FEATURE – This year, PL will try to understand what the future of work looks like in a world with AI. To kick us off and make us think, we publish an article that is the result of a one-hour conversation between a human and a machine.
FEATURE – BRQ Digital Solutions shows that effective customer-focused improvement must happen from the inside out, with team development aligned with the pillars of lean digital transformation.
CASE STUDY – This digital organization has embarked on a cultural transformation that is allowing them to become more agile while keeping people and stimulating interactions at the heart of their work.
INTERVIEW – In today’s Q&A, we learn how Lean Thinking is supporting the digital transformation of the public administration of the African country of Benin.
FEATURE – The authors explain why putting value at the heart of customer discussions is key to developing a successful, resilient tech firm.
FEATURE - The author explains how a recent book on radical quality improvement in manufacturing inspired him to initiate similar experiments in his software development firm.
FEATURE – This article explains how Lean Thinking and the agile method can strengthen and optimize our digital transformation efforts.
FEATURE – In the final article of her series, the author spends a day with Theodo’s CEO and co-founder to learn how lean informs its strategy and vision.
FEATURE – For a few years now, Theodo has made of quality and customer satisfaction the main focus of its work, and it is paying off. But what does it mean to pursue and improve quality at a digital company?
FEATURE – This month, the author learns how gemba walks happen in a digital environment, where the work and information are typically hidden in computers.
FEATURE – The third article in this new series discusses Theodo’s approach to talent recruitment and development, to ensure the right resources are there to support the company’s growth at all times.
FEATURE – During a recent Jishuken workshop, Poland-based Schumacher Packaging experimented with a newly-developed App to quickly create standardized work instructions at the gemba.
FEATURE – In the second article in her new series, the author discusses how focusing on customer value helped a fintech start-up to grow fivefold just last year.
NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – The author visits the office of Theodo France and learns how the lean digital company is leveraging lean thinking and practice to support its ongoing growth – even through the pandemic.
FEATURE – In many organizations, strategy is often lacking from the digital transformation agenda. The authors provide insights into how value chains and Wardley Maps can assist.
FEATURE – How can digital companies develop a competitive edge in the "tech first" future? By using Lean Thinking to ensure continuous learning and transform the way coders think and work.
FEATURE – No organization can expect to survive without a sound marketing strategy. The author outlines the main elements and advantages of a lean marketing approach.
CASE STUDY – This insurtech venture has found in Lean Thinking a way to tackle its many scaling issues. It’s grown from two to fifty-five people in less than four years, ultimately thanks to a strong focus on quality.
NOTES FROM THE (VIRTUAL) GEMBA – This week, the author chats with an innovative insurance company as it relies on its lean learnings to ensure business continuity and switch to remote working during the Covid-19 crisis.
FEATURE – Digital organizations are starting to recognize that Toyota’s unique approach can show them the way forward, just like it does “traditional” organizations. Here, we hear from a few startup CEOs following their trip to Japan.
BUILDING BRIDGES – Using kaizen, a team at Theodo was able to reduce the time necessary to install a project on a new developer’s computer from three weeks to twelve minutes.
NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – The author visits a comparison website that is gradually integrating agile and lean thinking in its processes, identifying new and exciting improvement opportunities.
INTERVIEW – At last month’s Lean Digital Summit in Lisbon, César Gon told attendees how, with lean digital, we have an opportunity to finally get the attention of CEOs and business leaders.
FEATURE - To get on a path of sustainable growth, an organization must get to know its customers... and there is no better way of doing so than embracing and analyzing their complaints.
BUILDING BRIDGES – In another article for their series, lean digital company Theodo tells us about their efforts to measure and reduce its lead-time to deliver product features.
PROFILE - When years of hard work to re-organize Patria's IT operations led to disappointing results, Sari Torkkola didn't throw in the towel. Instead, she started to build her department's understanding of lean.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Transformation Summit in Las Vegas, our editor sat down with Nationwide to hear more about the mutual company’s application of lean thinking to IT and how they are working towards getting 9,000 people onboard.
FEATURE – Lean thinking is increasingly applied end to end, reaching virtually every area and function of the enterprise, and yet in many companies IT is still left out of the lean transformation. Isn't this dangerous in a world that is going more and more digital?
FEATURE – The goal of your digital transformation is not only to develop new technologies and innovative processes, but to turn your people into the kind of "smart creatives" who will lead your firm into the future. Lean will get you there.
FEATURE – Day after day, groundbreaking technological advances are dramatically changing industry. It is clear that we are now experiencing a new industrial revolution, but what’s the role of lean thinking in this Digital Age?
INTERVIEW – When we think of innovation we rarely think of government, and yet the public sector is in desperate need to modernize and improve. Pierre Pezziardi is on a mission to bring innovation to the French government.
COLUMN – Digitalization is now on the agenda of executive teams and is encouraging organizations to review their business models. But how does IT fit into the picture? What is its role? How can lean help?
