The Third Annual Continuous Improvement Conference

The 3rd Annual Continuous Improvement Conference

This event is centered on developing the people in our organization, developing capability and skills needed to further advance a culture of continuous improvement in a time of technology transformation, embedding enterprise thinking and Lean problem solving habits into daily operations.

Driving Enterprise Transformation Together

Our theme this year is Driving Enterprise Transformation Together. Nobody solves an access problem, a handoff problem, or a waste problem alone. But most of us try, because we don't know that a team two buildings over already worked it out. By coming together to share what we've solved, we can, as a community move forward with consistency and innovation.

Whether you've run a dozen A3's or have never heard the term, this day is built for you. You do not need a background in Lean, quality improvement, or process design. You just need to be curious about how everyday processes have the potential for improvement.

Two Years in, Onward and Upward

In 2024 we held our inaugural CI Fair. Hosted by SVC Erin Gore and the FAS Continuous Improvement Steering Committee, this event focused mainly on improvement projects in Finance and Administration. Following the success of the first CI Fair, in 2025 we decided to open the event to the enterprise with great success. The second year of the CI Fair incorporated new elements such as poster sessions and breakout rooms. We also had the esteemed Katie Anderson keynote. For more information on last year's event, please visit: 2025 CI Fair

This year we have increased capacity to use both floors of the Rutter Center, allowing for dedicated space for booths, posters, and more seats to see the keynote speaker.

Registration is required to attend this event. We will open registration on Thursday, September 24th, 2026. To be notified once registration opens, please opt in by joining this newsletter.

Breakout sessions are short 25-45 minute sessions led by your UCSF colleagues. These sessions are held in the 5 conference rooms in the upstairs portion of the Rutter Center. 

Breakout sessions can either be a deep dive into one improvement effort or an interactive learning session. 

• A deep dive into one improvement effort involves a team walking through a real project at UCSF: what the problem was, what they tried, what the data showed, what worked, and what they'd do differently.
• An interactive learning session is meant to be a learning activity: mapping a process, drafting an A3, playing a game that illustrates an improvement concept. 

How to Get a Seat

Breakout sessions are reserved when you register for the CI Conference. Most sessions will fill quickly, so do not wait to register for your breakout sessions. 

If a session you want is full, you will automatically be added to a waitlist. Sessions with long waitlists may be moved into a larger room, allowing for participants on the waitlist to be admitted. In the event that more seats are added, participants will be notified via the CI Conference App.

Please be mindful when registering for breakout sessions that you are not overlapping activities.

How to Lead a Breakout Session

If you're interested in leading a breakout session, please apply using this form.

Booths are interactive displays that represent a large improvement effort, a department that works heavily in process improvement, or an event sponsor. We recommend that your booth be staffed by more than two people to ensure adequate breaks. This is an all-day commitment. Setup generally begins about 2 hours before the event. Each booth is about 6ft by 2.5ft. 

We will provide a table, tablecloth, booth sign with your department's name and booth title, and a power source and 43" monitor by request. Booth leads are responsible for any additional print needs. In the past, Booths have included games and prizes, interactive displays, and are generally a lot of fun.

How to Run a Booth

If you're interested in running a Booth for the CI Conference, please complete this form.

Posters are a visual display of an A3 which describes an improvement effort. Posters will be displayed for the entirety of the event. This year, we will be introducing Catchball Cafe: an interactive process where A3 owners will stand with their posters and engage in a round of catchball for a set period of time. 

This is a great process to help improvement efforts take their project to the next step, or to think of new angles in their improvement effort if they're feeling stuck. Remember, yesterday's improvements are tomorrow's problems, and that we work in iterations!

For uniformity, we may ask you to reformat your improvement effort to our A3 Template, which can be found here.

How to Submit a Poster

If you're interested in submitting a poster for the CI Conference, please apply here.

Submit Your Proposal Here

Submissions close Monday, September 14th.

We build this conference out of what UCSF teams put forward. If you've improved something, please apply for a Breakout Session, Booth, or Poster

Please consider submitting a proposal even if it isn't finished.

In-progress projects are welcome. Projects that didn't go to plan are welcome. Half of what people take away from this day comes from hearing what didn't work and why. If you tightened a process, cut a wait time, fixed a handoff, reduced a frustration, or tried something that taught you a lot even though it failed, consider submitting a proposal!

What we need from you

For all three:

• Your project title, in plain language. This will go in our program
• Your department or unit
• A primary contact and email
• Two or three sentences on what you did and what changed
• Whether the project is complete, in progress, or didn't go as planned. All three are welcome
• Any accessibility or reasonable accommodation needs, so we can make your session work for everyone

For posters, also:

• Use the conference A3 poster template to help us keep the room consistent and readable
• Plan to have your A3 poster submitted by September 24th to leave us plenty of time to print it

For Booths, also:

• Let us know what you'll need. All booths are equipped with a table and table cloth, but indicate if you will need a power source or monitor.
• Roughly how many people will staff it

For Breakout sessions, also:

• Whether your session is a presentation or interactive activity. This matters if a session proves to be very popular.
• Audio-visual needs
• Please indicate in the description if you anticipate your session to be 25 minutes or 45 minutes.

Not sure whether your work fits? Email [email protected] and lets talk about it.

Adam Markel is a bestselling author, speaker and reinvention expert whose work centers on resilience. He has built a multi-million-dollar law firm as a trial attorney, led a business development company as CEO, and, earlier, spent seven years as a lifeguard, which turns out to be a better preparation for talking about recovery than it sounds.

Continuous Improvement asks people to keep changing things, indefinitely, on top of their actual jobs. That's a resilience problem as much as a methods problem and its the reason improvement programs quietly run out of steam in year three or four. Adam's argument is that resilience isn't about enduring, its about recovering deliberately so you can keep going. 

He talks about building a "change proof" culture where adaptability is a practiced habit rather than an emergency response and about the real cost of burnout. Expect practical tools rather than motivation: how to build in recover before you need it, how teams create the trust that makes change survivable, and how leaders keep people engaged through disruption instead of exhausting them by it.

UCSF is committed to making this conference accessible to everyone who wants to attend. If you need an accommodation, please tell us in the registration form or email [email protected]