As regular readers of this blog know, many of the ideas and practices that guide the modern continuous improvement movement have their origins in Japanese philosophy and culture. Today’s leaders talk about kaizen (improvement), hoshin kanri (direction setting), and kanban (visual management) regularly. Recently, while scrolling through my Instagram feed of all things, I was struck by another Japanese concept that deserves some thought in the business context as well – the art of Kintsugi.

Kintsugi which translates to “golden journey” and is also known as Kintsukurio (golden repair) is the art of repairing broken pottery by joining the broken pieces with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. No attempt is made to hide the repair; in fact, the technique highlights it. The repair becomes part of the history of the object. The object is not beautiful despite the fact that it was broken, it is more beautiful because it was broken.

It is relatively common for people to use the terms “employee engagement,” and “employee satisfaction,” interchangeably, although we have never been comfortable with that framing, especially when it comes to software. Tools like employee NPS and employee pulse surveys do an excellent job of measuring employee satisfaction, but they don’t have features likely to increase employee engagement. Understanding the difference can help organizations that want to attract, retain, and develop talent find the tools that can help them do so.

“Culture isn’t just on aspect of the game – it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.” Lou Gerstner Jr. – IBM.

These days it is a little bit embarrassing to admit that I eat fast food from time to time, but there you have it. I like French fries, and I cannot lie. And as everyone knows, McDonald's French fries are objectively the best. One of the founding principles of McDonald’s was that the food would taste the same no matter which location you visit. I’d say they have generally achieved this aim even though most locations are franchises run by hundreds of different owners across the country.

But while the food is relatively consistent, the quality of customer service is not. The employees from one McDonalds to another are paid about the same. The employees come from the same labor market. The functional job requirements are the same. So why do some locations operate efficiently with friendly and engaged employees, while others have workers who are indifferent?

We’re not going to lie. Implementing any kind of software solution in an organization is not easy. First, you must make sure you select a solution that will actually help address whatever challenge is at hand. Then you have to get it implemented and work out the kinks (there are always kinks). You have to get users trained, and then you face the biggest hurdle of them all – getting people to use the system. Sometimes it all goes smoothly, but challenges are not uncommon.

If you’ve implemented Lean software, you’ve probably faced a few. This post will help you access whether your Lean technology has taken root and give you some ideas for boosting adoption if that’s what’s needed.

When we sit down with a prospective client, we find it is very important to understand the challenges the organization is facing and their long-term goals before we start talking about our solution. One of the themes that come up, again and again, is employee engagement, or lack thereof. What we often find is that leaders and managers implement all sorts of employee engagement activities, but they rarely have a well-crafted, cohesive plan for maximizing the human potential of their workforce. Our clients who have done it successfully have found five key elements that are essential to an effective approach.

A while back, we wrote about some continuous quality improvement techniques that we love because they are easy but powerful. One of the most important realizations that people have, when they start to build an organization focused on excellence and constant improvement, is that the path is not complicated. It’s really all about getting the little things right and providing people with a structured way to think about incremental operational change. The original post contained some of our favorite tools. This one has a few more.

I'm well into day two of the Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in Washington D.C., and while there are 8 breakout sessions to choose from right now, I came back to the coldest room in the hotel for more Cleveland Clinic. You can check out what I learned about their tiered huddles in yesterday's session here. 

(Side note: Why are conference meeting rooms so cold? Are the hotels trying to keep people awake? Sedate us? I'll never know.)

I must not be the only one who can't get enough of this organization, because at this moment we're 15 minutes from the start of the session and it's already standing room only. Today's Cleveland Clinic presentation is led by Melissa Vandergriff, the CI Program Manager.

I'm eagerly awaiting the start of a presentation by Cinnamon Dixon, the Director of Continuous Improvement at Cleveland Clinic, about their visual management process. I was talking with a Catalysis consultant this morning at breakfast who was telling me about the tiered huddle system at Cleveland Clinic, so I'm super excited to learn more about it.

Ok, here we go.

Dixon started out the session by asking us to pretend we're a president at a hospital preparing for our annual review. You look at your report of operational metrics. You see that over the last 30 days, your falls have increased significantly. Later, you see that the number of violent incident in the ED have also gone up. This leads you to wonder how your caregivers are doing. You see that your volume is down, too, and you realize that this is a good time to focus on employees to make sure you're running an efficient organization - but you see that that didn't happen. You notice all of this as you're walking into a meeting - but why didn't you know that sooner?

You lacked the visibility you needed to pay attention and make better decisions.

How does Cleveland Clinic manage to engage 66,000 caregivers every single day? How do they get that visibility?

Tiered Huddles.

Here's how the Cleveland Clinic tiers are set up, with vital information flowing up and down throughout the organization in a structured, consistent way.

I'm here at the 2019 Lean Healthcare Transformation Summit in a keynote with John Toussaint, MD, the Executive Chairman of the Board at Catalysis. 

We’ve received a bunch of responses to our recent posts about visual project management. Many of our readers have shared their stories about how moving to visual management has helped them get more projects completed and to better understand the results of their improvement efforts. Other readers have asked questions about what to look for when selecting tools for visual project management. Of course, every organization has different needs, but some capabilities are useful across the board. Here are the features we suggest considering when evaluating visual project management tools.

Kanban View

Kanban boards are among the most popular visual project management tools available. Elements of work in progress are presented in columns that represent items yet to be started, work that is underway, and completed tasks. Visualizing work int his way makes it instantly obvious when there are backlogs or bottlenecks. The goal is to improve the flow of work so that there is no waiting and forward progress is maintained.

When looking for project management technology, be sure that there is a customizable Kanban view so that each team can tailor their board to their unique needs. The solution should allow users to drill down into each task for background and more detail.