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean IT Summit, Planet Lean spoke to BlaBlaCar, a Paris-based company that has managed to keep the startup way of thinking alive in the face of the hypergrowth it experienced in the past four years.
FEATURE - Traditionally seen as the mother of all evil, the IT department in our organizations has a long way to go before it fulfils its potential and becomes an actual facilitator in the delivery of excellent products and services. In the past few years, IT leaders have realized that lean management can help them to transform the function.
COLUMN - Menlo Innovations may not define itself as a "lean organization" but there is no doubt that its management style is akin to the principles lean teaches. Here, a front-line Menlonian shares her thoughts on the company's culture.
INTERVIEW – The CIO of a French pharmaceutical company gives us a sneak peek of her presentation at the upcoming Lean IT Summit, focused on using the obeya to change the IT department.
FEATURE – This piece analyzes the different elements of scrum, an agile software development framework, as seen from the point of view of traditional lean thinking.
COLUMN - For her latest column, Sari Torkkola describes the initial steps that must be taken to move towards becoming a lean CIO and warn us against some of the pitfalls along the way.
FEATURE – Menlo Innovations has proved there is a different, more "joyful" way of running a software development company – could those same lessons be applied to the healthcare industry?
INTERVIEW - Like many other improvement methodologies, LeanUX shares a lot of principles with traditional lean. Yet, the two communities don’t know a lot about each other. We ask an expert to bridge the gap.
INTERVIEW – At the recent Lean Transformation Summit in New Orleans, we sat down with Richard Sheridan of Menlo Innovations to discuss the ground-breaking concept of joy in the workplace.
CASE STUDY - How Spotify developed an alternative management system based on servant leadership, interaction-based learning and adaptability – changing the music industry along the way.
VIDEO INTERVIEW – Hierarchical organization, goodbye! Embracing servant leadership and a horizontal reporting structure, Spotify is redefining the idea of company.
INTERVIEW – Tom and Mary Poppendieck sit down with Roberto Priolo and discuss what makes product organizations successful today and where lean software development is headed.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - Planet Lean speaks with Jeff Sutherland, one of the inventors of scrum software development, about the evolution of this Agile framework and its relationship with lean.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - At the Lean IT Summit, we spoke with Amazon Web Services to understand what type of flexible and scalable IT infrastructure allows organizations to be innovative without breaking the bank.
FEATURE – An obeya room can be the cornerstone of a lean transformation, but developing a successful visual management environment is easier said than done. Nike’s Technology department shares a few tips.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - We spoke with Toyota Motor Europe's CIO at the Lean IT Summit about hoshin and IT, the application of the agile methodology, and the power of coaching.
INTERVIEW - In our search for the perfect solution, we often seem to ignore the user's needs. Jeff Gothelf explains why this is nonsense and what lies at the heart of the Lean UX software development methodology.
FEATURE - London-based startup Elastera may represent the example of a company aspiring to be lean from the outset rather than trying to fix itself later through a transformation.
COLUMN - A lean transformation is not just a prerogative of top management, but a goal to be shared across an organization. Here's a few thoughts on how I.T. people specifically can contribute to a turnaround.
INTERVIEW - Pierre Masai, CIO of Toyota Motor Europe, discusses IT across the company's operations in Europe, highlighting the importance of people engagement and experiments.
FEATURE - Professor Dan Jones looks at the unique challenges the digital age presents the business community with, and explains how lean thinking can help us to effectively address them.
COLUMN - For those working in the I.T. world, identifying waste can be tricky. However, starting by tackling over-production will help you to eliminate every other form of waste.
INTERVIEW - Håkan Borglund, CIO of Toyota Material Handling Europe, speaks with Planet Lean about Toyota principles and the role of lean IT at Toyota Material Handling.
Improvement methodologies have been used in the software world for a very long time, with approaches like Agile and Lean digital methodology playing a key role in speeding up the development of digital products. Agile principles and ideas – like Scrum and its way of structuring teams and organizing the work – have found their ways into many a lean company. Lean digital thinking and the Toyota Production System, in turn, have greatly influenced the development of these approaches.
Lean Digital is the methodology by which companies apply lean principles to the development process of new digital products.
The world of startups and entrepreneurship has also drawn a lot of inspiration from lean management. Eric Ries’ best-selling book The Lean Startup offers a framework for quick experimentation and validation of learning that is often viewed as an interpretation of lean’s PDCA cycle – and the very idea of involving the customer at different stages of the process clearly reminds of the fundamental lean idea of listening to the Voice of the Customer.
Despite this great level of cross-contamination, however, a disconnect still exists between the world of ‘traditional lean’ and that of young, digital companies. A few pioneering organizations such as softrware company Theodo are trying to bridge that gap by solidly applying lean thinking to their digital work. This is a new frontier for lean thinking.