Author Karen Martin appearing in August to talk 'leadership imperative' for value-stream mapping

Even the best organizations don’t see outside their four walls sometimes, and those in search of the big picture often turn to value-stream mapping.

As a tool in the lean transformation arsenal, value-stream mapping is a tried-and-true approach to finding bottlenecks, redundancies and other problems in the product or service’s journey to the end customer. What far too few companies realize, however, is that value-stream mapping can be a great catalyst for changing leadership behavior to support and sustain a lean culture.

So once the value-stream mapping skills are learned, how can companies make that crucial leap to leverage them for transforming leadership thinking? COE is thrilled to welcome award-winning author and renowned speaker Karen Martin to campus on Friday, Aug. 15, to share her perspective on how it’s done in an exclusive members-only event.

Karen leads The Karen Martin Group Inc., which has been working with organizations to achieve both large-scale business transformation and more process improvement for more than 20 years and has specialized in lean management practices since 2000. Most recently, Martin is the co-author of Value Stream Mapping, the book she’ll be presenting on in August that lean turnaround legend Art Byrne has called “the new bible for value stream mapping.”

A scientist by trade, she began her work in quality and process improvement by serving as director of quality improvement for a large health-care management organization and director of San Diego State University’s Institute for Quality and Productivity. A sought-after speaker and consultant, Karen is the author of The Outstanding Organization, winner of the prestigious Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award, and has co-authored The Kaizen Event Planner and Metrics-Based Process Mapping: An Excel-Based Solution.

Karen is speaking from 10 a.m. to noon in Pfahl Hall at the Fisher College of Business as part of the school’s annual reunion of students in the Master of Business Operational Excellence program. COE members who attend the event will get a chance to network with alums of the one-year master’s program and, in a post-presentation event co-hosted by Barnes & Noble, purchase Value Stream Mapping and/or The Outstanding Organization and stick around for a signing.

Seating is limited, so be sure to register now!