Welcome to the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast, hosted by Mark Graban, Senior Advisor at KaiNexus. In today's episode, we share insights from one of our YouTube videos, featuring two esteemed leaders from UMass Memorial Health. Cathy Burke and Jeff Marks discuss how KaiNexus, known internally as "Innovation Station," helps them drive leadership and continuous improvement in their organization. Cathy Burke shares her leadership approach of inviting team members to raise opinions, identify obstacles, and work collaboratively—values that Innovation Station enables through its platform. Jeff Marks adds how the platform supports their weekly commitment to optimize performance, leveraging both new ideas and past solutions to avoid redundant efforts. Together, Cathy and Jeff highlight the impact of empowering every employee, regardless of role, to contribute ideas that can affect change on a larger scale. Discover how Innovation Station tracks, monitors, and facilitates execution on these improvements, ensuring that opportunities lead to tangible successes. To learn more about how KaiNexus can support your improvement initiatives, visit www.kainexus.com.

In this video, Mark Graban, senior advisor at KaiNexus, chats with Marc Haberer, a process engineer at one of our customers, Polytainers. At KaiNexus, we believe our success is best reflected in the achievements of our customers. Each year at KaiNexicon, we honor some of our most outstanding customers through the Nexie Awards. This Annual Nexie Award Ceremony is a cherished highlight of KaiNexicon, celebrating our customers' dedication and exceptional accomplishments over the past year. Learn more: https://blog.kainexus.com/customer/announcing-our-2024-nexie-award-winners This year’s Award for Top Turnaround goes to Polytainers. The Top Turnaround is awarded to the organization that has displayed the most progress using KaiNexus to build its improvement culture since last year’s conference. The Polytainers team has demonstrated a remarkable commitment to collaboration and their willingness to work with us on redefining their processes has led to a fantastic partnership. Building from the ground up is never easy, but through exceptional leadership, teamwork, and dedication, they have made leaps and bounds forward in creating standard practices. Their commitment to excellence serves as an inspiration to us, reminding us of the incredible impact that determination, an open mind, and partnership can have on achieving success. Thank you for being an incredible partner to us.

Read the blog post When leaders consider implementing a structured business process improvement methodology, one of the challenges they often face is explaining to employees what types of opportunities to consider. Usually, there are some apparent needs that people attack immediately. Still, once those are addressed, it can be challenging to recognize the flaws in processes, especially ones you operate every day. A practical approach for overcoming this issue is providing employees with categories of improvement potential to keep in mind. Sharing a few examples with your team — and asking lots of questions — can help spark ideas, get people thinking creatively, and foster innovation.Of course, recognizing the opportunities for improvement is only the first step. Next, your team will need to leverage various improvement techniques to implement positive change.This post breaks down common improvement needs into several categories and then covers several practical tools for problem-solving.

In this webinar, we’re mixing up the format a bit to maximize time for Q&A and discussion. Please watch this longer webinar first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wwlaxfN8AE In this video, Mark Graban will give a short presentation that recaps and updates his thoughts on some of these concepts. We’ll also conduct some live polling (and see the results) related to the level of psychological safety that attendees feel in their organizations. Mark is also joined by KaiNexians Kaleigh Krauss and Linda Vicaro for discussion and their insights and stories. The rest of the webinar was a Q&A discussion moderated by Morgan Wright, where you can ask your questions related to how leaders can cultivate a culture where everybody feels safe enough to speak up about problems, ideas, mistakes, and more. Learning Objectives: Define psychological safety and explain its significance in the workplace. Identify the relationship between psychological safety and continuous improvement. Develop strategies for leaders to cultivate psychological safety within their teams. Understand methods to assess and sustain psychological safety in the organization. Mark Graban is an author, speaker, and consultant, whose latest book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation. He is also the author of the award-winning book "Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement" and others, including "Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More." He serves as a consultant through his company, Constancy, Inc, and is also a Senior Advisor for the technology company KaiNexus (and had his 13-year KaiNexiversary recently!). Mark hosts podcasts, including “Lean Blog Interviews” and “My Favorite Mistake.” Mark earned a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern University, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and an M.B.A. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s “Leaders for Global Operations” Program.

