At the 2023 Lean Global Connection virtual conference held in late November, Maria Grzanka, Dominic Stokes and Matt Horvat share their experiences setting up and participating within Lean Portland.

They discuss project examples of teaching Lean to nonprofits in the Portland area, and what they learned and benefitted from those experiences. There is also a video of the presentation you can watch at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwoRBFyN8_8

There were numerous presentations provided during this event, so you can check out all of them in the links below.

Links

ABOUT US:  

Lean Portland is a socially-driven community built organization for both new and experienced continuous improvement professionals. We've been gathering for happy hour since 2012 and every First Tuesday since 2015!  As of April 2020, Happy Hour is happening online. Until we can safely meet again in person, we hope to see you here soon!  

Learn more about Lean Portland at ⁠https://leanportland.com/⁠

To check out upcoming Lean Portland events, visit ⁠https://www.eventbrite.com/o/lean-portland-16044200704

When using Statistical Process Control (SPC) charts to monitor your process, you are comparing your current data to historical data to determine if the process is similar or different. The basis for this decision lies in the Western Electric Rules (now called Nelson Rules) for detecting out of control conditions.

For example, if you detect 6 consecutive data points going upwards from the previous data point, that is considered a trend, and the process should be stopped to investigate if there is a problem or not.

Brion Hurley, Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with Business Performance Improvement, will discuss these rules in depth, and explain how they can help you more quickly identify problems in your process. Q&A will follow the presentation.

Watch the video of this presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmcN25qf49Y

Learn more about our upcoming Lean for Social Good Unconference on December 5, 2023!

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lean-portland-virtual-unconference-tickets-701112705977?

ABOUT US:  

Lean Portland is a socially-driven community built organization for both new and experienced continuous improvement professionals. We've been gathering for happy hour since 2012 and every First Tuesday since 2015!  As of April 2020, Happy Hour is happening online. Until we can safely meet again in person, we hope to see you here soon!  

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

To check out upcoming Lean Portland events, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/o/lean-portland-16044200704

After making improvements to your processes, a best practice is to calculate the benefits to the organization. Calculating financial benefits is an important part of building momentum for improvement with upper management. However, this can be confusing for those not familiar with financial data, and is not done very often in organizations.  

Brion Hurley will discuss commonly used methods for capturing financial impacts of process improvement work.  

The 5 categories are: 

• Income Statement 

• Cash Flow 

• Growth 

• Avoidance 

• Soft Savings  

We will define each category, go through a few examples, and go through a practice exercise as a group.  

Links discussed in the video: 

Lean 101 Virtual Training - June 26, 2022: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/lean-101-tickets-367967449547

Case Study Example: https://www.leanadvisors.com/lean-success-stories/manufacturing/client-saved-800-000-in-3-days

ABOUT US:  

Lean Portland is a socially-driven community built organization for both new and experienced continuous improvement professionals. We've been gathering for happy hour since 2012 and every First Tuesday since 2015!  As of April 2020, Happy Hour is happening online. Until we can safely meet again in person, we hope to see you here soon!  

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

To check out upcoming Lean Portland events, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/o/lean-portland-16044200704

Join us for a share out from our volunteer consultants about what we've learned over the past 10 years.  

* listening to voices of our nonprofit partners (customers) 

* unexpected benefits of helping others 

* building community through building relationships 

* turning the continuous improvement lens on ourselves  

AGENDA:  

* Improvements within Lean Portland to increase the number and quality of nonprofit volunteering projects 

* Reducing Administration Required to Onboard Harvest Leads with Portland Fruit Tree Project 

* Improving Inventory Supply Management for Trash Cleanup Events with SOLVE  

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/ 

To check out upcoming Lean Portland events, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/o/lean-portland-16044200704

Case Study with Stephanie Hill: Prysm Piercing Shop  

As a member and volunteer for the Association of Professional Piercers (APP) and having a partner who owns a body piercing studio, Stephanie Hill had the rare opportunity to share a Lean case study with a room of 200 international body piercers at an annual APP conference. Modified for the Lean Portland Happy Hour, Stephanie will share this case study of how she worked with her partner, Rob Hill at Prysm Body Piercing in Des Moines, Iowa, to increase profit using Lean practices. While members of the Happy Hour may not own piercing shops, they will walk away with approaches that are useful in any environment.  

