Practicing Lean: Learning How to Learn How to Get Better...Better

Think of this book as what you'd hear if you were stuck in a long van ride with over a dozen folks who learned the hard way about many wrong-headed, painful, or failed approaches to change the culture of their workplaces--but who also learned the hard way about how to practice and spread lean in a meaningful way.This is a collection of informal memoirs about lean leadership and transformation in a wide variety of organizations and industries. Most adults learn by doing. None of the chapters in this book are a substitute for learning to "do" lean or to practice lean, but I have already seen it give one client the courage to imagine that lean "could work here". It is easy to find courage in a glass or in the company of a friend, but harder to find courage in a book, of all things. And this little collection does it. Highly recommended.

Mark Graban has spent a lot of time in the “lean” worlds of manufacturing and healthcare. As a prolific writer and passionate Lean advocate, his output regularly challenges the myths surrounding Lean systems design and implementation. This book is a great collection of interviews, stories and blog posts which illustrate the common threads joining the pieces of any Lean implementation. Improving quality, improving patient satisfaction, respect for people, all easing to vastly improved performance. It’s a great read and I’d recommend it in any Lean practitioners arsenal.

I have been a long-time listener and fan of the Kainexus and Lean Blog podcasts, hosted by Mark Graban, and so I looked forward to reading this book authored by him. I was not disappointed. Mark writes in compelling prose, weaving in his own personal story of transformation from a more traditional industrial engineering role to a continuous improvement pioneer in health care. Both his humility and expertise are evident throughout the book as he describes the limited effectiveness of his early approaches, what he learned from this, and how he improved himself and those he served. I particularly enjoyed the stories from other lean thinkers that are included, particularly the ones that candidly described how the authors learned from their failures. The title "Practicing Lean" says it all - continuous improvement is never something one masters, but rather is a lifelong practice. I highly recommend this book, particularly as an introductory read to the broad field of lean and continuous improvement.

The personal experiences in the book make it an easy read. They are all something you can easily relate to. It is also humbling to learn from the “failures” and “successes”. From a philosophical standpoint, this is about epistemology – how each of the authors came to attain their knowledge about lean. Their personal journeys make the book quite enjoyable to read. Some of these authors were familiar to me from LinkedIn and from the Gemba Academy podcasts. This is quite a diverse group of authors.One of quotes attributed to Napoleon Hill is;“One of the most valuable things any person can learn is the art of using the knowledge and experience of others.”This quote captures the essence of the book.Thank you Mark for being the force behind this book!

Great package of essays from real world practitioners They are fine storytellers and provide insight beyond academic explanations. This is an excellent companion to Mark Graban's Lean Blog and Podcast.

Interesting and practical experiences from Lean practitioner/thinkers. Definitely worth the read.

Must read and Buy!

Excellent!!

Great collection of relatable stories by practitioners for practitioners. Contributors focus on key lessons learned (rarely to do with technical challenges) as they practice applying Lean thinking over years and decades. Not a how-to book, but many examples of how not-to learned the hard way - through pdca