Great work systems drive operational excellence and support daily kaizen

Welcome to the Great Systems best practice work systems website!

Hi! I’m Kevin McManus. Welcome to the Great Systems best practice work systems website. It takes great work systems to drive operational excellence and help make kaizen a daily work habit. However, too many leaders fail to leverage the edge that great work systems design provides.

As sole proprietor of Great Systems, my personal goal is to help leaders create healthy workplaces people want work at.  On this site, I provide work team leaders with proven best practice tools, blueprints, workflows, and models to help make that possible.

At the turn the century, I started Great Systems with one goal. That goal was to make work fair, fun, and focused. Today, we remain far from that goal.

We should spend our work time in workplaces that are positive, inspirational, and effective. Instead, our workplaces are autocratic, chaotic, and a daily drudge.

To create great workplaces, we must upgrade our legacy 20th century work systems. The most common leadership practices from our vintage management past no longer apply.

Great Systems News for March 2024!

LEARN MORE about my 2-day ‘Measurement, Trending, and Predictive Analytics – How the Best Use Data to Improve’ workshop on April 29-30. It’s part of the 2024 TapRooT® Summit in Horseshoe Bay, TX.

Mark Paradise first taught this workshop at the Summit almost 30 years ago. Improvements were made over time to stay current. However, tech advances over the past five years make it possible to rethink HOW we use data each day.

How do you use data to make decisions and identify high leverage change opportunities? What key measures do you use to reduce waste, increase profits and provide a safe and secure workplace?

I gave this workshop significant upgrades to help you use data more effectively each day. For example, new sections with a predictive analytics focus and work team engagement focus are part of the 2-day agenda.

Please join me in April for this highly interactive and insightful learning experience. Cheers!

Bring my VIRTUAL Mistake Proofing Best Practices workshop to your organization!

How often do you wait for an equipment failure, customer complaint, or late delivery to happen before you fix the broken work process? What techniques and tools do the best teams and workplaces proactively use to minimize daily error and failure potential, and in turn, risk?

This 2-day workshop covers the key daily work practices any team member can use to achieve these and other goals.

Message me if you have questions. If you want to check out the workshop content and exercises prior hosting a course, you can buy my full color, 156-page Mistake Proofing Best Practices workbook on amazon.com

Most Popular Posts – February 2024

Customer feedback is the best barometer of what is popular in the continuous improvement and operational excellence arenas. Here are my top five posts for the most recent month from a ‘visits per day’ perspective. How consistent is the population’s interest with yours?

Root Cause Analysis Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between the Five Why’s and the TapRooT® root cause analysis process? What other root cause analysis approaches do people use to help solve problems? This page explores the pros and cons of five popular root cause analysis processes.

How to Measure Employee Ownership

High levels of work team ownership are needed to help sustain great levels of customer services and product / service quality. How do you measure employee ownership in your organization? This page details ten best practice approaches to gauge work team ownership.

How to Measure Process Improvement Effectiveness

Many leaders say that they consistently improve their work processes, but how many can actually prove it? How do you know that the time and money you invest in formal process improvement truly returns value? This page gives you multiple options to measure such payback.

Work Team Characteristics – What is a Work Team?

All organizations have teams, but how many teams do they actually have in place? How many teams do they need to achieve strategy and improve performance over time? This page defines the three team types all organizations have.

Four Steps to Effective Rule Enforcement

Too many people struggle to enforce rules over time, simply because they use the wrong strategies to achieve consistent enforcement. The four-step process I detail on this page has helped many leaders achieve the levels of compliance they need day after day.

‘Teach Your Teams’ Daily Kaizen Workbooks and Workshops

I created each of my workbooks and methods through experience, practice, and experimentation. The content worked for me. So, I want to share it with you.

I design my learning events to be highly interactive. Primarily, I want to help you learn to effectively teach my content, plus other content you see as a value add.

Currently, three courses are live on my Great Systems YouTube channel. Each ‘Team Your Teams’ course contains full audio and video content to complement the print and eBook workbooks I sell on amazon.com. Plus, we can set up a virtual event to help you integrate use of this content into your leadership and team development plans.