In this episode, Mark Graban previews an upcoming webinar live event. Register here I'm excited to invite you to join me on August 21st for a special webinar titled “Ask Us Anything! Psychological Safety and Continuous Improvement.” This session, running from 1:00 – 2:00 PM ET, is designed to be highly interactive, with a focus on your questions and insights. You can also view this as a LinkedIn Live streaming session. But we'll only be able to take and answer live questions from the Zoom Webinar crowd. Psychological safety is a crucial foundation for any organization striving to foster continuous improvement. When team members feel safe to speak up–whether it's to share ideas, report problems, or admit mistakes–they are more likely to contribute to a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Without psychological safety, the fear of blame or retaliation can stifle innovation and lead to missed opportunities for growth. In our previous KaiNexus webinar, I discussed the importance of psychological safety and how it ties into continuous improvement. If you missed that session, don't worry–you'll receive a link to the recording when you register. I encourage you to watch it before the August 21st webinar, as it will set the stage for our discussion. I'll kick off the session with a brief 15-minute presentation recapping the key points from the previous webinar and sharing some updated thoughts on fostering psychological safety. We'll then conduct live polling to gauge the level of psychological safety attendees feel in their organizations, providing us with real-time data to inform our discussion. The heart of this webinar will be the Q&A session, moderated by Morgan Wright. I'll be joined by some other “KaiNexians” to share their thoughts on our culture. This is your chance to ask anything related to building a culture where everyone feels safe to engage in continuous improvement activities. Whether you're curious about specific strategies, leadership behaviors, or methods for sustaining psychological safety over time, we're here to provide practical insights. By the end of this session, you'll be able to: Define psychological safety and understand its critical role in the workplace.Identify the connection between psychological safety and continuous improvement.Develop actionable strategies for cultivating psychological safety within your teams.Assess and sustain psychological safety in your organization. To sum up, my goal for this webinar is to help you develop practical strategies to build psychological safety in your teams. This is about more than just making people comfortable–it's about creating an environment where continuous improvement is possible because people feel safe to contribute, challenge the status quo, and learn from mistakes. I hope you'll join us and bring your questions, your experiences, and your ideas. Let's make this a lively and impactful session! Register: Ask Us Anything! Psychological Safety and Continuous ImprovementWhy This Topic MattersWhat to Expect on August 21stLearning Objectives

Welcome to the Continuous Improvement Podcast with Mark Graban! In this episode, we celebrate Justin Self, Performance Improvement Manager at Barnes Jewish Hospital, and recipient of the prestigious Nexie Award from KaiNexus. Join us as Justin shares his decade-long journey in continuous improvement at BJC Health, highlighting the importance of standardization, grassroots efforts, and leveraging KaiNexus for both top-down and bottom-up improvements. 🎉 Key Highlights: - Justin's honorary KaiNexian award and its significance - The evolution of continuous improvement at BJC Health - Transition from paper idea boards to using KaiNexus - Importance of standardization in large health systems - Collaborative growth with KaiNexus' customer success team - Practical tips on managing continuous improvement portfolios 🔔 Subscribe for more insights into continuous improvement and learn from industry leaders! Learn more about KaiNexus: KaiNexus Website https://kainexus.com/ #ContinuousImprovement #LeanHealthcare #KaiNexus #NexieAward #BJCHealth #PerformanceImprovement #Standardization #HealthcareInnovation #CustomerSuccess

Welcome to the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement Podcast with Mark Graban! In this special episode, we celebrate Mike McGowan, Director of Process Excellence at Memorial Health System in Marietta, Ohio, and recipient of this year's prestigious Lifetime Achievement Nexie Award from KaiNexus. Join us as Mike shares his inspiring journey in continuous improvement, the evolution of process excellence at Memorial Health, and the impactful integration of KaiNexus into their system. 🎉 Key Highlights: - Mike's honorary KaiNexian award in memory of Chris Burnham - Transition from project-oriented work to a culture of continuous improvement - Incorporating KaiNexus for tracking projects, quality initiatives, and safety improvements - Importance of standardization and iterative growth in lean practices 🔔 Subscribe for more insights into continuous improvement and learn from industry leaders! 🔗 Useful Links: Learn more about KaiNexus: https://www.kainexus.com #ContinuousImprovement #LeanHealthcare #KaiNexus #NexieAward #MemorialHealth #ProcessExcellence #Standardization #HealthcareInnovation #CustomerSuccess

