Standard Work and Customer Focus Together

In next week’s podcast with Steve Bell, the founder of Lean IT Strategies LLC, we discuss more than just Lean IT. We ended up talking (see the excerpt below) through much of the podcast on the context Lean seems to have; the ability to adapt while staying firmly rooted in its principles. Joe:  Does it Read More …

What is Service Design?

Continuum and the AIGA convened a group of top business leaders and innovators from a variety of backgrounds and industries, including Disney, Facebook and Zipcar, to discuss how designing a service experience with purpose can transform a company’s image and make people’s lives better. Designing Better Service Experiences from Continuum on Vimeo. Watch this at Read More …

Leading Lean from the Middle

Paul Yandell of Value Stream Focus was interviewed in the Business901 podcast, Transforming Lean thru Middle Managers. This is a transcription of the podcast. Paul Yandell is a manufacturing and supply chain specialist with strong skills in identifying and eliminating waste and improving operational performance.  His particular strengths are building infrastructure to support turnaround and Read More …

Was Maslow a Lean Marketer?

In my post Lean needs Marketing, more than Marketing needs Lean!, I found a striking resemblance between the Toyota Supplier hierarchy depicted by Liker and Meier (The Toyota Way Fieldbook) and the Economic Pyramid model of Pines and Gilmore (The Experience Economy). I was intrigued how that fit into the discussion that the authors of Read More …

3 Tips on achieving Fast, Effective, Sustainable change

Next weeks Business901 podcast guest is Sara Lewis, the Managing Director of Appreciating Change, a psychological change consultancy focused on helping leaders and managers achieve positive change in their organizations. She is the author of Positive Psychology at Work: How Positive Leadership and Appreciative Inquiry Create Inspiring Organizations and one of my favorites, Appreciative Inquiry Read More …

Product to Customer Centric in 4 Steps

Becoming customer centric requires an organization to understand the emotional needs and difficulties of their prospects and customers (only the term “customer” will be used for the balance of the blog post). I have recently done a series of blog posts on empathy (The Role of Empathy in Design), that goes deeper into this subject. Read More …