In Episode 25, Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban welcome a guest to our show, with Jim Benson joining us. Jim has been a long-time collaborator of Mark's, and certainly enjoys a dram or two of whiskey. We begin by getting the backstory on Jim's Twitter handle @OurFounder, complete with artwork.  Show notes: https://www.leanwhiskey.com/whiskey25 Since it's still winter, and Jamie continues to spend more time driving his snowblower than his car, we thought “something peaty” felt fitting. We all...

Mark Graban & Jamie Flinchbaughhttps://www.leanblog.org/whiskey24In Episode 24, Mark and Jamie return to a familiar format, just the two of them chatting over some whiskey. In this episode, they decide to make homemade whiskey cream (more popularly known as Irish cream or just Bailey's). Mark's recipe is keto-friendly and Jamie's utilizes rye whiskey. Check out the links below for their recipes and a history of the creation of Bailey's Irish Cream. After celebrating Jamie's completion of...

https://www.leanblog.org/whiskey23 for show notes and linksIn Episode 23, Mark and Jamie return to finish out 2020, this time joined by Kentucky native Deondra Wardelle, so naturally Kentucky bourbon is our whiskey category of choice. Bourbons selected include Brough Brothers, Willett, and Barton 1792. After introducing Deondra to our listeners, we take a moment to toast the life of Norman Bodek, who passed away last week at the age of 88. After briefly debating whether peppermint should ever...

https://www.leanblog.org/whiskey22For Episode 22, Mark Graban is joined by Darril Wilburn and Sammy Obara, two former Toyota employees who are colleagues at the firm Honsha.They are two of the authors of the excellent book Toyota by Toyota. The three talk about how they met (via LEI and other Lean events) and how Mark was invited by Darril and Honsha to go to Japan with them two years ago (see posts about that trip).They talk about the "conveyor belt sushi incident" that Mark blogged about....

https://www.leanblog.org/whiskey21In Episode 21, Mark and Jamie return to our regular casual format of open discussion over a drink, this time joined by Tom Ehrenfeld, well known to the lean community for his writing and editorial work with the Lean Enterprise Institute. We all enjoyed tasting some Highland Park scotch, with Tom trying it for the first time, Mark opening a new bottle, and Jamie getting towards the end of a bottle. We talk about what new things we’ve been up to, with Mark...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey20 In Episode 20, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh join the Colorado Lean Summit live and host a virtual happy hour while discussing the first couple days of the events proceedings. Joining us as co-hosts are CLN members Jen House (also a board member) and Katie Benik. We took some questions, shared what people were drinking in the chat, and had our own chat about what we’ve learned from the Summit.We started by sharing our whiskey selections in the...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey19http://www.leanblog.oirg/whiskey19 In this episode, Mark Graban is joined by guest host Cliff Hazell, a South African who joins us from Stockholm, Sweden. We drink and discuss whiskeys with interesting stories -- Amrut (from India) and Uncle Nearest (from Tennessee). We talk about some tweets that Cliff posted: The first: If you have dead wood in your company, you either hired dead wood, or hired live wood and killed it. The second: When starting out with...

https://www.leanblog.org/whiskey18In Episode 18, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh return to our tried and true format of “just the two of us”, although that won’t last long as Mark will soon have a guest co-host and then we will record an episode live as part of the Colorado Lean Network Summit. Jamie decides to move to the porch, a “proper” whiskey drinking spot in contrast to his office, which might be a new standard (at least until winter). In this episode, we begin by remembering the...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey17 In Episode 17, after not doing an episode of Lean Whiskey in almost two months, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh try all sorts of firsts. We had three people, with Jim Huntzinger of Lean Frontiers joining us. We all drank the same whiskey. We used two different whiskies. We talked about 3 different keynotes. OK, so they aren’t groundbreaking firsts, but it was new for our show.  Jim Huntzinger joined us after an aborted attempt in March for Jamie to do an...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey16In Episode 16, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh take a little longer than usual to get to the lean talk. Our whiskey topic was cocktails, which takes longer to make (and apparently talk about) than pouring neat whiskey into a tumbler. Mark made a Boulevardier and Jamie made an Old Fashioned. We discuss bar tools and stirring versus shaking (sorry Mr. Bond, see the links below). See, we talked about process.We also explore Mark’s experience in traveling coast...

View the episode at http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey15In a special live-to-YouTube Episode 15 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh begin their week by catching up, drinking whiskey, and talking shop. This episode was an experiment both in video recording the episode and in streaming it live to get viewer participation and questions. We didn't have a large audience, but those who showed up shared what they were drinking and asked some great questions.  We used shelter-in-place as...

