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Weekly Update (April 12, 2013)

Last updated by Jeff Hajek on June 20, 2013

Notable News

We’ve been working on our features schedule to try to get something interesting posted every day. One of the latest ideas is a weekly poll question. This week’s questions is intended to shed light on how companies tend to go about allocating time for improvement efforts.

Thoughts of the Week

  • I hate tax season. It is unbelievable how complicated the tax filing process is. Any company that put you through those hoops would last about 38 seconds.
  • People think in terms of black and white, but the world is gray. Republicans and Democrats are relatively evenly split, but each group thinks it is absolutely right. That means they both discount the needs of half the population. I am glad most people don’t think the same way inside of their companies, or nothing would ever get done. 

Favorite Improvement Articles

  • I am going to let John Hunter of Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog do my work for me this week. He’s got a roundup of articles posted on his site. 

Recommended Reading

  • Going hand in hand with the video below and our new effort to give you a roadmap to a Lean culture, we recommend reading about our Lean Assessment Litmus Test. It is a brief set of questions I like to ask when first talking to a company to see how well their organization aligns with continuous improvement principles. There link above takes you to an overview. Each of the five questions are covered in more detail on separate pages.
  • We posted another article on PDF. 11 Common Misconceptions About Lean

Featured Video

Our big focus this year is on rounding out our product line to support our Continuous Improvement Transformation Model. This week’s featured video, while not directly a part of the model, does support it. It talks about how to take a look at your progress and adjust your course going forward. This video was recorded from a webinar Tim McMahon of “A Lean Journey” and I did some time back.

Lean Roadmap Update

We changed the first phase of our Continuous Improvement Transformation Model from “Deciding” to “Committing.” The latter puts more action behind it. A New Year’s resolution is a decision. Joining a gym and setting up a schedule is committing. Commitment requires giving something.

New Products

Last, but not least, we want to let you know about new product releases. Just finished two new DVDs. One is already posted, and our Cause and Effect Diagram DVD soon will be. Check back later this weekend, or wait for next week’s update.


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