Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Church kaizen

I have become known at church for kaizen activity so I wanted to share a couple of things I have done. The little by little principle is in the Bible found in Proverbs 13:11 in regards to saving money. Oddly enough, my first church kaizen has to do with giving. As a past volunteer contribution counter, people fold their checks to keep their gift confidential which is fine but unfolding these adds no value and just wastes time. My kaizen has been to not fold my check but to place it in the offering basket face down. This keeps my gift secret as well as reducing motion waste especially when unfolding double folded checks!  I am starting to see a few checks now unfolded and face down since I have evangelized this idea so I am spreading the word.

What have you improved in church today?

Dan Lafever
Kaizeneer

2 comments:

Ben Haupt said...

Dan, I'm a pastor and recently heard a hospital presentation on how they're using Kaizen. I wondered to myself whether the church could implement similar strategies for improvement and change. Googling "Kaizen in the church" brought me to your blog. Have you seen any books on this?

Thanks, Ben

lafever said...

Absolutely. I just did a lesson on "Spiritual Kaizen" (little by little principle) for our leadership group. The staff has made their first commitment to analyze each month what they could improve which is a great first step. Would you like the lesson that I gave the leaders?