KaiNexus Education Video #10: Improving Communication

About two years ago, we produced some short two- to three-minute education videos about Lean, Kaizen, and continuous improvement for KaiNexus. These were intended as short coaching sessions that would be sent to our customers / users and we've also shared them publicly.

Dr. Greg Jacobson and I re-shot these videos recently with a professional videographer. The changes with the videos:

• Greg is now in half of the videos
• The scripts were changed to be less healthcare specific, as we've added customers in other industries
• The video quality is much better

I previously did blog posts with the first nine videos. Those posts are still there, but they have the new versions of the videos. Click here to see all of the videos through my blog or here to view them on the KaiNexus website.

Here is video #10 in the series, with Greg:

Improving Communication

We hope you find the videos to be helpful and inspiring. Please let us know what you think by commenting here or on one of the videos.

You can also see our Education Videos playlist on YouTube, or you can also get the videos via iTunes as a video podcast.

Approximate Transcript:

Hi, I'm Greg Jacobson, from KaiNexus, where we make improvement happen.

We often get asked, “what's the benefit of using KaiNexus if my manager is right here and we can solve the problem right away?” First off, we want you to talk… KaiNexus is meant to enhance face to face communication by making it easier to communicate with every single person in the organization no matter where they are or when they work.  It is definitely not intended to discourage face to face communication.

Interestingly, we've noticed that often the opposite occurs.  People find that using KaiNexus to manage improvement actually makes it easier to include everybody in the whole improvement process… which often leads to more face to face discussion.  So even if much of your brainstorming and problem solving communication occurs offline, it's still helpful to log your Opportunity for Improvement in the KaiNexus system.

So why is that?

First, organizations often have short memories. If somebody asks “why are we doing it this way?” Well – a year or two down the road, people can look in KaiNexus to see what the underlying problem or opportunity was when the idea was implemented.

Secondly, using KaiNexus helps share and spread ideas, so people in other parts of the organization can find them through the search function… this means your good ideas can more easily help others. If you work in an organization with multiple locations, it's pretty likely that people everywhere are facing the same problems… KaiNexus helps you collaborate so you can all improve more effectively.

Third, using KaiNexus makes it easier to communicate and disseminate your OI and ideas that are implemented, making sure people inside and outside of your work area get notified and stay on the same page.

Finally, putting OIs into KaiNexus creates a nice record of improvement work, which allows your department (and your larger organization) to tally the overall number of improvements, as well as capture data about the types of improvements being made – such as the number that impact safety or satisfaction – as well as overall time and cost savings.  This can be really helpful to quality departments or executive teams.

KaiNexus is meant to include everyone in the process, and to track and spread improvement… all leading to a more effective improvement process.

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