CLICK HERE to Buy Great Systems Continuous Improvement Workbooks at Amazon.com!

Please keep me in mind for your work system improvement needs. I am happy to facilitate a virtual 2-day workshop that utilizes any of the workbooks I offer in the Great Systems Shop. There are no travel costs.

Plus, my workshop cost per participant is very reasonable. Send me an email at kevin@greatsystems.com, if you want to learn more about my ‘teach it yourself’ daily kaizen workbooks and workshops.

Stay Current With My Real Life Work Podcast

I know that my customers have little time to invest in work systems research. That’s why I do it for them! Each week, my ‘Real Life Work’ weekly podcast explores current operational excellence best practices and daily kaizen challenges. My goal is to place a ‘real life work’ focus on ‘how we create healthy workplaces.’

The podcast is now live, with more episodes in queue. Expect to see future episodes that focus on the key elements of operational excellence. Such elements include Leader Standard Work, total team engagement, work system measurement, and proactive process improvement.

Plus, I plan to include safety and risk management best practices in the mix, along with continuous improvement and root cause analysis content. If you want to be part of the show, drop me a line at kevin@greatsystems.com.

Recent Podcasts:

‘How to Change a Work Culture’

‘Ten Ways to Measure Workplace Training Effectiveness’

‘How to Use Predictive Analytics at Work’

Root Cause Analysis Best Practices

Effective root cause analysis is a ‘must have’ tool that all work team members should use to reduce daily errors, failures, and waste. Unfortunately, most root cause analysis tools rely on opinion.

For 20 years, my teaching and investigative experiences have shown me how the research-driven TapRooT® root cause analysis process consistently produces different, and better, results.

Four pages on my site have a root cause analysis-specific focus. If their content does not answer all of your questions, just drop me a note!

Would a Great Systems Virtual Workshop Help You Make Kaizen a Daily Work Habit?

Great Systems is NOW in its fourth year of virtual service! At little or no cost, you can bring my daily kaizen and OPEX content to your organization.

For example, the design of my ‘Teach Your Teams’ daily kaizen workbooks helps front line leaders teach continuous process improvement basics to their work teams. Videos to support three of these workbooks are currently available on my Great Systems YouTube channel.

Plus, I offer both static (no live interaction) and dynamic webinars (full interaction) on a regular basis. Please let me know if there is a continuous improvement topic I can help you with.

My virtual workshop model dedicates 40% or more time to breakout group work and dialogue. Also, my use of individual assignments helps increase class engagement. Assignment review helps drive learner accountability. Plus, my virtual workshop classes follow this content delivery model to make your experience more than just time spent online.

Lastly, please keep in mind that my costs are reasonable. My goal is to provide virtual courses, content, and coaching to help you maximize work team engagement and effectiveness, and optimize work system results.

Let me help you make kaizen a daily work habit and accelerate your operational excellence pursuit.

Connect with Kevin to Learn How Great Best Practice Work Systems Drive Operational Excellence!

Years of work and volunteer experience taught me how to design great work systems and develop great work teams. The goal has always been to make kaizen a daily work habit in a workplace where leaders meaningfully engage all staff. Fortunately, over 20 years of service as a National Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award Examiner helped me acquire learnings in all of these areas.

Also, I have worked for 20 years as an international, and now virtual, TapRooT® root cause analysis course facilitator. More than 10,000 hours of teaching and speaking in the past ten years alone has helped me discover even more Great Systems best practice work systems. Finally, I commit to consistent, continual personal improvement.

Would you like to learn how to design and use best practice work systems that make continuous improvement daily work habit? Do you want to accelerate your operational excellence pursuit?

If so, please connect with me on social media, or send me an email at kevin@greatsystems.com.  I hope to see you in my virtual future!

Thanks for the visit and keep improving! Kevin McManus, Chief Excellence Officer, Great Systems LLC

Great Work Systems Drive Operational Excellence

Real Life Work Support. Measurable, Sustained Results.