Lean Six Sigma Academy

Over the last year several new lean and six sigma related blogs have appeared.  I follow most of them.   Some I like more than others… which is to be expected I guess.

Anyhow, one of the newer blogs that has definitely caught my attention is Gemba Tales, written by Mark R. Hamel.

Mark is a lean six sigma consultant, as well as author.  He definitely seems to know his stuff and I have learned a lot from him already.  In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I have enjoyed his blog more than any other over the past month.

With this said, I’d highly encourage you to check out Gemba Tales if you haven’t already while also subscribing to his RSS feed.

I suspect 3,000 to 4,000 people will read this article within the next 24 hours.  Nothing would make me happier than each and every one of you checking out Gemba Tales while also subscribing to their RSS feed.

Also, Mark and I have exchanged some emails and I may have him convinced to do some guest blogging over here at LSS Academy!  Let’s see.

So go on now, get out of here and check out Gemba Tales. But please be sure to come back soon!

From the Lean Blogosphere to you… Merry Christmas!

Starring in this little, um, episode are the authors Evolving Excellence, Lean Blog, Lean Six Sigma Academy, shmula, and Jamie Flinchbaugh. 

Special thanks to Mark Graban for creating this fun little video…  Enjoy!

If you are reading this via email or RSS you may need to click through to the website to see this video. Trust me… you don’t want to miss it!

I recently wrote about the most read LSS Academy articles in 2009.

Now, in this post, I’d like to share with you the LSS Academy articles that garnered the most comments in 2009.

As you’ll see some of these posts are quite short in nature… but that didn’t stop you from speaking your mind!

To me, the measure of a successful blog is the number of comments it gets.   So, I definitely want to say THANK YOU for reading and most especially for joining in on the conversation.

1. The Spinning Lady (39 comments)
2. Leadership Standard Work (26 comments)
3. Level 5 Leadership (23 comments)
4. Is Pottery Barn Lean? (22 comments)
5. Bathroom Lean (22 comments)
6. Womack’s Lean versus Ohno’s TPS (22 comments)
7. Oh Snap! We Sent Bad Product to Our Customer: Fun with the Hypergeometric Distribution (21 comments)
8. Knowledge and Thinking (18 comments)
9. 7 Ways to Reduce Costs (18 comments)
10. How Do You Measure Success? (17 comments)
11. If Lean Is So Great, Why Is Toyota Struggling? (15 comments)
12. Is Economic Lot Size Dead? (15 comments)
13. You’re Late. What Do you Say? (14 comments)
14. 45 Inches and Sizers (12 comments)
15. I am sorry (12 comments)
16. The Complete Meaning of Shitsuke (12 comments)
17. My New Stand Up Desk (11 comments)
18. Simplicity (11 comments)

According to Google Analytics readers from 177 different countries and/or territories visited LSS Academy in 2009.

That is beyond humbling.

Never, in my wildest dreams, did I imagine such as thing would be possible when I sat down a few years ago and typed my very first blog post.  All I can say is THANK YOU.

In any event, I thought I would wind the year down by sharing the most read articles on the blog.

Now, to be sure, these are not necessarily the articles with the most comments… or even my favorite articles… but they were the most read (Pageviews in Google Analytics).

1. Let’s Create a Current State Value Stream Map
2. 8 Dimensions of Quality
3. 10 Steps to Creating a FMEA
4. Value Stream Mapping Overview
5. The Pugh Matrix
6. One Piece Flow versus Mass Production
7. Explaining Cp and Cpk
8. Calculating Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY)
9. Let’s Create a Future State Value Stream Map!
10. 7 Practical Ways to Respect People

Again, thank you for taking the time to read and participate in the discussion here at LSS Academy.  I truly appreciate you all.

Update: To see the 18 Most Active LSS Articles in 2009 follow this link.

Jamie Flinchbaugh is not really new to the lean blogosphere as he’s been writing over on the Lean Blog and most recently on Evolving Excellence… but I am excited to see him finally start his own blog.

So, please be sure to stop by and check out what Jamie has to say… he brings a tremendous amount of wisdom to the lean world.

I remember the night well…

I was sitting on my couch half watching TV while surfing the Internet. I had just visited one of the only blogs I consistently read back in those days – Gemba Panta Rei – which as many of you know is written by one of my mentors, Jon Miller of Gemba Research.

Jon was actually working on a series of posts that really made me realize how powerful blogging could be. Here is the exact post I read that night.

Blogger Here I Come

Well, after a few moments of contemplation I decided to see how hard it would be to start my very own blog. Since I could barely spell HTML I knew I needed a simple solution.