Learn more: http://www.leanblog.org/liveswhiskeyThe first 14 episodes of “Lean Whiskey” have been traditional audio podcasts. Jamie Flinchbaugh and I record them through Zoom and we usually use the video call option even though we have just published audio.For our next episode, we're going to experiment with our first video podcast. We're also adding another new variable — we'll broadcast the Zoom meeting live through YouTube!We will start broadcasting at 8 pm ET on Monday, March 30th.The...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey14In Episode 14 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh finish off another weekend by catching up, drinking whiskey, and talking shop. In whiskey, we explore the idea of adding water to your whiskey. Rather than take the tradition as fact, the lean thinker must seek an understanding of cause and effect. We find some of the research, and perform our experiments to validate that it actually works. We move on to a more serious topic, coronavirus or...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey13In Episode 13 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh reconnect in their first joint episode this year, after a couple weeks of guest hosts. Our last episode together was filled with Grinches, gremlins, and glitches, so it was nice to both be in a proper recording location and be able to focus on the conversation and the whiskey.  Our whiskey selections were on the theme of the Pacific Northwest, a growing region for whiskey. Mark's Westland...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey12 In Episode 12 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban is back and he's joined by a friend from the Lean healthcare world, Ryan McCormack. Jamie will be with Mark for our next episode. You might know Ryan as the creator of the awesome "Operational Excellence Mixtapes" that he sends out via email and he also allows to be posted here on the blog. Ryan, like Mark, started his career in manufacturing and then transitioned to healthcare. After working for a hospital in...

In Episode 11 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban gets a rest, and Jamie Flinchbaugh co-hosts along with long-time friend and colleague Susan Pleasant, who was first a client and later a partner. Susan brings 30 years of operations experience, and has consulted for 12 years, first at the Lean Learning Center and now with SPleasant Consulting. Jamie and Susan met for dinner last year at the IndustryWeek conference in Pittsburgh at a whiskey bar and restaurant, where Susan was introduced to Dalmore,...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey10 In Episode 10 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh do their best to work through technology issues, as the Grinch clearly didn’t want us to record. We apologize if this affected the final product just a little bit, but the show must go on. The two whiskey enthusiasts select something to drink that they think goes well with the holidays, as we both prepare to share this time with others. Unfortunately, neither of our selections are easily...

In Episode 9 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh link up on Halloween night to share a drink and ideas about lean. We discuss air travel, which we both experience in volume, and taste affordable whiskeys under $35.  We both agree handing out whiskey for Halloween would be a bad idea. In the news, we discuss an article exploring the rise and fall of Six Sigma, and its relationship to GE. This is a topic that could keep us going for a few episodes, but we focus on how too much...

 http://leanblog.org/whiskey8We have a new guest host for Episode #8 of Lean Whiskey. I'm joined by my friend and colleague Cristal Totterman and we're drinking gin today on her recommendation... so this is "Lean Gin." We're also enjoying what Cristal calls "chummy Lean chat" -- something we've enjoyed at conferences and when working together at her hospital a few years back. Other than chatting about gin and tonic, we discuss two articles -- one about PDCA and one about robotic tails. Yes,...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey7 Today, Jamie and Mark share whiskey samples from each other's collections and talk about some recent work projects. They explore whether you should bring Lean home, and apply it "with" (not "to"???) your spouse or family. Is Lean about efficiency when it comes to your home, or your marriage? What is the purpose? We also question whether the author was really doing any Lean, or just having fun with spreadsheets.  We then explore Josh Howell's (newly minted...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey6 After the last episode with guest host Paul Critchley, I'm once again joined by Jamie Flinchbaugh for another "Lean Whiskey" podcast.In Episode 6 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh explore two icons as leaders and the impact they’ve had. Lee Iacocca and Ross Perot passed away recently, and we explore their impact on their companies and most importantly, on people. We also enjoy a couple of Speyside single malt whiskeys, Jamie’s from Glenrothes...

http://www.leanblog.org/whiskey5 Joining me today is a guest host, my friend Paul Critchley. Paul has been a guest blogger here on LeanBlog.org. A few months back, we also collaborated to host a "Measures of Success" workshop in Massachusetts. We had some whiskey together after the workshop so we're doing the same here in the podcast.In today's episode, we talk about whiskeys from places we visited recently. We'll get into meatier issues related to Lean transformation, automation, leadership,...

Oops... sorry about the problems with the episode from June 30... a new file has been uploaded for that episode. You can refresh your podcast feed or go to http://leanblog.org/whiskey3 to listen to the updated error-free (I think) file.

Show notes: http://leanblog.org/whiskey4In Episode 4 of Lean Whiskey, Mark Graban and Jamie Flinchbaugh (and a cameo from his cat Rocco), join forces to enjoy a casual conversation -- mostly about lean and a little bit about whiskey.

https://www.leanblog.org/whiskey3The original file had an editing error... it wasn't because of whiskey. I'm just sloppy sometimes.The first guest host joining me is my friend Chris Burnham. Chris is also an experienced Lean practitioner and leader, and we've talked about Lean over whiskey in person (at last year's KaiNexus User Conference).We chat about what we're sipping (Kentucky rye whiskeys), discuss two articles from the news, and we answer a listener question. We also added a short...