Many office work areas don’t control the flow of work onto people’s desks. As a result, individuals may face a small pile of work on one day, and a large pile of work the next. Further complicating the problem, there is frequently no formal standardization of their processes. This makes Read more…
I pulled a muscle in my back playing basketball a few days ago, and it is surprising how much movement the core of your body is a part of. Things you don’t realize—reaching for a computer mouse, pulling open a window, and even picking things up off the floor—all caused Read more…
This week’s featured Lean thinker has been a guest in a few podcasts now. He is Jay Watson. Jay is one of those seasoned veterans of Lean from before it was mainstream. Yet with all those years of experience, he still has passion in his voice when we speak about Read more…
Very few managers have their desks right out in gemba—the workplace they manage. It is unfortunate, as being right where the action is provides a tremendous value.
Contrary to what many people think, the hardest step in problem solving is not coming up with a solution, or even sustaining the gains that are made. It is identifying the problem in the first place. Now, there are several different types of problems. The glaring, painful one. It is Read more…
Most people are accustomed to signing the back side of their paycheck. The question I’d ask you to consider, though, is whether you’d behave differently if you were signing the other side of the check. Consider if you had to put your John Hancock on a check for one of Read more…
Benchmarking is simply the practice of finding someone who does something well and using it as a reference to set the bar for improvement. This can be done within the same industry (i.e. comparisons to competitors), or in other industries to spur revolutionary thinking. One frequently overlooked opportunity for benchmarking Read more…
This week’s Featured Lean Thinker is Evan Durant. Though he doesn’t mention it in his bio, he blogs about Lean on occasion. I like reading his articles, as we share some common background. Evan works at a Danaher company. I gained a good deal of my experience working under the Read more…
I was recently reading a rather old book on customer satisfaction by Bob Tasca. He had an interesting quote about failure. “Failure isn’t failure at all—it’s information.” Now, I am not saying to go out trying to fail just to gather information. But, when you try a lot of new Read more…
Change is hard for some people. And since Lean requires a significant shift from typical thinking, it can generate some strong resistance. One of the most common forms of pushback when changing to a Lean mindset is the use of excuses. People are extremely creative at coming up with reasons Read more…