Recently I had a conversation with a friend who was upset about some directional shifts and looming job shuffles swirling around their company. As I listened to the lament, I recognized the fact that they were focusing on the symptoms of the issue. All of his reactions and proposed courses of action in response to the unsettling circumstances didn’t address what I could tell was something deeper. My friend had lost the raison d’être for …
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“Lean thinking”–the mindset and methodology derived from the Toyota Production System–has taken root and grown tremendously in the startup efforts of entrepreneurs in the U.S. over the last eighteen months. Partly driven by the exigencies of the marketplace and economy, partly driven by the reality that most startups using the old model of “plan-fund-build-launch” simply fail, the lean startup model centering on the creation of business hypothesis and proven out through rapid learning gleaned from …
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“Keep It Simple, Stupid!” aka K.I.S.S., is always easier to say than do. Recipes and formulas for simplicity found in books and on blogs are almost as popular as fad diets. There’s a reason for that: everyone is searching for a way to be a little more effective and efficient in their business, work and life. But so much of the advice that’s given is based on personal opinion, rather than wide-ranging, proven success in …
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“No matter what kind of work you do, you’re involved in transforming some type of input into a different form of output that a customer wants. That act of transformation makes you, in essence, a factory—and that means that you can benefit from Lean tools and concepts,” writes OPEN Forum contributor Dan Markovitz, in a new book called A Factory of One. The subtitle of the book is something I know well from my years …
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