Business901

Sub-optimizing your Social Collaboration

Using Lean Thinking in Social Media

business901 — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 17:58:17 +0000

Ric Dragons organization is DragonSearch, one of the best boutique SMM (social media marketing) and SEO agencies in New York. They help companies use existing internal resources to monetize their investment in social. As a result of this work, Ric recently authored Social Marketology: Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever.

From Amazon:

Drawing from such process methodologies as Lean and the Capability Maturity Model, Dragon helps you develop a social media process that is quantifiable, repeatable—and improvable. His process is based on these basic steps:

Focus on desirable outcomes: Vision, Goals, Objectives, and Metrics

Pinpoint the very smallest segments of your customers

Determine the communities to which these microsegments belong

Identify the influencers of those communities

Create an action plan for your project

Measure and constantly improve your efforts

The beauty of Dragon’s method is its core flexibility. New social media platforms are guaranteed to pop up in the near future. Any strategy based on the methods in this book can be adapted to take full advantage of them.

The age of blind trial and error for social media marketers is over. Social Marketology provides the means to implement an effective campaign that is testable, controllable, and fully integrated within broader campaigns and goals.

Enjoy the podcast:

Ric also has another eBook published: The DragonSearch Online Marketing Manual.

We don’t use a Transactional Contract for Marriage, Why for Projects?

business901 — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 19:44:23 +0000

Lean Design and Lean Construction Consultant, Trainer and Author, Alan Mossman of The Change Business says;

For the same reason that we don’t use a bilateral transactional contract for marriage, we use a relational contract. It’s now recognized that there’s much more sense in using a relational contract for these long‑term arrangements where we need to work together to get things done.

Our conversation centers around The Last Planner® a project management system created by Glenn Ballard and Greg Howell co-founders of the Lean Construction Institute. In long term building projects, they have found that managing relationships is the important part of project management. Last week, I had a post that discussed this, Crucial & Collaborative Conversations for Predictable Design & Delivery and talked about it even more in this post, Is Relationship Mapping the new Critical Path?.

Alan Mossman trained as an architect and worked for many years in management and organization development. He only returned to construction in 2000 building on his knowledge and understanding of collaboration, systems thinking, quality and lean. An accredited UK based Last Planner trainer, he has coached teams implementing Lean and Last Planner for a wide range of clients in Europe, Africa and Australasia. From 2004 to 2010 Alan was a founding Director of The Lean Construction Institute UK. He helped set up the Lean Construction Journal www.leanconstructionjournal.org and was co-editor from 2003 to 2012.

You may be interested in the Lean Service Design Trilogy Workshop.

Lean 3P is PDCA on Steroids

business901 — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:58:08 +0000

Well said by author Allan R. Coletta of a new book The Lean 3P Advantage: A Practitioner’s Guide to the Production Preparation Process. Development of the 3P process is attributed to Chichiro Nakao, a former Toyota group manager and the founder of Shingijutsu company. The accepted meaning of 3P is Production, Preparation, Process.

Allan is a chemical engineer with an extensive background in manufacturing operations, supply chain and engineering, gained while working in the chemical process and healthcare diagnostics industries. Allan is a practitioner more so than an author and I believe you will enjoy that perspective.

Toyota delivers product designs on schedule 98% of the time (as stated by @flowchainsensei on twitter). Now, I am not sure how I can confirm this statement except that I believe this source to be accurate and even if Bob was 50% wrong, it would mean Toyota still exceeds the majority. However, after interviewing Allan and reading the book, I can understand and believe that statement. This is an excerpt from the book:

Lean 3P is a powerful enabler for invention and innovation because it creates a structure and a process for people to create both independently and collaboratively. However, 3P is not presented as a “one size fits all” means of creating brilliant new products that takes us from “blue sky” to product launch. It might work like that in some instances where a new product is a variation of an established product or in organizations where the same team is inventing, developing, and working together to launch a new product. With additional experience the role of 3P in the full product development will likely expand. For companies new to Lean 3P, the question might be how 3P will integrate into existing product development processes.

A recent blog post, Applying Lean in the Lean 3P Design Process contains a written excerpt from the podcast.

I talked to Allan for a rather long time and had to shorten the podcast. I chose to cut his acknowledgments of several people that include Andy Johnson, Maria Stopher, Ken Rolfes and two former Business901 podcast guests, Drew Locher and Ron Masticelli. I apologize to any that he mentioned and I failed to here.

Allan’s Lean experience started while serving as Site Manager for ICI Uniqema’s largest Specialty Chemicals plant in North America and continued to expand is his role as Senior Director of Engineering for Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics. His passion for manufacturing and engaging people in continuous improvement continues to grow through personal application of Lean principles. Allan serves on the Delaware Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s Fiduciary and Advisory Boards, and is a member of the Delaware Business Mentoring Alliance. He is also a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME).

Using Internal Measurements for Customer Satisfaction

business901 — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 03:22:19 +0000

In a past Business901 podcast, Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi, we discussed Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different from the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview.

Recently I came across another subject, Measuring Customer Satisfaction, that Murali takes an unique position. This was basis for this podcast.

J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali Chemuturi

Opening Appreciative Space Process 2

business901 — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 18:49:46 +0000

Open Space Technology (OST) is an approach for hosting meetings, conferences, corporate-style retreats, symposium, and community summit events, focused on a specific and important purpose or task—but beginning without any formal agenda, beyond the overall purpose or theme.

I have become quite intrigued by this method and was first introduced to the concept several years ago by Jim Benson, co-author of Personal Kanban. You can even try it out by holding a Lean Coffee session of your own:

What is a Lean Coffee? Essentially, a Lean Coffee is a group of people working together to learn about lean in an informal setting. It’s like a mini-unconference where the participants decide on the schedule. The timeframe is typically one to two hours. The number of people is best between 6-8 but 4-10 works fine. One person facilitates these actions:.

Everybody writes down topics they’d like to discuss on stickies placing them in a column in the center of the table. Give as much time as needed, but typically takes only 3-5 minutes.

Each topic is briefly described by its writer (15-30 seconds typically per stickie).

Each person gets three votes which they indicate by marking the voted for stickie with a dot (they can put as many votes as they like on one stickie).

The top three stickies are placed in a new column, ordered by the stickies with the most votes at the top

Each of these stickies are discussed for 5-15 minutes. When the facilitator thinks the discussion has reached a good end-point she asks if everyone is complete. When complete move the stickie over into a new column that represents ‘done’. Repeat step until all done.

If enough time is left over, do another stickie or two.

Celebrate being done.

Lean Coffee Template on Google Docs

When is the last time you went to a conference and came away thinking the coffee breaks were the best part of it. The LSSC 2012 - Lean Systems Society conference this year held a day long Lean Camp before the 3-day conference which followed this open space type thinking. They also held the Lean Coffee sessions each morning of the conference. The only problem with doing that is that it made it extremely difficult to attend the morning keynote. The Lean Coffee was that engaging, and they never used my topic either.

In this podcast, John Steinbach follows up from yesterday’s podcast, Opening Appreciative Space Process 1 and his approaches with more discussion on the Open Space concepts.The process starts with Appreciative Inquiry; a positive approach to change that can be used by individuals, teams, organizations, and communities. Both of these podcast serve as great introduction to this ever-growing concept.

Coffee anyone?

Opening Appreciative Space Process 1

business901 — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 02:55:34 +0000

The energy and creative generated in the Appreciative Inquiry process is shapes the interaction in a dynamic Open Space session where participants generate the agenda for a series of working sessions where concrete actions are identified. This process has been used with small groups to organizations with thousands of members. This is part 1 of the 2-part podcast.

John Steinbach has combined the approaches of Appreciative Inquiry and Open Space into his dynamic and positive Opening Appreciative Space process .This process starts with Appreciative Inquiry; a positive approach to change that can be used by individuals, teams, organizations, and communities. Through an interview process that focuses on strengths and high-point experiences, Appreciative Inquiry helps participants discover and create a desired future. This dynamic and uplifting process has been used by Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, not-for-profit organizations, youth groups, world leaders, and communities.

John Steinbach has worked to Open Appreciative Space in a wide variety of organizations including GTE, Verizon, Hughes Electronics, Nationwide Insurance, Boeing, Raytheon, GE, Cardinal Health Systems, United Way, American Red Cross, Purdue Extensions services and dozens of non-profits, churches and youth-serving organizations.

John’s Website is http://www.jpconsultantsinc.com.

We want People to Go See for Themselves

business901 — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 16:16:25 +0000

“We want people to go see for themselves and come up with something new and innovative and learn from someone else, see how that could be applied to their own industry.” - Bob Petruska

Bob Petruska of Sustain Lean Consulting was my guest this week on the podcast. We discussed his new book, Gemba Walks for Service Excellence: The Step-by-Step Guide for Identifying Service Delighters. It is heavily illustrated and includes a CD of his innovative “placemats” designed to provide stepping stones on a development path for your team to achieve a competitive advantage. An excerpt from the podcast was published last week on the Business901 Blog, Gemba Walk for Service Excellence.

I am starting to see more books being published in Lean that are not just about applying Lean to services or customer facing problems. Instead, they are starting to address that deeper understanding between Lean and Customer Involvement. We seem to be at a crossroads that Lean is moving into the consumption and demand side of the value stream. The first inroads were made by Womack and Jones in Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together. In another podcast with Dan Jones(The Future of Lean with Dan Jones) , we discussed the reason for this.

‘80% of Companies believe they deliver a Superior Service, only 8% of Customers agree.’

- Bain and Companies

Lean Service Design Trilogy: Closing the Gaps between Perception and Reality: Preview the program

Lean Design interview with Mascitelli

business901 — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 02:30:01 +0000

Ron Mascitelli, president of Technology Perspectives and author of five books, his most-recent publication, Mastering Lean Product Development: A Practical, Event-Driven Process for Maximizing Speed, Profits, and Quality was my podcast guest this week.

One of Ron’s earlier books, The Lean Design Guidebook: Everything Your Product Development Team Needs to Slash Manufacturing Cost (The Lean Guidebook Series) was my bible through the years of product development in my manufacturing career.

Ron demonstrates his expertise through his concise and clear thoughts on Lean Design or whether you would like to call it Lean 3P or Lean Product Development. I was particularly impressed with his willingness to share both successes, failures and where he believes is the next step for improving Lean Design.

A written excerpt from the podcast is available in a recent blog post, Eliminate your Stage Gates in favor of Events.

Ron is a Project Management Professional, who has served as senior scientist and director of R&D for Hughes Aircraft Company and the Santa Barbara Research Center. Since founding Technology Perspectives in 1994, Ron has worked with over 100 leading companies worldwide to implement his highly practical approach to lean product development. Before his most recent publication, you might remember Ron from his popular book, The Lean Product Development Guidebook.

Have you considered the Lean Service Design Trilogy Workshop?

Achieving Organizational Health

business901 — Sun, 12 Aug 2012 20:14:18 +0000

The podcast with @KarenMartinOpEx highlights some not so popular subjects in many circles, planning and standard work. Karen Martin voices her opinion about these two controversial subjects while discussing how to Generate Business Results by Eliminating Chaos and Building the Foundation for Everyday Excellence, the subtitle to her new book The Outstanding Organization.

A written excerpt from the podcast is available in a recent blog post, Planning seems to be so Taboo.

Karen Martin (http://ksmartin.com) provides Lean transformation and business performance improvement support to industry, government, and the not-for-profit sector. Karen’s broad understanding of operations design and business management stems from her experience building the operational infrastructure for several rapid growth start-up operations that each grew into multi-billion dollar companies.

The Outstanding Organization website page ( http://www.ksmartin.com/the-outstanding-organization/) has a downloadable chapter, related webinars on the four key behaviors (Clarity, focus, Discipline, Engagement) and several downloadable documents that you will find to be excellent supporting material to the book.

Karen has been on the Business901 Podcast before discussing Holding Successful Kaizen Events. She co-authored The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service, and Technical Environments and was a developer of a favorite tool of mine, Metrics-Based Process Mapping: An Excel-Based Solution.

Process Thinking in Lean Services

business901 — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 13:02:12 +0000

This year I have made a considerable effort in researching and implementing a variety of Lean Service applications. It has come as a result of the work that I have done in Lean Marketing. Just about in every case, when a client came we have had to work in the area of services both internal and external at the beginning of the project. Most people and organizations, especially ones seeking help are not delivering on what they say they’re going to deliver. Lean Services is the quickest enabler of this delivery.

In my research, I came across Debashis “Deb” Sarkar. Deb is one of world’s leading lights in the space of service Lean. He has been researching, experimenting and working on how to successfully implement the Lean principles to service companies. Deb is also credited to have pioneered the enterprise-wide deployment of lean to service businesses in Asia in early 2000s.

Deb has led large number of Lean service transformations and his efforts have led to the pioneering contribution to service lean comprising: A) The DEB-LOREX™ model, B) holistic approach for service lean implementation and C) blueprint for 5S implementation in service companies. His work is encapsulated in books such as: Lean for Service Organizations and Offices: A Holistic Approach for Achieving Operational Excellence and Improvements and 5S for Service Organizations and Offices: A Lean Look at Improvements.

Deb sits on the global advisory board of Process Excellence Network and has held leadership positions in companies such as Unilever, Coca Cola and ICICI Bank. He currently holds the position of Senior Vice President – Organizational Excellence, Change and Finance Transformation at Standard Chartered Bank Scope International..

P.S. Don’t miss his upcoming book titled: Lessons in Lean Management – 53 Ideas to Transform Services (Westland) to be in the market by September 2012.

Related Information: Lean Service Design Trilogy Workshop

The Lean Concept of Respect for People

business901 — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:57:58 +0000

Someone recently asked me the best way to start Lean? Since it was on Twitter, and I only had 14 0 characters, I replied: “Best way 2 start #Lean? Practice Respect 4 People & Continuous Improvement after that it is all window dressing.” Now that I have an entire blog post to comment on, I believe a 140 characters was enough.

This podcast with David Veech (@leansights) is an excellent overview not only for beginners of Lean but seasoned practitioners. David has a knack of getting to the point, which he demonstrates in this excerpt, Can Standard Work be fun and lead to Enthusiasm?

David’s coaching focuses on people in organizations and how lean; leadership, and learning systems contribute to overall employee satisfaction and well-being. He delivers keynotes and seminars on topics related to leadership, problem solving, suggestion systems, employee involvement, team building, and creating satisfying workplaces. David will be part of the Lean Frontiers Lean HR Summit this year in San Antonio, TX.

Back to my point on the best way to start Lean? David addressed it at the end of our podcast.

Joe:

If you could leave the listeners with one message, what would that be?

David:

Well, a lot of people talk about respect for people, and you know that is one of the two over-arching drivers of the Toyota way, Respect for people and continuous improvement. We seem to pick up and get the continuous improvement piece, and we say that we respect our people.

We don’t really understand that whole concept and I would urge people to think about what it really means to show respect for someone else. When you choose because it is definitely a decision when you choose to show respect for your workforce then that is going to open up tremendous amounts of creative resources that will change the way you think about your work.

That will lead to a happy road down the way. It will make your work meaningful; it will make your work significant, and it will make your work special. Just by having a better relationship among the people with whom you work.

You can find David at The Lean Way. David is also a founding member of the Institute for Lean Systems and serves as its Executive Director. He is a faculty leader for Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business Executive Programs, and is a guest lecturer in The Ohio State University Fisher School of Business Masters program in Business Operational Excellence.

Finally, to focus on the fun part, David’s the owner of the Bluegrass Revolution, a professional team in the American Ultimate Disc League.

Related Information:

Lean Planning: We started off Looking at Work

Turning Leader Standard Work Upside Down

Lean Training and Simulation Tips

business901 — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:16:55 +0000

@JamieFlinchbaugh, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean discussing simulation games and how the Lean Learning Center designs and uses them. Jamie is an individual and the Lean Learning Center, an organization that practices what they preach, Lean. Jamie’s insightful responses are lessons for any trainer.

I encourage you to check out Jamie’s latest book, A3 Problem Solving: Applying Lean Thinking. I cannot think of how you could spend $7.50 better.

This is part of a series of blog posts outlined in A Lean Service Design Approach to Gaming your Training.

Storytelling with New Media

business901 — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 19:33:53 +0000

Transmedia Storytelling is a story experience both for and with an audience that unfolds over several media channels. Author Andrea Phillips provides a fantastic introduction in this podcast and in her new book, A Creator’s Guide to Transmedia Storytelling. A previous written excerpt can be found at, The Future of Simulation Games: Transmedia Storytelling.

Andrea Phillips is a transmedia writer and game designer who has worked on award-winning projects for clients such as HBO, Sony Pictures, and Channel 4 Education, plus original projects like Perplex City, Thomas Dolby’s Floating City, and the nonprofit human rights game America 2049. Her indie work includes Balance of Powers and the forthcoming Felicity.

The more you connect to your audience and the more you get them involved in the storytelling process, the more successful you will be. Transmedia isn’t the future, it is now. This is how you tell your story, touch your audience, and take your game to the next level.

This is part of a series of blog posts outlined in A Lean Service Design Approach to Gaming your Training.

Related Information: Storyboards The Disney Way Lean Six Sigma Storyboard

Why use a Lean Simulation Game?

business901 — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 12:57:51 +0000

The Lean Supply Chain & Logistics Simulation game was discussed in the podcast with Paul Myerson, author of author Lean Supply Chain and Logistics Management, a practical guide that will assist you in leveraging your improvements to both vendors and customers.

Why use a simulation game? As Paul says,

To be truly successful with Lean I think most people would agree that everybody has to be involved and understand that the concepts and the applications, so you always want to run as many people in your company through some kind of Lean training. The simulation is appropriate; I think, in the introductory types of setups where people might sit there and bored if they are listening to a lecture. This way, it gets them engaged. It’s a good team building approach to get them involved and see where it can really benefit them and the company and what their role in it is. So I find it to be very useful.

Paul’s Lean Supply Chain & Logistics Simulation says Enna, will help your company realize its goal of becoming more Lean, more agile, and take a lead over the competition. This is a hands-on simulation that demonstrates the effectiveness of Lean in the specialized context of the Supply Chain, Logistics, and Distribution environment.

This is part of a series of blog posts outlined in A Lean Service Design Approach to Gaming your Training.

Learning with Gamification

business901 — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 04:23:49 +0000

After reading The Gamification of Learning and Instruction by Dr. Karl Kapp, I felt that not only did I understand the Gaming world better, but was willing to take a stab at trying a few games on my own. Something the author recommends that we all do if we are serious about Gamification. I have already purchased two copies of the book sending the hard copy to a client and a Kindle version for me to use as a reference tool no matter where I may be. An excerpt from the podcast, Should you Gamify your Simulations?

I will forewarn you; it is not one of my shorter podcast.

About: Karl Kapp is a professor of instructional technology at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. He teaches a variety of courses to include game design and how to design learning courses and environments, Additionally, as the assistant director of Bloomsburg’s acclaimed Institute for Interactive Technologies (IIT), Dr. Kapp helps government, corporate, and non-profit organizations leverage learning technologies for employee productivity and organizational profitability. In his spare time, he has authored or co-authored four books on the convergence of learning and technology with his latest being The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.

You can find Karl on Twitter @kKapp or his blog, Kapp Notes.

This is part of a series of blog posts outlined in A Lean Service Design Approach to Gaming your Training.

Notes on the Service Design Summer Course

business901 — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 02:52:01 +0000

#ServiceDesign Teacher and Practitioner, Vincenzo Di Maria work focuses on socially responsive design and innovation ranging from products to services and experiences. He trained as a designer at Central St. Martin’s College of Art Design in London, where he’ll be running the Service Design Summer Course the first two weeks of August this year.

