Kaizen for everything

From Gemba and today's NYT:

Gemba links to Helmuth Sole's article about visiting Toyota's Formula 1 racing facility, and finding that their pit crew is consistently the fastest thanks to engineers brought in to kaizen the process. Pit times run about 12 seconds for a complete fuel fill-up and tire change. Nice.

The kaizen activity in this article in the NYT is not nearly as pleasant. Breaking bad news to patients used to be thought of as a talent you either had or didn't have. Some oncologists are trying to challenge that assumption and show that it is a skill that can be taught. They employ actors to serve as the patients, and then through a "grueling" 20 hour seminar teach the doctors to find out what kind of doctor the patient wants them to be before bombarding them with a flood of jargon and inappropriate facial expressions.

John Dillon, another actor, said, "No matter what level the doc is at, we see them go up a notch."

For a more formal validation, Dr. Back and his colleagues have accumulated a load of pre- and post-training questionnaires and videotaped interviews, which are still being analyzed.

I hope I never have to find out how good the program students are, but I certainly respect that aspect of the profession.