Blog
Practical articles and monthly newsletters to support your continuous improvement journey.
This monthly note is designed to respect your time and sharpen your thinking: one useful idea, one real-world insight, and one small nudge toward better work.One Useful Idea – Growth Comes from Changing Your Role At the Green Belt level, you learn to apply tools, lead tactical-level projects, and im
Read more →This monthly note is designed to respect your time and sharpen your thinking: one useful idea, one real-world insight, and one small nudge toward better work.One Useful Idea – Respect for People Is a Performance Strategy Lean is often described as a set of tools. It isn’t. It’s a system built on two
Read more →This monthly note is designed to respect your time and sharpen your thinking: one useful idea, one real-world insight, and one small nudge toward better work.One Useful Idea – Continuous Improvement Loves Small Cycles One of the quiet lies we tell ourselves is that improvement requires huge effort,
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One of the most frequently asked questions we get at Utah Lean Six Sigma Training Center is: How does Lean Six Sigma work? At first glance, Lean Six Sigma might seem like a complex, almost mystical body of knowledge—something that requires years of study under a seasoned expert. But in reality, the
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Tell me if you've heard this Lean joke before: A husband and wife walk into a bar the store… The Setup Two weeks prior, they had ordered a series of frames for new family photos to adorn their living room wall. They sat with the salesperson, weighed the options, paid a deposit, and left with [&hell
Read more →Click on the images to learn more about Utah Lean Six Sigma Training Center Why Choose Utah Lean Six Sigma Training Center The Four A's of Training Past Clients
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(Cover image credit: educegroup.com) Is Virtual Training Here to Stay? Finding Gratitude in Tough Times We have a tradition in my home. Every evening at the end of the day the four of us express gratitude for one thing that we experienced that day. Often that conversation is relatively easy and the
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“What would this look like if it were easy?” -Tim Ferris Sometimes I sit in my simple little commuter car and marvel at what a marvel of engineering it is. Thousands of intricate parts work in near perfect harmony to carry me down the road in what is the relative lap of luxury. I'm in […]
Read more →Mistake proofing is a concept that has existed longer than anyone can accurately define. Poka Yoke, the Japanese term for mistake proofing, was formally defined and systematized by Shigeo Shingo of Toyota in the 1960's. It has become a standard for creating processes that are designed to either no
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5S vs. 6S "It's one louder, isn't it?" When I originally wrote that headline, I thought of that wonderful scene on This is Spinal Tap where the musician was talking about how his speakers were louder than anyone else’s. When everyone else’s had a volume knob that went from 0 to 10, his went up [&he
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As leaders we have a very different view of our processes. It is our job to communicate the WHY of processes, not just the HOW.
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“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – Henry Ford
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Admission time. I'm a superficial movie fan. In fact, the less I have to think about a plot the better. I love action-packed sci-fi. I love it when a movie climaxes in the one gigantic battle and the hero single-handedly saves the day. Because that's exactly what happens in real life, right?! Yea
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"I cringe at the sound of “root cause” because “root cause” is singular. Far too often we work hard to define the problem, perform a root cause analysis, and then celebrate as we’ve done ourselves the grave disservice of identifying one single, sad, lonely, little cause."
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