The podcast centered on Vincenzo teaching and the learning experience of the Summer Design Course and I believe you will find his methods truly unique. I thought that 2-weeks was an awful long time for business people to dedicate to a learning experience. This one, may be well worth it.

Vincenzo Di Maria is and co-founder of Common Ground, a service design firm working across Europe. Their work focuses on socially responsive design and innovation ranging from products to services and experiences. The Common Ground approach to design is holistic, playful and people-centred.

An excerpt from the podcast, The Two Worlds of Service Design.

Related Information:

Lean Service Design Workshop

Lean Service Design Trilogy Workshop

At the Crossroads of Economics, Society, Culture & Technology is…

business901 — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:35:26 +0000

#ServiceDesign Specialist @sly or more formally Sylvain Cottong has worked extensively at these crossroads and as an early Internet evangelist, he has been advising governments & companies on strategies for the networked society. He lives & works in Luxembourg and Berlin. An excerpt of the podcast can be read at An Economist who practices Service Design.

His areas of interest and expertise are:

Leadership and innovation management
Service innovation
Business model innovation
Social business & enterprise 2.0
Intellectual capital management & learning organizations
Complexity management, trendwatching, backcasting & forecasting
Customer experience management, service dominant logic & social CRM
Design management, service design & user experience design

Sylvain’s breadth of knowledge in these fields is extraordinary. Though we just grazed the surface, I think you will find the discussion quite insightful.

Where you can find Sylvain:

strategybuilders.eu: A Luxembourg based network of international consultants.
projetspublics.lu: A Luxembourg based public sector innovation consultancy.
nectar: A Berlin based user experience design & service innovation agency.
integratetplace: A design consultancy specializing in 3 dimensional design & urban communication
Member of the Internet of Things Council (http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/),
Care To Design healthcare service design collective (http://caretodesign.com/)
New Club of Paris (http://www.new-club-of-paris.org/).

The Pull in Lean Construction

business901 — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 02:33:28 +0000

Gregory A. Howell, co-founder and managing director of the Lean Construction Institute (LCI), a non-profit organization devoted to production management research in design and construction. A popular speaker, educator and author Howell regularly addresses industry groups on the need for a lean production revolution in design and construction. His expertise in improving productivity has resulted in consulting engagements on power plants, petro-chemical facilities, commercial and industrial buildings, and infrastructure projects in North and South America and Africa.

Being the project management fanatic that I am, we centered most of our discussion on The Lean Project Delivery System™ (LPDS) and The Last Planner. LPDS uses lean methods to provide improved project control. The decentralization of decision and the empowerment of the people that are in direct contact with the work are the key components of the work. Many of us will think there is nothing new; this is what we have all been talking about the last few years. The revelation I had is that Greg has been doing this for 20 years. Lean and the construction industry are both fortunate to have Greg as a leader of this movement. Enjoy the podcast!

Related Information

Do You Know the Right Job For Your Products?

A Good Architect is an enabling Orchestra Leader,

Creating Lead Measures with Kanban

Turning your Conference Learning into Action

The Next Step in Cloud Computing–Humans

business901 — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:24:11 +0000

Tom left me thinking about the cloud and the possibilities in a totally different way. It’s not about technology. It’s about how we collaborate, work, influence and experience the world!

Thomas Koulopoulos, author of Cloud Surfing: A New Way to Think About Risk, Innovation, Scale and Success (Social Century) is my guest in this Thursday podcast. His work has been praised by luminaries such as Peter Drucker and Tom Peters, who called his writing, “a brilliant vision of where we must take our enterprises to survive and thrive.” And according to the late Peter Drucker, Tom’s writing “makes you question not only the way you run your business but the way you run yourself.”

I ask Tom in the podcast, “Who is going to read his book? He replied; It’s not meant for the technologist. It’s not a book about technology. It’s for the businessperson who wants to understand how they can better leverage these new behaviors in the Cloud. It’s for us as individuals, who will need to, in very little ways, be able to surf this tsunami of connections.” Tom is correct; however, he may be too modest. I believe the technologist will enjoy the book tremendously as they see their craft humanized in a way that may cause a little reflection of their own.

About Thomas Koulopoulos: The author of eight books and founder of Delphi Group, a 20-year-old Boston-based think tank, which was named one of the fastest growing private companies in the US by Inc. Magazine. Delphi provides advice on innovation practices and methods to Global 2000 organizations and government agencies. He is also an Executive in Residence at Bentley University, the past Executive Director of the Babson College Center for Business Innovation, and past Executive Director of the Perot Systems Innovation Lab, which was acquired in 2009 by Dell Computer.

Related Information:

Worry about Security in Cloud?

Does Lean create Innovative Companies?

Defining Lean IT with Steve Bell

Process Control Thoughts from the Poppendiecks

Engaging Front-Line Staff with Kaizen

business901 — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:27:18 +0000

Joe Swartz and Mark Graban co-authors of Healthcare Kaizen: Engaging Front-Line Staff in Sustainable Continuous Improvements were my guests on the Business901podcast. You can read an excerpt from the podcast, Engaging People in Healthcare with Kaizen. The book focuses on the methods of daily continuous improvement, or “Kaizen,” for healthcare professionals and organizations.

I would encourage others outside of the Healthcare field to listen to the podcast. We discussed many of the problems found by all of us in the implementation of continuous improvement programs and a few particular to the healthcare field. However, as more flex time is built into the workplace, the issues of multiple shifts and extended time off, for example, will not just be issues that are wrestled with by Healthcare professionals.

Joseph E. Swartz has been leading continuous improvement efforts for 18 years, including 7 years in healthcare, and has led more than 200 Lean and Six Sigma improvement projects. He is currently the Director of Business Transformation for Franciscan St. Francis Health in Indianapolis, IN.

Mark Graban is the author of Lean Healthcare and has worked as a consultant and coach to healthcare organizations throughout the world. He serves as a faculty member at the Lean Enterprise Institute and is also the Chief Improvement Officer for KaiNexus, a startup software company that helps healthcare organizations manage continuous improvement efforts. Mark writes the immensely popular Lean Blog, which has not only a focus on Healthcare but touches upon all things Lean.

Related Information:

PDCA from the Outside-in

Transforming Healthcare with Lean eBook

Story of Going Lean in Healthcare: On the Mend

Mark Graban of the Lean Blog discusses Lean Healthcare

Process Control Thoughts from the Poppendiecks

business901 — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 20:14:42 +0000

At #LSSC!12, I had a chance to listen to Mary Poppendieck’s talk on, Continuous Feedback: Process Control for Developing Software-Intensive Systems. I had a few questions afterwards that developed into an entire podcast.

Mary Poppendieck has been in the Information Technology industry for over thirty years. She has managed solutions for companies in several disciplines, including supply chain management, manufacturing systems, and digital media. As a seasoned leader in both operations and new product development, she brings a practical, customer-focused approach to software development problems.

Tom Poppendieck is an enterprise analyst and architect, and an agile process mentor. He focuses on identifying real business value and enabling product teams to realize that value. Tom specializes in understanding customer processes and in effective collaboration of customer, development and support specialists to maximize development efficiency, system flexibility, and business value.

Our conversation also spurred these thoughts that I expressed in a recent post, Time Based Thinking limits Lean Sales and Marketing.

Related Information:

Turning your Conference Learning into Action

Does Lean create Innovative Companies?

Defining Lean IT with Steve Bell.

Lean Kanban lessons from a Software Developer

An Innovation Junkie Interviewed

business901 — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 19:11:56 +0000

Saul Kaplan (@skap5), the author of The Business Model Innovation Factory: How to Stay Relevant When The World is Changing was my guest on the podcast. Saul is an innovation junkie! He is the founder and chief catalyst of the Business Innovation Factory (BIF), a real-world laboratory for exploring and testing new business models and social systems.

BIF has attracted a global community of over 5,000 innovators and organizes the internationally renowned BIF Collaborative Innovation Summit. Saul shares his innovation musings on Twitter (@skap5) and his blog (It’s Saul Connected), and as regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Fortune, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

What others said about the book:

Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New Mind: To be competitive and stay competitive in today’s business environment, you have to be fast on your feet Saul Kaplan knows how to take innovation from napkin sketch to market share, and in this book he teaches you exactly how to create your own ‘innovation factory’ from scratch. But be careful - once you start working with these ideas, it might be hard to stop!

Tony Hsieh, author of Delivering Happiness and CEO of Zappos.com, Inc.: Saul gets below the buzzwords of innovation and provides an inspiring and actionable roadmap to help transform how any organization creates, delivers and captures value. The Business Model Innovation Factory is a must read for any leader who wants to deliver innovation in the 2lst century.

A written excerpt from the book: Can a Mature Company Risk Experimentation?

Related Information:

What’s New in Business Model Generation?

Do You Know the Right Job For Your Products?

Practical Approach to Innovation used by Disney

A Platform for Teaching Design Thinking

business901 — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 16:17:40 +0000

Dr. Charles Burnette created iDeSIGN, a Design Thinking course for children. He freely shares this information on his website idesignthinking.com. The program began with a university course, Design With Kids, that placed design students in classrooms to help teachers conduct design projects related to their teaching goals.

Our podcast discussed teaching Design Thinking to both children and adults. In a recent blog post, A Teaching Resource for Design Thinking, I discussed the seven principles of Dr. Charles Burnette’s IDeSiGN.

I stands for intending
D stands for Defining.
e stands for Exploring
S stands for Suggesting
i stands for Innovating
G stands for Goal getting
N stands for kNowing

Charles Burnette received his BA, MA and PhD degrees from the University of Pennsylvania where he was also a Research Associate doing research on the uses of information during design. A licensed, award winning architect, he became Director of the Philadelphia AIA, founding Director of the Center for Planning Design and Construction in Philadelphia, and Dean of the School of Architecture, University of Texas at Austin. He returned to teaching to become the Director of the Industrial Design Department at the University of the Arts, both while co-directing the Design Based Education K-12 Program. The graduate program was conceived and implemented to explore the design thinking model and to demonstrate its potential in a computer support system for interdisciplinary design.

Dr. Burnette has been a frequent speaker in European design schools and at the European Union’s Cumulus Program on Design Education, and is widely published on topics such as design management, design systems, ecological design and design education. He is now writing a book about the design model, its foundations in cognitive science and its application.

Related Information:

A Short Course in Design Thinking

Sketching an important Leadership Tool

When it comes to creativity, give me a 5 year old!

GE CMO sheds her view on Design Thinking

A Strength Based approach to Lean and Six Sigma

business901 — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 22:24:16 +0000

Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma is a radically different way to approach LSS. It uses various strength-based approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry. David Shaked of Almond-Insight is a Master Black Belt formerly with a large global corporation (Johnson & Johnson). Building on a recent podcast, Mastering Positive Change with Sarah Lewis, David and I take that conversation into Lean and Six Sigma thinking. David has specific experience in transactional processes such as sales, marketing, finance, order fulfillment, customer services, distribution, demand forecasting.

I have blogged recently, An Appreciative look at the Seven Signs of Value (Waste), about some of David’s work and a workshop in Toronto the week of June 18th that he will be conducting.

Related Information:

Using Desired Effects to find Root Cause

The Starting Point for Lean Sales and Marketing

Lean Marketers concentrate on SOAR vs. SWOT

Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving

Extending Lean Supply Chain Thinking

business901 — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 23:38:39 +0000

Lean Supply Chain and Logistics Management is a a practical guide that will assist you in leveraging your improvements to make both vendors and customers smile! Paul Myerson is my guest and the author of the aforementioned book. Paul explains many components of Lean but in a unique way that allows you to apply that knowledge to actual use. The book is well suited for the Supply Chain expert that wants to apply Lean and for the Lean expert that wants to apply his knowledge to the supply chain.

Listening to the podcast should give you a sample of Paul’s breadth of knowledge. A written excerpt was in a recent Business901 blog post, Is forecasting the pull for a Lean Supply Chain?.

About: Paul Myerson has been a successful change catalyst for clients and organizations of all sizes. He has more than 25 years of experience in supply chain strategies, systems, and operations that have resulted in bottom-line improvements for companies such as General Electric, Unilever, and Church and Dwight. He is currently Managing Partner at Logistics Planning Associates, LLC, a supply chain planning software and consulting business (www.psjplanner.com).

Related Information:

Theory of Constraints Supply Chain Thinking

Is there a compatible future for Lean and MRP?

Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP

Transforming your Supply Chain to a Lean Fulfillment Stream eBook

Using Desired Effects to find Root Cause

business901 — Mon, 28 May 2012 19:15:42 +0000

Since being introduced to Appreciative Inquiry by Ankit Patel principal partner with The Lean Way Consulting, I have used it quite extensively. Starting with visioning positive outcomes and working backwards to find a way to achieve these many times uncovers root causes of existing problems. I find conflicting viewpoints of this process with many Lean and Six Sigma practitioners but I could safely say the majority are very skeptical.

In a recent podcast with Matt Wrye, Developing a Learning A3 I uncovered that he was a a certified Shainin Red X Journeyman. If you are not familiar with Shainan, don’t feel alone. Shainin is probably one of the least known structured problem solving methodology. It has always intrigued me because of its approach of focusing on the Effect to find the Cause (Y to X) versus the traditional X to Y. The traditional way of problem solving (X to Y) list potential causes or variables (Xs or CTQs) through brainstorming and engineering judgment then test to see if the Xs have an effect on the Y.

From Wikipedia:

Dorian Shainin’s development of the “Red X” concept originated from his association with Joseph Juran. In the 1940s Juran coined and popularized the notion of “the vital few and trivial many,” also known as “The Pareto Principle. Shainin recognized that the Pareto principle could be applied effectively to the solving of variation problems. Shainin concluded that, amongst the thousands of variables that could cause a change in the value of an output, one cause-effect relationship had to be stronger than the others. Shainin called this primary cause the “Big Red X”.

Shainin asserted that his application of statistical methods was more cost-effective and simpler than Taguchi methods. In order to determine the “Red X,” Shainin would swap pairs of parts between functional and faulty equipment until the one part responsible for the failure is discovered. Shainin would claim that he could often find the primary defective part within a dozen paired swaps.

Shainin’s policy of “talking to the parts” was the primary distinguishing factor that set his methods apart from Taguchi’s. In classical or Taguchi DOE (Design of Experiments), engineers would brainstorm to form hypotheses regarding possible causes of a problem. Shainin’s methods postpone this theoretical step, requiring first the diagnosis of causes via one or more of four clue generation techniques designed to determine, through the empirical testing of the actual parts in question, the root cause, or “Red X”.

Matt offered me a brief overview of Shainin in this interview.

I find the Shainin approach very closely resembling an Appreciative Inquiry approach. However, it is backed with a much stronger statistical analysis that may be better suited for some. Shainin’s approach may offer the bridge needed in the rapid changing world we live in. Shainin’s policy of “talking to the parts” could be the statistical alternative needed for Lean Sales and Marketing. “playing in the customer’s playground.”

P.S. In Shainin DOE, it is said: “We talk to the parts. The parts and process are smarter than the engineers.” In Lean Sales and Marketing via SD-Logic (The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing by Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch); we must co-create value with a customer through use. There is no value from our product or service till they are used.

Related Information:

The Starting Point for Lean Sales and Marketing

Lean Marketers concentrate on SOAR vs. SWOT

If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts!

Root Cause Analysis of Success

Behind every Decision to Buy..

business901 — Mon, 28 May 2012 00:36:42 +0000

Behind every decision to buy–whether the item is a service or a product, an argument or an idea–is an unspoken emotional motivation. This is the hidden agenda.

Says Kevin Allen, author of the book called The Hidden Agenda: A Proven Way to Win Business and Create a Following. Kevin was my guest on the Business901 podcast and I believe you will find the master storyteller entertaining and a wealth of information.

Kevin worked with the McCann World Group, the Interpublic Group, and Lowe Worldwide, where he helped gain Ad Age’s recognition as “Turnaround Agency of the Year” in 2009. He has spent 25 years in advertising and was a key developer of the now iconic Priceless campaign for MasterCard.

An excerpt of the podcast can be found on a recent Business901 blog post, Can you name your target audience in two words?

Kevin can be found on the web at Kevin Allen Partners.

Related Information:

Business Processes as Value Networks

The Role of PDCA in a Lean Sales and Marketing Cycle

There is no Team in Kaizen

Improve Communication – Have more meetings?

An Uncommon Way of thinking about Service Design

business901 — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:01:25 +0000

Service Design Thinking: Anne Morriss, the best‑selling co‑author of Uncommon Service says,

We live in a world where lots of organizations want to deliver great service. We work with managers all the time, who are committed to it. Customers, as we know, are hungry for it, and yet, our service experiences are still overwhelmingly negative. In pursuing this question, what became clear is that past excellence is not necessarily intuitive. It’s not about trying harder, deciding the customer is always right. It’s more about making careful design choices and very deliberate trade‑offs. There are some surprising rules and pitfalls along the way. We wanted to get some of those insights out in the world because we think, basically, the world is ready for it.

This is an excerpt from the Business901 podcast with Anne. We discusse the four universal truths outlined in the book for delivering uncommon service:

You can’t be good at everything.
Someone has to pay for it.
It’s not your employees’ fault.
You must manage your customers

Download Podcast: Click and choose options: Download Here or go to the Business901 iTunes Store.

The book’s website is an excellent resource and I encourage you to take the survey and utilize the Service Design Tool located there. This is a very challenging perspective for most of us. However, I think you will find the information to be well researched and presented in a compelling fashion.

Related Information:

The Lean Business Practices of a Deli

Has Lean Thinking fallen short on the Demand Side?

Will someone pay for Intangible Value?

In love with your products more than your customers?

Developing a Learning A3

business901 — Mon, 21 May 2012 12:39:22 +0000

Matt Wrye is a Lean Implementer that has a passion for continuous learning on all subjects related to business and lean. He is the author of the popular blog “Beyond Lean,” which centers on evolving leadership and changing business.

Our discussion center on his development of a Learning A3. From his blog post Learning A3:

A3s are used for solving problems, developing proposals and everything else. Why not for laying out a plan to show what people are expected to learn during a project or coaching session. Layout a standard or plan so expectations and progress becomes visible.

Below are several formats for your use. I recommend viewing one before or during listening to the podcast.

Learning A3 Example PDF

Learning A3 Blank Template PDF

Learning A3 Blank Excel Template

About Matt: Matt has a Bachelor of Science degree from Purdue University in Industrial Engineering. Among his other accomplishments are Lean Principles and Kaizen Certification from Lean Learning Center, Lean Coach/Mentor, Proficient in Lean tools and concepts, Shainin Red X Certified Journey and Master Candidate, and a ProModel Simulation Software expert. He is proud to have played a large and significant role in starting the Smith County Lean Consortium in Tyler, TX.

Related Information:

Turning your Conference Learning into Action

A Short Course in Design Thinking

4 Disciplines of Execution – Lean Simplified

Why A3, Why Now in Lean Thinking?

Individual Lean, the Root Cause of Success?

business901 — Sat, 12 May 2012 21:12:13 +0000

Can the principles of Lean be applied to your daily life? Dan Markovitz, founder and owner of TimeBack Management certainly thinks so. He has developed a consultancy specializing in improving individual and organizational performance through the application of lean concepts. Dan has backed up his claim in his latest book, A Factory of One: Applying Lean Principles to Banish Waste and Improve Your Personal Performance. Dan feels Lean can be just as powerful for yourself as it for organizations.

After talking to Dan, I reviewed the 5 basic principles of Lean:

Identify Value
Map Value Stream
Create Flow
Establish Pull
Seek Perfection

I certainly found an interesting relation to how I apply them from an organizational standpoint and how I could use them to improve my day. Dan gave a few tips and encouraged me to find the root cause of several of my most nagging problems. I can’t say the choices were easy but I was certainly able to address them and make decisions accordingly. Now, if I can only sustain it!!!

