Chris Hohmann

NOVEMBER 30, 2024

In this video, I show the use of the logic tool called “Current Reality Tree” to drill down from Undesirable Effects to their Critical Root Causes. This is done by uncovering strings of cause-and-effect relationships from top to bottom, and checking their logical soundness bottom-up. This tutorial is inspired by a real case.

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Chris Hohmann

OCTOBER 9, 2024

If you are landing here intrigued by the post’s title, you may know what a Goal Tree is and maybe have watched some of my videos on the subject. If you have no idea what a Goal Tree is, I recommend you invest a little more than 3 minutes for watching my “Introduction to the … Continue reading Have you ever wondered why I use Post-it notes to build Goal Trees in the digital age?

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Chris Hohmann

AUGUST 31, 2024

In a previous article on this blog and a previous video episode, titled “Assessing the current situation with a Goal Tree” we have seen how the 3 color-code gives a visual indication of the current state of the Goal Tree.

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Chris Hohmann

AUGUST 18, 2024

(how to apply the 3-color code) In order to check how far the organization is from achieving its Goal, I strongly recommend to use the 3-color code ; Red Amber Green, as presented in previous articles on my blog or in episodes on my Youtube Channel.

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Chris Hohmann

AUGUST 13, 2024

Hello dear readers, after an extended period of pausing blog posts, and a rest during this summer 2024, I want to resume posting. I do hope that you’ll find interest and value in my publications, on this blog as well as on my Youtube channel!

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Chris Hohmann

MAY 18, 2024

For those of you following my works, you know that I am a big fan of this wonderful tool called the Goal Tree. The Goal Tree was initially intended to be the first logic tool used in a sequence of the Logical Thinking Process (LTP). The Goal Tree can be used as a stand-alone tool, … Continue reading Goal Tree ok, what about the other logic tools?

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Chris Hohmann

APRIL 11, 2024

As I write these lines, in 2024, it will be nearly ten years that I am a fan, a promoter, and a Goal Tree Builder. With 25 Trees already proudly populating my forest, I’d like to share some use cases that may inspire you to consider building one of your own. Strategic road map When … Continue reading When to build a Goal Tree? My use cases tell you.

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Chris Hohmann

JANUARY 27, 2024

When building a Future Reality Tree (FRT), a solution is “injected” to a string of cause-and-effect in order to neutralize it. If there is no check about a potential new problem created by the injected solution, it could be that ironically the solution to the first problem creates a new one, potentially worse.

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Chris Hohmann

JANUARY 6, 2024

In a prior post (& video) I have presented a Current Reality Tree that I have scrutinized and improved as a tutorial. A Current Reality Tree is a thorough analysis of a problem, usually a complex one, aiming to uncover its critical root causes.

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Chris Hohmann

DECEMBER 25, 2023

If you are curious or interested in critical and logical thinking, you may like this episode based on a Current Reality Tree, (CRT) that I’ve found on the Internet, and I assume it was built quick and dirty, leaving room to improve it.

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Chris Hohmann

OCTOBER 13, 2023

We have all seen this picture. It’s a classic that’s been around for years. We smile, we laugh. But have you ever asked yourself the question: what if the toilers with the square wheels were right? I share 2 concrete examples illustrating the justified rejection of wheels.

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Chris Hohmann

JULY 26, 2023

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is popular and hype to a point it makes it a kind of Lean emblem. An academic mocked a company’s low Lean maturity for not displaying any Value Stream Map. It was not only shocking to my ears, but proved the academic’s own low maturity on the subject. Value Stream Mapping … Continue reading Is Value Stream Mapping a skill worth mentioning?

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Chris Hohmann

MARCH 27, 2023

The Lean Toolbox Sixth Edition: A Sourcebook for Process Improvement by John Bicheno and Matthias Holweg is out. Published by Picsie Books on the very first days of January 2023, the new book counts 360 pages compared to the 342 pages of the previous edition and weighs 617 grams (1.

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Chris Hohmann

MARCH 25, 2023

In this 9 min video based on logical thinking and the “Evaporating Cloud” AKA “Conflict Resolution Diagram”, I share how to cope with contradicting objectives or wants.

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Chris Hohmann

JANUARY 16, 2023

This is the kind of irony people generally like: a story turning totally differently as expected, in favor of the humble, the weak or the poor. The humble heroes here are the workers, who were told for years that they’ll become redundant as their routine jobs will be taken over by automation, artificial intelligence and … Continue reading Jobs in 2023: Luddites 1 – Robots 0.

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Artificial Intelligence Robotics Robotics Automation 165

Chris Hohmann

JANUARY 7, 2023

Me: What does GPT mean? ChatGPT: GPT stands for “Generative Pre-training Transformer.” It is a type of language model developed by OpenAI that is designed to generate human-like text. The GPT model uses a transformer architecture, which allows it to process input sequences efficiently and to handle longer-range dependencies in the data. GPT has been … Continue reading What does GPT mean?

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Chris Hohmann

NOVEMBER 22, 2022

In November 2018 I wrote a post on this very blog titled Don’t Let Knowledge Walk Out the Door or escape through the window. At that time I was helping a startup to scale-up into an industrial manufacturing company, which was losing significant knowledge through employee turnover. November 2022, we are amid the Big Quit, … Continue reading Big Quit Reloaded – Don’t Let Knowledge Walk Out the Door or Escape Through the Window.

