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Improving Care Delivery Through Lean: Implementation Case Studies

Exhibit 5.18. Major Factors that Inhibited Lean Success

Factor Lessons Learned
Leadership
  • There sometimes was a lack of accountability for maintaining changes and tracking outcomes over time.
Resources
  • A hiring freeze during Lean implementation can contribute to staff and manager resistance to work redesign. For example, a manager resisted reassignment of a staff person to a different department, and staff were not willing to assume new tasks.
Communication about Lean
  • Progress made by Lean has not been effectively communicated to frontline staff.
Engagement
  • Middle management and frontline resistance remains, particularly among nursing staff.
  • Concentrating projects in one clinical area can be overwhelming for frontline staff and department managers.


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Publication:
13(15)-0056

Page last reviewed November 2014
Page originally created November 2014

Internet Citation: Exhibit 5.18. Major Factors that Inhibited Lean Success. Content last reviewed November 2014. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD.
https://www.ahrq.gov/practiceimprovement/systemdesign/leancasestudies/lean-exhibit5-18.html

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