I reviewed the book in this blog post: How do you handle inputs into your life? and there is a written excerpt from the podcast, Can you Lean yourself?.

Related Information:

Jim Benson’s Personal Kanban

Successful Lean teams are iTeams

Kaizen is Always Individual

4 Disciplines of Execution – Lean Simplified

Is Lean Thinking Futuristic?

business901 — Mon, 07 May 2012 14:11:16 +0000

I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the noted experts in the Lean Community, Dan Jones. Dan is a management thought leader and advisor on applying lean, process thinking to every type of business across the world. He is the founding Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy www.leanuk.org in the UK, dedicated to pushing forward the frontiers of lean thinking and helping others with its implementation.

Daniel Jones is the co-author, with James P Womack, of the influential, best-selling management books:

The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production

Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated

Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together

Seeing the Whole Value Stream.

Dan will not disappoint you in this podcast. Though he is firmly rooted in the principles of Lean, you may be surprised by his forward-thinking and interpretation. An excerpt can be read in this blog post, The Challenge of Lean with Dan Jones.

Related Information:

Has Lean Thinking fallen short on the Demand Side?

Thinking Back from the Customer –Lean Summit 2011

4 Disciplines of Execution – Lean Simplified

Defining the Roles of Lean IT

Insight into the Customer Experience through Theater

business901 — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 19:50:07 +0000

At Work•Play•Experience Adam St. John (aka Adam Lawrence) turns good services into memorable service experiences that start people talking. Adam says, “Your customers will feel better served, will appreciate the value of your work, and will be more loyal to your company. And they will have great service stories to share with the world.” In the Business901 podcast this week, Adam and I discusses the theatrical aspect of service design and how theater can play a vital role in developing your customer experience.

An excerpt from the podcast is located here: The Show Business side of Service Design.

Adam is a professional comedian, business consultant and writer with a background in psychology and the automotive industry. For years he has been using expertise gained in the world of theater and film to help companies influence their customers.

Related Information:

Gamestorming for Service Design

Service Design via a Design Thinker ebook

Do you co-create value with your Customer?

A Service Design Thinking Primer

Defining Lean IT with Steve Bell

business901 — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:39:42 +0000

The Business901 podcast guest this week is Steve Bell, the founder of Lean IT Strategies LLC. Steve is a Lean Enterprise Institute faculty member, Shingo Research Prize winning author, and Lean IT pioneer. A recent blog post, When Standard Work and Customer Focus come together contains an excerpt from the podcast.

In the podcast we started out focusing on Lean IT but it evolved into a much broader discussion. Steve has a knack of taking the complicated and making it simple. A rare quality that I typically find only in the most knowledgeable practitioners. This podcast is suited for anyone thinking about continuous improvement.

For more than twenty five years, Steve Bell has delivered a balance of Lean, business process improvement, and management consulting services. Steve published Lean Enterprise Systems: Using IT for Continuous Improvement helping to introduce the emerging discipline of Lean IT. Steve and his partner Mike Orzen later published Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation.

Steve is on of the keynotes at the upcoming, North American Lean IT Summit, bringing together a community of lean and agile practitioners and thought leaders from around the globe.

Related Information:

Lean Marketers concentrate on SOAR vs. SWOT

Will the Mvp crush the Lean Startup?

Lean Thinking: Prototype early and often

The Aroma of a Good Vision

business901 — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:27:27 +0000

Ari Weinzweig, CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman’s in Ann Arbor, MI continues to share the “secrets” that have helped take Zingerman’s from a 25-seat, 4-person start up to a nationally known, $40,000,000-organization employing over 500 people.

In this Business901 podcast, Ari discusses his latest book A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Being a Better Leader. The book includes “Secrets #19-29″ of the Zingerman’s Experience, including essays on the Energy Crisis in the American Workplace, Servant Leadership, Stewardship, why everyone’s a leader, Zingerman’s Entrepreneurial Approach to management, and Ari’s approach to Anarcho-Capitalism.

In the book series, Zingerman’s Guide to Good Leading, part 1 offered up the “secrets” behind Building a Great Business, and now part 2, takes a look at the leadership style that has helped make Zingerman’s such a special place to work and to eat. While everything in the book draws on what Ari and others have learned and live at Zingerman’s over the three decades since the Deli first opened back in 1982, all of the material is totally applicable to organizations of all sizes and scopes—it is, as Ari says in the introduction, leading towards a new way to work.

Related Information:

How Zing Training Started! -

PDCA Cycle of Zingerman’s Deli

Continuous Improvement Sales and Marketing Toolset

In love with your products more than your customers?

Mastering Positive Change

business901 — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:29:08 +0000

Sara Lewis, the Managing Director of Appreciating Change, a psychological change consultancy focused on helping leaders and managers achieve positive change in their organizations was my podcast guest. 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 for Change Management: Using AI to Facilitate Organizational Development .

This is an outstanding addition to the series of Business901 podcasts on Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Change. Sarah works closely with the client to ensure partnership and ownership, we bring expertise in psychology and in social change methodologies such as Appreciative Inquiry, Open Space and World Café. All of these approaches help reduce resistance to change and the need to create ‘buy-in’, rather people co-create the change of which they will be part. This message resonates throughout the podcast.

This year Appreciating Change has begun offering a series of Masterclass workshops to give people the chance to learn directly from Sarah’s experience in the field of Positive Psychology and particularly the use of Appreciative Inquiry in the workplace. These run every 3 months and alternate between a Masterclass aimed at fellow practitioners, which is tailored to those who have some experience and understanding of the theory behind organizational change already, and a Masterclass aimed at leaders in organizations which is more aimed at helping them use this learning in their management of the organization.

Transforming Lean thru Middle Managers

business901 — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:39:50 +0000

My guest on the Business901 podcast this week was Paul Yandell of Value Stream Focus and we discussed one of my favorite topics – Middle Management. Paul Yandell, led a lean transformation that won the 2007 Pacific Northwest Silver Medallion Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing. Business Week called the Shingo Prize the “Nobel Prize for Manufacturing”.

A recent blog post of mine, Can Lean be driven by Middle Management? contains an excerpt of the podcast. Paul has a proven record of leadership developing and implementing world-class lean manufacturing operations and supply chain across multiple industries that reduce cost, improve service, and enhance new product implementation.

About: 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 growth situations, building and leading teams in total quality environments and he is bilingual (Spanish).

Related Information:

Does ROWE solve some Lean problems?

An Appreciative Look at the World

The Uniqueness of Hoshin Kanri

Is your Organizational Culture limiting you?

Tricks from the Trenches on applying Hoshin Kanri

business901 — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 18:00:59 +0000

Anthony Manos is a Catalyst with Profero, Inc., where he provides professional consulting services, implementation, coaching and training to a wide variety of organizations, large and small, private and public, in many industries focusing on Lean Enterprise and Lean Healthcare. Mr. Manos has extensive knowledge of Lean and quality in a wide range of work environments.

Anthony was my guest on the Business901 podcast and we discussed the application of Hoshin Kanri. Since Hoshin Kanri first appeared in the late 1960s, it has become a management system for companies to establish annual policy, pass it down through their organizations and implement it across all departments and functions.Hoshin Kanri is different from what most people think of as strategic planning.

It goes far beyond the typical strategic planning process and implementation.

Mr Manos says, “Hoshin Kanri is for organizations looking for a method to create a thoughtful plan for the future. In addition to helping other organizations learn and apply Hoshin Kanri principles, the company I work for has applied Hoshin Kanri principles for its own operations.” Here is some practical advice and “tricks from the trenches” that might help you and your organization move forward:

Anthony is the co-author of the book Lean Kaizen: A Simplified Approach to Process Improvements and author of many articles on Lean and its allied subjects. He wrote the script for SME’s DVD Total Productive Maintenance Blitz and is the co-editor of ASQ’s upcoming Lean Handbook. He writes commentary on Lean in his blog: blog.5Ssupply.com.

Related Information:

Lean Canvas for Lean EDCA-PDCA-SDCA

Value Chain Thinking is not Rocket Science

The use of Hansei in Lean Sales and Marketing

Does Lean solve some problems for ROWE?

business901 — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 23:08:01 +0000

David Kasprzak, of the popular blog, My Flexible Pencil discussed ROWE in the Business901 podcast this week. ROWE is a concept developed by Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler, co-authors of the book, Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It: The Results-Only Revolution. ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. It is a revolutionary new way of working that gives employees more responsibility and accountability for their work and the way they do it.

Are Lean/Six Sigma and ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) complimentary, or competing, approaches to workplace transformation? Both place a heavy emphasis on value and the elimination of any activities that don’t produce that value. Lean, however, advocates an engaged management that is able to “go to Gemba.” In gemba, leaders can observe where value is created in order to find waste and identify areas for improvement. ROWE, however, places a heavy emphasis on worker autonomy and freedom, as long as the Results are achieved. This could lead to the Gemba being anywhere and everywhere, especially for knowledge workers. Listen to the podcast as we attack issues such as this.

About David Kasprzak: While working as a cost & schedule analyst, I realized that the sources of either good or poor performance usually rested in the habits, practices and mindsets of both the leadership and the led. As a result, I began to explore the “people side” of performance. On this blog, David addresses both workplace and family situations by applying ideas derived from Lean, ROWE, Project Management, Organizational Behavior and my Master’s-Level education in Political Science and Business Administration.

P.S. Last week, I asked, Does ROWE solve some Lean problems?

More information about Dave and Rowe can be found: ROWE, Lean and the Shingo Model “Results Only” means “Value Only”

Death of List Price

business901 — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:45:57 +0000

Rob Doctors, lead author of the book, Contextual Pricing: The Death of List Price and the New Market Reality was my guest on the Business901 Podcast. Rob believes that pricing decisions need to be driven by customer context rather than simple list prices. Pricing is more than just an issue of margin and production costs, but rather a complex set of contextually factors best defined as an outcome. In the podcast, we discussed the outcome of four contextual factors:

Situation
Objectives
Perception
Capabilities

An excerpt from the podcast:

Joe: If I need to change my pricing structure and look at contextual pricing, what would be the compelling reason for me to go that direction, right now?

Rob: Better margins in a nutshell. Because, think about it, once you’ve set a list price, the traditional way of doing it. It’s really tough for anyone in your organization to sell above that list price. I’ve set a list price on, whatever, my plastic clam shells for holding food in a supermarket. The next moment a customer runs in saying “Rush order, rush order, I desperately need clam shells. I’ll pay you a million dollars per clam shell!” You look in your book and you say “I’m sorry. I can only charge you $0.30 for this clamshell because that’s our list price.” You immediately cut off the benefits by setting a list price.

Related Information:

The Other Half of the Lean and Sales Marketing Summit

How Lucky are you with Pricing?

Contextual Pricing Book Review

My Engagement Strategy – Appreciative Inquiry

People & Process Drive Profit

business901 — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:25:36 +0000

Vivian Hairston Blade, Founder, President & CEO of Experts in Growth Leadership Consulting, LLC (EiGL Consulting, LLC) based in Louisville, KY was my podcast guest. Vivian is a recognized expert, keynote speaker, trainer and executive coach in the principles of Customer Experience, Lean Six Sigma and Leadership Development. With a 20+ year career in Fortune 100 companies, General Electric and Humana, Inc., Vivian has extensive experience in successfully leading the development and execution of customer centered, quality-based, growth business strategies.

Through EiGL Consulting, Vivian has helped clients achieve direct cost savings and productivity by more than 10%, implement customer loyalty and customer service programs, and has coached and trained hundreds of professionals in customer experience implementation and leadership skill development. Her articles have been published in many professional, industry and business publications.

EiGL Consulting is WBENC, TSMSDC and SBA-WOSB certified, accredited by the Better Business Bureau, and is a member of Greater Louisville, Inc. Vivian’s website is: http://eiglconsulting.com/

Related Information:

Is Lean still on the Wagon or is it Ready to Fly?

Cohesiveness of People and Process drives Profit

Blending Appreciative Inquiry and Continuous Improvement

Six Sources of Influence in Change

Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success .

An Inquiry into the Meaning of Making

business901 — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 03:59:43 +0000

This Business901 Podcast featured Seung Chan Lim, nicknamed SLIM. We discussed his journey and finally his project, Realizing Empathy. Through this project Slim hopes to share ideas, tools, and other ways to facilitate a meaningful, sustainable, and constructive conversations between and among diverse perspectives whether that’s between people or between people and materials or between people and machines by using “making” as the shared metaphor.

Realizing Empathy is a project that asks what it means to make something, how it works as a process, and why it matters to our lives. Slim believe that making is a process that is shared across cultures and disciplines. Slim told me, “People use different words like “experimenting”, “painting”, “acting”, “directing”, “dancing”, “choreographing”, “writing”, “translating”, “crafting”, etc… but what I have found is that the underlying principles are identical. Not only that, but there’s a direct line of connection between making and empathizing, which is at the heart of how we form meaningful relationship with everything we come in contact with.”

You will find this podcast very different and one of the most engaging podcast that I have had.

If you find what Slim says intriguing, please take a look at his websites;

Website: http://realizingempathy.com/

Facebook: http://facebook.com/realizempathy/

Blog: http://realizingempathy.posterous.com/

What did Slim do before this project? For about 10 years, Slim was a computer scientist / interaction designer at MAYA Design where he last served as the Assistant Director of Engineering. Half the time, he helped fortune 500 companies design innovative products and services, and half the time he worked on both human-computer interaction and software systems research. Then he decided to take an art class.

Related Information:

Framing the Act of Innovation, as an Act of Empathizing

Side Effects of our Desires and Abilities to Empathize

Connecting Continuous Improvement and Appreciative Inquiry

A Good Architect is an enabling Orchestra Leader,

Is Appreciative Inquiry the next step for Continuous Improvement?

business901 — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:41:51 +0000

Ankit Patel, principal partner with The Lean Way Consulting firm while doing some work with the Cleveland Clinic, discovered Appreciative Inquiry and saw an opportunity to blend it with his work in Continuous Improvement. I found the work fascinating and this is the subject of this Business901 podcast. An excerpt of the podcast can be found on this blogpost, Connecting Continuous Improvement and Appreciative Inquiry.

Ankit told me before the podcast, “The basic concept is use AI as the starting point (in the case of the ppt. it’s the starting point to a strategic initiative) and then go into the traditional tools once there is a “pull” from staff on what they want to become. It’s a great way to do strategy and other process improvements. Basically the best way I’ve seen to introduce changes via an AI methodology and then go into the specifics, strategy, process improvement, etc.”

More about Ankit Patel: Ankit was a Lean consultant for Dell Inc. overseeing Dell’s Manufacturing and Re-Manufacturing production processes in Lebanon, TN. He has helped guide the multi- billion dollar plant in strategic planning, coaching executives at the plant, facilitating Kaizen events, and training Lean leaders at all levels of the organization. Ankit combines a unique approach of positive psychology, culture improvements, strategy, and process improvement to get companies results. His latest venture is in bringing Appreciative Inquiry to the field of continuous improvement.

Related Information

Lean Engagement Team Book Released

Appreciative Inquiry and Organizational Change

My Engagement Strategy – Appreciative Inquiry

Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative

business901 — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 02:56:39 +0000

“Man, they said we better Accentuate the positive Eliminate the negative Latch on to the affirmative Don’t mess with Mister In-Between No, do not mess with Mister In-Between Do you hear me, hmm? The music was written by Harold Arlen and the lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and it was published in 1944.

You wonder why it has taken organizations this long to follow this approach. My podcast guest, Sara Orem, co-author of Appreciative Coaching: A Positive Process for Change (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) expanded on this in the podcast:

Lions and tigers and bears. We lived in caves and there were wild animals and there were maybe not an ever present danger but there was an often present danger so we were wired to look for danger. The worrier in us will look for danger in the fact that we didn’t get a raise or we’ll look for danger in the fact that our significant other didn’t say good morning to us. We are negative beings and to some degree that’s also genetic.

Sara L.Orem, Ph.D. has twenty years of management experience and fifteen years management consulting in and to major financial services companies in the U. S., Britain and Australia. Her current focus is on the development and use of positive methods including Appreciative Inquiry in coaching and group processes. Appreciative Coaching describes in detail the method Sara has developed for her coaching practice which serves women and men looking at self-started transitions.

P.S. My favorite rendition of the song is a Bette Midler & Bing Crosby rendition.

Appreciative Inquiry (sometimes shortened to “AI”) is primarily an organizational development method which seeks to engage all levels of an organization by taking an “asset-based approach.” It starts with the belief that every organization, and every person in that organization, has positive aspects that can be built upon. It asks questions like “What’s working well?”, “What’s good about what you are currently doing?” David Cooperrider is generally credited with coining the term ‘Appreciative Inquiry’.

Related Information:

Getting Resistance to Appreciative Inquiry?

The Strength of an Architect is in their Collaborative Abilities

Lean Engagement Team Book Released

Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving

Strength of an Architect is in their Collaborative Abilities

business901 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:49:37 +0000

My initial interest for this podcast was the perspective of Design from an Architect’s viewpoint. How does it differ from an industrial engineer or even an industrial designer, or other Design fields such as marketing? What makes an architect thought process different? I was surprised not in the answers that I received from my guest, Zachary Evans, an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design, Inc. What did surprise me is the lens that they looked at things. In musical terms, they were not the composer of magnificent musical piece but rather the orchestra leader that enable a variety of talents to perform at their best for the audience (the customer).

I might have been just lucky selecting the right architect to interview but I found that the strength of design was in the collaborative ability of the designer. There was no shying away from customer involvement, it was welcomed and actually a sign of failure if it was not solicited. Thinking like an architect has many similarities to SD-Logic (The Service-Dominant Logic of Marketing by Stephen Vargo and Robert Lusch) where the premise that products and services only create the opportunity to provide value. Value is created only when the customer uses the product or service. Enabling the use is the central theme of most architecture and Zach does a good job in relating that concept.

Zachary Evans is an architect and partner at Kelty Tappy Design, Inc., a Fort Wayne architecture, planning, and urban design firm. A Ball State University graduate (Muncie, Indiana), Zach holds professional architectural registrations in Indiana and Ohio and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is an active member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Fort Wayne Chapter, and currently serves on the City of Fort Wayne (Indiana) Downtown Design Review Committee.

Related Information:

Should your Organization start Thinking like an Architect?

How to Design like an Architect

An Architects view of Prototyping and Modeling

What’s New in Business Model Generation?

Critical and Creative Thinking benefits the Problem Solver

Service Design through the Eyes of a Design Thinker

business901 — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:29:05 +0000

My podcast guest was Arne van Oosterom, Partner at DesignThinkers in Amsterdam. DesignThinkers is a Strategic Design agency that specializes in social innovations, service innovations, customer centered design, marketing 2.0 and branding. They provide a bridge between business opportunities and creative solutions.

The podcast typifies what I enjoy about Service Design and the people surrounding it. They view the methodology as a constantly evolving process. There are no linear thinkers in this crowd, so much in fact it may even be called circular reasoning .

Service Design does not even assume it will find the best answer, you may want to call it the most compatible answer. They assume the answers are found through collaboration and co-creation and seem to value the journey even more so than the outcome.

Arne provides his own interesting perspective in the podcast.

About Arne van Oosterom: Arne is a Designer in Residence at the Oslo School for Architecture and Design & Norwegian Center for Service Innovation, Founder of the Design Thinkers Network, Co-Founder of the Service Design Network Netherlands, Catalyst at WENOVSKI and Founder of the Healthcare Initiative CareToDesign and Keynote Speaker at various International Universities and Conferences.

Related Information:

Do you co-create value with your Customer?

