Improve something today: Recent Episodes
Brian Kerr
Change management, readiness and adoption, otherwise pulling nerds across the chasm. Whatever you call it, it's important work that my guest and I are accidentally getting better at. A conversation with Devon Persing. Discussed: remote work, organizational and individual change, Muppets.
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A year of working and living in crisis. So what? Now what? Discussed: the mountain (certainty), the muddle (ambiguity), and the morning after the earthquake (we're all geologists now, friends); Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Experience" and "The Conduct of Life"; Leonard Cohen.
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Respect for people is a pillar of lean. It's also the first thing to go out the window in many botched implementations. A conversation with Fabian Jimenez. Discussed: stepping stones on the path to respect for people. Engaging head 🤖, heart 🫀, and hands 🙌 of people.
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When working with groups, agreement is fine—but consensus is better. A conversation with Andre Helmstetter. Discussed: the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ consensus workshop method, taught as part of their ToP Facilitation Training.
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Checking in with Carl Sandburg's "The People, Yes" before Election Day. "The people have come far and can look back and say, 'We will go farther yet.'"
We're still here, and we're still feeling stuck. Or at least I am. I bet you are too. Reading: William Wordsworth's "The Tables Turned"
The world has gone off format and so has this podcast. Discussed: it's time to change and/or die; the weird story of Shantideva, the failed 8th century prince, public servant, and monk; and comforting words from Shantideva's "A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life."
The cost and joys of options. Why are options so important to us anyways? Discussed: set-based design and the book Lean Product Design and Process Development by Allen Ward and Durward Sobek.
You can't make an hourglass flow faster by yelling at the sand. Discussed: queuing, constraints, Little's Law.
Introducing my free field guide to finding waste in knowledge work and service work—and using the waste you find as an opportunity to start a practice of continuous improvement. Download the field guide here: improvesomething.today/field-guide.
The places where we don't know all the answers are where real improvements can happen. Discussed: Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor; T. H. Huxley's agnosticism.
Stories and what they do for us whether we like it or not. Discussed: No Thanks, a poem by Nven Mrgan; Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity by Richard Rorty; War Talk by Arundhati Roy.
What to do when you're clinging to piano tops and concepts.
Stephen Mitchell's version of Lao-tzu's Tao Te Ching.
Why respect for people is an important part of lean, and four starting points for determining how to do something with this idea.
- Slightly more detailed notes on the four starting points.
- More about motivation-hygiene theory.
You gotta take care of yourself, so I'm taking a week to do just that. Also, 2 easy ways you can support this podcast after it returns from a 1 week break.
It's about getting good at small, reversible improvements. Over time folks will learn they no longer need to be scared of change, or even of failure.
Get the book: https://www.amazon.com/Measures-Success-React-Better-Improve-ebook/dp/B07DV8ZC4P/
A free sample chapter is also available at LeanPub: https://leanpub.com/measuresofsuccess
Waste! Defects • Overproduction • Waiting • Not using what people to give • Transportation • Inventory • Movement • Extra processing.
Nobody can make anything better alone. When you're working with other people, the time is ticking away according to one structure or another.
Liberating structures online: http://www.liberatingstructures.com
Lay information and knowledge out as simply and concisely as possible, so you can get it out of your brain and into the world.
Guesses work best when it's OK for a guess to be wrong.
Delany's tweet: https://twitter.com/DelanyBisbee/status/1020427472209432576
How can you distinguish between typical variation in a process and an indication that something has changed?
Book recommendation: "Understanding Variation" by Donald J. Wheeler. https://amazon.com/dp/0945320531
Setting standards and trying to perform to standard is a method. Better service, better outcomes, better relationships—that's the goal.
You matter and your ideas matter. Taking time to notice what's going on around you is where those ideas come from.