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One Small Step for Man Are you building plans for 2010? Strategic plans? Goals? Action plans? Even New Year’s Resolutions? Many of you are. You are told to think big, dream big, plan big. I’m couldn’t agree more. Until… you stall. You start thinking about the resources. You start thinking

Creativity103 Are you waiting for your annual GM and Chrysler report? I would assume as a shareholder that we’ll all get one. No? OK, I won’t wait by the mailbox (since technically we’re not shareholders). Fortunately there are plenty of people trying to offer an explanation of progress, or lack

Everybody loves a good meeting. If you think I’m being sarcastic, then you’ve never been in a good meeting. A good meeting is energizing, productive, focused. But of course most of the meetings that organizations hold are frustrating, unproductive, and wasteful. Here are two quick tips. First, consider if you

If you follow me on Twitter then you know about Follow Friday, where people share who they are following. Since I look at everything through the lens of value, I always struggle to see people just pumping out lists of names. That’s why I only post, and only read the

I was recently at a dinner meeting with a few people surrounding an event I was supporting, and at the table was both a young, aggressive, smart individual contributor from a large company and a 30+ year experienced general manager who knew his way around the flagpole. We got into

One of the most important principles in lean is respect for people. It is often glossed over as a nicety, given less rigor than things like just-in-time, and often misunderstood as abdication and softness. But respect for people is about leveraging the full talents of an individual and providing individuals

I have a new post published on Assembly Magazine. See the full article on that site. Continuing education is key to any lean deployment strategy…. Continue reading….

This is a guest post by Shawn Patterson from DTE Energy. You can learn more about Shawn from his LinkedIn profile, or as featured in Chapter 10 of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lean. Probably the most powerful attribute of the Toyota Production System is the deeply ingrained principles underpinning all

Happy Thanksgiving. There are no presents for this holiday, but still many reasons for giving thanks. Interested in a little trivia? My birthplace of York, Pennsylvania can be thanking for giving us Thanksgiving as a national holiday. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress declared a Day of Thanksgiving for

This is my last in the 4 part series on A3 problem solving. I’ll be answering more questions on a webinar hosted by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers which I hope you’ll check out and join. On to our final questions. Q8. Is there software that can help me with