Thanks as always to Ryan McCormack for this… there’s always so much good reading, listening, and viewing shared here by him! Subscribe to get these directly from Ryan via email. Insights about improvement, innovation, and leadership… Operational Excellence, Improvement, and…
My guest for Episode #400 is Jeffrey Liker, the retired University of Michigan professor who has recently released the second updated and revised version of his seminal book The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. The new edition…
TL;DR: The wedge metaphor, often used to represent standardized work in Lean, can send the wrong message. Instead of assuming people will backslide without enforcement, we should focus on engaging them in meaningful improvements they want to sustain. Maybe it’s…
One challenge with teaching Lean is that there isn’t aways a consistent definition that’s used by everybody. Some of the definitions are really bad. Some of them are just different from others. Let’s start with “different.” Is a lack of…
Today, I'm announcing a new podcast series called the Toyota Kata Podcast, or "KataCast" for short. As the Toyota Kata book and methodology have become more popular, I've been surprised that I haven't been asked "why don't you blog more about Toyota Kata?" [...]
My friend Pete Abilla has started a nice series of “Lean Leadership Interviews” on his site, shmula.com. I enjoyed his most recent interview with Jeff Liker. I agree with Pete and Jeff in the assertion (shared by Mike Rother) that…
People often say Lean is pretty simple (or that it’s just “common sense“). Yeah, some of the concepts are simple… but sometimes deceptively so. Or, we find that it’s easier to describe Lean (as a management system, a set of…
TL;DR: At Toyota, the principle is closer to “respect for humanity” than “respect for people” — and that difference matters. It’s not a slogan or a soft value. It is one of two equally important pillars of the Toyota Production…
Although I don’t get to play much anymore, I used to be a pretty serious drummer (I almost said “musician,” but that invites jokes that drummers aren’t really musicians). I was more of a percussionist — playing everything from timpani…
As I’m reading the new book by Eric Ries, The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, I’m reading it with an eye for concepts that can be applied more broadly than traditional startup…
Fans of Bob Dylan and Mike Rother’s book Toyota Kata will appreciate this song especially:
I really had a great learning experience at last week’s LEI Lean Transformation Summit that was held here in Dallas. The event sold out six weeks in advance, so a lot of regular attendees got frozen out, unfortunately. All of…
