Lean Portland

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 Lean Global Connection 2023 Video of this presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwoRBFyN8_8 All presentations from the LGN event (2023) 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/ Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

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/

Founders of the Lean Portland volunteer group talk with practitioners from Charlotte and Jacksonville to provide history of the group and recommendations for setting up their own volunteer group. Watch the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpnbZ5BBZ3c Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

Our guest for the September 2020 Happy Hour was Norman Bodek, the "Godfather of Lean" He had left the Portland area recently, and moved to Japan (was quarantined at a hotel in Tokyo at the time). You can watch this talk with the slides and video on YouTube Thanks to Maria Grzanka for facilitating and setting up the event! Learn more about Lean Portland at https://leanportland.com/

We are so excited to continue our Happy Hour series in the virtual world. One of the benefits of this space is that we can invite people from outside our local area. Hear how these three organizations are "helping people make work better."   * Tracy Defoe, Cascadia Kata Dojo, Vancouver BC  * Brittany Garza, Lean Pop-Up, Salt Lake City, UT  * Brion Hurley, Lean Portland, Portland, OR   You can also listen to this on our Lean Portland podcast at https://anchor.fm/leanportland

Since it's inception in 2005, and According to the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, Strategic Energy Management (SEM) takes a "holistic approach to managing energy use in order to continuously improve energy performance, by achieving persistent energy and cost savings over the long term. It focuses on business practice change from senior management through shop floor staff, affecting organizational culture to reduce energy waste and improve energy intensity. SEM emphasizes equipping and enabling plant management and staff to impact energy consumption through behavioral and operational change.” Join lean educator, and former lean consultant turned SEM Coach Kjell van Zoen at Energy 350's HQ. Learn how Kjell is applying his lean skills to SEM in order to further Energy 350's mission to "mine energy efficiency as a resource to displace power plants, save businesses money, and protect the environment." Video and transcript coming soon!

Lean Portland was asked to present on Continuous Improvement Resources at the Master Brewers Association of America (MBAA) District Northwest Spring Meeting 2019 In the presentation, we talked about Lean concepts, 8 wastes, played the Toyota and Food Bank video, shared benefits and key points of Lean, some examples we've helped with other nonprofits, and books and training we recommend. You can watch the full video at: https://youtu.be/pQ5u2yoZ3sM

Here is a webinar that Brion Hurley held with the IISE organization that discusses the work done with Lean Portland and other IISE chapters who are trying to teach Lean and Six Sigma to nonprofit organizations Read the transcript, download the slides and get links discussed in the presentation at: http://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/ec-046-process-improvement-nonprofit-volunteering/

Are you interested in developing a plan to test out your social entrepreneurship, nonprofit or mission-driven business ideas? Don't waste valuable time, resources or money pursuing your ideas, if you find that it doesn't work for the people you are trying to serve. The Lean Startup methodology (based on Lean Manufacturing principles) seeks to eliminate wasteful practices and increase value-producing practices during the earliest phases of a company or organization, so that they can have a better chance of success, without requiring large amounts of outside funding, elaborate business plans, or a perfect product or service. It is all about agility and flexibility. Its mantra is “build, measure, learn”: create small experimental initiatives, quickly get real-world feedback on them, and use that data to expand what works and discard what doesn’t. These concepts have also been applied to dozens of social sector and nonprofit organizations, focused on reducing environmental impact, improving government services for residents, providing care to those in need, and improving educational outreach. Learn from Michel Gelobter, serial social entrepreneur and author of Lean Startups for Social Change: The Revolutionary Path to Big Impact (https://amzn.to/2X0hzSv) The webinar is hosted by Lean Portland (https://leanportland.com/) and the Portland State University Impact Entrepreneurs (https://www.pdx.edu/impactentrepreneurs/)

Matt Horvat and Brion Hurley, along with Kelly Stevens from The Rebuilding Center, were asked to give a webinar to the Building Material Reuse Association (BMRA) members about Lean principles and our experiences working with reuse nonprofit organizations. Slides can be downloaded as a PDF here Links BMRA The Rebuilding Center Lean Portland Read the full transcript 

Is 'certification' right for me? Whether you're talking about Lean, Six Sigma, Lean Sigma, PMI, APICS, Prosci or countless other certification programs, how do you decide which one is right for you or whether you need it at all? Nicole Sisco from PSU Center for Executive and Professional Education will be on hand to talk about CEPE's certificate programs and answer questions. Team members from Lean Portland will facilitate a short brainstorming activity, followed by the usual networking and nerding out.  Watch the video of this podcast at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZsgtUGG0Ug

About the presentation Left brain thinking. Right brain thinking. How do our brain functions impact our Lean practices? Continuous improvement implies continuous change. How do our ingrained habits influence our actions? There is an increasing awareness and incorporation of psychology and neuroscience in business and leadership reading; how and which of these concepts have you integrated into your Lean practice?  You can watch the video of the presentation at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EBEoiWaTtw Brock Husby, PH.D., P.E. Brock is a process improvement Leader with primary areas of focus on Lean applied to Finance, Agile/IT/Software Development, Product Development, Healthcare, and Manufacturing, as well other applications. Brock is a Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.), Certified Scrum Master (CSM)/Lean coach/Lean Product Developer, consultant, author (Productivity Press, Inc. & IISE), instructor (IISE, ELSS, UTSA), speaker and researcher. He has co-authored two books on Lean through Productivity Press: “Lean Daily Management for Healthcare Field Book” and “Hoshin Kanri for Healthcare: Toyota-Style Long-Term Thinking and Strategy Deployment to Unlock Your Organization’s True Potential”. He is currently a Senior Lean Coach with Standard Insurance, leading the Lean transformation in IT/Software Development. He was a Process Assurance Engineer/Corrective Actions Engineer for the Space Shuttle Program at the Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral, FL) and a Technical Assistant at Car and Driver Magazine. He was an Associate Vice President (AVP) at Baylor Scott & White Health, where he was an integral part of the deployment of a holistic Lean approach throughout the 13-hospital, 13,000 employee system. A case study from my Ph.D. Dissertation (based on his consulting work) was recently featured in Prof. Jeff Liker’s new book “The Toyota Way to Service Excellence”. He was one of the 3 Industrial Engineers who built the program for Denver Health becoming the first healthcare delivery organization to win the coveted Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence (March 2011) and demonstrated operational expense savings of $124,000,000 (as of 2013). The event was held in Portland, Oregon on Dec 4, 2018 at CENTRL Office, hosted by North Highland.