Welcome to the latest episode of the KaiNexus Continuous Improvement podcast! In this engaging conversation, Mark Graban, Senior Advisor with KaiNexus, sits down with Greg Jacobson, CEO and co-founder of KaiNexus. They chat about various topics, including lean principles, continuous improvement, and the significant impact of the recent CrowdStrike software glitch on multiple sectors, including healthcare. Mark shares his personal travel delays caused by the glitch, while Greg discusses the broader implications, such as the disruptions in emergency healthcare services. They explore the importance of psychological safety and how KaiNexus fosters a culture where employees feel safe to speak up about mistakes. The discussion also covers the value of mistake-proofing, robust testing processes, and learning from both internal and external errors to enhance continuous improvement practices. Join Mark and Greg as they reflect on lessons learned, the importance of a kind and constructive response to mistakes, and the necessity of maintaining dynamic checklists in response to changing conditions like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Hashtags: #ContinuousImprovement #LeanPrinciples #Kinexis #SoftwareGlitch #HealthcareImpact #PsychologicalSafety #MistakeProofing #Leadership #GregJacobson #MarkGraban #LeanThinking00:00:26: KaiNexus Mid-Annual Meeting overview 00:00:44: Discussion about travel delays 00:00:55: Impact of Crowdstrike software issue 00:05:34: Software bugs and testing procedures 00:07:17: Psychological safety and response to mistakes in KaiNexus 00:11:02: Checklist usage and adjustments 00:16:00: Learning from Crowdstrike situation 00:17:46: Wrapping up and future Ask Us Anything session

In this insightful webinar, Karen Friedenberg, Founder and Managing Director of Performance Improvement Consulting, explores how to leverage a Strategy to Execution Framework to achieve sustainable business results. The webinar delves into the critical aspects of strategy execution, emphasizing the importance of clear communication, organizational alignment, and operational consistency. Strategy Articulation: Karen emphasizes the need for strategy to be communicated in a clear and powerful way. This ensures that all stakeholders understand the direction and objectives of the organization, fostering a unified approach towards achieving goals. Organizational Alignment: The importance of aligning the leadership team and the entire organization to the company's goals is highlighted. Karen discusses methods to ensure that everyone understands how their contributions align with and support the overall strategy. Operational Alignment: Ensuring that processes and operations are consistent and aligned with the strategy is crucial. Karen shares insights on how to streamline operations to support strategic objectives effectively, reducing inefficiencies and improving performance. Executing with Excellence: Karen underscores the necessity of having a robust structure and method in place to manage strategy and key initiatives. This includes establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and metrics to track progress and ensure accountability. Organizational and Culture Change: Building a culture of performance improvement and bringing people along for the journey is essential for sustained success. Karen discusses techniques for fostering a culture that embraces change, continuous improvement, and innovation. Karen Friedenberg brings a unique perspective to strategy execution, combining her experience in consulting with her background in industry. As a former executive, she understands the importance of having executable plans that deliver results. She has led Strategic Program Management and Operational Excellence departments, overseeing large business and digital transformations. Karen is passionate about listening, connecting the dots, and using various disciplines such as Lean Six Sigma, change management, and design thinking to solve business problems and facilitate sustainable change. For more detailed insights and to access the slides, visit: Leveraging a Strategy to Execution Framework - A Journey of Transformation.

Link to the blog post Leaders who want to develop a culture of rapid continuous improvement have many tools at their disposal. So many that it can be challenging to keep them all in mind when deciding how to execute an opportunity for improvement or address a difficult challenge. Most organizations don't use all of these techniques simultaneously, but each can be remarkably effective when applied to the right situation.We put together a list of the most common and helpful business process improvement tools and techniques that you can start implementing today. Each will help your team improve product quality, increase customer satisfaction, and achieve optimal performance with minimal waste.

Register here In this video, Mark Graban (webinar host from KaiNexus) talks with Karen Friedenberg about her webinar. Scheduled for: July 23 from 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm ET Presented by Karen Friedenberg What is a Strategy to Execution Framework? How can this be leveraged to achieve sustainable business results? Learn more about how to execute a journey of Transformation from: 1. Strategy Articulation – How to ensure strategy is communicated in a clear and powerful way. 2. Organizational Alignment – Is the leadership team and the organization aligned to how they contribute to the company goals? 3. Operational Alignment – How to ensure processes and operations are consistent and aligned to strategy. 4. Executing with Excellence – Is there a structure and method in place to ensure strategy and key initiatives are managed? 5. Organizational and Culture Change – How do you build a culture of performance improvement and bring people along for the journey? About the Presenter: Karen Friedenberg is the Founder and Managing Director of Performance Improvement Consulting. Having worked both in Consulting and within industry, Karen brings a unique perspective to strategy execution. Karen sat in the seat of an executive, so having executable plans that deliver results is imperative. She built out and led Strategic Program Management and Operational Excellence departments leading large business and digital transformations. Karen is passionate about listening, connecting the dots and bringing her experience in various industries, lean six sigma, change management, design thinking and other disciplines to solve business problems and facilitate sustainable change.

