Paddy Sheilah O'Brien has an MPA from Cornell University, a BA from Pitzer College and is certified in Lean, project management, and communications. She was instrumental in pioneering Lean in many state government services, ranging from
child adoptions, the motor pool, and the revenue department. She also extended her technical assistance to the non-profit providers in 33 counties. Her real contribution is sharing 'lessons learned' from running over 24 rapid process improvement events. Her recipe for success: stick to the original intent of kaizen and believe that frontline workers know the problems best. With the right tools and guidance, they can solve them. O'Brien has learned from the best consultants, taken all the professional
courses, and collected research from multiple Lean databases. But out of all these resources, she states there are many gaps for the practitioner. In here recent book, Lean for the Nonprofit: What You Don't Know Can Cost You, she has filled them in
with her well-thought out connections between technique, experience in developing workshops, and calling out what historical management innovators have already given us.
Her career, both in the private and public sectors, is a tapestry of different kinds of knowledge and skills. For instance, as a former internal auditor, she brings the importance of internal controls. As a practitioner in organizational development, she
brings knowing the stages of team development to facilitation skills. With her program evaluation experience in collecting data, she created a list of simple tools easily taught to any staff member of improvement teams. And being an associate in project
management helped in preparing, facilitating, and closing out an improvement event.
O'Brien has presented at national conferences, been the recipient of multiple awards, and has developed and delivered multiple courses on Lean, performance measures, and quality tools. She has recently taken leave of full-time state employment to
embark on a second career of being an author and lecturer.
