Comments on: The TPS In Four Words

By: Dietmar Dold

Dietmar Dold — Thu, 20 May 2010 11:36:28 +0000

Mark

What an inspiring post.
I am very happy to found and read your article.

I am writing a book about bringing Lean Thinking into the business of Interim Management, called LEAN-INTERIM.
I totally agree on your statement about the core of the success of Toyota: MANAGEMENT BY HYPOTHESIS TESTING.

The more Hypothesis you know, have experienced or even tested the better it is for the company, right?

So it should be a must-have for Interim Managers to be aware, trained, experienced and even certified in regard of LEAN THINKING and Management by Hypothesis Testing.

By: Why You Need SOPs by Darth Vader | learnsigma

Why You Need SOPs by Darth Vader | learnsigma — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:15:22 +0000

[...] The TPS In Four Words (theleanthinker.com) [...]

By: LCI Member Blog » Blog Archive » LCI Member Note

LCI Member Blog » Blog Archive » LCI Member Note — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 01:39:48 +0000

[...] Robinson alerted me to a great post on lean boiling it to four words http://theleanthinker.com/2009/03/06/the-tps-in-four-words/ A ready-made Diner Module looks neat and lean http://www.diner-mite.com/ In closing, A really cool [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:37:59 +0000

Thanks for the comment, John.
I agree that engaging all of the stakeholders isn’t directly called out here.
My underlying thinking is that is implicit in the process itself. The deep level of process understanding to pull this off cannot be gained any other way, and the “test and experiment” part of execution absolutely requires the full participation of the people who actually carry out the work.

By: John Stricklland

John Stricklland — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:57:35 +0000

Good post that hits, sometimes uncomfortably, at the key issues in improving performance. The one thing that seems to be missing is a focus on engaging all of the stakeholders in the process.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:31:45 +0000

What is so interesting about this is that people who do not fully practice or understand TPS, but do practice your four word definition – are extremely successful as managers.

At some level, we need our academic paradigm to accept this notion – that all management practices, at all levels, are some form of hypothesis testing. If this definition of management were accepted as the norm – our country would leap ahead 100 years in our ability to compete – external influences aside.

Great, great post!

By: Jim Cutts

Jim Cutts — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:47:03 +0000

Here are somethings I try to thing about when looking at strategy and planning. They (the things) are part of Ethnography or How people do stuff. The thoughts keep me from spending to much time predicting.

1-Nothing people do is natural
2-Whatever you saw could happen differently
3-Become a master of the obvious
4-Its in the details
5-See the whole activity
6- Obvious things are only obvious in hind sight

I enjoyed what you have to say about understanding. What I like best is observing our company as its understanding of Lean improves. Thanks for the post.