Read the blog post Here at KaiNexus, we get the opportunity to chat with organizations across all industries and write about many different continuous improvement tools and techniques they use. Lately, I’ve been thinking about two things that most have in common. First, the tools they use are generally simple but not easy. And second, the key to success lies in the planning phase. Both of these observations apply to Kaizen events. The concept is straightforward. A team sets aside other responsibilities for a few days to focus on solving an important challenge in short order. That’s pretty simple, but getting results requires a significant amount of planning and preparation Fortunately, there is a well-defined path to success. Here are the seven simple steps to follow before you kick off your next event.

Today, host Mark Graban (a Senior Advisor) with KaiNexus is joined by our new Manager of Customer Enablement, Andrea Beidl. We'll learn about her background, why she joined KaiNexus, and what appealed to her during the recruiting and interviewing process. Learn a little about her onboarding process -- and what she thinks are the best things and the worst things about living in Austin — oops, I mean San Antonio. Learn more about KaiNexus: https://kainexus.com/

It's time for another lively and informative "Ask Us Anything!" webinar. This time, we're featuring Linda Vicaro and Lynn Howell, the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team, joined by host and moderator Mark Graban. Learn more about our webinars: https://www.kainexus.com/webinars It's time for another lively and informative "Ask Us Anything!" webinar. This time, we're featuring Linda Vicaro and Lynn Howell, the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team, joined by host and moderator Mark Graban. Learn more about our webinars: https://www.kainexus.com/webinars Related Content: Watch all three Habits webinars and moreMark's "Lean Office Gone Wrong" video Questions: Linda and Lynn , could you tell us about your professional background and career? Feel free to add a fun fact if you'd like. How can we effectively communicate the value of continuous improvement to leadership and secure their buy-in? How can we engage leaders to support ongoing daily continuous improvement or small Kaizen initiatives that might not have immediate, impressive ROIs? How do we explain the benefits of continuous quality improvement and data usage to those who believe, "we already collect data" but don't use it to improve processes? What strategies can overcome employee resistance to change in a lean transformation? What are best practices for engaging staff in continuous improvement? How can a small company with limited resources start implementing lean practices? How can a large organization with over 20,000 employees foster a culture of continuous improvement despite slow processes? What tips and processes can help during an in-person session to create a new process for assessing and onboarding technology? How can we integrate lean with existing digital transformation efforts to enhance continuous improvement and innovation? How can we ensure consistent implementation and sustainment of lean practices over time? Where should a sales or service-oriented organization focus first when implementing continuous improvement?

Join us for another exciting and insightful "Ask Us Anything!" webinar featuring the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team. This interactive session is scheduled for June 20 from 2:00 - 3:00 ET. Register here Presenters: Linda VicaroLynn Howell Host and Moderator: Mark Graban In this live event, our experts will tackle your questions about continuous improvement, lean methodologies, and more. Whether you submit your questions in advance or ask them during the webinar, our team is ready to provide valuable insights and practical advice. 🔹 Submit Your Questions: Get your queries answered by Linda, Lynn, and Mark by submitting them ahead of time or participating live. 🔹 Who Should Attend: This webinar is perfect for anyone involved in or curious about lean strategies and continuous improvement, including industry professionals, managers, and enthusiasts. Don't miss this opportunity to engage directly with the KaiNexus Lean Strategy team. Subscribe to our channel and hit the notification bell to stay updated on our latest content and live events. 📅 Date: June 20 🕑 Time: 2:00 - 3:00 ET Follow Us: Website: KaiNexusLinkedIn: KaiNexus LinkedIn #LeanStrategy #ContinuousImprovement #KaiNexus #Webinar #AskUsAnything

Blog post link Gemba walks have become a widely adopted management technique. Leaders gain valuable insights into organizational value flow and often discover improvement opportunities by directly visiting the work environment. This collaborative approach involves employees sharing details about their tasks and the reasons behind them. Why are Gemba Walks Important?

