoffer, an artist, illustrator and teacher of art and languages in Plouzané. She was kind enough to spend some time with me and discuss her art studio, her approach to teaching and her top 5 horror movies of all time. This is great practice for English learners to hear the language spoken at a pace with common phrases and...

Welcome back for part 2 of episode 5; Systems Thinking. Today we will discuss how to create and read Causal Loop Diagrams, the map that systems engineers use to identify the influences different parts have on one another in a system.  They are essential for understanding leverage points - the places where you have the best opportunities to change the system.  Without identifying these points, you...

Welcome to part 1 of Episode 5; Systems Thinking Today, we will cover Systems Thinking and a little of Peter Senge's book The Fifth Discipline.  The vocabulary is a little more challenging for this episode, but you will be able to find the transcript on my website at leanenglishconsulting.com. I really hope you enjoy this material.  Send me an email at info@leanenglishconsulting.com if you have an...

Welcome back for part 2 of episode 4; Agile Project Management. Well, this is it; we have reached the end.  It seems just like yesterday that we started this journey and now we are on the mountain top.   In reality, it is just a tall hill, because we have many more process improvement and English language episodes coming up.   Let me know if you have listened to all the episodes and which one you...

Welcome to the final episode of our 4-part series; Agile Project Management   Today, we will conclude this series on the most popular and, in my opinion, useful process improvement methodologies.  After listening to part 1 and 2 of this episode, you will find yourself with new confidence with your English and your problem-solving skills.  My students claim they can now see the future, control the...

Welcome back for part 2 of episode 3; Six Sigma. As promised, today our discussion focuses on the remaining Six Sigma project phases and highlights some of the tools and documents necessary to make them successful.   There are many different tools and techniques that practitioners use, but these are the most common and easy to understand. If you need some advice on your project or need help gettin...

Welcome to our third episode; Six Sigma.   Six Sigma is the most technically advanced methods we will discuss, so I try to lay out the foundation in part 1.  Then, like our episode in Lean, I will cover the phases in more detail and talk about the tools for each.  There is a lot of statistical analysis that Six Sigma uses that will not cover because it is just too confusing.  However, we will have...

Welcome back for part 2 of episode 2; Lean Management. As promised, this episode will cover more of the tools and techniques of Lean as we talked about the principles in part 1.  This should give you a better idea of how Lean puts their principles into action. Sometimes this material can be a little confusing, so send me an email at info@leanenglishconsulting.com if you have any questions or comme...

Welcome back for part 1 of episode 2; Lean Management Today, our topic is the foundation of Lean; the 14 Principles and the use of Kaizen projects.  This will lay the foundation for part 2, when we will concentrate on Lean tools like Just in Time and Kanban.   I really hope you enjoy this material.  Send me an email at info@leanenglishconsulting.com if you have any questions or comments.  I would...

Welcome back for part 2 of episode 1; What are the differences between Lean, Six Sigma and Agile. Today, we are focusing more on the methods as part 1 covered the history of process improvements over the past century. I really hope you enjoy this material.  Send me an email at info@leanenglishconsulting.com if you have any questions or comments.  I would love to hear from you.  Thanks so much for...

Welcome to the Lean English Podcast, created for non-native English speakers who would also like to learn how to improve their business or their career.   I am an English professor living in France who offers lessons for individuals and businesses.  This is the first episode of a four-part series on Lean, Six Sigma and Agile.  I hope you enjoy it. Visit my website leanenglishconsulting.com for my...