California Improvement Summit

California Improvement Summit 2026

Fifteen Summits, One New Direction: Introducing the California Improvement Summit 2026

For fifteen years, Central Coast Lean has gathered improvement practitioners every April on the Central Coast of California. Meaningful conversations, real learning, and a community that keeps showing up. This year, we are trying something a little different.

We are not holding an April summit in 2026. Instead, we are launching something new: the California Improvement Summit, scheduled for Sunday, August 30 through Tuesday, September 1, 2026, on the Central Coast.

Here is what we are thinking — and why now.

The Challenge We Are Working On

California presents some genuinely distinctive improvement challenges. Regulatory complexity compounds every process. A workforce speaking 200+ languages strains every standard. Government programs absorb billions without consistently tracking outcomes. Healthcare serves 15 million people on Medi-Cal while facing critical workforce shortages. Energy costs run 184% above the national average. And a generational knowledge transfer challenge is quietly underway — lean expertise built over thirty years is approaching retirement without clear succession systems to catch it.

This is not a complaint. It is a problem statement. And improvement practitioners know what to do with a problem statement.

The question driving this gathering: How do we make continuous improvement Easier, Better, and Faster across California's organizations — in manufacturing, healthcare, government, and education — over the next decade?

Cost reduction is an outcome. Never the target.

A Different Kind of Gathering

This is not a conference. No keynote speakers, no slide decks, no passive audiences.

The California Improvement Summit is an intentionally informal, conversation-first working session structured around a collective A3 problem-solving process. The agenda creates conditions; the participants create the value.

Here is what the time actually looks like. Sunday evening is a casual welcome reception — about two hours at the home of the organizers, no agenda, relationships first, significant others welcome. Monday is a full working day, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, following the A3 spine: Background and Current Situation in the morning, Problem Statement, Goals, and Root Cause Analysis in the afternoon. A networking reception — two hours, Central Coast appetizers and wine — closes the evening. Tuesday morning is a focused working session, 8:00 AM to noon, completing the A3 with Countermeasures, Plans, and Follow-up commitments. Lunch runs noon to 1:00 PM — informal, unhurried. For those who can stay, an optional wine tasting tour runs 2:00 to 5:00 PM through the vineyards that make this part of California worth the drive.

Every session is captured. AI synthesizes the conversations overnight. Participants receive a draft report Tuesday morning and a final Summit Report within five days — co-authored by everyone in the room, not a summary produced by someone who wasn't there.

Who Belongs in the Room

This gathering is invitation-only, capped at 30. We are building that list deliberately — looking for a specific mix of senior executives and improvement champions who shape the conditions for improvement at the organizational level; directors and top practitioners doing the work every day; mid-career lean leaders ready to step up; and cross-sector voices from manufacturing, healthcare, government, education, and civic life — people committed to making California Easier, Better, and Faster.

People who are normally invited to events as speakers are invited here to sit down and talk to each other. That is the point.

Why Now

California has been part of lean improvement thinking from the beginning. Kaiser Permanente, Sutter Health, and Highland Hospital have contributed some of the strongest lean healthcare results anywhere. County governments have documented real savings through continuous improvement. Cal Poly, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, and Stanford all contribute to lean research and practice in this state.

But these efforts remain fragmented. The healthcare system achieving 40% reductions in ED stays does not know about the county saving millions. The manufacturer navigating California's regulatory environment has not compared notes with the government leader trying to move the same workforce. No one has put these people in the same room with a shared question and a structured process for working on it.

That is what we are hoping to build this September.

How You Can Help

Invitations to this gathering are personal and direct. If you are reading this and thinking of a lean leader, a director, or a C-suite executive in your organization — or in your network — who should be in this room, the most useful thing you can do is share this post with them directly. We are actively building the list of the right 30 people, and a personal referral from someone who knows the community is exactly how that list gets built well.

If your own work gives you a particular window into California's improvement challenges — in a sector or domain we may not have on our radar — feel free to reach out. We want the room to reflect the real breadth of what is happening across this state.

The California Improvement Summit 2026 is being co-developed with the Future of People at Work Initiative — a collaborative network of nine leading continuous improvement organizations committed to making improvement work better for everyone.

Interested in learning more or being considered?

If this resonates, email Eric Olsen (eric.o@centralcoastlean.org)to express your interest. Additional details will be shared as they are confirmed.