Sometimes my good intentions (for perfection) leads to behavior that is very dumb. In this case, I wanted to have pretty and perfect labels for inventory management on my shelves. It’s not necessarily a hard thing to do, but in our situation there were too many barriers and disruptions pulling me away from doing it …
My Stupid Mistake Practicing Kaizen (Keep it Simple!) | Episode 8 Read More »
You can’t get very far with lean if your culture isn’t one of “respect for people.” One way or another, you must develop this respect. It starts with you, especially if you are in leadership. Until real respect is demonstrated in an organization, the typical “us vs. them,” finger-pointing, complaining, etc. will prevail. And this …
Creating Respect for People by Scrubbing the Floor | Episode 7 Read More »
Quite often the process for doing something is at fault for the lack of teamwork in an organization. Poor process design can isolate individuals or otherwise make it challenging for them to truly work together. At the Lean Donut Shop we struggled to coordinate kitchen prep activities because when we first opened the storefront all …
Creating a Visual Workplace at the Lean Donut Shop | Episode 6 Read More »
Managing inventory is a very unpleasant task and one that drove Daniel mad! When we first opened up our storefront nothing had a proper home, our shelves were poorly designed, and it was time-consuming and tricky to keep up on purchasing. A lot of Daniel’s time was spent managing the wasteful inventory system and running …
Putting an End to Inventory Overwhelm with Kanban | Episode 5 Read More »
Don’t do what many companies do and underestimate the time required for leaders—at all levels—to lead lean. If you try to lead others in continuous improvement before first budgeting and protecting leaders’ time to support the effort, you are destined to fail. Management attention must be focused and effective. So if something is killing your …
Freeing Up Leadership Capacity to Lead Lean | Episode 4 Read More »
A lean journey is generally not linear. The experience can often be one of “three steps forward, two steps back” as you strive for results. You also encounter many distractions. In fact, just as many distractions doing lean as you would face not doing lean! How do you keep your focus and not give up? …
Caring for People as the Foundation of Lean Thinking | Episode 3 Read More »
