Novayama LLC

The (Futile) Search for the Perfect Model

Many years ago I worked with a senior manager. He was very savvy about continuous improvement and TPS – he had been engaging in the space for many years before the word “lean” entered the lexicon. He understood it at a deep systems level, saw how all of the pieces interacted into a coherent whole, …

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Using the Coaching Kata Outside of the Improvement Kata

The client organization was working to incorporate the Toyota Kata mindset – scientific thinking / systematic problem solving – into their daily routines. This was early on in my journey as well, we were all learning. The company had a structure for how they wanted to go about it. My role was to advise, coach, …

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Project Management is Daily Management at Menlo Innovations

Last fall I got to spend another week hanging out with the awesome team at Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor. My last visit there was scheduled for early April 2020… but we probably all know what happened back then. I am saying all of that because I am going to use their project management system …

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Follow-on thoughts (What I Missed!): Improvement Kata and DMAIC

Last week’s post about The Improvement Kata and DMAIC prompted some interesting discussions during the week, and I’d like to share some additional thoughts. Before you read on, reflect a bit on what you think I totally missed. Does this post go where you expected it to? Does it confirm, or refute, your hypothesis about …

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The Improvement Kata and DMAIC

I’ve talking to a couple of people about how the Improvement Kata might map into DMAIC. Let me know what you think!