Congrats to Eric Ries as his book The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Eric was nice enough to let me read parts of his manuscript before publication to give some feedback and to contribute a few healthcare examples of “batching” that he incorporated into the book.
Here are pictures of the pages with the healthcare batching examples (he cited me and my Lean Hospitals book in the notes), starting with “These misconceptions…” in the first photo.
Lower batch sizes certainly reduce cycle time in a process and they can, sometimes unintuitively, reduce total cost for a system.
Eric coincidentally posted an excerpt on flow from the book on his blog yesterday.
Here are some of my earlier post and podcasts about Eric and his work:
- Lean Blog audio podcast #115 with Eric Ries
- Eric Ries TechCrunch Video on Lean Startups
- Time & Motion Studies Are Not “Discredited,” Just How They Are Used
- Notes on a Talk by Eric Ries (@ericries) at MIT on “Lean Startups”
Do you plan on reading his book? I've enjoyed what I've read so far and I've been a big fan of the Lean Startup methodology, including the elements we are trying to incorporate into KaiNexus.
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Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. His latest book is Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. He also published the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.
A guest blog post by Eric that covers one of the core issues in the book:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/11/are-you-building-the-right-product/
A review of the book by Brant Cooper:
http://market-by-numbers.com/2011/09/crossing-the-lean-startup-chasm/
Brant was one of my guests for Podcast #99: http://leanblog.org/99
I picked up the Kindle version but haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I am interested in learning how the Lean Startup concept may apply to new programs at a hospital. These “new businesses” are really a form of startup.