I am in the process of (finally!) reading Mike Rother’s great book Toyota Kata. The book has already gotten great reviews out there, and I am not going to contribute a lot more to that dialog except to say I think it is the first substantial addition to community knowledge about TPS since Steven Spear [...]
Background – In my original comments on The Lean Manager, I compared The Lean Manager‘s story structure to that of Eli Goldratt’s classic The Goal. This started a rather deep email exchange with Michael Ballé that goes far deeper into the book and the thoughts behind it than any review I could ever write. With [...]
This is Part 2 of a multi-part review. Part 1 is here. In my review of Kaizen Express back in May, I took LEI to task for two things – First, I didn’t feel Kaizen Express contributed anything really new to the body of knowledge. I would have been satisfied if it had more clearly [...]
I just started reading this book, and my initial feeling is that it is a winner. Rather than producing a batch review of the whole thing at the end, I thought I would employ “one chapter flow” and share my impressions with you as they are formed. As I write this, I honestly do not [...]
I am a big fan of Jim Collins. His book Good to Great outlines attributes that I have seen in every successful organizational transformation. Now he has a new book out. I haven’t read it yet, so I am not going to offer a review, just tell you about it. But the title and premise [...]
The Lean Enterprise Institute has recently published Kaizen Express, an overview of the classic characteristics of “lean manufacturing” and, by implication, the Toyota Production System. As I set out to review the book, I found myself heading in two directions. One is the content of the book itself. Over the years, there have been a [...]
Following on from the buzz created by the last couple of posts, I would like to go back in time a bit. In 2005 Steven Spear wrote a working paper called “ Why General Motors Lost and Toyota Won.” A reader can clearly the see emerging themes that were developed into his book Chasing the [...]
Lean Product and Process Development by the late Allan Ward is an interesting view into his extensive research into Toyota’s product development system. I am still reading it (along with Product Development for the Lean Enterprise by Michael Kennedy. The books present the same basic model in different ways, though I should point out that [...]
My posts about “ Made to Stick” and visual controls created some interesting responses on Jon Miller’s Gemba Panta Rei blog, so I want to continue the great dialog. Jon asks the great question “Is your lean deployment made to stick?” and extends the context from just visual controls to the entire concept. Of course [...]
Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath have addressed head-on one of the biggest problems with implementing change in people’s thinking and behavior — crafting the concept in a way that makes it compelling.. “sticky” in their words. The book is an extension of the concept described [...]