Lean+: A Continuous Improvement Guide for Organizations Whose Customers Can't Vote with Their Feet

Just because something works doesn't mean it can't be improved.

Your customers can't shop for a different government or public service. There's no competitor to lose them to.

When the customer has no alternative, the organization has the responsibility to do better on their behalf.

Lean+ is a jack-of-all-levels guide to continuous improvement for people working to improve public service organizations. It provides tools, methods, and guidance for delivering better results to customers who can't vote with their feet.

You're gonna need a bigger boat.

Content coverage includes classic and modern waste identification, the PDCA cycle, process and value stream mapping, flow and pull systems, 5S, visual management, standard work, metrics and control charts, and strategic alignment.

Each chapter contains the default tools for that topic, and the appendix provides eleven more with worked examples.

You won't need a budget or authority to get started, only the willingness and interest to care about improving your work. This book is intended for any level of existing experience including those who have never heard the terms Lean or continuous improvement before.

Why so serious?

The book's style and tone demonstrate that business materials can be written in an engaging and memorable way instead of being suffered through.

Part of the inspiration was asking: what would a business book written by Aesop or Grimm look like?

Each of the fifteen chapters opens with a parable that demonstrates the concept before naming it. The story plants the seed and then the rest of the chapter helps develop deeper roots and connections to the reader’s own experience.

I'm somewhat of an author myself.

Mark Gillman is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, PMP, and PMI-ACP with twenty years across the military, private sector, higher education, and state government. He has spent the last fifteen years in public service, trying to make work suck a little less.

Includes a full toolbox appendix with worked examples, bibliography, glossary, index, and 58 illustrations. 320 pages.