Stephanie is the owner of Light Bulb Moment Consulting, helping businesses and nonprofits find and fix problems related to client and workforce experience, capacity constraints, and profit. She has 20 years of experience working in Continuous Improvement and has her Master Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma. She also has certifications in Strategic Human Resources Leadership and Agile. Stephanie is passionate about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and has facilitated courses on the topic for more than 400 people. She recently led a webinar for the Iowa Lean Consortium entitled, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Continuous Improvement Professional.” Stephanie has a master’s degree in public health from Des Moines University and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Kenyon College.  

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

At our April 6th Happy Hour, we are delighted to feature long-time member of Lean Portland, Sheilah "Paddy" O'Brien, who recently finished writing her latest book, “Facilitating Rapid Process Improvement Workshops (RPI), a Self-Study Guide for Lean Leaders.” This is a follow-on to her first book, “Lean for the Nonprofit, What You Don’t Know Can Cost You."  

With two books under her belt, we wanted to have a conversational Happy Hour with her and ask: “What was it about our Lean culture and practice that compelled you to write these books?” We think you will find the answers will pique your interest.  

We will collectively discuss, "How do I continue to learn after my initial training to Lean? What’s next to advance my improvement skills?” Also, we will discuss the nature and challenges of taking Lean into non-manufacturing environments. Paddy will briefly outline the content of her book(s), and, through a casual interview format, share her journey, insights, and lessons learned from years of experience facilitating events and applying Lean in state government and non-profits. We hope you can join us!

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

Ernest Mayer is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Project Manager at Providence Health & Services in Portland, Oregon. He explains the Daily Management System (DMS) he has helped developed with local nonprofits, and how that transitioned into a rollout across Providence. He explains that DMS is more than a set of tools and metrics, it requires a culture change that starts with managers transitioning to leaders, where they coach and mentor instead of dictate and give orders.  

Connect with Ernest at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernest-mayer-45368b15/

Creating flow is one of the principles of Lean Thinking. At first, we apply this principle to process work flows. What might we learn if we applied this to intrapersonal flow? How might we improve quality and reduce waste as we move throughout the day?  

Lori Jorgenson is a vitality coach with the Taylor Group in Portland, OR. With her background as a personal trainer and world champion outrigger canoe paddler, Lori joined the Taylor Group in 2017 with extensive experience in the realm of physical well-being. Her role as a vitality coach goes much deeper than that however, recognizing the critical role of vitality of the mind, heart, and spirit to her clients’ overall wellness.  Lean Portland is a socially-driven community built organization for both new and experienced continuous improvement professionals. Since 2015, we've been gathering for happy hour every First Tuesday since 2015!  

ABOUT LORI JORGENSON  

Lori Jorgenson has over 30 years of experience in the realm of physical well-being and performance. She is a world champion outrigger canoe paddler and experienced personal trainer. In her current role as a Vitality Coach, she uses a whole-person approach to lead people on a journey to their most vital life, in every domain and for every fitness level. She helps her clients stay focused on the joy that comes from a continuous improvement and excellence in their performance.  

ABOUT THE TAYLOR GROUP  

Since 1987, the Taylor Group has helped organizations and individuals to become true leaders: effective, successful, abundant and generous. Our client’s specific concerns define our work, which evolves in partnership with their changing needs. We assemble a custom team around each client, drawing on our practitioners’ expertise in business consulting, brand planning, executive coaching, leadership cultivation, team building, and personal development. http://www.taylorgroup.com/

To learn more, or to check out upcoming events visit https://leanportland.com/

John Ashcraft joins our monthly Happy Hour to discuss the Lean journey he has helped lead at Free Geek (along with Amber Schmidt and the leadership team), with the help from Lean Portland. Their journey started in 2017, and at the end of 2020, they have almost tripled their output of refurbished laptops.

You can watch a video of our talk at https://youtu.be/Jvb9--W_C7s

Free Geek is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Portland, Oregon with a "mission to sustainably reuse technology, enable digital access, and provide education to create a community that empowers people to realize their potential."  Learn more about Free Geek at https://www.freegeek.org/

Learn more about Lean Portland, a volunteer group who teaches Lean and Six Sigma to local nonprofits at https://leanportland.com/

At our December Happy Hour, Sam Pardue, founder of Indow in Portland, shares his work history and how he quickly transitioned his company during the pandemic using Lean methodology, called Clean Practice.

Watch the full video at https://leanportland.com/local_events/clean-practice-uses-lean-to-protect-workers-during-pandemic/

Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/