Weekly Update (April 19, 2013)

Notable News

I recently had a nice visit with a company that is on the verge of embracing continuous improvement. It has progressed along one of the common paths. A manager with some Lean experience applied it in his area, and got noticed for the gains. One thing led to another, and I ended up sitting in a conference room talking about how to capitalize on that progress.

Those are the meetings that charge me up. Producing new content is important, but it is not as fun as actually interacting with people. I can’t wait to see how things go for them. They are big enough to have some great upside in their processes. 

Thoughts of the Week

• The definition of “idiot” is not “anyone who disagrees with you.” I checked with Webster.
• When you watch for it, it is surprising how often issues in the news are framed with “either/or” solutions. There are almost always more than two possible ways to deal with a problem. Framing it in a limited way restricts potential solutions. 

Favorite Improvement Articles

• Evan Durant of the “Kaizen Notebook” blog puts a customer journey mapping tool to use in his article about a visit to the Apple store. Very interesting tool, and interesting experience with Apple as well. 

Recommended Reading

• I have Netflix, and find that I’ll get wrapped up in a show and watch a few seasons over the course of a couple of months. One show I recently watched was “Lie to Me.” I went out and purchased the book Emotions Revealed (Second Edition): Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life. To be honest, I haven’t gotten far into it, but the author’s work provided the basis for the TV show. It looks to be a very interesting read, and potentially very useful when I am working with a team. 

Featured Video

We just posted a clip from our Run Charts DVD. For those that know how to use a run chart, the video is probably just a refresher. For those that don’t commonly use them, though, it is a food way to open up more problem solving options.

This clip talks about using a manual run chart in a work cell. It helps highlight problems in  near real time.