Lean Blog Interviews — 415: Tracy O’Rourke on Vaccinations, Lean Six Sigma in Government, and More

Co-founder of the Just-in-Time Cafe

Show notes: https://www.leanblog.org/415

My guest for Episode #415 of the Lean Blog Interviews podcast is Tracy O’Rourke. She is the co-author of The Problem-Solver’s Toolkit: A Surprisingly Simple Guide to Your Lean Six Sigma Journey. She is co-founder of the Just-in-Time Cafe (which producers podcasts, webinars, and more). She is also a self-described “process improvement ZEALOT!”

We had the chance to meet up to visit two vaccination sites in San Diego in March, and the two photos in the post are from that time together (as I blogged about here). That’s one of the topics in this episode.

Topics, questions, and links related to today’s episode include:

  • How did you get introduced to C.I. and what flavor(s)? How did you become a Zealot?
  • She is the Lead Instructor at UC San Diego for the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (public offering)
  • Visiting the UCSD vaccination sites  – University and health system
    • What we saw
    • Walking the process
  • Jerry Wright handed her the torch to be the SoCal Lean Network Chair
  • 20 years in consulting, from industry to government, non-profit and education
  • Can you tell us about a specific example of some of the work you’ve done in government?
    • How do you know that it worked? 
  • She’s also part of the Lean Communicators Network