KaiNexus: Continuous Improvement, Leadership, and More

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Most of us have memories of playing the game of catch either as children or with our children. I really shouldn’t call it a “game” because there are no winners and losers. There is no defense because everyone is on the same side. One participant tries to deliver the ball to the other in a way that they will be able to grab and return it. The ability to catch and throw a ball is important because it is a foundation for success in many other, more complex sports. The Lean idea of catchball involves moving ideas and information from one person or team to another and, much like catch from childhood, it forms the basis for complicated decision-making and policy development.

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The process you use to develop your strategic plan is as important as the plan itself. Many organizations adopt the Hoshin Kanri method (also known as Hoshin Planning or Strategy Deployment), which integrates daily management with the strategic breakthroughs needed to propel the organization forward. Hoshin Kanri helps create specific, actionable plans and allocates the resources necessary to achieve them.

An important element of Hoshin Kanri is not just the setting of top-down objectives but also ensuring a two-way dialogue between leadership and employees, known as "catchball." This ongoing feedback loop ensures that strategic objectives are both communicated effectively and adjusted based on input from all levels of the organization. The entire process becomes an iterative cycle that aligns with the Plan-Do-Study-Adjust (PDSA) framework, fostering continuous learning and improvement.

Here are the seven steps typically followed in the Hoshin Kanri process:

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Presented by Melissa Sherman

Why is change so hard? Change is a complex and multifaceted process that often evokes a wide range of emotions and challenges. Despite these challenges, change is an inevitable part of life and is often necessary for growth, progress, and adaptation.

By acknowledging the difficulties associated with change and providing support, encouragement, and clear communications, we can help individuals and organizations embrace change and Continuous Improvements more effectively.

As continuous improvement practitioners, we don’t always think about the impact our continuous improvement initiatives will have on the employees.

Learning objectives: Throughout this session, we will look at various ways to improve the sustainability of our projects. Let’s discuss the importance of making sure we are embedding change management into your continuous improvement efforts. We will look at what change is, the resistance to it, the journey/change curve an individual goes through, the various change models, and some strategies you can use to assist in your efforts.

Accomplished Lean Leader and Sought-after Speaker recognized for driving continuous improvement initiatives and sharing change best practices, honed from 30 years of expertise in process excellence. Holistic ability to drive enterprise Six Sigma, Lean, and Kaizen deployments, delivering quantifiable productivity, efficiency, and waste elimination gains. Coached business teams during organizational adoption of agile solutions for high-level value delivery. Delighted business partners and stakeholders through strategic data-driven roadmap planning and creation.

The blog post

In this episode, we discuss how to create a culture of continuous improvement in the workplace. We'll cover seven surefire ways to promote improvement, including making it ongoing, involving all employees, removing barriers to improvement, celebrating all types of improvement, providing resources and recognition for improvement efforts, and leading by example. By following these tips, you can create a workplace where everyone is constantly striving to be better.

In today's episode host Mark Graban, a senior advisor with KaiNexus, chats with Yehor Skorodumov, a senior web application developer who joined our team earlier this year.

Mark Graban of KaiNexus talks with Melissa Sherman to preview her webinar...

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.

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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.