In this podcast, I share an interview I had with Reed Harrison, Executive Director of Mind Matters Portland, and Maria Grzanka, a process improvement expert and prolific volunteer in Portland, Oregon.

Reed worked in Supply Chain management and Operations with major companies like Adidas and Columbia Sportswear, but ended up as Executive Director at Mind Matters Portland.

Maria also had a career in Supply Chain, Logistics and process improvement and is now running her consulting firm, Idea Maria. She has spent hours volunteering her time with local nonprofits near Portland, Oregon, including Mind Matters Portland in 2010. She is also leading a group called Lean Portland that offers pro-bono consulting to nonprofits, and is involved with her local neighborhood association.

In this podcast, we discuss their backgrounds in process improvement, along with:

* How Reed moved from corporate life to running a nonprofit
* How Mind Matters has had success with documentation using 1-page checklists instead of lengthy SOPs
* How Maria has applied Lean principles to her volunteer work with her local neighborhood association, including the importance of gemba walks
* How Maria has seen improvements at Mind Matters since she was a volunteer over 10 years ago
* How they avoid talking about the word “process” as it has a negative connotation
* Ways that people can get more involved with nonprofit volunteering

You can listen to the podcast (audio) version at https://leansixsigmaenvironment.org/i...