A Service Design Thinking Primer

Service Design Thinking Podcast with Marc Stickdorn

Blog Carnival Annual Roundup 2011: Graham Hill at CustomerThink

Customer Value Canvas podcast with Dr. Alex Osterwalder

business901 — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:21:32 +0000

Need a collection of tools to help generate business model ideas! The Business Model Canvas is an analytical tool outlined in the book Business Model Generation. It is a visual template preformatted with the nine blocks of a business model, which allows you to develop and sketch out new or existing business models. This book has sold over 220,000 copies the past two years and has established itself as one of the leading sources of modeling for both startups and established businesses.

If you’re ready to change the rules, you belong to “the business model generation!” Listen to Alex discuss this concept and some of the latest extensions to the BMGen platform such as the Customer Value Canvas plugin.

About: Dr. Alexander Osterwalder is a sought-after author, speaker, workshop facilitator and adviser on the topic of business model design and innovation. He has established himself as a global thought leader in this area, based on a systematic and practical methodology to achieve business model innovation. Executives and entrepreneurs all over the world apply Dr. Osterwalderʼs approach to strengthen their business model and achieve a competitive advantage through business model innovation. Organizations that use his approach include 3M, Ericsson, IBM, Telenor, Capgemini, Deloitte, Logica, Public Works and Government Services Canada, and many more.

Competitive Advantage Through Business Model Innovation
Aligning Business Model Innovation and Information Technology
From Business Model to Business Plan • Private Banking Business Models - discover, understand, define
Business Models in the Media Industry
Business Models at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Social Entrepreneurship Business models
Design Thinking in Business

Alex’s Websites:

http://www.businessmodelalchemist.com

http://businessmodelhub.com/

http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/

Related Information:

Do You Know the Right Job For Your Products?

Lean Canvas for Lean EDCA-PDCA-SDCA

http://thisisservicedesignthinking.com/

Service Design Thinking Podcast with Marc Stickdorn

business901 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:17:26 +0000

Service Design changes the way you think about business. No longer can companies focus their efforts on process improvements. Instead, they must engage the customer in use of their product/service rather than analyzing tasks for improvement. We no longer build and hope that there is a demand. We must create demand through our product/service and Service Design Thinking is the enabler of this process. It changes our mindset of thinking about design at the end of the supply chain to make it look good and add few appealing features (all within budget). Instead, it moves design and the user themselves to co-create or co-produce the desired experience to the beginning of the supply chain.

My blog and podcast for next few months will focus on these features with Business Strategists, Design Thinkers, Appreciative Inquiry Coaches, Architects and of course Lean Thinkers. I could not think of a better way to start this series than having a podcast with co-author Marc Stickdorn of This is Service Design Thinking.

About: Marc Stickdorn graduated in Strategic Management and Marketing and worked in various tourism projects throughout Europe. Since 2008 Marc is full-time staff at the MCI – Management Center Innsbruck in Austria, where he lectures service design and service innovation. His main areas of interest are service design and strategic marketing management particularly in a tourism context. This involves research such as the development of a mobile ethnography application for mobile phones, the Customer Journey Canvas and various publications and presentations. Marc is co-founder and consultant of “Destinable – service design for tourism” and guest lecturer at different business and design schools.

His Websites:

http://www.servicedesignresearch.com

Related Information:

Define the Expectation, Delight the Customer

Lean Engagement Team Book Released

Appreciative Inquiry instead of Problem Solving

Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers

A Product Marketers perspective on Prototyping

business901 — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:43:01 +0000

Matthew Yubas is the author of Getting Your Prototype Made Quick and Easy and a Marketing Consultant for the Small Business Development and International Trade Center. He has developed products for 24 years as an Engineer, Product Manager, and Consultant for startups, small business, and Fortune 500 companies. As an young entrepreneur, he was a co-founder of a software company that developed one of the first personal information management software products.

Matt has launched new products such as software applications, wireless devices, and websites. In addition, he has helped clients in a diverse number of industries that include photography equipment, auto accessories, soy candles, children’s clothing, sporting goods, digital art, and home décor. Matthew is the author of several articles, eBooks, kits, and the popular book Product Idea to Product Success: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide to Making Money from Your Idea .

Matt’s mission is to help inventors, entrepreneurs, and everyday people with ideas. He Says, “You might have an invention that can benefit society and make our lives easier. No one can do it alone. If you haven’t taken a product to the market before, you need a coach to help you get over the hurdles and past the many pitfalls. Be persistent, be smart, and gather the right information before you make your next move”. Mark can be found at http://productcoach.com.

Related Information:

Prototyping into a Working Form

Prototypes provide a Pathway for Connecting with Customers

Your First Prototype is with Pen and Paper

Why Prototype? Customer Interactivity is the Most Meaningful Part of Design

Are your Managers managing Technology? Or…

business901 — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:49:51 +0000

..is technology managing them? What about innovation? What about marketing? As organizations continue to get flatter and flatter, we continue to put more and more pressure on the few left in middle management. It’s not just the personnel either. That may be the easy part. Now, we are being faced with everyone becoming customer facing, the depth of customer penetration within in the ranks is increasing at a rapid wait. The one answer that so many of us fallback to is technology. And, that is also changing at a rapid rate. So what does a manager have to do?

Terri Griffith answers that in her new book,The Plugged-In Manager. The cornerstone of Dr. Griffith’s work is an easy-to-understand framework for plugging in, explained through three core practices:

Stop-Look-Listen: What do your data say? What do you already know that will help you with this project?
Mixing: How do you balance your available resources?
Sharing: How can you achieve better results by integrating your choices with other team members?

I found the book practically written from a Lean/Kaizen perspective. It is a well written book that you can read cover to cover without stopping. What you will do, is bookmark or crimp many of the pages in it and start tackling her suggestions. She includes a few exercises to get you started and improve one thing at a time. She discusses an evolution for managers, not a revolution. Great insight and the podcast with Terri was excellent. I hope you enjoy, I did.

About: Terri Griffith, Ph.D. helps people and organizations work with technology. As a Professor of Management at Santa Clara University (Silicon Valley), Terri helps mix together the technology of work (everything from telepresence to the size and type of tools a crew would use to build a fence), the way we organize to do this work (virtual teams, collaborative leadership, hiring and pay plans), and the knowledge, skills, and abilities of the people we work with.

Related Information:

Inspiring Innovation thru Standard Work

Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business

In your Organization, who is responsible for Demand?

Even Seinfeld used Standard Work

The SDCA Cycle Description for a Lean Engagement Team

The Experience Economy Author, Joe Pine discusses Customer Value on the Digital Frontier

business901 — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:39:49 +0000

Joe Pine: “What you’re doing is that you’re shifting from thinking of them as constraints to thinking of them as resources. When you say that time is an element that costs our customers that’s a constrained view, instead of recognizing that customers have time that they want to spend inside of experiences.” – excerpt from today’s podcast.

Joe has 2 new books out this summer, Infinite Possibility and The Experience Economy, Updated Edition. The Experience Economy identifies a shift in the business world and many of the items discussed are just being realized today. In fact, the idea of staging experiences to leave a memorable and lasting impression is now more relevant than ever. In Infinite Possibility, Pine and Korn provide a new tool The Multiverse™ that helps your organization to search the infinite possibility of value creation that lies on the digital frontier. The Multiverse consists of eight different realms: Reality, Virtuality, Augmented Reality, Alternate Reality, Warped Reality, Augmented Virtuality, Physical Virtuality, and Mirrored Virtuality. You may want to watch this short video on on the Multiverse before listening, Value on the Digital Frontier.

B. Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. He is cofounder of Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. In his speaking and teaching activities, Mr. Pine has addressed both the World Economic Forum and TED, and is a Visiting Scholar with the MIT Design Lab. He has also taught at Penn State, Duke Corporate Education, the University of Minnesota, UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management, and the Harvard Design School. He serves on the editorial boards of Strategy & Leadership and Strategic Direction and is a Senior Fellow with both the Design Futures Council and the European Centre for the Experience Economy, which he co-founded.

If the Multiverse is formed around the concepts of

Space, No Space
Time, No Time
Matter, No Matter

Would the Multiverse of PDCA consists of

Plan, No Plan
Do, No Do
Check, No Check
Act, No Act

I apologize Dr. Deming, it was just a thought.

Related Information:

Successful Lean teams are iTeams

The importance of PDCA in Marketing

Scaling the Customer Decision Making Process

Can the customer be front stage in your organization?

Using an Integrated approach of Lean, Six Sigma, and TOC to deliver results in Healthcare

business901 — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:04:01 +0000

Bahadir Inozu, Ph.D., the Chief Executive Officer and Dan Chauncey, the Director of Deployment Services for NOVACES joined me in this podcast to discuss an integrated approach for using three industrially based methods, Lean, Six Sigma, and Constraints Management to transform hospital operations. They have just published a book, Performance Improvement for Healthcare that explains how using the right tool for the right problem at the right time from a systems perspective, the authors show how to deliver faster results and greater return on investment.

Scales to any size organization and aligns easily to varying needs
Shortens traditional execution time from adoption to results
Optimizes the utilization of resources required to accomplish the desired goals
Breaks organizational constraints and maximizes organizational efficiency
Sustains the gains and defines a path to self-sufficiency
Achieves a global impact through strategy alignment and focused project selection
Shows how to integrate Constraints Management with Lean and Six Sigma to create a “best of breed” approach
Explains how hospitals can deploy or re-energize their performance improvement program specifically for what’s most important for their particular organization

About Novaces: A management consulting firm that provides performance management, continuous process improvement (CPI), and project management services to both public and private sector organizations. NOVACES helps its clients build capabilities in today’s most effective methodologies to achieve breakthrough operational and financial results.

Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business

business901 — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 04:30:20 +0000

USERS, NOT CUSTOMERS

Forrester predicts that by 2012 half of all consumer purchases will either be transacted online or driven by online research and word of mouth. To succeed in the digital marketplace, it’s no longer customers that matter most, but users—anyone who interacts with your company digitally. Keep users happy, and customers follow.

The Business901 Podcast guest, Aaron Shapiro CEO of digital agency HUGE in Users, Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business, shows why today’s most critical driver of success is usability excellence.

“Today’s most successful companies organize their business around users and building user satisfaction,” writes Shapiro. To make users your growth engine for your customer base and for your entire organization, Shapiro introduces a comprehensive approach to refocusing every aspect of your operations on users including sales, marketing, HR, and organizational structure.

Based on his experience helping some of the world’s biggest brands evolve to meet the challenges of rapidly changing technology and evolving consumer habits, Shapiro outlines the seven things every company needs to change in order to survive in a digitally driven economy. Shapiro’s analysis also includes a study of the Digital Leadership Set - companies in the Fortune 1000 that most effectively utilize digital across all aspects of their business. These companies, including Best Buy and Zappos, attract customers by providing appealing digital experiences. And they’re rewarded with rising stock price and performance. You’ll learn how digital leadership has brought huge profits to companies large and small including:

You don’t need to be a techie to master a user-first management philosophy. You just need to accept that the people who interact with your company online are what’s most important.

Related Information:

It’s the Who, not the Why @simonsinek

It’s not about the things we make, it’s how we use the things we make

The Zappos Culture Defined!

Do you understand where demand comes from?

What to do with foursquare!

business901 — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 03:52:03 +0000

One million new users per month. Twenty-three check-ins per second. Millions of people—in every city, in every country, on every continent, and even from the Space Station—are vying to become mayors of their favorite shopping locations. What is foursquare and why has it become the hottest customer magnet ever conceived? Internationally bestselling author Carmine Gallo not only has had unprecedented first-hand access to foursquare’s founders, he also has interviewed dozens of business owners and marketers who have revolutionized their businesses through The Power of foursquare: 7 Innovative Ways to Get Your Customers to Check In Wherever They Are.

About: CARMINE GALLO is the communications coach for the world’s most admired global brands. A former anchor and correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gallo has addressed executives at Intel, Cisco, Google, Medtronic, Pfizer, and many others. Gallo writes My Communications Coach, a regular column for Forbes.com. He has written several internationally bestselling and award-winning books, including The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Carmine Gallo may be found online at www.carminegallo.com.

Related Information:

Carmine Gallo’s Books

Developing a winning Culture the Zappos way!

Spontaneous Marks help you think – Doodling

Five Secrets of Finding Clients

Developing a winning Culture the Zappos way!

business901 — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:08:52 +0000

My guest on the podcast Joseph Michelli takes you through the Zappos company culture now and maybe the future. Joseph’s latest book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and WOW has generated my interest on the relationship of employee and customer experience as demonstrated in my blog post, Is Zappos the Next Toyota?. We discussed this and the Zappos approach that Michelli breaks into five key elements:

Serve a Perfect Fit—create bedrock company values
Make it Effortlessly Swift—deliver a customer experience with ease
Step into the Personal—connect with customers authentically
S T R E T C H—grow people and products
Play to Win—play hard, work harder

Against all odds this online business (known primarily for selling shoes in a playful and emotionally engaging ways) has revolutionized social media strategies, developed an environment which has earned it a consistent spot in the top ten of Fortune Magazine’s best places to work, created zealous fans, and attracted Amazon.com as a purchaser for more than 1.2 billion dollars. It’s time to integrate (not balance) work and fun. It’s time to benefit from the unique and effective customer employee and customer engagement techniques of Zappos!

Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant who transfers his knowledge of exceptional business practices in ways that develop joyful and productive workplaces with a focus on the total customer experience. His insights encourage leaders and frontline workers to grow and invest passionately in all aspects of their lives. Dr. Michelli has been recognized by Focus as “one of the top five Customer Service Influencers to Track in 2011.”

Related Information:

What is your iCustomer Level?

Does the Customer Experience mimic the Employee Experience?

When Efficiencies and Innovation no longer work, is Customer Centricity the answer?

Job-Centric Innovation is Rethinking Customer Needs

Evolutionary Change thru Kanban

business901 — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 02:45:48 +0000

David J. Anderson is credited with the first implementation of a Kanban process for software development, in 2005. David leads a management consulting firm focused on improving performance of technology companies. He has been in software development nearly 30 years and has managed teams on agile software development projects at Sprint, Motorola, Microsoft, and Corbis.

David was a founder of the Agile movement through his involvement in the creation of Feature Driven Development. He was also a founder of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), a founding signatory of the Declaration of Interdependence, and a founding member of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium. He moderates several online communities for lean/agile development.

He is President of David J. Anderson & Associates, based in Sequim, Washington, a management consulting firm dedicated to improving leadership in the IT and software development sectors. Last year he authored the defining book on Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.

Kanban is becoming a popular way to visualize and limit work-in-progress in software development and information technology work. Teams around the world are adding kanban around their existing processes to catalyze cultural change and deliver better business agility. This book answers the questions: What is Kanban? Why would I want to use Kanban? How do I go about implementing Kanban? How do I recognize improvement opportunities and what should I do about them?

As a pioneer in the agile software movement David has managed teams at Sprint, Motorola and Corbis delivering superior productivity and quality. At Microsoft, in 2005, he developed the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement methodology – the first agile method to provide a comprehensive mapping to the Capability and Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI).

His first book, Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results , published in 2003 by Prentice Hall, and introduced many ideas from Lean and Theory of Constraints in to software engineering. David can be found at AgileManagement.net

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 2 of 2

business901 — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 20:06:00 +0000

In the Business901 podcast, What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2 we looked at a more strategic view. In today’s podcast, we looked at the more tactical practices and how they related not only to a political campaign but to a typical marketing campaign.

Derek A. Pillie has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana’s Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

After his federal service expired Derek started working at Cirrus ABS, an online marketing and technology development company. He currently manages their business development efforts. Cirrus ABS has added political campaigns to the portfolio of industries they serve since Derek joined the team, and he continues volunteer efforts on behalf of candidates he supports.

What Political Campaigns can teach business, part 1 of 2

business901 — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 02:44:58 +0000

Looking for immediate business? Is it taking too long to build a brand? Many of us look toward marketing to be our silver bullet, but seldom is it. We sometimes tire waiting for that marketing message to take hold and search for the latest and coolest gimmick to grab our prospects attention. Though I consider myself on the leading edge of these trends, I have come to appreciate that slow and steady wins many of the times. Driving home that consistent message is far more productive than being on the leading edge of every new marketing angle.

In my research I have also come to appreciate, What political campaigns can teach business. Few marketing processes do a better job of creating immediate business. With these thoughts in mind, I pursued Derek A. Pillie a leading political analyst for a Business901 Podcast. The interview lasted over an hour, as a result I split it in two parts. Part 1 is a strategic view of political campaigning and part 2( Will post tomorrow) is from a tactical viewpoint.

Derek has served public and political candidates for over 15 years. He has served on the staff of Indiana’s Third Congressional District, most recently as District Director for just over a decade. In that role, he oversaw Indiana operations of the office; including constituent outreach and helping taxpayers solve problems with federal agencies. He also worked on crucial economic development projects and was heavily involved with advising the office on online media and marketing decisions.

Related Information:

Preview of Political Campaign Marketing Podcast

Political Campaigning – Strategy Update

What political campaigns can teach business

Lean Six Sigma for Government

Shalloway on Teamwork in Kanban, part 3 of 3

business901 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:33:10 +0000

Alan is an industry thought leader in Lean, Kanban, product portfolio management, Scrum and agile design. He helps companies transition to Lean and Agile methods enterprise-wide as well teaches courses in these areas. He is the founder and CEO of Net Objectives and also can be found on twitter @alshalloway.

Alan is the primary author of

Essential Skills for the Agile Developer: A Guide to Better Programming and Design

Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility

Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design

And a favorite of mine: Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams

This podcast is broken down into 3 parts. I had trouble running Alan down and finally caught him on his cell phone so the quality is not the best. However, Alan delivered great content and we could hardly stop talking. His view of the Agile community, Scrum, Kanban and Lean is unique and refreshing.

Part 1 of 3: Alan Shalloway discusses the state of Agile!, part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3: Can Agile work at the Enterprise Level with Alan Shalloway?

Related Information:

The Lean Agile Train Software Transcription

Essential Skills for the Agile Developer: A Guide to Better Programming and Design

Can Agile work at the Enterprise Level with Alan Shalloway? Part 2 of 3

business901 — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 02:17:29 +0000

Alan is the primary author of

Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility

Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design

And a favorite of mine: Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams

Part 1 of 3: Alan Shalloway discusses the state of Agile!, part 1 of 3

Related Information:

The Lean Agile Train Software Transcription

Essential Skills for the Agile Developer: A Guide to Better Programming and Design

Alan Shalloway discusses the state of Agile!, part 1 of 3

business901 — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:03:39 +0000

Alan is the primary author of

Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility

Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design

And a favorite of mine: Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams

This podcast is broken down into 3 parts. I had trouble running Alan down and finally caught him on his cell phone so the quality is not the best. However, Alan delivered some great content and we could hardly stop talking. His view of the Agile community, Scrum, Kanban and Lean is unique and refreshing.

Related Subject discussed in podcast: A transcription of the Business901 Podcast, Should you Manage your Organization with Agile Techniques?. My guest was Steve Denning’s, author of the new book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010).

Related Information:

The Lean Agile Train Software Transcription

The Service-dominant Logic of Marketing: Dialog, Debate, And Directions

Service Innovation – Rethinking Customer Needs

business901 — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 02:24:08 +0000

True service innovation demands that you shift the focus away from the solution and back to the customer. To achieve this shift in your business–one that takes you from making educated guesses to building a clear model to guide service innovation—Lance Bettencourt instructs on the finer points of how to rethink your approach to the customer’s needs: how the customer defines value in a product or service. Among the numerous key ideas and practices are:

Insight on understanding the different types of clients you serve—and how your products deliver value to them
Ways to design specific frameworks for discovering service innovation opportunities for new, improved, and supplementary service products
Practical guidance on staying focused on the “fuzzy front end” of service innovation
The fundamental elements of a winning service strategy

We did not get to all of these points in the podcast with Lance. You would have to read his book,Service Innovation: How to Go from Customer Needs to Breakthrough Services to find all of them. But we did begin the conversation discussing Job-Centric Innovation, an idea that Lance is an expert on.