Today, host Mark Graban (a Senior Advisor) with KaiNexus is joined by our new Vice President of Marketing, Josh Feldman. We'll learn about his background, why he joined KaiNexus, and why he moved from Chicago. Is he is Cubs fan or a White Sox fan? And what does his think about Chicago pizza? The answer may surprise you. Learn more about KaiNexus: https://kainexus.com/

The blog post James Womack and Dan Jones are the founders of the Lean Enterprise Institute and the Lean Enterprise Academy (UK), respectively. Their book, Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, is considered by some to be the bible of Lean Manufacturing. It was initially published in 1996 based on their in-depth study of Toyota’s fabled Toyota Production System (TPS). Womack and Jones realized that every business output results from a process. Process thinking in operations management requires leaders and workers to view the organization as a set of related processes that work together for a common goal rather than a group of departments supporting a specific function.These ideas are widely used by organizations in every sector to better design, track, and optimize business operations. Companies have not done away with functional departments. Instead, they view the work departments do differently. Departments don't exist on their terms. Each receives inputs from other functions and provides outputs that other departments must consume to complete their work. In short, each function or person contributes to one or more business processes. So, instead of managing departments, process thinking means managing entire operations. A process might move through a series of teams or functions, each with its requirements, but the purpose of each one is to create value for the customer, which is what matters.

Watch the recording and more info This was presented on May 30, 2024 by Dr. William Harvey Enterprise excellence and inclusive excellence are closely linked, and real-world challenges have shown that both are essential to the success of any organization. To achieve enterprise excellence, organizations must focus on improving their operations and processes while creating an inclusive environment that engages everyone. In this interactive session, the facilitator will highlight commonly established business practices and how they limit our ability to engage everyone every day. More importantly, though, participants will likely gain increased awareness of what we can do differently to maximize enterprise excellence through deliberate inclusion. What is Enterprise Excellence? Enterprise Excellence is a holistic approach that's aimed at achieving world-class performance across all aspects of the organization. What might I learn? A way to engage all in creating Inclusive Excellence. Lessons from the US military and their parallels to the story of Harry Potter. How belt systems and CI teams can destroy inclusive practices. How leadership language invites people to the party. There are three things leaders can do to engage everyone every day: maximizing psychological safety to create environments where folks learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo. Who might benefit? Anyone and everyone leading folks from the shop floor to top floor. Dr. William Harvey is a seasoned Operations Leader with extensive experience in chemical processing, manufacturing, and operations management. At Michelman, he currently oversees multiple sites, leading teams in strategic planning and coaching/practicing continuous improvement. William is set to start his eighth year of teaching at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches marketing, finance, and management. William holds various certifications in change management, quality, leadership, operational excellence, team building, and DiSC, among others.

Register to attend the webinar or view the recording Presented by Dr. William Harvey on May 30, 2024, 1 pm ET. Enterprise excellence and inclusive excellence are closely linked, and real-world challenges have shown that both are essential to the success of any organization. To achieve enterprise excellence, organizations must focus on improving their operations and processes while creating an inclusive environment that engages everyone. In this interactive session, the facilitator will highlight commonly established business practices and how they limit our ability to engage everyone every day. More importantly, though, participants will likely gain increased awareness of what we can do differently to maximize enterprise excellence through deliberate inclusion.What is Enterprise Excellence?Enterprise Excellence is a holistic approach that's aimed at achieving world-class performance across all aspects of the organization.What might I learn?A way to engage all in creating Inclusive Excellence. Lessons from the US military and their parallels to the story of Harry Potter. How belt systems and CI teams can destroy inclusive practices. How leadership language invites people to the party. There are three things leaders can do to engage everyone every day: maximizing psychological safety to create environments where folks learn, contribute, and challenge the status quo.Who might benefit? Anyone and everyone leading folks from the shop floor to top floor.   About the Presenter:Dr. William Harvey Dr. William Harvey is a seasoned Operations Leader with extensive experience in chemical processing, manufacturing, and operations management. At Michelman, he currently oversees multiple sites, leading teams in strategic planning and coaching/practicing continuous improvement. William is set to start his eighth year of teaching at the University of Cincinnati where he teaches marketing, finance, and management. William holds various certifications in change management, quality, leadership, operational excellence, team building, and DiSC, among others.