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Chris Hohmann

NOVEMBER 12, 2022

November 2022, I moderated a Goal Tree building workshop in which 2 teams of 5 built a Goal Tree, in the same session and same meeting room. After a couple of hours spent training about the basics of “Necessity logic”, the rules of building a Goal Tree and the different uses of such a Tree, … Continue reading Goal Tree Chronicles- 2 Trees built in one 2-day workshop.

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Chris Hohmann

OCTOBER 31, 2022

This month of November 2022 sees the first anniversary of the relocation of my place of residence, which is also the strong symbol of my family’s desired change in life. So far, one year after, a very satisfying change from all points of view. I took the opportunity, before initiating this change, to test some … Continue reading November 2022.

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Chris Hohmann

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

While flipping through a vintage (2015-2016) Harvard Business Review (printed) magazine, I was struck by the article “Why Strategy Execution Unravels—and What to Do About It” by Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes, and Charles Sull. It seems that the problems described 10 years ago are still around us, namely horizontal alignment (coordination) in strategy execution.

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Chris Hohmann

AUGUST 14, 2022

We come across them on Linkedin, twitter and other social media: keywords-packed posts that show how little the authors master their subject. At first glance the subject seems interesting and abundant keywords catch our attention, but soon the content appears for what it really is: a collection of trendy terms loosely stitched together that will … Continue reading Packing lots of keywords in a post is no evidence for expertise!

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Chris Hohmann

JULY 31, 2022

Since awareness about Lean has spread, it seems that Lean experts are plentiful. However, when paying closer attention to those ‘experts’, they can broken down into 3 main categories, according to my opinion: Lean speakers, Lean tool users and Lean Thinkers Lean speakers Lean speakers use a lot of Lean jargon and Japanese words they … Continue reading Lean speakers, Lean tool users and Lean Thinkers.

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Chris Hohmann

MARCH 8, 2022

The Goal Tree is a very powerful tool and a favorite of mine, yet very little known. I had the pleasure to moderate the building of two Goal Trees in the very first months of 2022. One in particular was built as the roadmap to achieve the strategic performance objective in manufacturing of a small-sized … Continue reading A Goal Tree built and scrutinized in less than 10 hours.

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Chris Hohmann

APRIL 2, 2022

The Goal Tree, once built and scrutinized, is a benchmark as well as a roadmap. It describes all prerequisites that must be fulfilled in order to achieve the Goal, a Goal not yet achieved and (still) lying in (a distant) future. The proposed good practice is to carefully craft and state the Goal, so that … Continue reading Goal Tree: should the Goal be time-bound?

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Chris Hohmann

APRIL 4, 2022

Gemba walks are a popular topic on Linkedin, Youtube or blogs. So are lists of questions to ask during such a tour. In one of such lists I spotted a question related to tools. The gemba walker is supposed to ask if the toolset is complete, in proper condition and the best available. In my … Continue reading Mind awkward questions for your Gemba Walk.

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Chris Hohmann

APRIL 6, 2022

We all face goal setting. For our teams, our subordinates, ourselves… Goals are required so that they can be planned, followed-up, sometimes revised, and hopefully aligned when several have to work in conjunction to achieve a bigger Goal. Goal setting has also its requirements. Most of them must be SMART, as SMART seems to be … Continue reading How to state SMART Goals?

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Chris Hohmann

MAY 9, 2022

In this video I am sharing the 5 good reasons for leaders or senior managers to build a Goal Tree for Strategy Deployment. You can find these 5 reasons as a blog post, along with many other articles related to strategy deployment and Goal Trees, on my this blog : Leaders, here are 5 good … Continue reading 5 good reasons for leaders or senior managers to build a Goal Tree for Strategy Deployment.

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Chris Hohmann

MAY 11, 2022

In a November 2020 post, I explored the possibility of the COVID-19 pandemic boosting paperless, digitized activities and asked: Will 2021 be the “year of killing paper” ?

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Chris Hohmann

MAY 30, 2022

The Eisenhower Matrix, also known as Urgent-Important Matrix, is a 2×2 matrix designed to help decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance. This framework is attributed to general Dwight D. Eisenhower, allegedly using it when facing tough decisions during WWII, as the Allied Forces Supreme Commander. In short, the matrix is built upon … Continue reading Eisenhower’s matrix (Urgent-Important) adjusted for delegating decisions.

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Chris Hohmann

JUNE 5, 2022

This post was inspired by an article published June 1, 2022 by Rick Bohan and Ron Jacques on [link] , titled “Lean Is Futile If Customers Come Last”. The article is a critical view on some bad practices “ignoring the experience of existing and prospective customers as they try to work with you” while pretending … Continue reading Is Lean Always Futile If Customers Come Last?

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Chris Hohmann

JUNE 24, 2022

This post is inspired by an article posted June 15th, 2022 on [link] titled “Latest Study from Avery Point Group Concludes: Demand for Lean Professionals Remains Strong, While Six Sigma Talent Demand Continues to Decline”. In short, the mentioned study found “ongoing robust demand for Continuous Improvement skills overall, with Six Sigma talent demand showing … Continue reading Is Six Sigma out of fashion?

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Six Sigma 200

Chris Hohmann

JULY 18, 2022

Going to see buy oneself, at the Gemba, is a Lean commandement well received (understood?) by all those who went through a Lean initiation. Now laymen and beginners may ask: where exactly is Gemba? First let’s clarify the meaning of the word Gemba. For this I’ll quote an old acquaintance of mine, Michel Baudin who … Continue reading Where exactly is Gemba?

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