Washington Governor Jay Inslee provided the opening remarks for the 13th annual Washington State Government Lean Transformation Conference. He discussed the value of continuous improvement and Lean during his administration, and how it helped to work more efficiently and effectively to serve fellow Washingtonians. Examples included: The keynote speaker was Marcus Glasper, director of the […]
Pennie Saum is a Process Improvement Program Manager at the Port of Seattle with over 20 years of experience in lean and is a certified Six Sigma Black Belt. She focuses on combining process improvement and people development to meet people where they are at. This helps them pull process improvement instead of pushing it […]
Written by Brion
Lynne Smith, former Director of Business Design at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses the potential and difficulties of applying Lean Thinking to NGOs, and how it can be used to scale impact. She reflects back on the lean transformation at the Gates Foundation with an interview with Steve Bell and Roberto Priolo, and […]
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During this podcast episode with Sam Morgan, Mark Graban learns about his background and journey learning Lean and Toyota Kata. They discuss how he focuses on “Respect for People” and how he is called to bring attention and raise awareness for inequities he sees in his life with his wife and children. He also tries […]
Written by Brion
The IISE Annual Conference Volunteering Event is a yearly project started in 2012 where members attending the annual conference volunteer to assist a nonprofit agency in the conference’s host city. The 2022 event took place May 21st at the Southcenter Store of the Habitat for Humanity of Seattle-King County in Tukwila, Washington. 23 volunteers offered their time […]
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Ann Moses of King County government (in Seattle) talks about a unique lean Green Belt program that integrates Racial Equity and Social Justice. As one of her IT Department’s lead racial equity trainers, when Ann received her lean Black Belt she saw a deep alignment and affinity between lean values and racially equity and social […]
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Daniel Edds is a Lean Leadership consultant and author. We discuss his work with nonprofits, government agencies and manufacturing companies. His recent focus is the importance of creating a strong leadership system to create proper structure and support of your continuous improvement methods. Listen to the podcast interview: https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/index.php/e078-importance-of-leadership-systems-for-improving-nonprofits-and-government/ You can watch the full video […]
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New projects for King County mean new grants and new cost centers. But setting up cost centers was taking too long and nothing could proceed without the new cost center. There were customers waiting over 30 days—and some 80 days—to have their forms processed. Megan Rulien, an Administrator at King County Finance and Business Operations […]
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Bill Wilbert has worked for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division for 17 years. He’s an Environmental Programs Supervisor for the division and manages the permitting and regulatory compliance workforce. Sandy Kilroy was the Assistant Director for the King County Wastewater Treatment Division. She’s been with Wastewater for a little over 5 years but within […]
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King County streamlines the travel expense process with Eunjoo Greenhouse, the Deputy Director of the Finance and Business Operations Division (FBOD). Valerie Ceban, a Budget Analyst for the Department of Information Technology, wanted to help too as she oversaw the lengthy travel approval process and wanted a good project to pursue her Green Belt Certification. Initial […]
Written by Brion