After several years on the marketing faculty at Indiana University, he began his career as an innovation consultant with Strategyn. His book is a melding of his personal skills and passion for services and innovation. He is currently an independent innovation speaker and trainer, providing executive education to many of the world’s leading companies.

Related Information:

If all of us need to be marketers, what’s the framework?

7 Principles of Universal Design & Beyond

The Common Thread of Design Thinking, Service Design and Lean Marketing

Is Orlicky’s MRP relevant today? Think DDMRP

business901 — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:41:46 +0000

Is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning the blueprint for the future and revitalization of formal planning in the 21st Century? Some people think so as Carol Ptak and Chad Smith were asked to co-author the new Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning 3/E. But more impressive are the full houses of practitioners that Carol and Chad are talking too. The one simple reason for that is that they understand the problem.

Carol and Chad both were on previous podcasts with me, In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much! and Can MRP be a Demand – Driven Tool?. These podcasts were my most quotable ones this past year. For example Carol Ptak, said in her podcast said:

A lot of people have focused on the fact that the Economic times right now are really bad. What a lot of people are missing is the fact that the world around us has fundamentally changed.

A we see now across the world is that we have excess capacity when you add to that the Internet where we get on the Internet we expect to have an experience like Amazon, or order it is going to tell me instantly when I’m going to get it. If you don’t provide it at the price I want to pay and the time I want to pay then I can just go someplace else. Why can I do that? That’s because I have all this excess capacity out there.

So what companies are seeing today is volatility like they never had to manage before and at the same time they no longer have the reliability of understanding what the customers are going to demand and when they’re going to demand, because customers are increasingly fickle.

So what we’ve got is the perfect storm that has come together of excess capacity and incredible product variety.

The two of them did not disappoint me. These two people are have rewritten the book on MRP and if you don’t think MRP or even your Lean Supply Chain could not learn from this podcast, think again.

Carol has written several books on MRP, ERP, Lean and Theory of Constraints. She is the Past President of APICS International and former Vice President and global industry executive for manufacturing and distribution industries at PeopleSoft. Chad co-founded Constraints Management Group in 1997 after working under the tutelage of Dr. Eli Goldratt for several years. Constraints Management Group specializes in demand driven supply chain and manufacturing solutions for a variety of industries. Clients have included Boeing, Unilever, IBM, LeTourneau Technologies and Roseburg Forest Products.

What is Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning (DDMRP)?

Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning is an innovative multi-echelon pull methodology to plan inventories and materials. It enables a company to build more closely to actual market requirements and promotes better and quicker decisions and actions at the planning and execution level.

Related Information:

The Perfect Storm has come together of Excess Capacity and Product Variety

Implementing the TOC Supply Chain Solution

Transforming your Supply Chain to a Lean Fulfillment Stream eBook

Lean Six Sigma applied to Supply Chain

Application of Lean Six Sigma to the Supply Chain

Answers to Sustainability

business901 — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 02:47:13 +0000

I was participating in a discussion on LinkedIn and came across an article, How to Sustain Front Line Process Improvement Activities from the Harvard Business Review and like most of us, if it says sustainability we take a look. It has to be the most difficult part of any continuous improvement process.

I found the author of the article, Brad Power handling the comments masterfully and engaging in a great dialogue with the commenters. He is actually researching sustaining attention to process management and is currently conducting research with the Lean Enterprise Institute.

Our podcast centered on Brad’s research of sustainability and his findings so far may not be unique but the structure he puts to his information is. Also, I think you will find out as much about researching and the questions you ask as you will sustainability. At times I wondered who was being interviewed.

Brad Power is a consultant and researcher in process innovation. In his latest consulting engagement, for over a year he’s been helping a healthcare insurance company reengineer its interactions with providers and members to reduce cycle times. And for the last three years he’s been researching why few companies sustain their attention to process management — how they can make improvement and adaptation a habit (even fun?). He’s been collaborating with the Lean Enterprise Institute on his research. You can see some of his research insights in his blog posts at The Harvard Business Review at bradfordpower.tumblr.com. He’s interested in hearing stories of companies which embarked on a process improvement program and either kept going, or didn’t, and why.

Related Information:

Learn more about the Xerox Design for Lean Six Sigma

Design for Lean Six Sigma, The Xerox Way

Sustaining Lean in Manufacturing

Does Lean Marketing deliver what the customer wants?

Games maybe your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent

business901 — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 04:29:08 +0000

Games have changed the way we play and the way we work. In the blog post Salesforce.com’s Chief Scientist on Why Gamification is the Future of Work, it says,

Rangaswami outlines how and why gamification will shape the future of work. As a new generation of knowledge workers land in jobs at organizations big and small, they’re bringing with them different expectations and are motivated differently than workers once were. One way to motivate those workers is by incorporating game mechanics into the workplace, especially when it comes to rewarding worker performance.

One way to motivate those workers is by incorporating game mechanics into the workplace, especially when it comes to rewarding worker performance.

I decided rather than discussing gaming with a bunch of 50 year old marketers it might be better to just go to Gemba (the real place). I found one of the top Gamer’s in the world and discussed with him the art of gaming. His insights into teamwork, respect for people and planning skills are interesting. After listening to this podcast, I think you may find less to worry about in the future generation. In fact, the number one reason your organization needs to understand gaming is it may be your only chance to attract the best and brightest talent in the future.

My guest, Peter is part of a highly rated team (sGty) playing the game Heroes of Newerth, HoN. Peter can be found @peterpandam on Twitter where he posts the time of his live stream games. The recorded streams are available on Justin TV. His Facebook page is Peterpandam.

Related Information:

Is every Boardroom discussing Gamification? Is yours?

Three more ways to Improve your Marketing!

Lean Thinking: Prototype early and often

Lean Agile Software Train, part 2

business901 — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 01:32:36 +0000

Dean Leffingwell author of Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Agile Software Development Series) was the guest on the Businss901 podcast. I talked to Dean so long that I divided the podcast into two parts. The 1st part, Lean Agile Software Train, part 1 published last Tuesday. That podcast is under thirty minutes and touches more upon Dean’s experience with organizations. The 2nd part below takes the deep dive into building the Lean Agile Software Enterprise.

About: Dean Leffingwell is a consultant, entrepreneur, software executive and technical author who provides product strategy, business advisory services and enterprise-level agility coaching to large software enterprises.

Mr. Leffingwell was founder and CEO of consumer marketing identity company ProQuo, Inc. Dean has also served as chief methodologist to Rally Software and as business consultant to Ping Identity Corporation and Roving Planet, Inc. Formerly, he served as Vice President of Rational Software, now IBM’s Rational Division, where he was responsible for the Rational Unified Process and promulgation of the UML. Previously, Leffingwell was co-founder and CEO of software tools company Requisite, Inc., makers of RequisitePro for requirements management, which was acquired by Rational. Mr. Leffingwell was also the founder and CEO of RELA, Inc., and publicly held Colorado MEDtech.

Info on Dean:

Dean’s Website

Dean’s Blog

Dean’s other Book(Amazon): Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises

Related Information:

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Entire Audio Collection of Dr. Balle on Kaizen

business901 — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 04:09:35 +0000

The Friday Video Series with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute recently competed a two month long series on Kaizen. I have included the entire audio of the conversation as a podcast. Even if you have watched the videos I think you will find it worthwhile.

Dr. Balle is a multiple Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

Related Information:

SALES PDCA Framework for Lean Sales and Marketing

Continuous Improvement, The Toyota Way

Marketing with PDCA eBook released on Business901 Website

Lean is not a revolution, Lean is solve one thing and prove one thing!

Lean Agile Software Train, part 1

business901 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:21:34 +0000

Dean Leffingwell author of Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Agile Software Development Series) was the guest on the Businss901 podcast. After reading this book, I thought it was an outstanding contribution to improving the agile team and environment. One Amazon reviewer categorized it as “The organization of the book builds “tactical” topics one-by-one with the three main levels of the enterprise: starting with the team, then discussing the program level and concluding at the enterprise portfolio level. “But no need to retell the whole book here — it’s easier to read it. It’s a great read for anyone looking for systematic and efficient ways of improving software development at scale.”

I talked to Dean so long that I divided the podcast into two parts. The 2nd part will publish next Tuesday and it is the portion of the podcast where we take the deep dive into building the Lean Agile Software Enterprise. This podcast for me is pretty short, it is under thirty minutes and touches more upon Dean’s experience with organizations rather than his mastery of Lean Agile Software Requirements.

Info on Dean:

Dean’s Website

Dean’s Blog

Dean’s other Book(Amazon): Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises

Related Information:

Lean Six Sigma for Government

Improve Healthcare and Government thru Lean and Six Sigma?

business901 — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:31:38 +0000

Improve Healthcare and Government thru Lean and Six Sigma…You just Gotta Wanna! This was the theme echoed numerous times by my podcast guest, Jay Author of QI Macros. We started out discussing his book, Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals: Simple Steps to Fast, Affordable, and Flawless Healthcare but soon moved into a discussions that can be applied to any organization.

Jay started many years ago simplifying the Lean Six Sigma process through his early books, Lean Simplified and Six Sigma Simplified which eventually led to Lean Six Sigma Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide. Jay has always been a master at simplifying these process and reducing the cost of entry into a methodology. His belief is that you can go a long way (5 sigma) by just doing it and utilizing only a few basic tools that he discusses in his money-belt videos. Though I was in introduced to Lean and Six Sigma through other books and people, Jay’s first book on the subject Lean Six Sigma Coloring book was the one I used for the first application I participated in at the manufacturing level.

Jay Arthur works with companies that want to plug the leaks in their cash flow using Lean Six Sigma. Jay is the only improvement specialist that understands and can help you pinpoint areas for improvement in processes, people, and technology. Jay is first and foremost a Money Belt; he knows how to use data to pinpoint broken processes. Jay helps teams understand their communication styles and restore broken connections. Jay has 30 years experience developing software on everything from mainframes to PCs.

Related Information:

Operational Excellence in Government, is it Possible?

Transforming Healthcare with Lean eBook

Story of Going Lean in Healthcare: On the Mend

Operational Excellence in Government, is it Possible?

business901 — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 20:29:01 +0000

When I first listened to Mike George’s Stong America Now program (BTW: Michael George will be appearing on the Lean Blog Podcast later this week.), I thought it was kind of a joke that hardly made sense. However, I have learned to investigate things that rub me the wrong way initially and many times I have found a little gold in the outcomes.

One of those outcomes was the opportunity to interview Hundley Elliotte one of the authors of, Building High Performance Government Through Lean Six Sigma: A Leader’s Guide to Creating Speed, Agility, and Efficiency. What I liked about the book was it really removes the issues about can it be done, it is already being done. In the podcast we discussed these places and also discussed the how in applying Lean Six Sigma to any public organization. In fact, I found certain parts of the book remarkably useful for the private sector. Very well written book without the statistical jargon so often found in Lean Six Sigma books. The authors paint a very clear picture of the role of Lean Six Sigma in Government.

Hundley M. Elliotte is the global lead for the Process Performance group within the Accenture Process & Innovation Performance service line. He has more than 15 years of consulting experience, focusing on managing business value, setting strategy, identifying customer needs, and identifying and implementing improvement opportunities in diverse business sectors. Previously, Mr. Elliotte worked for more than a decade in the corporate sector, holding sales, marketing and general management positions with a leading pulp and paper manufacturer and with a plastics company. He is based in Atlanta.

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 223,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries.

Read Chapter One, “Building the Anatomy for High Performance”

Read about the Accenture Institute for Health and Public Service.

Related Information:

DMAIC, DMADV, Lean, Six Sigma for Government?

Lean Six Sigma for Government

Lean Six Sigma will increase effectiveness of Stimulus spending

The Hell with the Economic Stimulus Package – I’ll Lead

Balancing Internal and External Lean Six Sigma Consulting Roles

Design Thinker exposed as Left Brain Dominant

business901 — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 02:41:31 +0000

In a recent blog post, It’s not your Grandmother’s Lean anymore! I introduced a few thoughts from Tim Ogilvie, CEO of innovation strategy consultancy Peer Insight new book Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Toolkit for Managers. I would encourage you to visit that post before listening to the podcast and leave the diagram up or print it out as the discussion takes place.

If you have been Design Thinking challenged this book is for you. The book is built upon these four questions (A Design Thinkers PDCA?):

What is? Exploring the current reality
What if? Envisioning alternative futures
What wows? Getting users to help make tough choices
What works? Making it work in-market, and as a business

Aligned to the four questions are ten tools, including customer journey mapping, value chain analysis, customer co-creation, and the learning launch. To make them come alive, readers are introduced to a number of practicing managers who are all using design thinking to drive innovation and growth in their organizations, including accountants, marketers, a nurse and an engineer – none of whom have design training.

I believe what is more intriguing than the description and use of tools (Design Thinking must be going mainstream if we start having tool discussions), is the way that the tools are viewed. This I believe is the real secret sauce in the book. As I read the book, I realized how easy it was to take and modify my Lean tool set to the desired applications or as others may put it to the culture of the company. One of the strengths of Lean that may be forgotten is that it is the adaption of the tools and culture and the process of making them your own that is the most important ingredient. Certainly we are not going to make major changes to PDCA but what is wrong in using an A3 Report laid out like the Business Model Generation template.

We might have torched a few sacred cows during the podcast. One of them is thinking differently or moving away from the traditional Lean tools and the other is exposing a so-called Design Thinker, such as Tim as Left Brain Dominant!

Related Information:

How new is Service Dominant Logic and does it apply now?

Asking the right questions about Lean?

Service Design Thinking

Power of Check = The Pivot in PDCA

Accomplished Innovator creates an Open Innovation Platform

business901 — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 14:44:18 +0000

Razi Imam founder of 113 Industries was on the Business901podcast Empower yourself before the Team. We discussed a powerful motivational philosophy highlighted in Razi’s new book Driven: A How-to Strategy for Unlocking Your Greatest Potential .

Before the podcast we had discussed his new company, 113 Industries, an industry-driven business incubator focusing on helping breakthrough discoveries become viable commercial products. a complete description is in this brochure High-Speed Open Innovation Brochure. In this podcast, we discussed this startup concept which I found to be a great tutorial for articulating the customer’s problem that he is solving.

Razi is not a stranger to startups. He is the founder of a fast growing software company called Landslide Technologies that is receiving rave reviews from customers, analysts and press. This company has been named ‘visionary’ three years in row by the lead leading analyst firm – The Gartner Group.

Related Information:

Dealing with uncertainty in the Lean Startup

Can you be Lucky by Design?

business901 — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 19:18:51 +0000

Beth Goldstein, Founder and CEO is an author, consultant, trainer and founder of Marketing Edge Consulting Group, she has empowered hundreds of entrepreneurs to successfully grow their companies. We discussed her newest book, Lucky By Design: Creating Real Opportunities that Empower Your Business coming out this fall.

Beth‘s special talents is helping companies gain an understanding of how their customers think, what they value and what influences their purchasing decisions. She then applies this knowledge to create targeted sales and marketing programs that drive revenue growth while increasing profitability and customer loyalty.

Her first book, The Ultimate Small Business Marketing Toolkit: All the Tips, Forms, and Strategies You’ll Ever Need! is used in 30+ cities around the U.S. to teach business owners the critical skills they need to accelerate growth.

Are You Lucky In Business?

TAKE HER 5 MINUTE SURVEY &

RECEIVE OVER $75 IN VALUABLE BUSINESS TOOLS FOR SHARING YOUR OPINION

(You will be re-directed to Beth’s site.)

Related Information:

Lean Thinking: Prototype early and often

Using the Media Engagement Framework as your Kanban?

What’s behind Collaboration and Value Networks?

Business Processes as Value Networks

The Role of PDCA in a Lean Sales and Marketing Cycle

Empower yourself before the Team

business901 — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:10:21 +0000

Razi Imam is an accomplished award winning innovator, entrepreneur, and author. He has experience and knowledge of successfully innovating products and services, launching them in competitive markets, and building world-class high-performance teams.

Razi;s new book Driven: A How-to Strategy for Unlocking Your Greatest Potential is discussed in the podcast and you are introduced to a powerful motivational philosophy. I think you will find the podcast a little different than most of mine as we discuss self and team development. Razi is an excellent and captivating speaker.

Razi is the founder of a fast growing software company called Landslide Technologies that is receiving rave reviews from customers, analysts and press. His company has been named ‘visionary’ three years in row by the leading analyst firm - The Gartner Group. He has also recently founded 113 Industries, an industry-driven business incubator focusing on advanced materials. The goal of this incubator is to help breakthrough discoveries in advanced materials coming from our universities, and government labs become viable commercial products.

Related Information:

What will your workplace be like in 2020?

Change Education, Change the Sales Cycle

The Different Levels of Kaizen

Transforming Ordinary Teams to Extraordinary

business901 — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 04:09:41 +0000

Geoff Bellman co-author of Extraordinary Groups: How Ordinary Teams Achieve Amazing Resultswas my guest on the Business901 Podcast. In this book, Geoff and co-author Kathleen Ryan reveal that people instinctively sense when a group experience is something special, something different from the ordinary, something that surpasses their expectations in a positive, remarkable, and hard-to-describe way.

In the podcast, I challenged Geoff several times on the touchy, feely aspect of all this and he came back with some good tangible examples. This is one of those books and even the podcast that can contribute some insight to practically any participant. We discussed how to create an extraordinary groups to achieve outstanding results, one of the key indicators.

Geoff has worked inside major corporations for fourteen years before starting his own consulting firm in 1977. His external consulting has focused on renewing large, mature corporations such as Booz Allen & Hamilton, U.S. Bancorp, Verizon, Intuit, Ernst & Young, Shell, Price Waterhouse Coopers, BP, SABMiller, Boeing, and Accenture. He can be found at http://extraordinarygroups.com/.

Related Information:

Identifying your Lean sales and marketing teams

What will your workplace be like in 2020?

What’s behind Collaboration and Value Networks?

Lean Sales and Marketing Team Roles

Leading the Way in Iowa Quality Training

business901 — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:50:55 +0000

Steven C. Wilson founded Wilson Consulting and Training Services,Inc (WCTS, Inc) as a process improvement consulting firm. He has dedicated himself to this cause by training over 600 Six Sigma practitioners in over 70 companies in the state of Iowa. His training focuses on quality to include Lean, Theory of Constraints, Supply chain, Problem Solving and Six Sigma Green Belt and Black Belt training. Recently, he has developed new approaches to a blended learning platform and is piloting them in his Leadership and Data-Driven Problem Solving Courses. In the podcast with Steve, I came away with a feeling that he looks at his practice more from a training perspective than consulting.

Steve to me is the epitome of today’s successful consultant. He acts as a in-house consultant for a major healthcare facility in the Des Moines, Iowa area, instructs at many of the Iowa Community Colleges, conducts Green Belt and Black Belt training for industry and hosts the Blog Talk Radio Show, Quality Conversations. As a result of this, he speaks on a regular basis throughout the state and has even presided as the Master of Ceremonies at a national iSixSigma Live event. Steve has more offline touch-points than most of us have online touch-points. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know I am adamant that most business is still done with a handshake. It seems to me that Steve shakes as many hands as a politician and in Iowa there are a lot of hands shaken.

Another unique aspect of Wilson Consulting and Training Services is Steve’s 20 years of experience has been primarily in the service industry. With this background, he offers a unique perspective, even for the more traditional quality venues such as manufacturing. With all industries focusing more and more on the service aspect applying quality improvement tools to this area is typically the quickest ROI an organization can receive.

