Reflections on Reader Feedback, Part 1

Many thanks to those of you who answered my Lean Blog Reader Survey. I appreciate the comments and it was a good chance for reflection (sometimes referred to as “hansei” in the Lean world, using the Japanese word).

One question was asked to find out what percentage of my readers are from healthcare, as I've naturally increased the percentage of blog posts that are specifically about healthcare. Here is the pie chart, where the numbers reflect the # of responses.

You can see it's right about an even split, where about 1/3 of the readers identify as being from healthcare.

The “other” category included: academia, consulting, construction, logistics, government, software & IT, retail, telecom, and “ornamental horticulture.” I think this diversity helps illustrate that “we're different” shouldn't be a barrier to learning about Lean (as I blogged about here).

Job titles were very diverse as well, including: account manager, CEO, consultant, many many many variations of Lean or continuous improvement titles, clinical microbiologist, data architect, engineer, general manager, MD, operator, public relations coordinator, quality _____, senior pathologist and VP of sales and marketing.

Lots of managers and lots of directors (probably the bulk of my readership comes from these organizational levels from implementers through directors. Seems like we aren't quite reaching top leadership in the discussion here.

Within healthcare, we have a lot of facilitators and internal consultants primarily. One nurse, a few physicians, a few managers and a couple of Senior Leadership Team members (including a healthcare CEO).

I asked how often people visit the site, here is the breakdown:

Thank you to the loyal readers and repeat visitors. It actually feels like there is a pretty consistent community in the Lean Blog world. There are familiar faces and names in the comments and I appreciate the repeat readers. The web stats show about 7o0 readers in a given weekday, with about 200 being flagged as repeat readers (which isn't completely knowable, given the way that web stats work).

I will post a second time, reflecting on the free-form comments and feedback that I received.

Based on the stats and what I've presented here, I am going to continue the Lean Blog pretty much the way it has evolved:

• Present a mix of “Lean healthcare” posts along with some posts about manufacturing and some that are “general Lean” posts about universal lean comments.

I will continue to present this mix. I had been sort of considering making this a “Lean Healthcare” blog exclusively, but I think that isn't what the readership wants. I wasn't 100% certain that was the way to go, it was just a bit of a leaning (sorry for the pun). This might be more clear when I post some of the free form comments that helped steer me back toward keeping things going the way they are. I think keeping things on a very diverse and general level is helpful to the healthcare readers AND those from other industries and fields. Your feedback helped clarify that.

I will continue “kaizen-ing” the blog — there won't be much radical change (“kaikaku”).

Reminder to the regular readers on my “cadence” — my regular routine is to queue up the morning post to release at 5 AM and, if I do an afternoon post (typically shorter), it releases at 1 PM (eastern time). I don't have 100% on time delivery, but it's close.

Here is Part 2 of my reflections

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