What’s in it for me? (WIIFM). Why should I get behind your continuous improvement/lean journey?
Ms. Melissa Sherman
Thursday, June 26, 2025
7:00 – 8:00 PM Eastern
A Joint ASQ Government Division and Innovation in Action Offering
Description: One of the biggest challenges I have seen in the workplace is the “WHY” we are doing this. As a organization it seems to be more of a directive versus a “what’s in it for me”. Once this WHY is explained to the employees, they are more open to buy-in and join the journey. Although many of you are continuous improvement/Lean practitioners we have all struggled with sustainability and success in the implementation efforts of a problem-solving event, or the overall implementation of the tools. Whether you are just starting out, have already implemented, or attempting again it is important to get buy-in from your employees, from the bottom up to the top down. Without that buy-in your sustainability and success will be rocky and ultimately fail or have many iterative attempts and employees will lose interest.
A Culture of Continuous Improvement: Lean encourages a true mindset change, in which problems aren’t hidden but instead became opportunities for evolution. Managers become engaging coaches who guide their people to find better ways of working. This attitude encourages engagement and a drive to do better.
Presenter: Melissa Sherman has worked in the utility industry for over 27 years, both for an Investor Owned and Cooperative, gaining experience in Electric and Gas Distribution Engineering, Business Support for Pumped Storage, River Hydro and Renewable Generation, Online Scheduling for Fossil Generation, and Enterprise Change. Throughout her career, Melissa has instituted lean methodology while embedding change management methodology. From scheduling to warehouse redesigns, to value stream analysis. Melissa analyzes and measures the effectiveness of existing business processes and develops sustainable, repeatable, and quantifiable business process improvements. She analyzes data to drive problem solving, root cause analysis and functional area process improvement. Responsible for delivering significant results in Company Breakthrough Objectives.
She is passionate about leading others on their continuous improvement/lean and change management journey. She enjoys being able to share her love for teaching/coaching others and seeing the “ah ha” moments when someone truly understands the methodologies. It is through breaking down those methodologies in terms they understand that they can then tackle those big problems. Melissa has also taught higher education since 2008 both in-seat and on-line in
management, entrepreneurship and engineering disciplines, relating a lot of her teaching to the utility industry. Melissa holds a Bachelors in Industrial Engineering Technology, a Master’s in Leadership Studies from Baker College, along with a Graduate Certificate in Leadership Strategies from Davenport University. She also holds an Associates Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University and is certified in Change Management through Acuity Institute.
Registration: here