Category Archives: Lean

Blaise Pascal and the Somali Pirates

Are we confident that our processes are delivering to the right quality and compliance requirements? How did we decide what the right controls, checks and balances are? Do we build in a safety margin or pay for insurance because we might fail? After all, failure has consequences, and insurance and safety cushions can be costly.
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Just Questions …

How do you know if your Lean and Six Sigma training and development program is succeeding?
When you set out on your implementation, did you develop metrics to gage progress and success?
Is success measured in terms of training and certification indicators or on the changes in business performance?
Have you has what appeared to be a successful implementation in a failing business or business unit? Are you counting projects and certifications still?
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Fast Times with Heisenberg, Gretzky, and Carroll

Ever hear of Werner Heisenberg? Unless you are one of those people (confessed addict here) that is curious about lots of stuff, in this case quantum mechanics, you may not really care.
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Burned by the Budget

This has been a tough season for many. As business belts and budgets tightened, the focus to become leaner has led to some tough choices. Many of the activities we engaged in with customers had to change, even go by the wayside. Maybe it was fewer visits, or less personalized care, as we moved their requests into more “efficient” centers, thereby reducing transactions costs. Some of the requests we did for little or no cost, now are fee based. What about when the economy improves?

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Mean Times

We like symmetry. Most of us do. There is something in our wiring or programming that finds symmetry attractive, pleasing, and embodying some balance that might actually communicate harmony. We see it in the YinYang and the Taoist philosophy. We often characterize justice as a balanced scale, and countless studies have measured our perceptions of beauty among individuals and found facial symmetry the driving attractiveness variable. When we measure and analyze to find meaning in data, there is also an underlying “hope” that we find symmetry. When we see a “normal” distribution, or bell curve, we enter a comfort zone. In fact, I know countless people who work terribly hard at converting data that is not symmetric or normal into a set that is. Some, actually too many, take out data that does not fit the beauty of symmetry, proceed to insult it with names like outliers and dismiss them from our view.
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The Perfect Storm

Our customers make us better! Have you heard that phrase? When I have, the translation that emerges is that our customers sometimes have to drag us into improvement. In fact, it often means that we become aware of the needs to improve from feedback and complaints. Someone might argue that we sometimes innovate from negative feedback
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“Hurry Up and Wait!”

This morning I was traveling. It was a long flight, but the flight crew made great time. In fact, the pilot announced that we would be in a half hour early, at the gate. Great news! I could feel those …
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You Can’t Go Back To Somewhere You’ve Never Been To

My first car was a beautiful 1956 Oldsmobile; I bought it in 1968, during the early half of my senior year in high school. It increased my degrees of freedom and mobility. No more having to catch rides with my …
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“The Last Samurais” … What awaits the Black Belt community in the new world order?

The movie “The Last Samurai” painted a bittersweet view of how a new world order can affect players. The Samurais were depicted as the elite members of society with mastery of skills necessary to forcibly execute the will of their masters. …
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