Kaizen events
Kaizen funnel
Kaizen funnel is licensed CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Katafacts (katafacts.com).
Customise with AISkill file ↓1 · What it is
What it is
A kaizen funnel is the portfolio view sitting above any single event — where every improvement idea actually is, from first captured to fully implemented, and whether it's moving or stuck. Name your own pipeline stages (Captured, Screened, Chartered, Scheduled, Implemented is a common shape, but yours may differ), then list each idea with where it came from, its current stage, and when it got there. Age, funnel counts per stage, and which ideas have gone stale relative to their peers get computed for you — but who's actually championing each idea is never guessed. Every idea starts unassigned until you name a real person.
2 · When to use it
When to use it — and when not to
Use it when
- You're running more than one improvement idea at a time and want a real, checkable view of where each one actually stands, not a mental tally.
- You want to catch an idea that's gone quiet — sitting unscreened or unscheduled far longer than similar ideas — before it becomes a suggestion nobody ever hears back about.
- You want honest visibility into backlog size and conversion, the difference between a program that actually implements ideas and one that just collects them.
Not when
- You're tracking a single kaizen event that's already chartered and scheduled — that's the kaizen charter's job, not this one.
- You're following up on one already-run event's 30/60/90-day results — that's the 30-60-90 tracker, a different artifact from the portfolio view here.
3 · How to fill it in
How to fill it in
- Ideas
- Drafted from each idea's source, current stage, and the date it entered that stage — assign a real champion to each afterward.
- Funnel
- Coverage
- Narrative
- Drafted from the stale flags and the funnel shape actually built.
- Countermeasures
4 · What good looks like
What good looks like
The example below is an outpatient clinic's five-stage intake funnel. One idea — a phone-hold-time complaint from a patient survey — has sat unscreened for 45 days, more than twice its stage's own average, a real "suggestion graveyard" case caught before it mattered more. Three of six ideas still have no named champion, honestly shown rather than padded out.
Same example, as a downloadable xlsx workbook.
Download .xlsxKaizen funnel · as of 2026-03-01
Ridgeline Regional Clinic — Outpatient Intake Kaizen Funnel
Outpatient scheduling and intake · Dana Whitfield, Clinic Manager · 2026-03-01
Team: Marcus Lee, Charge Nurse, Priya Anand, IT Liaison, Sam Okafor, Front Desk Lead · Sponsor: Dr. Elena Vasquez, Medical Director
Ideas
| Idea | Source | Stage | Age (days) | Champion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-print discharge paperwork for common visit types | Gemba walk | Captured | 0 | Unassigned |
| Reduce phone-hold time for appointment schedulingStale | Patient survey | Captured | 45 | Unassigned |
| Standardize new-patient intake form across all providers | Employee suggestion | Screened | 9 | Sam Okafor, Front Desk Lead |
| Add a nurse triage step before front-desk check-in | Huddle escalation | Chartered | 19 | Marcus Lee, Charge Nurse |
| Same-day appointment slot pool for urgent requests | VOC evidence | Scheduled | 28 | Unassigned |
| Digital pre-visit questionnaire via patient portal | Gemba walk | Implemented | 55 | Priya Anand, IT Liaison |
Funnel
| Stage | Ideas | Average age (days) |
|---|---|---|
| Captured | 2 | 22.5 |
| Screened | 1 | 9 |
| Chartered | 1 | 19 |
| Scheduled | 1 | 28 |
| Implemented | 1 | 55 |
- Reduce phone-hold time for appointment scheduling — 45 days is at least 2x this stage's average of 22.5 days — this idea is stale relative to its peers.
Coverage
Ideas total
6
With a named champion
3
Unassigned
Pre-print discharge paperwork for common visit types, Reduce phone-hold time for appointment scheduling, Same-day appointment slot pool for urgent requests
Narrative
Six ideas move through Ridgeline's five-stage funnel, captured through a gemba walk, an employee suggestion, a patient survey, VOC evidence, and a huddle escalation. One is genuinely stale — the phone-hold-time suggestion has sat in Captured for 45 days, more than twice that stage's own average, without ever being triaged. Three of six ideas still have no named champion, including that same stale one — the clearest sign the gap is a missing triage step, not just a busy pipeline.
Countermeasures
Triage every newly captured idea within 5 business days so nothing sits unscreened the way the phone-hold-time suggestion did.
Linked finding: Reduce phone-hold time for appointment scheduling — 45 days stale in Captured
Impact: high · Effort: low · Owner: Dana Whitfield, Clinic Manager · Due: 2026-03-15
Assign a named champion to every idea at the moment it's screened, not after it's already scheduled.
Linked finding: 3 of 6 ideas have no named champion, including one already in Scheduled
Impact: medium · Effort: low · Owner: Sam Okafor, Front Desk Lead · Due: 2026-03-20
5 · Common mistakes
Common mistakes
Collecting ideas without ever reviewing the backlog for what's gone stale.
An idea funnel that only grows is a suggestion graveyard, not a pipeline — the whole value of tracking stage and age is catching what's quietly stalled before people stop bothering to submit anything.
Naming a placeholder champion just to make every idea look assigned.
An idea with a fake champion is worse than an honestly unassigned one — it hides exactly the gap the coverage check exists to surface.
Defining ten narrow pipeline stages instead of a handful of real ones.
Too many stages make the funnel harder to read without adding real information — a stage should represent a genuine decision point, not a status flavor.
6 · What it connects to
What it connects to
upstream
Tiered huddle board
A huddle escalation is a real, common source for a new idea entering the funnel, as in the worked example.
downstream
Kaizen event charter
An idea reaching the Chartered/Scheduled stage here is exactly where a real event charter begins.
7 · Where AI helps
Where AI helps
Judgement — stays yours
- Deciding who's actually the right champion for a given idea
- Deciding whether a drafted countermeasure is realistic given real team capacity
Analysis — AI helps
- Prioritizing which stale ideas or stage imbalances need attention first, and why
- Drafting the narrative from the funnel shape actually built
Drudgery — automated
- Computing each idea's age and each stage's average age
- Identifying which ideas are stale relative to their peers
- Counting how many ideas have a named champion
- Exporting to xlsx in the house format
8 · Resources
Resources
File
Kaizen Funnel - Word Doc
Printable six-page template for planning the sequence of kaizens a team will run to close a defined gap and reach its goal.
18.1 KB
Download ↗
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