Related Information:

Steve’s website: Wilson Consulting and Training Services,

Marketing your Black Belt

Sustaining Lean using Continuous Improvement: The Toyota Way

Gemba Coach on PDCA

business901 — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:05:25 +0000

The Friday Video Series with Dr. Michael Balle, the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute recently competed a month long series on PDCA. As I reviewed the video, I found that over 30% of the material had been edited out. I have included the entire audio of the conversation as a podcas. Even if you have watched the videos I think you will find it worthwhile.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Continuous Improvement, The Toyota Way

Marketing with PDCA eBook released on Business901 Website

Lean is not a revolution, Lean is solve one thing and prove one thing!

What’s behind Collaboration and Value Networks?

business901 — Tue, 31 May 2011 03:11:59 +0000

Value Networks and the true nature of collaboration by Verna Allee with Oliver Schwabe is a digital edition book located at http://www.valuenetworksandcollaboration.com. From the book:

Work life is completely changing as social networking and collaboration platforms allow a more human-centric way of organizing work. Yet work design tools, structures, processes, and systems are not evolving as rapidly, and in many cases are simply inadequate to support the new flexible and networked ways of working.

Value Networks and the true nature of collaboration meets this challenge head on with a systemic, human-network approach to managing business operations and ecosystems. Value network modeling and analytics provide better support for collaborative, emergent work and complex activities.

Verna Allee, M.A., is Co-founder and CEO of Value Networks LLC, located at ValueNetworks.com. Verna was my guest on the Business901 Podcast and we discussed the history of knowledge management and how her work has evolved into value networks. Value Network philosophies also apply to Lean, Agile and into sales and marketing arena. I find this area fascinating as we rid ourselves of hierarchy, positions and titles and delve into that mysterious area of roles!

About Verna Allee: Verna has more than twenty years of deep experience in value networks, intangibles, knowledge management, and new business models. She has been a trusted advisor to more than 100 Fortune 1000 companies and has led government agencies, civil society organizations, and entrepreneurial startups in tapping intangible value for increased efficiency and competitive advantage.

Another comment from the book:

Value Network Analysis is an invaluable tool for anyone working with inter-organizational networks in particular. Its use of roles and exchanges produces a visual, thinking and conversation analysis that finally moves us fully into the network age. – Steve Waddell, Founder Networking Action

I recommend this Verna Allee book, The Future of Knowledge: Increasing Prosperity through Value Networks for reference and to grasp a better business aspect of Knowledge and Value Networks.

Using Little Ideas to achieve Big Things

business901 — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:27:40 +0000

Whether we call it PDCA Lean Startup, Agile or Scrum. author Peter Sims believes this shift from slow, calculated execution to rapid, low-risk iteration has fundamentally remade business. His book, Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries explores how companies are using these ideas to achieve big things. Peter provides examples from Kid Rock to General Motors in an enjoyable and easy read. However, when you look under the hood Little Bets is grounded in an amazing amount of research.

In the Business901 podcast, I had the opportunity to speak with Sims about the concept, and how it related and differed from the typical PDCA methodology. The relationship of iteration and Lean by Doing is very apparent and the author feels that the Lean community is on the verge of some remarkable breakthroughs at their next level of performance.

Peter Sims is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He was the coauthor with Bill George of the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek bestselling book True North . His articles have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Tech Crunch, The Financial Times, and as an expert blogger for Fast Company.

Related Information:

Improve your Sales Cycle, Work on your Feedback Loops

The Little PDCA Sales Loop

Power of Check = The Pivot in PDCA

The Role of PDCA in a Lean Sales and Marketing Cycle

Connecting Social Media and Traditional Marketing thru Measurement

business901 — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:42:49 +0000

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to connect all your marketing activities to their impact on sales revenue? Wouldn’t it be great to remove the guesswork from your marketing? Over the last 20 years, Guy Powell of demand ROMI has done just that in senior level sales & marketing across the globe both on the client and consulting sides.

Guy is a marketing measurement expert and has been measuring the effectiveness of social media right from the start. Guy states, “We can’t measure the effect of social media as a stand-alone media. Social media has a unique impact on consumer behavior but we need to realize that it also affects the impact of traditional media and traditional media impacts the effect of social media.” Our podcast discusses the interaction between the two.

P.S. Very tempted to make an A3 out of this!!!

Guy’s Books include:

ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment

Marketing Calculator: Measuring and Managing Return on Marketing Investment

Return on Marketing Investment

Related Information:

Why Social Media is so Lean

Lead Generation through the Lean Marketing Lens

Why does sales and marketing operate to a different quality standard?

The Future of Marketing is Lean

Can there be a marriage between ISO and Lean?

business901 — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:36:52 +0000

On the Business901 podcast, Lindsay Jackson Nichols discussed the business benefits of ISO Certification and how it can be used in conjunction with continuous improvement. Lindsay is the CEO of MOCG, a management consulting firm specializing in implementing process improvement and ISO based management systems.

When you first think about, you may think that Quality Management and a continuous improvement methodology like Lean are one in the same. You may also think that they are willing partners. Many disagree with that thought. My thoughts are that I find the ISO standards as a way to involve people from all departments to ask them how you do things. As a result, procedures and documentation are created to evaluate the current method of doing things (the first step in standard work) against the requirements of a standard (ISO). As a result, you develop performance gaps for continuous improvement. Others believe that this would hinder the development and flexibility of standard work documents and prefer that they are divorced from each other.

I probed this question with Lindsay and on a Lean Blog Post on Standard Work. The answer I believe to be correct is that ISO 9001 should not be the continuous improvement strategy just that it should be one metric by which continuous improvement is measured. However, I still believe using ISO as a standard to start the process of developing standard work is not a bad place to start.

About LJ Nichols: Lindsay’s career has been entirely devoted to management consulting, working with Grant Thornton LLP - the fifth largest accounting and management consulting firm in the nation, assisting them develop a ‘center of excellence’ for their quality, environment and regulatory practice, and P-E International plc/P-E Handley Walker the largest management consulting firm in Europe, where she was integral in establishing their ISO presence in the US.

Related Information:

Agreeing on Standards in a Lean Enterprise

Is Standard Work needed in Sales and Marketing?

Where is the path in Continuous Improvement for Sales and Marketing?

Why does sales and marketing operate to a different quality standard?

Sustaining Lean using Continuous Improvement: The Toyota Way

business901 — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:45:59 +0000

James Franz is the co-author with Jeffrey K. Liker on the latest of the Toyota Way books:The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement: Linking Strategy and Operational Excellence to Achieve Superior Performance . Jim was my guest on the Business901 podcast and if you have been spending your time improving your processes and wondering why they are not giving you the expected returns, this is the podcast for you.

James Franz has over 24 years of manufacturing experience and learned lean as a Toyota Production Engineer in Japan. He started at the Motomachi plant and then moved to NUMMI and then finally worked in Georgetown, Kentucky. After leaving Toyota, he then went to Ford to apply his lean knowledge beginning in production engineering. He was sent to Ford of Australia for 3 years and led their Stamping, Assembly, Casting, and Powertrain facilities to global leadership in lean for Ford. Jim also teaches for the University of Michigan’s Center for Professional Development’s Lean Certification course.

About the Toyota Way Academy: The Academy’s mission is to teach the Toyota Way using the Toyota Way for more information visit: www.toyotawayacademy.com

Related Information:

Coaching Lean eBook with Dr. Liker

Dr. Jeff Liker on PDCA and Lean Culture>

Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation

Another Gemba Talk with Womack on Lean

business901 — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:12:15 +0000

Listen to Dr. Womack discuss Lean in the 2nd part of a 2 part podcast. Part 1 of the podcast was A Gemba Talk with Womack on Lean. We discussed his new book Gemba Walks and many of the problems in implementing Lean. Just the intro and ending was repeated. About 2 minutes on each end.

Other Books by Dr. Womack:

Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together

The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production

Related Information:

Lean is the tool that Creates the Customer Relationship

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing …

Lean, Quality, Six Sigma Consultants and Organizations – 28 Day Marketing Program

A Gemba Talk with Womack on Lean

business901 — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:30:13 +0000

Is Lean anything more than a Hypothesis? Dr Jim Womack: “The life of lean is experiments. All authority for any sensei flows from experiments on the gemba [the place where work takes place], not from dogmatic interpretations of sacred texts or the few degrees of separation from the founders of the movement. In short, lean is not a religion but a daily practice of conducting experiments and accumulating knowledge.”

Listen to Dr. Womack discuss Lean in the first part of a two part podcast Part 2 of the podcast will be next Tuesday. We discussed his new book Gemba Walks and many of the problems in implementing Lean.

Dr. Womack is the founder of and senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., a nonprofit training, publishing, conference, and management research company chartered to advance a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking.

Related Information:

Lean is the tool that Creates the Customer Relationship

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing …

How to develop a Survey to capture Voice of Market

Lean is the tool that Creates the Customer Relationship

business901 — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:25:19 +0000

These questions may get answered for you when you listen to this podcast.

Do you think Lean can be applied to Sales and Marketing?
Do you think Sales and Marketing departments resist becoming Lean?
How important is Lean to Sales and Marketing?
Or, how important is Sales and Marketing to Lean?

Erik Haberkern, a General Sales Manger of a global Fortune 300 chemical company discusses the application of Lean in Sales sand Marketing. Eric first worked as a Facility Manager and soon became a Lean Deployment Manager. He transferred those skills to Sales and Marketing. Eric’s credentials are best described in comments by his colleagues:

Erik is a true professional in every sense of the word! He helped complete the most successful acetylene Lean project at the Roseville, MN facility.
Erik’s leadership skills are second to none, and he uses these skills to motivate and inspire the people around him. He also understands how to work within a team, to get the most out of the people, and to utilize their strengths in the role to which they belong.
Among his greatest strengths are his abilities to work with people at all levels within an organization, effective leadership style in motivating others to deliver results, and his promotion of accountability through taking action.

As you listen to the podcast, you can see how true these comments are. Erik follows a very structured team approach in implementing Lean filled with a whole bunch of We’s and few if any I’s, a consummate team player. Eric can be found on LinkedIn.

Related Information:

Can you really use Lean for Marketing? – Dr. Balle

The Future of Marketing is Lean

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing …

ASQ Columbus Spring Conference will host Marketing with Lean

Business Improvement thru Quality, the Juran Way

business901 — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 22:15:13 +0000

I had the pleasure of discussing the mission and expertise of the Juran Institute, Inc. with their CEO, Joe DeFeo. The Institute provides research and pragmatic solutions to enable organizations from any industry to lean the tools and techniques for managing quality and performance excellence. As a result of this discussion, I think you will take away some different views on the subject of quality and how they apply to your organization. This is not quality for the sake of quality. This is quality for the sake of business improvement.

The Juran’s Quality Handbook: The Complete Guide to Performance Excellence 6/e , was co-authored by Joe DeFeo and the late Dr. Joseph M. Juran. This authoritative resource shows how to apply universal methods for delivering superior results and organizational excellence in any organization, industry, country or process. In the podcast, Joe will give two people the opportunity to win a copy of the handbook.

P.S. What do you talk about before a podcast begins? I left some beginning remarks. I have to correct our statement in the beginning, WKRP was in Cincinnati.

Upcoming Events: Juran is conducting blended Lean Six Sigma workshops for Green Belt and Black Belt certification beginning in April 2011. The workshops begin with required online independent study of e-learning modules. The estimated 24 hours of independent study must be completed by the start of the onsite, instructor-led portion of the workshop. The onsite workshop training, held in Southbury, Connecticut, will expand upon the topics covered in the e-learning modules. Training will be interactive with group case study exercises, problem analysis and statistics practice. Here is a list of all the workshops Juran currently has scheduled for 2011:

Lean Six Sigma Blended Green Belt - (Beginning April 4, 2011)
Lean Six Sigma Blended Black Belt - (Beginning April 4, 2011)
Lean Six Sigma Upgrade to Black Belt - (Beginning May 2, 2011)

To register, or for more information, please call 800-338-7726, or email Tina@juran.com.

Related Information:

Juran Institute Website

Need to grow by innovation, consider the little i versus the big I.

Integrating Value Networks

Why does sales and marketing operate to a different quality standard?

Dr. Jeff Liker on PDCA and Lean Culture

business901 — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 00:11:24 +0000

Dr. Jeff Liker celebrated author and authority on Toyota and the Toyota Production System was my guest on the Business901 podcast and we discussed his upcoming book, The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement (Book release date is May 13th).

Dr. Liker in comparing Lean and Six Sigma:

Sometimes, I’ve heard people say Six Sigma is more sophisticated, and it’s like the graduate school for the tougher problems that require advanced statistics; and Lean is more common sense and practical, and more quick and dirty. That’s not the way I look at it all. But the tool that you see with Lean is something like the Kanban system. You have a card and you write information, and you decide what the maximum and minimum is. And when you reach the minimum, you send the card. That’s a very simple production and inventory control system compared to a linear program that is on the cputer; you put in all sorts of data and you optimize the schedule.

Here, you’ve got these cards, and people are just counting cards, and it seems very primitive. But the reason why these tools are so simple is because Toyota wants the people who are actually doing the work to see the problems as they occur. They want them to solve them in real‑time, one by one, as they come up, instead of allowing problems to accumulate, and then, perhaps once a year, once in three years, do a big, deep dive project and you’re basically trying to solve three years of accumulated problems.

So the tools and techniques are intentionally very simple, a trend chart, not regression analysis.

Admittedly, there may be some loss of precision, because we don’t know if it’s statistically significant or not, but what we’re doing is lots and lots of little problem‑solving cycles, and we’re learning by direct observation. Because you can see it and touch it, people who are actively engaged at the workplace can understand it.

So it’s by definition the tools are very visual and very easy to understand.

And Dr. Liker went on to say:

So, we’re constantly looking for the next thing without realizing that we already had it to begin with, whether it was total quality management or a continuous program or A3s or DMAIC, whatever it was. The underlying PDCA concept was there to begin with, but we didn’t continue.

We didn’t have what Deming called “Stability of purpose,” and we focused on the tool and deploying the tool instead of developing the culture, so that PDCA became a way of thinking and a way of living rather than a program.

Professor Liker is the author of The Toyota Way Fieldbook which is one my favorite and most quoted books. His most recent work, Toyota Under Fire a 2011 Shingo Prize Winner, takes you beyond the headlines and into the offices and factories of Toyota to reveal the truth behind the company’s highly publicized and controversial recall of over 10 million vehicles.

Professor Liker’s Company Website: Optiprise

Related Information:

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

Continuously improving thru PDCA

The New Knowledge Management Game

business901 — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:31:37 +0000

Jack Vinson, a Knowledge Management and Theory of Constraints expert, was my guest on the Busienss901 Podcast. He is passionate and well versed in both subjects and we had a spirited conversation about them. A bottom line person, Jack is constantly looking for ways to see how the products he manages can help the customer be more effective with their time and energy.

Jack has been a knowledge management advocate and technology enthusiast and is the president of Knowledge Jolt, Inc., a knowledge management consultancy (2004 - 2007). He is deeply interested in how people work, whether that is as individuals, in small groups or within organizations. Within Knowledge Jolt, he focuses on helping organizations understand how they use their information. As an example, he worked with an insurance company and their call center to implement a content management vision as part of a large group of technology and business people. He has also worked with small firms to start the discussion around how they want to use their knowledge and the ever-changing horizons of technology on the offer. He continues to evangelize the importance of personal knowledge management to build individual and group effectiveness.

Related Information:

Has Knowledge Management disguised itself as Lean Marketing?

Understanding Complexity utilizing Cynefin

The Marketing Knowledge Spiral

Continuously improving thru PDCA

business901 — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:54:30 +0000

The Systems2win Company provides business process improvement tools and training to companies all over the globe. People are provided with easy-to-use fill-in-the-blanks Excel templates that come with self-help online training to improve the speed and reduce the cost of every step of your project. Dean was my guest on the podcast and we discussed how his company lives to their tag line. “Continuously improving tools for continuous improvement”. It is a unique discussion on how a small company practices PDCA.

Sytems2win will be exhibiting at the 23rd Annual Shingo Prize Conference, March 28 – April 1, 2011 – Northern Kentucky Convention Center located near Cincinnati, OH.

Systems2win templates were originally developed during 14 years of manufacturing systems consulting by the founder of Systems2win, Dean Ziegler. Systems2win templates and online training has been field proven, and continues to be continuously improved by hundreds of Systems2win software users.

Systems2win website: http://Systems2/win.com

Systems2win Newsletter

Related Information:

A3 Problem Solving for Marketing

VSM Guiding Principles

PK Flow – What is it and Why Use It?

Becoming an Agile Family thru Kanban

business901 — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:56:16 +0000

Maritza van den Heuvel. a Certified Scrum Master and Certified Product Owner has been part of a software development team changing from waterfall to agile over the last three years, first as lead tester and now as the Product Owner. She is also a mom, with the ongoing challenge of keeping family life organized with her husband – from arranging kids’ activities and school stuff, to planning out financial goals and priorities.

Maritza took that agile work experience where she introduced Kanban to her family one evening and the rest is history. She is one of the most devoted of all Personal Kanban users. Her Becoming An Agile Family blog is excellent and if I have one complaint is that she does not blog often enough. I take great tips away from it to use in a one chair consultant practice.

Personal Kanban is neither a prescription nor a plan. The book provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban.

Related Posts:

Personal Kanban Website

Keeping it all together with Personal Kanban

7 Habits, Getting Things Done and now, Personal Kanban

A Strategic Collaborator’s use of Personal Kanban

Are right brain thinkers better leaders?

business901 — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:31:25 +0000

Timothy W. Fowler (also known as The Right Brain) is CEO of BusinessLeadership.com. He details numerous process improvement efforts utilizing right-brain dominant-skills in the Business901 podcast and answered a few questions I had…

Specifically what is Right Brain problem-solving?
How can right brain thinking help business leaders?
Do you want a whole group of right brains in one group?
How do you hold right-brainers accountable?
What are the benefits of right brain thinking?

Tim is a University of Kentucky Certified Lean Master, a Goldratt Institute Theory of Constraint Supply Chain Expert, an ASQ-Certified Six Sigma Black Belt, and a Licensed Social Worker with a SECRET clearance. He is a visual-spatial thinker who designed President Obama’s Air Force One secure inspection and re-fueling process and he is also the founding Director of Super Bowl Champion Coach Joe Gibbs Youth For Tomorrow

Tim will also be speaking at the ASQ Columbus Spring Conference. It is a one day event on March 24th with registration beginning at 7:30 AM and the conference from 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. Additional information and registration can be obtained at http://www.asq-columbus.org.

Related Information:

ASQ Columbus Spring Conference will host Marketing with Lean

Left Brain vs Right Brain = Management vs. Marketing

Be Productive, Be Visual, Part 2

Start your Visual Thinking Process with Mind Mapping

Power of Visual Thinking in your Visual Workplace

PK Flow - What is it and Why Use It

business901 — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:23:26 +0000

I have struggle for many years with a personal management system and have spent most of my adult life waffling between the original The 7 Habits planning system and countless others. Using David Allen’s, Getting Things Done and his MSO Outlook attachment was the longest I stayed away from the Covey system. I eventually went back to the Franklin Planner and have tried several versions of that. I continued to use a version of it but my sticky notes and bulletin board next to my desk says it all. As techie as I am, I still want a physical board that I can write, post and move things on! The question is how do you put order to the chaos.

In the fall of 2009, I ran into several people that were not trying to take my chaos and telling me how to put it into their system but rather embraced it and told me to follow 2 simple rules: Visualize your work and Limit your work in progress. These efforts led me into working with the Personal Kanban teachings of Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry, co-authors of Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life. In fact, I did a podcast Kanban too simple To be Effective? with Jim Benson in the winter of 2010.

