Adapting a Lean leadership-training program within a health care organization through cocreation

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe and evaluate a Lean leadership-training program within the health-care sector. A training program developed through a cocreative process with the intent of enhancing the possibilities for a context-specific adaption of Lean.

Design/methodology/approach

A cocreated leadership-training program, executed over a period of one year, is described both as a model development process and as the final training program. The program was evaluated through reflective discussions and feedback as well as a written final evaluation of the program from participants in the program.

Findings

The evaluation shows that the objectives of the training program were met, at least among the participants who attended the whole program. Using a cocreative process when developing and realizing a leadership-training program enhances the possibilities for an organization to adapt Lean to its own context. One condition for this approach to be successful is that the expectations of both the organization and the university need to be in focus through the whole process. In addition, the executive team needs to be continuously engaged and create conditions for the organization to realize the potential benefits of the training program.

Originality/value

This paper highlights the challenge when applying Lean in a health-care organization but also describes a way to address Lean training and learning in this context.

Citation

Ingelsson, P., Bäckström, I. and Snyder, K. (2020), "Adapting a Lean leadership-training program within a health care organization through cocreation", International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 15-28. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJQSS-09-2019-0107