"How Would We Know We Were Done?" — Starting 2026 with the Right Questions

About These Monthly Updates: Each month, FPW community members come together to share progress, surface challenges, and learn from one another. These updates capture highlights from those conversations—synthesized with Claude AI assistance and reviewed by community contributors for accuracy. Our goal: make the work visible, build shared knowledge, and invite you into the ongoing effort to make work better for people.

"We're never done... but in one year, we'd want to see a resurgence of lean excitement and use."

That observation, captured on a virtual sticky note during last week's Future of People at Work community meeting, crystallizes a challenge many of us face: How do we measure progress in work that by definition never ends? As continuous improvement practitioners, we preach iteration over perfection—yet sometimes we forget to ask what success actually looks like.

Key members of the FPW community gather on Zoom

Community Members Asking Better Questions

Practitioners from manufacturing, healthcare, academia, and technology gathered for January's meeting—each bringing their own context, yet united by shared purpose. Rather than starting with announcements, facilitators Eric Olsen and Rachel Reuter invited participants to propose their own questions for the impromptu networking exercise.

Three questions emerged: What does success look like? What are your top challenges for the year? What are your inspirations for 2026? But Christopher Ferrier's question—"How would we know we were done?"—sparked the most discussion. Begin with the end in mind, after all.

People Doing the Work: Five Groups, Distinct Contributions

Behind each working group are community members dedicating their time and expertise to specific aspects of improving how organizations work.

The Ways of Working group, led by Susanna Watson, is developing continuous improvement games for the Michigan Science Center. Their hypothesis: what if we could help families and community members experience improvement thinking before they ever hear the word "lean"? The collaboration with the museum staff embodies the group's core principle—bridging fragmentation to create meaning at all levels.

Bruce Hamilton's Adjacent Communities group is testing a hypothesis that organizations accessing multiple methodologies—lean, Six Sigma, Agile, change management—will have more robust outcomes. "Our primary audience is the end user of these methodologies," Bruce noted. The goal isn't to create another framework, but to help practitioners navigate the landscape that already exists.

The CEO Outreach group faces a different challenge: how do you attract leaders who haven't yet discovered continuous improvement? Joe Pesz reported that events in Massachusetts and Mexico have been valuable, but the team is exploring whether a Toyota-branded experience might provide the credibility needed to draw skeptical executives.

Ken Snyder's LEAN Academic Network is building a web-based body of knowledge that educators can use directly in their courses. "If you want to tackle strategy deployment, what is it? How do you teach it?" The vision: curated, authoritative resources that bridge the gap between academic theory and practical application.

And Jeanne Carey's NextGen group is exploring how to make lean more accessible to younger practitioners. Katie Mankins from UC Santa Barbara shared successful workshop approaches that engage people who might otherwise dismiss improvement thinking as something from another era.

Coming Together in Person

Vickie Pisowicz announced an FPW in-person gathering at Carnegie Mellon University, May 7-8. The theme: AI and Continuous Improvement. Site visits on May 7th, then a full day of panels, discussions, and working group sessions on May 8th. Details coming soon at fpwork.org.

Join the Work

The question "How would we know we were done?" remains open—and that's the point. The FPW community isn't waiting for perfect answers; we're learning by doing. What does success look like in your organization? What challenges are you facing? Your experience matters here.

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Website: https://www.fpwork.org

Knowledge Map: Connecting to Your Context

Process Keywords: success metrics, methodology integration, community building, experiential learning, knowledge curation, CEO engagement, academic-practitioner bridge, working group coordination, hypothesis testing

Context Keywords: volunteer engagement, cross-industry collaboration, next generation workforce, multi-methodology environments, executive skepticism, academic curriculum development, museum outreach

Application Triggers:

• Struggling to engage executives → CEO Outreach approaches and Toyota-branded experiences

• Teaching improvement in academic settings → LEAN body of knowledge resources

• Navigating multiple methodologies → Adjacent Communities hypothesis and navigation tools

• Making CI accessible to non-practitioners → Ways of Working museum experiments

Related Continual Improvement Themes: Organizational learning, Change management, Leadership development, Systems thinking, Knowledge transfer

People to Connect With: @Bruce Hamilton @Rachel Reuter @Josh Howell @Ken Snyder @Vickie Pisowicz @Eric O. Olsen @Susanna Watson @Jeanne Carey

Hashtags: #FutureOfPeopleAtWork #ContinuousImprovement #LeanThinking #WorkplaceImprovement #BetterTogether #AI #OrganizationalLearning

Contributors to This Update: This post reflects the work and insights shared by FPW community members during our January gathering. Eric Olsen and Rachel Reuter provided editorial review. Want to help improve future updates? Comment on draft posts or join our monthly calls—your perspective strengthens the work.

About FPW: The Future of People at Work is a community of practitioners, academics, and consultants from Catalysis, Central Coast Lean, GBMP Consulting Group, Imagining Excellence, Lean Enterprise Institute, Shingo Institute, The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence, and Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC). We use Claude AI to help synthesize our conversations; community members ensure accuracy.