Questions to help the individual, team, and organization improve processes and activities.

1. 25 Lean Questions
to measure and improve your processes and activities
by Tom Curtis

2. 3 levels of questioning
• Use the following questions to check status
and improve processes for:
• You
• Your team
• Your organization

3. Do you have a standard?

4. Are your tools
always in the right
places to help you
do the right things?

5. How do you problem solve?
Is it effective?

6. How do you sustain change?

7. Are your
actions
and
activities
aligned
to your
goals?

8. Can you tell normal from
abnormal,
if there is no normal?

9. Do you
kaizen?

10. Do you have the courage to stop
the process or activity?

11. Do your andons highlight the right things?

12. Do your
kanbans
signal
the right
amounts?

13. How
often do
you visit the
gemba?

14. Do you try
to
surface
or
bury
problems?

15. Do you know
how the
value
is
created?

16. Do you audit?

17. How does my customer view what I do?
Are they willing to pay for it?
If not, how do I know it is required?

18. How much time do
you spend
observing?

19. Do you know what waste looks like in your process?

20. Do you know
how you create
scrap?

21. How do you know you have the
right inventory in the right
places?

22. Do you know what is
flow?
If so,
how does it show?

23. How much of
your
maintenance
is
preventative?

24. When was the last time your
process proactively changed
for the better?

25. How visual is your process?

26. How do you know that the jobs or activities are designed
right?
How do you know they are still right?

27. Do your employees know what they are supposed to do?
How do they know?

28. • All pictures taken by Tom Curtis May
2010
• Blog: www.onimproving.blogspot.com
• Other Presentations: Onimproving on
www.slideshare.net