In the past, I have written about using the Lean trio of SDCA, PDCA, EDCA with an umbrella of CAP-Do or in Non-Lean terms; Standard Work, Continuous Improvement, Design Thinking (Exploration), and Reflection. In the book, Cracked it!: How to solve big problems and sell solutions like top strategy consultants, the authors lay out their Read More …
Adopting a systems perspective makes visible many of the hidden complexities operating in an organization that might be important targets for change. Reviewing from a system point of view helps generate a set of hypotheses that form the basis for our marketing experiments. This, in turn, guides our efforts to be tested, organizes results from Read More …
Author Julia Sloan in the book, Learning to Think Strategically, emphasizes the need for both a Creative and Rational balance in the approach. Sloan says, “Without a well-honed intuitive sense, problem analysis can remain clinical, sanitized, and ineffectual, in that problems are exposed only superficially and analyzed without much, if any, examination of the “truthfulness” Read More …
Learning From The Reshaping of McKinsey Most people agree that the COVID-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on our economic structure and may rival the Great Depression. What that next chapter will be is hard to determine at the moment but I believe we can review much of our recent past to help prepare Read More …
Right now, we need low-cost speedy experiments to test new growth and innovation ideas. Think of the ideas surrounding Learning Launches as proposed by the School of Darden at the University of Virginia and in the book Learn or Die: Using Science to Build a Leading-Edge Learning Organization by Edward D. Hess. A learning launch Read More …
Lean for many years has promoted the idea of a flow-based system tied to actual demand and TOC has helped solve other associated problems with Drum-Buffer-Rope. Both of these systems offer flow-based thinking which I believe is a current minimum requirement over the cost-based systems of the past. However, they both start breaking down when Read More …