Do you know what sets apart successful companies and managers from their unsuccessful counterparts? A lot actually, but some of the most significant differences lay in the way they set goals, track progress and work to achieve them. To be more effective in each of these three elements, it is not uncommon for managers to […]
One of the key benefits of Lean is that teams are largely autonomous and self-organizing. The assumption is that every team member knows what is expected of them and when, and are able to work independently on tasks and deliver quality work with little oversight. However, this basic assumption of autonomy and self-sufficiency does not […]
Lean methods emerged from manufacturing, where conventional wisdom was that the goal is to produce as many goods as possible, as quickly as possible. When Taiichi Ohno introduced the Andon cord at Toyota, authorizing every employee on the assembly line to immediately halt production when they noticed a problem or defect, even people in his […]
In all too many organizations, “manager” is nothing more than a different job description and pay scale. Managers go to more and different meetings, and complete more and different paperwork, but aren’t fundamentally different from other employees. They don’t require more of a person as a mentor or as a leader, and they don’t require […]
This article is part of our lean product development case study with Somabe. You can download the full case study from the corresponding form on your screen. Lean can be a powerful asset for running your product development team and even a whole company. A perfect example for that is Somabe (Soraluze Makina Bereziak SLL), […]
Hoshin Kanri is an essential Lean method for ensuring that the strategy of a company gets executed across the hierarchy. At first sight, it may look like a simple set of steps, which gives the impression that nothing can go wrong with its implementation. However, there are quite a few pitfalls you may encounter and […]
Lean is an endless topic that can be discussed until the end of time. The positive impact on the way organizations work and achieve their goals made the methodology formidably successful and widespread across various industries. The Lean concept appears to be a universal management tool. We’ve sure come a long way since the dawn […]
Have you tried applying Kanban on a large scale in your organization? If you haven’t, you are likely to find out that the transparency of the method that makes it a powerhouse on a team level is not as great on an organizational scale. This is of course if you are practicing the typical Kanban […]
“Respect for people” is one of the two pillars of Toyota’s corporate culture and the Lean management philosophy. Yet, people think it’s just about being polite. If you ask 100 top-level managers “Do you respect your employees?”, you will probably receive a hundred answers “Of course, I treat employees with respect and dignity”. If your […]
Reading Don Reinertsen’s book “The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development” was a truly enlightening experience, especially when it comes to understanding queues and the problems that queues cause in a regular product development process. Having almost five years of development behind Kanbanize, and many more before that, we came to […]