In the podcast, I welcomed the co-authors to discuss the book but we ventured away from a how-to podcast to a subject of how they began using Personal Kanban and their struggles in implementing it themselves. Part of that discussion was about the writing of the book from opposite ends of the country. They are quite candid about what worked and what did not for them.

Related Posts:

Personal Kanban Website

Keeping it all together with Personal Kanban

7 Habits, Getting Things Done and now, Personal Kanban

Keeping it all together with Personal Kanban

A Strategic Collaborator’s use of Personal Kanban

Outside the Walls of a Lean Enterprise

business901 — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:04:42 +0000

As Dr. Balle said, “Toyota didn’t become number one by having lower manufacturing costs, they became number one by making cars people bought.”

Dr. Michael Ballé is a business researcher and consultant and has studied lean transformation for the past 15 years. He is Associate Researcher at Télécom ParisTech and the co-founder of the French Lean Institute (www.institut-lean-france.fr) and the Projet Lean Enterprise (www.lean.enst.fr). He coaches CEOs and senior executives in using lean to radically improve their businesses’ performances and establish lean cultures.

Dr. Balle was my guest on the podcast and we discussed the new audio release of his Shingo Prize wining book, The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround. The audio version, like the original book, presents all the key lean principles, ranging from well-known ideas such as pull and flow, to lesser-known yet equally important principles such as jidoka and heijunka. It also reveals lean as a system—using a realistic business story that is both compelling and instructive to show how lean principles are interrelated.

We spent about 10 minutes talking about the book and than dove off into the subject of a Lean Enterprise from boardroom to shop floor. The last half of the podcast ventured outside the walls of manufacturing and into the less discussed areas of Toyota, sales and marketing.

Audio Version: Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround

The audiobook features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life. You’ll hear from:

Bob Woods, the curmudgeonly lean sensei;
Mike Woods, Bob’s son who talks his father out of retirement to help Phil;
Phil Jenkinson, the friend and struggling entrepreneur;
Amy Cruz, Phil’s HR manager;
Plus, the managers and employees at Phil’s company

Related Information:

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Lean Thinking Perspectives from Dr. Michael Balle

Lean Coaching & Learning with Jeff Liker

Developing a Kaizen Spirit

Developing a Kaizen Conscious with Shingo Prize winner Michael Balle

Lean Coaching by Jeff Liker

business901 — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 03:47:08 +0000

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Liker, celebrated author and authority on Toyota and the Toyota Production System. I was interviewing Jeff about his upcoming book, The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement (Book release date is April 22nd, Podcast will be later this month) and we wandered off on the question of coaching and teaching which Professor Liker knows a little about. As a result, I ended up with about 22 minutes of recording about Learning Lean. Information that is suited both for the Lean Consultant and the organization starting Lean or trying to take Lean to the next level.

An excerpt from the podcast:

It takes a certain type of person to be able to bring themselves back and relate to the beginner, and remember what I had to learn five years ago. There are some people who just can’t do that. They can do it and they don’t understand, or get frustrated when others can’t understand what they understand. That’s another kind of important issue, is that teaching is different than doing. Very often we just assume. For example, somebody is a Black Belt and they do enough projects they become Master Black Belt. And now presumably they can teach. That’s not a good assumption.

P.S. Professor Liker is the author of The Toyota Way Fieldbook which is in my top 5 dog-eared, highlighted, crimped pages and written in margin books that I own. Another words, I recommend it!

Professor Liker’s Company Website: Optiprise

The 7 step Lean Process of Marketing to Toyota

The Lean Edge and Zen – 2 great topics discovered

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing …

Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace

business901 — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 18:06:36 +0000

From the McGraw-Hill Press Release:

Social Media. Brand Collaboration. Content aggregation. Microblogging. User-generated content. And the list goes on… It’s been said that business is in the midst of the customer-centric marketing revolution—a trend which points toward business treating brands less like “property” and more like an extension of an organization’s values. The upshot is this: Smart companies are finally figuring out how peoples’ desire to participate is becoming a key driver of marketing success. But to be a winner in this environment, businesses have to fill this need and at the same time compete for consumers’ increasingly scarce time and shrinking attention spans. More complicated still, companies have to do all of this while also earning consumers’ trust.

The secret to connecting with consumers in a fragmented, chaotic marketplace, then, lies in how businesses collaborate with customers.

Mike Dover, co-author of the book, WIKIBRANDS: Reinventing Your Company in a Customer-Driven Marketplace was interviewed on the Business901 Podcast and though we did not cover every topic above, we certainly touched upon how you go about engaging customers, creating experiences and building communities – FROM A BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE.

Mike is Managing Partner of Socialstruct Advisory Group. As Vice President, Research Operations, for New Paradigm (Moxie Insight), he led the operations for research programs for the bestselling books Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital. He also has provided review support for more than a dozen other books.

Related Information:

Wikibrand Facebook Page

Social Messiness Explained

Online collaboration is leading the way for Lean Marketing

Yeret on Agile and Kanban

business901 — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 21:46:32 +0000

Yuval Yeret is a practicing Agile and Kanban consultant/coach for Agilesparks in Herzelyia, Israel. He coaches individuals and organization in their path to Agility and Engineering excellence, focusing on Scrum, Lean, and Agile Engineering practices.

Yuval provides R&D organizations management and technology leadership with a focus on building new teams/groups and organizational optimization/changes. He has experience in Networking, Operating System, Storage, Security in both programming and engineering aspects. He adds a natural affinity to Linux and Open Source, backed up by comprehensive experience with Windows environments and other more exotic environments as well.

His Specialties include: Scrum( CSM, CSP, CSPO) , Lean/Agile Development, QA/DEV Relationship and Optimization, Test Automation, Storage, Networking, Distributed Systems Architecture, Linux, Security, Project Management, Development Methodologies, Organizational Improvement, Team Building

Our podcast centered on the use of Kanban and how he blends the more traditional Agile practices of Scrum with it.

Yuval Yeret will be speaking at the upcoming Lean Software & Systems Conference 2011 (LSSC11).

Related Information:

Lean Software and Systems Consortium 2011 Overview

Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen

Scrum + Kanban = Agile Discussion with Landes

Kanban, could we call this podcast anything else?

Why Architecture is needed even in Agile?

Pascal Pinck on Personal Kanban

business901 — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 20:14:08 +0000

Pascal Pinck works as a Strategic Collaborator with individuals and teams who face high levels of uncertainty in their market context. More specifically, he educates and coach leaders and team members who are working to:

increase performance through agile and lean thinking
improve distributed decision-making and delegation
heighten trust and transparency
build a culture of constant value creation
engage stakeholders to help mitigate risk
turn resilience into competitive advantage

Pascal was a guest on my podcast to discuss Personal Kanban and as we did I felt like we touched upon on the areas above. Pascal is an engaging speaker and I think you will find his discussion of these subjects and Personal Kanban quite interesting and entertaining.

About: Personal Kanban is neither a prescription nor a plan. The book provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban.

Keeping it all together with Personal Kanban

business901 — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 04:26:47 +0000

Patty Beidleman has used Personal Kanban in almost every instance that she could think of since first coming across it in August of ‘09. From using it with her 11 year old daughter, at the nonprofit she founded and to using it in a preschool classroom. Patty even has developed her own kit for making a Kanban. Even the most seasoned Lean expert will learn something from this podcast, guaranteed!

Patty is the founder of Layers of Love. Chemotherapy patients suffer a terrible side effect of treatment. Being susceptible to cold. they are trying to make a difference for these patients going through chemotherapy by donating homemade fleece tied blankets to the Lehigh Valley Health Network, which includes the Cedar Crest and Muhlenberg Cancer Center locations.

Personal Kanban authors Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry also helped Patty as she tried Personal Kanban in all the different aspects of her life and how she tied them all together. She has a Personal Kanban Flicker Page that I encourage you to view as you listen to the podcast.

If you are so moved to make a blanket donation there are a few guidelines that they have found useful. Please review their site for address and the information that you will need. There is also a special link to Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store and all you have to do is send them the fleece and they will make the blankets. Take one of those 50% off Jo-Ann Fabric coupons in Sunday’s paper and use it for a good cause.

Related Sites: Layers of Love

Layers of Love Facebook Page

Personal Kanban Website

Making Sense of Social Messiness

business901 — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:34:57 +0000

Sample the first 2 minutes of this podcast. This is a tool-less conversation about social media. We actually started out the podcast with me commenting on the title and telling Francois that when I first picked it up, I thought, yes another book on social media which led to this comment:

Francois: I think a lot of people are like that. I wish we wouldn’t have had the subtitle that says it’s a competition by leveraging social media, because that’s what people think: “Ugh, there’s another social media book,” and it’s so not a social media book, it’s really a business book.

In The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media , Francois Goissieaux of Human 1.0 and Ed Moran of Deloitte identify how (and which) social media are fundamentally changing core business processes and the way businesses and customers interact. These changes are being driven by what the authors call the “Hyper-Social Shift.”

Online collaboration is leading the way for Lean Marketing

The Marketing Knowledge Spiral

Why Architecture is needed even in Agile?

business901 — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 20:21:12 +0000

Jim (”Cope”) Coplien was my guest on the Business901 podcast. We discussed his new book,Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development but I found Cope’s view on Lean and Agile quite interesting. His knowledge of the subject goes far beyond the software practices that he writes about. Whether you are in IT or not, I think this podcast really helps in understanding Lean as a methodology.

Cope is a speaker and author whose works range from programming and architecture to ethnography and organizational design. He is a founder of the Software Pattern discipline and of organizational patterns, which in turn were one of the foundations of Scrum. Though he writes for a technical audience, his works focus on the human element of product development. His latest work, “Lean Architecture” is as much about how architecture helps make software usable, as it is about software maintainability on the technical side.

Other books:

Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development

Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms

Should you Manage your Organization with Agile Techniques?

PDCA Cycle introduction to Lean Marketing

Profound knowledge for Lean Marketing

Apply Lean thinking to Sales and Marketing

Why A3, Why Now in Lean Thinking?

business901 — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 15:31:38 +0000

Mike Osterling, who is the President and Principal Consultant at Osterling Consulting was my guest on the Business901 podcast and our discussion centered around A3 problem solving and A3 thinking. Mike is a long-term Lean Practitioner and it is interesting on his initial comment in the podcast when I asked, What he has been doing since I last talked to him?

Mike said, “Its been interesting because I’ve been reengaging with some clients and moving on from a lot of the traditional Lean tools, whether they’re being applied in office environment or of a shop floor and going to what they’re perceiving as advance concepts. So that’s exactly in line with what we want to talk about today; problem solving and A3 thinking. So it’s been a good journey and what I think is done in a normal evolution of thought and development.”

Osterling Consulting was founded by Mike Osterling in 2000 with the purpose of supporting organizations on their continuous improvement journey. Building upon 18 years of internal experience in operations leadership roles, Mike has worked full time for the last 13 years applying the lean concepts in manufacturing and office environments.

Mike is also the co-author of The Kaizen Event Planner: Achieving Rapid Improvement in Office, Service and Technical Environments. a practical, how-to guide for planning, executing, and sustaining rapid improvements in office, service, and technical environments. Geared to continuous improvement professionals and leadership teams, this book provides the methodology and practical tools for generating measurable results, while building a motivated workforce and creating a culture with an integrated focus on customer value, quality, cost, and service. Mike is an expert facilitator for a Kaizen event, contact him through his website www.mosterling.com

Sample A3 is available on the Business901 blog post on this Podcast.

Related Posts:

Kaizen in the Office Environment

Lean Office Kaizen Event Ebook

Kaizen: Marketing Inside your Organization

Problem Solving

Should you Manage your Organization with Agile Techniques?

business901 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:46:57 +0000

Steve Denning’s new book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010) was the topic of our discussion. Radical management is a fundamentally different approach to management, with seven inter-locking principles of continuous innovation: focusing the entire organization on delighting clients; working in self-organizing teams; operating in client-driven iterations; delivering value to clients with each iteration; fostering radical transparency; nurturing continuous self-improvement and communicating interactively. In sum, the principles comprise a new mental model of management.

Steve is also the author of the award-winning books, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. Steve works with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia on leadership, innovation, business narrative and reinventing management. From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank. In November 2000, Steve Denning was selected as one of the world’s ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders (Teleos). In the Fall of 2009, Steve was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls Colleges, Oxford University, UK.

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

Pull: The Pull in Lean Marketing

Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept

Receiving Better Response Rates thru Agile

the Nuts and Bolts of A3 Thinking

business901 — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 03:28:31 +0000

Daniel Matthews is an expert trainer with 30 years of training experience including Lean implementation and Training within Industry (TWI). He has spent fourteen of those years with the Toyota Company where he created and made use of the A3 as a core component of continuous quality improvement. Dan is the author of The A3 Workbook: Unlock Your Problem-Solving Mind and presently employed at the Kentucky Manufacturing Assistance Center. Website: http://kmac.org email: a3workbook@gmail.com

Our Podcast discussed A3 thinking and problem solving. With Dan’s vast experience in the subject we were able to dig deep into the subject and talk about his experiences both positive and negative utilizing A3s. It was not about how to develop an A3 culture. It was a nuts and bolts discussion.

Starting with Lean A3 Thinking in Marketing

Introduction to Marketing with A3

10 Sample A3s by 5 contributors + me

Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi

business901 — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:40:31 +0000

I took a little different twist this week on the Business901 podcast and interviewed Murali Chemuturi, an information technology and software development subject matter expert, hands-on programmer, author, consultant and trainer. This podcast centered on Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different than the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview. I think most people in the IT field will find it interesting.

In 2001, he formed his own IT consulting and software development firm known as Chemuturi Consultants. Chemuturi Consultants help software development organizations achieve their quality and value objectives. The firm provides training in several software engineering and project management topics such as Software Estimation, Test Effort Estimation, Function Point Analysis, and Software Project Management, to name a few. His firm also offers a number of products to aid project managers and software development professionals such as PMPal, a software project management tool; and EstimatorPal, FPAPal & UCPPal, a set of software estimation tools.

J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali Chemuturi:

Related Posts: Eric Landes Podcast

Kanban, could we call this podcast anything else?

Business901 Kanban Search

Kanban too simple To be Effective? Xerox Operational Excellence Program

Xerox drives Agile Processes thru Lean Six Sigma

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

From Manufacturing to Healthcare, the Tale of Lean Six Sigma Consultant

business901 — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:36:10 +0000

Jason Kilgore is much more than just your typical Lean Six Sigma consultant. I ran across Jason on the web answering a LinkedIn question about internal and external consultants. He spoke highly of each, gave practical common sense answers on when to use them and sold nothing! He caught my attention and I went surfing. I followed my instincts on this podcast and it turned out that Jason was a great interview. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

What I found was a Business Process Manager for Riverside Health System in Newport News, Virginia, where he has utilized his expertise in Project Management, Lean, and Six Sigma (Black Belt). In 2008, Jason transitioned to healthcare after 15 successful years in the automotive industry. While in the automotive sector, Jason filed for over 60 US and global patents as a design engineer, led multiple Six Sigma projects as a Black Belt, and implemented lean concepts in his role as a manufacturing manager.

Jason is the author of the book, The Elegant Process: The Guide to Enhanced Quality and Reduced Costs. In the book Jason demonstrates his value-based approach to simultaneously achieving quality and financial goals through process improvement and optimization. The Elegant Process shares Jason’s straightforward method for enhancing quality and reducing costs within any business setting by redesigning the systems that contribute to lackluster results.

Related Posts:

Profiting from Customer Value

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

The Pull in Lean Marketing

Value Stream Marketing and the Indirect Marketing Concept

Interpretations of Data

business901 — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:51:02 +0000

If we did not have uncertainty we would not need statisticians says Kaiser Fung on the Business901 podcast. Kaiser is a statistician with more than a decade of experience in applying statistical methods to unlocking the relationship between advertising and customer behaviors. He leads a team of statisticians at Sirius XM Radio that is responsible for gleaning insight into customers and operational best practices. His blog, “Junk Charts,” pioneered the genre of critically examining data and graphics in the mass media.

Numbers Rule Your World: The Hidden Influence of Probabilities and Statistics on Everything You Do is a fascinating book from Kaiser taking you inside the hidden world of facts and figures that affect you every day, in every way.

Lean your Marketing thru Segmentation

Managing the Design Factory

Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos

Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen

Adding Customer Value in Development at Xerox

business901 — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 22:45:56 +0000

This Business901 Podcast featured Patrick Waara talking about Xerox’s use of Agile techniques. Pat has been with Xerox for nearly 25 years teaching Lean, Six Sigma, and Agile techniques to Xerox’s software development community improving out software development capability. Our conversation originally was designed to discuss swarming and Lean problem solving. However we ventured off into the subject of how Lean, Six Sigma and Agile all work under the same umbrella. If you are regular listener or reader of this blog, you will see the humor in his answer: “It’s all about Flowing Value to the Customer.”

Our conversations started based on this recent news release from Xerox:

2010 swarming in action:

Recently, Xerox leveraged the Agile Scrum process – a light-weight project management system – during the development of the WorkCentre® 7545 and WorkCentre 7556, which were announced today (release below). By hosting live, frequent discussions on progress and priorities, the WorkCentre team was able to:

Identify and obtain all resources necessary to launch the product on time.

Balance the workload of team members who were juggling other projects.

Enable problem solving success in a team of people who had never worked together before.

Whether you call it swarming or Agile, real-time collaboration may become more sophisticated by 2020, but it’s already happening today and building competitive advantages for companies that can harness its power. I’d be happy to arrange a briefing for you with a Xerox Lean Six Sigma executive to discuss how through Agile methods companies can benefit from the “swarming” technique of problem solving. Please let me know if you’re interested.

Pat has both a BS and an MS in computer science from Michigan Technological University. He has held a variety of jobs at Xerox including developing user interface systems for Xerox’s DocuTech and Systems Architect for Xerox’s iGen3, all dealing with software development and systems.

Kanban at Xerox Corporation

Need a primer on Lean Six Sigma?

Xerox Operational Excellence Program

Xerox drives Agile Processes thru Lean Six Sigma

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

Best Practice for Self Coaching – Leadership 901 Podcast

business901 — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:46:51 +0000

A special treat for me was to have Howard Guttman on my podcast. Howard is the principal of Guttman Development Strategies, Inc. (GDS), a Mount Arlington, NJ-based management consulting firm founded in 1989 and specializing in executive coaching; building horizontal, high-performance teams; strategic and organizational alignment; and management development training (www.guttmandev.com). GDS has been ranked as a top Leadership Development consulting firm by Leadership Excellence magazine, which also named Mr. Guttman to its list of “Excellence 100 Top Thought Leaders.”

Though are discussion centered on his latest and third book, Coach Yourself to Win: 7 Steps to Breakthrough Performance on the Job and in Your Life, (www.coachyourselftowin.com) I found myself talking about leadership issues in organizational life. Howard thinks like leader, talks like a leader and I bet he even walks like a leader. The book is based on the proven process that he and his consultants have used to coach thousands of executives, in major organizations around the world, to higher levels of performance.

Mr. Guttman is the author of Great Business Teams: Cracking the Code for Standout Performance (John Wiley; www.greatbusinessteams.com), named one of the Top Business Books of 2008 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. He is also the author of When Goliaths Clash: Managing Executive Conflict to Build a More Dynamic Organization.

Related Posts:

Create a Great Workplace eBook

How does your State of Mind alter your Decisions?

How to have a 22–minute Meeting

Drucker and Deming = Lean Marketing

Can Control Points add Value in Lean?

Bringing Current Replenishment technology to MRP

business901 — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:13:27 +0000

Chad Smith of Constraints Management Group was the guest on the Business901 Podcast. Chad is currently writing the third revised edition of Orlicky’s Material Requirements Planning with Carol Ptak (a former B901 Podcast Guest).