After about 30 seconds on Google I found my way to Google’s Blogger platform. A few minutes after that the longest URL in the history of lean and six sigma blogging was born – leansixsigmaacademy at blogspot dot com. What was I thinking?

Here We Are

In any event that night started me on an amazing journey that has culminated in 401 published articles to which the coolest readers in the entire blogosphere (that would be you all) have gone onto leave 1,477 comments to.

Technically some of these comments are from me replying to comments… but hey, we do get our fair share of interaction here on LSS Academy so I am not complaining!

A Look Back

Anyhow, as a sort of walk down memory lane I thought I’d share a few articles that mean a lot to me.

In other words, these may not be the most popular or the most commented posts here at LSS Academy… instead they simply make me smile whenever I read them.

And as I’m sure you’ll soon see these articles were strongly influenced by a group of very special (little) people. Here goes.

• Riding a Bike: “When was the last time you laughed like a child after achieving something so wonderful?”
• Learning to Swim: “Finally, last night she just put her face in the water and swam. And just like that she had it.”
• A Lesson in Courage: “I couldn’t see her face… but I could hear her laughing hysterically. In fact, she made similar sounds last summer when she learned to swim.”

In closing, I’d like to thank all LSS Academy readers for your participation and encouragement over the past two years. This blog is ultimately meant for you. I’d also like to thank all of my blogging pals including Kevin, Mark, Pete, Mike, and Jon. God Bless!

Don’t Miss the Next 400

To stay up to date on the next 400 articles here on LSS Academy feel free to suscribe to our full feed RSS. You can also subscribe by email and have new articles sent directly to your inbox.

So I am trying Twitter out.

I’m still getting the hang of it… but I plan to use it in 2009 for short “micro-blogs” as well as for general conversation. I also hope to get feedback, ask questions, answer questions, and just get to know more people!

If you’d like to ‘follow’ me please visit: http://twitter.com/lssacademy and click ‘follow’.

You will need to set a Twitter account up which is super easy and free.  I hope to catch up with you soon!  

Here is a short video does a great job of explaining what Twitter is all about.

I already have a few ideas for future videos… but I am interested to know what you, the readers of LSS Academy, are interested in seeing. 

Would you prefer more demonstration type videos similar to the one piece flow simulation?  If so, any ideas?

Or would you prefer I discuss a particular topic for a few minutes?  If so, what topic?

Do you have any videos you would like to make or share?  If so, I would be happy to share this everyone (giving you credit of course).

Please leave a comment below with your ideas.  Much thanks in advance!

Photo by akolmetz

Our friend, Mark, over at the Lean Blog is battling some technical difficulties.  He is working hard to fix things. 

I have been asked by a few folks what the funny looking orange icon on my front page was all about. So, let’s take a break from lean and six sigma and talk about the wonders of RSS.

The Good Old Days

In the old days when we wanted to keep tabs on our favorite websites we had to bookmark or favorite them. The problem with this is it required you to manually go to each and every bookmark to see if something had been updated.

RSS changes this. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and will change the way you follow your favorite website or blog.

How it Works

When you add your favorite website or blog into your RSS reader, all you have to do is sit back and let it tell you when new content has been added to your favorite website or blog… simple as that!  New content will normally be in bold much like a new email is in your inbox.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to do is get a reader. Personally, I use Google’s Reader (it’s free) but there are many more out there besides Google’s. Yahoo, for example, allows you to add feeds to your Yahoo home page.

Next, it’s time to add your favorite sites into the reader. The easiest way to do this is to look for the orange feed icon on the website in question. Once you find it you just click it and choose the applicable reader you use.

Email Updates

Some folks prefer to keep track of things via email in which case you can also sign up for updates via email. Many websites and blogs, including LSS Academy, have an email subscription link right on the front page. You simply type your email address in and you’re done. To avoid any funny business you normally have to confirm your subscription.

Now, let’s practice

As we know, to learn something we must do something. So, if you are not using RSS today why don’t you give it a shot? You can practice a few ways:

1. Enter your email address (top right side of page) in order to receive updates from LSS Academy via your email. You can always unsubscribe later… why you would ever want to is beyond me… but, alas, you could.
2. Sign up for a free reader and then click on the orange button (right above email section) to subscribe to LSS Academy that way.
3. Sign up for a free reader and follow this link to sign up (reduces the waste of excess mouse motion).

Be Careful

When I first started using RSS I subscribed to around 80 blogs and websites.  That was far too many for me.  As of today, I have 18 sites I follow via RSS.