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Office workers cheerfully feeding gold bars and watches into an industrial shredder at MAX SPEED, under a banner reading

2 min read

Chatbots: Are We Automating What Should be Eliminated?

Craig Szelestowski: May 26, 2026

A team in HR builds a chatbot to walk hiring managers through a 14-field hiring request form. It takes three months and a meaningful chunk of their...

Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt AI & Automation Better Forms & Web Tools Eliminating Waste Chatbots Streamline Before You Digitize Practical AI Harnessing AI

A man in a shirt and tie stands resigned in a vintage 1970s government office, ankle-deep in an inflatable pool overflowing with papers and files. A pipe above the pool with a sign reading 'New Requests' pours in a steady stream of water, while a 'Capacity' label sits on the pool's side, surrounded by filing cabinets, a rotary phone, and stacks of paperwork..

1 min read

How Backlogs Are Born and How to Make Sure They Never Come Back

Craig Szelestowski: February 12, 2026

The backlog is the great shame of the public service. It fills staff with dread, leaders with pressure and clients with frustration. Every team that...

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Productivity Backlogs Capacity & Demand

Photograph of a woman in business attire spraying a fire extinguisher at a small fire on a folder on her desk, while two more small fires burn unattended on stacks of paper on desks behind her, in a cluttered vintage office. A whiteboard on the wall tallies four categories:

2 min read

Failure Demand: The Work That Should Never Exist

Craig Szelestowski: February 4, 2026

If you asked most managers where their team's capacity is going, they'd tell you: answering emails, processing requests, attending meetings,...

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Time Management Eliminating Waste Preventable Work (Failure Demand) Capacity & Demand

Overhead view of a cluttered office desk showing five abandoned tasks: an unfinished email on a laptop, a paper titled 'Backlog Report_FINAL_v87' with a pen trailing off mid-sentence, a rotary phone with a half-dialed number, a cold cup of coffee, and a sticky note reading 'Call back Ma—' cut off mid-word. A small sign in the center reads 'Progress?' and an empty chair sits pushed back from the desk.

3 min read

Why Multitasking Hurts Productivity (and What To Do About It)

Craig Szelestowski: December 12, 2025

Multitasking looks impressive - juggling emails, meetings, and deliverables - but it’s a productivity illusion. What we’re really doing is...

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Time Management Interruptions & Focus Multitasking Productivity

Five yellow sticky notes cascading diagonally down a wooden desk, each handwritten with 'Why?' in increasingly urgent handwriting, landing on a torn calendar page with 'no shared calendar' scrawled on it.

3 min read

Root Cause Analysis - The 5 Whys Technique

Craig Szelestowski: October 30, 2025

Over a series of previous posts, we've learned to define problems, understand customer value, map processes, identify waste, measure performance and...

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Lean Fundamentals Root Cause Analysis Problem Solving 5 Whys

Close-up, low-angle view of a person's legs and worn leather boots mid-stride, walking through an open office doorway away from a printed chart on the floor in the foreground. In the hallway beyond, three colleagues stand talking near a Canadian flag.

3 min read

Gemba Walks - Going to See for Yourself

Craig Szelestowski: October 28, 2025

We've learned tomap processes,spot waste, andmeasure what matters. One problem with all those tools? They can keep you at your desk, staring at data...

Lean Fundamentals Lean Leadership Problem Solving Gemba Walks

An absurdly oversized nail rests on a wooden workbench beside a small pile of ordinary nails, a vintage balance scale, and a measuring tape. A sign propped nearby reads 'Quota: Met.'

2 min read

Metrics That Matter

Craig Szelestowski: October 26, 2025

We mapped our process and we’ve found waste everywhere, maybe we even have some ideas about what to do about it. Now we need to decide how we will...

Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Lean Fundamentals Accountability Visual Management Metrics & KPIs

Overhead view of a cluttered desk, seen through a pair of glasses. Outside the lenses, the papers and files look ordinary; through them, red dots flag hidden waste on an unread report and an overflowing file holder. A note reads 'Warning: once you see it, you can't unsee it.'

3 min read

The 8 Wastes of Lean - Learning to See What's Hidden

Craig Szelestowski: October 21, 2025

Here's a startling fact: studies suggest that only 5-10% of process time adds value1 from the customer's perspective. The other 90-95%? Pure waste.

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Lean Fundamentals Eliminating Waste Productivity 8 Wastes

Security trays overflowing with shoes, belts, a laptop, phone, and keys pile up at an airport checkpoint while the X-ray scanner behind them sits idle with a 'no bags in queue' message. A sign reads 'New scanner. Same line.'

3 min read

Value Stream Mapping - Seeing the Whole Picture

Craig Szelestowski: October 20, 2025

Now that we've learned to define problems clearly and understand what customers truly value (Voice of the Customer), here comes the game changer:...

Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Lean Fundamentals Eliminating Waste Problem Solving Value Stream Mapping

A squeegee and bucket rest unused on a windowsill beside a spotless window overlooking a city skyline at golden hour. A sign propped nearby reads 'Nothing to clean.'

3 min read

Voice of the Customer - What Does Value Really Mean?

Craig Szelestowski: October 16, 2025

In the previous article we explored how to craft a strong problem statement. But here's another critical question: how do you know which problems are...

Lean White Belt Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Service Design & Client Experience Lean Fundamentals Eliminating Waste Voice of the Customer

Two identical dartboards mounted side by side. The left board has a tight cluster of darts in the bullseye, while the right board is completely untouched. A sign below reads 'Bullseye. Wrong board.'

2 min read

What Makes a Good Problem Statement?

Craig Szelestowski: October 9, 2025

Are you solving the right problem? Here's an uncomfortable truth: many improvement projects fail not because of poor execution, but because they...

Lean Yellow Belt Lean Green Belt Lean Fundamentals Problem Solving Metrics & KPIs Problem Statements

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