Excerpt from the podcast:

Joe: My customers are not only looking for shortened cycles but they’re also looking for more customization. We need customization and shorter supply chain cycles. That is reality today. Am I wrong?

Chad: No, you are exactly right. That is why I caution people that are in the Lean community or in the TOC community to understand that the solution is not inward facing. It is outward facing. It is the interface or the integration between linkages in the supply chain and that commonly occurs from the manufacture to distributor or manufacture to customer and then manufacture back to all its suppliers.

And let’s face it. Let’s be real here. Global capacity is exceeding global demand right now. So looking for better scheduling techniques inside of four walls, instead of looking for better synchronization techniques across a supply chain or a product structure. In my opinion, is the wrong way to go.

There is a prerequisite order here to getting better. The prerequisite order is…listen to the podcast

Chad Smith is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Constraints Management Group (CMG), a services and technology company specializing in pull-based manufacturing, materials and project management systems for mid-range and large manufacturers. Chad has a wide range of experience in successfully applying pull-based systems within a diverse scope of organizations and industries.

Since the late 1990’s Chad and his partners at CMG have been at the forefront of developing and articulating the concepts behind Actively Synchronized Replenishment as well as building ASR compliant technology (Replenishment+®). Additionally, Chad is an internationally recognized expert in the application and development of the Theory of Constraints (TOC).

This is a highly informative podcast, one that you do not want to miss!

Is your Supply Chain practicing ASR?

In a Supply Chain, Where is more important than How Much!

Logistics Matter, even in Marketing

Implementing the TOC Supply Chain Solution

Transforming your Supply Chain to a Lean Fulfillment Stream eBook

Lean Six Sigma applied to Supply Chain

Application of Lean Six Sigma to the Supply Chain

Follow the Right Steps, achieve the Life of our Dreams says..

business901 — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 01:57:26 +0000

Tom MacKay of MacKay NLP Solutions believes we can and that’s what we discussed during this Business901 podcast. Neuro Linguistic Programming (usually called NLP) helps you improve your business, relationships, sporting or artistic performance by teaching you proven strategies that work. People waste a lot of time doing things that don’t get them the results that they want and deserve. NLP consists of techniques and principles modeled from outstanding experts throughout the world - so you can learn what really works right from the start!

Tom MacKay is the founder of MacKay Solutions. Tom first trained as a psychologist and in NLP in 1990 and since then has become one of the most respected NLP trainers in the UK. Tom is a Master Trainer of NLP, the highest level that can be attained, and is the only INLPTA Master Coach Trainer in the UK. He has appeared on television on the BBC show “Pay Off Your Mortgage” and recently filmed a pilot show on family dynamics. For more than 15 years, Tom has worked with individuals and organizations to help them achieve incredible results through Neuro Linguistic Programming . He has worked in therapeutic settings ranging from pain management to helping individuals create deep, lasting change. He has also trained and consulted with a large range of companies including Whitbread, Reuters, VISA, Royal Mail, and many other organizations. Tom is committed to helping his students create the results that they want.

Related Information:

How does your State of Mind alter your Decisions?

Creating a Great Workplace

Helping Customers to Excellence eBook

Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

Quallaboration Podcast with Personal Kanban Founder

How does your State of Mind alter your Decisions?

business901 — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 04:46:21 +0000

Dr. Reldan, “Relly,” Nadler was my guest on the Business901 Podcast. Our talked centered on leadership and developing the state of mind for making effective decisions. It is interesting what I learned about our mental models and as a result our everyday decisions.

Dr. Nadler is a leading psychologist and Executive Coach focusing on developing and providing cutting edge Emotional Intelligence tools and strategies for CEO’s, Executives, leaders, managers and their organizations and teams. His company, True North Leadership, recognizes and addresses the challenges leaders face today:

Problems:

The USA lost 8.4 million jobs from 2007 to 2009.
40% of the American workforce will be eligible for retirement in 2010. Leaders have to contend with a projected shortfall of 10 million workers in the next few years.
The Baby Boomer generation that is retiring has a higher Emotional Intelligence than Generation X and Y people who are coming into leadership positions. This is due to their time utilizing technology rather than face-to-face interaction with others.
Developing leadership bench strength has been a priority for organizations for the last 4 years.

His newest book, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, gives hands-on solutions to these problems and more. After working with over 15,000 leaders over 30 years, Dr. Nadler has distilled some of his best advice and tips. After Daniel Goleman sold 5 million copies of Emotional Intelligence, readers and leaders have been looking for hard-hitting ways to raise their Emotional Intelligence and the people they lead.

Creating a Great Workplace

Helping Customers to Excellence eBook

World of Work Will be Witnessing 10 Changes

Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

Quallaboration Podcast with Personal Kanban Founder

Can you be talented enough on your own?

Can Control Points add Value in Lean?

business901 — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 04:16:03 +0000

Can you really add value or are you just creating another tool to fill out some more paperwork? On the Business901 podcast. Jamie Flinchbaugh the co-author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road answered this and a few more questions such as:

What is a control point?
What is control point standardization?
How does standard work apply in an environment as dynamic as managing?
How does the automation and systems environment change the idea of control points and managing your environment?
How should this change? What should drive changes?

When we decided to discuss this subject, I have to admit there was a few reservations on my part. I considered a control point very much like a tollgate in Six Sigma. There are similarities but I received another learning experience from one of the leading lean thought leaders.

Jamie Flinchbaugh is co-founder and partner of the Lean Learning Center, and bring successful and varied experiences of lean transformation as both a practitioner and facilitator. Under the leadership of Jamie and the Center’s senior managers, the Lean Learning Center has become one of the most recognized and premier lean providers in the world. The Lean Learning Center’s clients include Harley-Davidson, Land O Lakes, Intel, Simmons Foods, ZF and Guidant including their Industry Week’s Best Plant winner among many other world-class companies. The JamieFlinchbaugh.com blog is a frequent stop of mine and many other lean practitioners.

Developing a Lean Culture

Lean Transformation Ideas from a Hitchhiker

Value Stream Mapping

Current State Map – Where are You?

Six Sigma Tollgate

Lessons from Escaping the Improvement Trap

business901 — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 02:39:17 +0000

Within any industry – be it hospitals, public accounting firms, manufacturing, governmental organizations or law firms – 20% of the organizations will be dramatically improving much more effectively than 80% of their competitors.

What does the top 20% do differently than the rest in their respective industries? In The Escape the Improvement Trap: Five Ingredients Missing in Most Improvement Recipes , the authors reveal the five most important ingredients that the top 20% exploit, but the remaining 80% do in a mediocre fashion:

Create value for customers.
Create an environment in which employees excel to their fullest potential.
Measure performance in a more meaningful fashion – Use the “right” metrics not all the metrics!
Apply process thinking to all areas of work.
Use an “executive mindset” to improve the way the organization goes about the business of improvement.

This podcast I had with co-author Michael Bremer was exhilarating for me as a host. By the end of the podcast, you will look at your continuous improvement efforts from a totally different perspective. Mike does a great job in summing up the five steps and you will be surprised and maybe how simple it is. He simply nails it!

Outside in Strategy– Customer Value

Practical Approach to Innovation used by Disney

Faster, Better, Cheaper is the Norm. What are you doing different

A Quick Tool for Value Analysis

Using Value Stream Mapping in Lean

Creating a Great Workplace

business901 — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 03:37:06 +0000

Ed Muzio, president and CEO of Group Harmonics was my guest on the Business901 Podcast and we had a great discussion on how to Make Work Great (Super Charge Your Team, Reinvent the Culture, and Gain Influence One Person at a Time). He is a leader in the application of analytical models to group effectiveness and individual enjoyment. This is a must listen for Kaizen Leaders and participants. Great tips and tools that can be instantly implemented. I was very impressed on his ease of explanation and mastery of the subject.

The author of the award-winning book Four Secrets to Liking Your Work: You May Not Need to Quit to Get the Job You Want (FT Press, 2008), Ed was originally trained as an engineer. He has started organizations large and small, led global initiatives in technology development and employee recruitment, and published articles and refereed papers ranging from manufacturing strategy to the relationships between individual skills and output. His analytical approach to human productivity has been featured in national and international media, including CBS, Fox Business News and The New York Post; he is a regular guest on CBS Interactive. With clients ranging from individual life coaches to the Fortune 500, he serves as an advisor and educator to professionals at all levels, all over the world.

A Cornell University graduate, Ed’s accomplishments include the creation and stewardship of a worldwide manufacturing infrastructure program, a nationally-recognized engineering development organization, and a non-profit organization providing residential services to at-risk youth in his home town of Albuquerque, NM.

World of Work Will be Witnessing 10 Changes

Value Stream Mapping your Sales Team

Quallaboration Podcast with Personal Kanban Founder

Can you be talented enough on your own?

what I learned about Kaizen and Agile from Pixlar

The Linkage of Customer Value

business901 — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 00:14:54 +0000

Customer Value seems old hat and so un-marketing like in this day of Social Media, Analytics, Inbound-Outbound, Trending and Buzz. However, the successful companies that are not necessarily writing about marketing as much as the are doing it rely on a simple term, Customer Value.

As Christine says,

These are not flash-in-the-pan companies. They are the likes of Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Fidelity, Cisco, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, IKEA, Philips, Texas Instruments, Becton Dickinson, and Tesco. These companies approach strategy from the outside in. They begin with the market, not their own capabilities. While that may sound easy, it is incredibly difficult. In the vast majority of companies inside-out thinking dominates practice and inevitably leads to eroding customer value and company profits. * These companies invest in generating and deploying unique market insights to inform and guide their outside-in view. They don’t guess or fly blind. * These companies focus every part of the organization on achieving, sustaining and profiting from customer value.

Christine Moorman is the T. Austin Finch, Sr. Professor and founder of The CMO Survey at The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. Professor Moorman is the author of over 60 journal articles, reports, and conference proceedings. She has co-edited the book Assessing Marketing Strategy Performance (with Don Lehmann) and has made over 100 presentations of her work at companies and universities all over the world. Her primary areas of activity are marketing strategy and customer-focused innovation

About the Book: How do these firms bring the outside in and profit from it? In Strategy from the Outside In: Profiting from Customer Value , the authors unveil four guiding principles—the customer value imperatives—that distinguish market leaders from other companies just muddling through. They argue through hundreds of examples that without constant attention to these four imperatives from the very top of the organization, any firm will quickly succumb to the centripetal forces pulling it toward an inside-out approach, and its position in the market will soon erode.

Related Posts:

Outside in Strategy– Customer Value

Faster, Better, Cheaper is the Norm. What are you doing different

Profiting from Customer Value

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

What does a Customer want?

A Quick Tool for Value Analysis

Your Value Network Participants; Who are the

The Lean Thinker on Value Enhancement

business901 — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 22:53:02 +0000

The guest on the Business901 podcast was Adam Zak (@leanthinker), founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Adam Zak Executive Search and an accomplished senior executive with more than 25 years of experience spanning the areas of management consulting; financial and operations management; and talent acquisition.

During the podcast I was able to ask questions on Customer Value, Value Proposition, and Value Streams, subjects that I am passionate about. Adam did not disappoint me as he challenged the status quo in the continuous improvement field bringing customer value to the forefront.

Adam has just co-authored a new book, Simple Excellence: Organizing and Aligning the Management Team in a Lean Transformation and it was the topic of the podcast. The book takes on difficult subjects outside of the normal Lean arena such as Pricing, Human Resources (should have guessed that!), Sales and Marketing, Supply Chain and others. I found the book entertaining and read it rather quickly. However, when finished I found myself thumbing back through certain sections and rereading parts of it. They chose a great title for the book. It reminded me of an Einstein quote: “Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This one should be considered for your bookshelf. It is not a fiction book where you get to learn all the answers. It is a book that challenges your thinking through concrete examples with an emphasis on Customer Value. By the way, they allude to no quick fixes and ask you to accept the challenge of a journey to excellence, however simple it may seem.

Related Posts:

Xerox Operational Excellence Program

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

Profiting from Customer Value

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

The Pull in Lean Marketing

Your Value Network Participants; Who are they?

Using Value Stream Mapping in Lean

Xerox Operational Excellence Program

business901 — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 11:55:39 +0000

My guest on the Business901 Podcast was Tricia Bhattacharya. She authored the Guide to Operational Excellence that Xerox makes available to their print customers. It introduces a five-step plan to help in-plants remove waste like overproduction and idle time. The five steps are: understand the goal, measure the current state, analyze data, develop a plan, and implement and track results.

Tricia explains the guide by saying, “I thought with Xerox and all of our focus on Lean Six Sigma, why don’t we develop something that print shops can use to help themselves run a little more efficiently. As a Black Belt, I thought some of these concepts are not really too difficult, Lean Six Sigma has almost a stigma attached to it that it’s very difficult and very hard to apply to a smaller business or a medium sized business. I took some of the simpler concepts out of a Lean Six Sigma tool set, put them in this guide, and renamed it “Operational Excellence.”

She is currently a Worldwide Segment Marketing Manager for the Xerox Graphic Communications Business Group. In this role, she is responsible for developing marketing programs focused on in-plant environments. She also holds a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Her 19-year career at Xerox has spanned roles from product development to marketing and she holds several patents for technologies developed while working on high-speed color product innovations. She earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lafayette College, an ME in Mechanical Engineering from RIT, and an MBA from the Simon School at the University of Rochester.

Related Podcast:

Overcoming Resistance and Backsliding

Need a primer on Lean Six Sigma?

Why Lean Marketing? Because it is the Future of Marketing

What went into Xerox’s new Ad Campaign

World of Work Will be Witnessing 10 Changes

Stories of Lean and Agile with the Agile Sensei

business901 — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 21:30:33 +0000

Claudio Perrone, aka Agile Sensei, is an independent Lean & Agile software development consultant, public speaker and dramatic storytelling journeyman. Currently based in Dublin (Ireland), he offers vital transformational leadership and management experience to help individuals and organizations achieve phenomenal improvements. His current work on Lean Enterprise Architecture is set to enable tighter strategy alignment and collaboration between business and IT in service organizations.

Our podcast was a collection of his thoughts on the use of Agile and Kanban and his work in the development of presentations such as Crafting your Storyboard and The Rise of the Lean Machine Storybook. Claudio has also developed a technique that we discussed in the podcast on how he crafts his presentations.

He is co-founder of the Dublin Alt.NET user group and board member of the Irish chapter of the International Association of Software Architects (IASA). In his career, he has been driving the design and development of several large-scale solutions for global companies in the fields of e-learning, e-commerce, manufacturing and automation.

He is co-author of the official Italian translation of the Agile Manifesto () and a guest author on Jimmy Nilsson’s Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET.

Storyboarding for Business

Marketing Kanban Cadence

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

Value Stream Mapping your Marketing

Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen

business901 — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:42:28 +0000

Don Reinertsen was my guest on the Business901 Podcast this week for a discussion on Creating Flow. Don is president of Reinertsen & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in improving the product development process. I have followed Don’s writing for many years and recognize him as THE leading expert in the field of Flow. His writings are insightful, packed full of information and readable. When editing the podcast, I could not bring myself to cut hardly a word out of it. Even at the end, I included one more of his analogies about the use of tools. There will not be a written version of this podcast so I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity.

Don’s contributions in the field of product development are recognized internationally. In 1983, while a consultant at McKinsey & Co., he wrote the landmark article in Electronic Business magazine that first quantified the value of development speed. This article is believed by some observers to have triggered the movement to shorten development cycles in American industry. It is frequently cited as the McKinsey study that reported “six months delay can be worth 33 percent of life-cycle profits”. Don is well known for developing methods to quantify and manage difficult trade-offs between cost, schedule, and technical performance.

Don is also responsible for coining the term “Fuzzy Front End” to describe the critical early stage of product development and for the first practical application of queueing theory to development process design in 1991. He is known for developing innovative, but practical, analytical techniques for assessing the product development process. For 25 years he has focused on creating fundamental changes in the way organizations develop products. His 1997 book, Managing the Design Factory , was the first book to describe how the principles of Just-in-Time manufacturing could be applied to product development. In the past 12 years this approach has become known as Lean Product Development.

Don speaks internationally on Lean Product Development. For the last 15 years he has taught executive courses at California Institute of Technology. For the last 6 years he has been teaching a popular course with the Management Roundtable, called Achieving Lean Product Development. His 2009 book, The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development , has been praised as, “… quite simply the most advanced product development book you can buy.”

Related Posts:

who has influenced my thinking on Flow

Constant Feedback makes for Continuous Work Flow

Marketing Kanban Cadence

Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or is it just a Marketing Funnel?

Value Stream Mapping your Marketing

Flow

Applying the OODA Loop to Lean

business901 — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 12:39:49 +0000

Dr. Terry Barnhart, the Senior Director Strategy and Continuous Improvement at Pfizer Global R&D discusses the OODA Loop in this Business901 Podcast. We expand this theory into some practical applications and using the OODA Loop in and outside of rapid deployment. Dr. Barnhart has an upcoming book due out at the end of the year on using Lean in Product Development. It will be published by Productivity Press.

For more information on the OODA Loop there is a a Boyd symposium coming up on October 15 and 16 at the Marine base at Quantico, VA. You may contact Stanton Coerr Stanton.coerr@usmc.mil. Dr. Barnhart will also presenting a short course for Management Round Table on Lean in R&D, which will include a lot of Boyd theory, including the OODA loop and beyond, in Cambridge MA on November 3&4. Go to www.roundtable.com. The promo code FOT (friends of Terry) will give you $300 off.

This is a podcast you do not want to miss. At the end of the podcast the music starts and stops again to include an extra 10 minutes on the discussion of implementing a Lean Culture utilizing OODA Loop principles. A takeaway from our conversation:

If you can find the cultural levers that are aligned with Lean that absorb ideas into your company, you won’t need to go force anything. It’ll pull it in whether you want it too or not. You won’t even be able to stop it.

That’s the kind of thing that we’ve been thinking about. How can we do this with people? How can we do this with divisions? How can we do this with entire companies? It’s fascinating because I think there are ways consistent with what Boyd taught. It’s not the same but, I think there are ways that companies can boot‑strap the stuff. I don’t mean to say it’s a grass‑roots or bottom‑up, it’s a whatever it is that gets into their cultural system. It’ll absorb it very quickly and spread. How can we do that with Lean?

Recommended Reading:

Frans Osinga, Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd (Strategy and History),

Chet Richards, Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business

Related Information:

Phooey on the need for Management Support in a Lean Transformation

Key Marketing Concepts from the Korean War

If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts!

Boyd’s Law of Iteration: Speed beats Quality :

Iterative Process Gaining Steam – Proof it works :

Quallaboration = Collaboration + Quality

business901 — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 18:14:00 +0000

The relationship between Quality and Collaboration, Quallaboration was the topic of this podcast. Jim Benson, the person behind Personal Kanban was the Business901 guest to explain the meaning of it all. Quallaboration came from a lightning talk he put on when explaining a recent case study.

Joe Dager, the Host of the podcast said, “I look at the knowledge sharing, the cross training and what you’re doing with pairing. You’re taking all the different things of collaboration, all the things that you spell out and you’re making it immediate. You’re making it something that happens in real time and you’re not doing it individually, you’re doing it with a group and that’s a huge key here, is that constant feedback really does make work continuous.

About Jim Benson: Jim incorporates his background in cognitive psychology, government, and management to build community through policy and technology. His company, Modus Cooperandi, helps organizations change through the application of Lean principles, Agile methodologies, and social media. He is also the developer of the productivity tool Personal Kanban, an adaptation of Industrial Kanban which helps individuals and small teams actualize. His book on Personal Kanban, which applies Lean thinking to daily living, will be out in Fall 2010.

Related Information:

Constant Feedback makes for Continuous Work Flow

Lean your Marketing by Dominating with Customer Value