FEATURE – The authors explain why putting value at the heart of customer discussions is key to developing a successful, resilient tech firm.
INTERVIEW – If we truly believe lean can change society, then we should use it as a lens through which to look into different aspects of our lives – even when those associations are hard to make. This month, we discuss the world of media.
CASE STUDY – Over the past few years, DBS Bank in Singapore has undergone an extraordinary turnaround inspired by lean. Here, the COO explains how the company has become the world's "best digital bank".
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.
VIDEO INTERVIEW - In this conversation with our editor, John Shook discusses Lean Thinking post-pandemic and its role tackling large-scale problems, and introduces an upcoming free event you don't want to miss.
CASE STUDY – This Shared Service Center in Poland has leveraged lean, technology, and automation to completely transform itself and provide an ever-better customer experience.
CASE STUDY – The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the application of Virtual Healthcare across the world. In South Australia, this has been implemented in urgent care.
INTERVIEW – General Electric’s Angie Norman talks to our editor about the lean journey of the company’s Finance department and how the area became a driver of GE’s overall transformation.
FEATURE – The author shares a few lessons learned on his company’s journey to Industry/Quality 4.0, the foundation to 5.0 Artificial Intelligence.
FEATURE – Lean Thinking is about voluntary participation, not audits that are meant to ensure compliance. The authors explore the advantages of pursuing cooperation rather than control.
FEATURE – We often spend a great deal of time and effort trying to fit our organizations into a box instead of building a box that fits our organization, says Sharon Visser.
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.
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.
CASE STUDY – The Finnish Broadcasting Company has been leveraging lean thinking to scale up its agile work. In the process, it has developed a greater understanding of customer value.
FEATURE – With lean thinking, Madrid-based Neo@Ogilvy is hoping to create a stronger connection with customers, thus learning to create value for them and redefining the overall purpose of marketing.
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.
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.
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 – 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 – In this article we learn how the creation of an Obeya helped an international insurance company boost collaboration among functions and accelerate the delivery of an important IT project.
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.
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.
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 – The Chief of Agile at Toyota Connected tells us about the agility journey of Toyota and explains why the divide between lean thinking and Agile has no reason to exist.
FEATURE – Following a visit to a Toyota supplier in Japan, the authors reflect on the nature of kaizen and explain why we might be looking for it in the wrong place.
OPINION – The digital revolution has forever changed the nature of employment: today's workers have more choice and employers competing for them than ever before. It's about time our approach to HR reflected that.
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 – Dan Jones will be a keynote speaker at this year’s Lean IT Summit in Paris. In this interview, he gives us a sneak peek of what he is going to talk about.
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 – Not many people know that digital technology and the IT industry are rife with environmental waste. Discovering it and eliminating early can have beneficial effects on both the business world and the planet.
INTERVIEW – CI&T is a very successful Brazilian IT and software engineering company that has found in lean thinking a way to build on its agile work while better approaching leadership development.
INTERVIEW – Business services company Dun & Bradstreet learned that the best way to tackle organizational challenges is using a combination of agile, lean startup and more traditional lean principles.
INTERVIEW – The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has been working with a lean-inspired improvement program that is gradually transforming the culture of the business – one creative idea at a time.
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?
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 – 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
WEB SERIES – Episode 3 of our docuseries on lean in Brazil takes us to the second largest bank in the country. Learn how Bradesco is striving to improve its processes to provide more value to its customers using Lean Thinking.
FEATURE – A senior executive of a Spanish hotel chain shares an example of how the organization’s management system and visual tools have changed over time.
INTERVIEW – A VP at energy company E.ON shares his thoughts on the current energy crisis and discusses how lean is helping them to navigate it.
FEATURE – As organizations strive to modernize and ride the wave of new technologies, what should their operating systems look like? How can they adapt to Industry 4.0?
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.
CASE STUDY – Combining the lean and agile methodologies, HP’s site in Barcelona has streamlined and greatly improved its product development. Along the way, they transformed their culture, too.
FEATURE – This global designer and manufacturer has leveraged a remote kaizen initiative to keep the flame of continuous improvement burning during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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 – 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 – This article explains how Lean Thinking and the agile method can strengthen and optimize our digital transformation efforts.
CASE STUDY – The reimbursement department of the largest independent insurance company in Brazil has brought together lean and digitalization to improve its service to customers.
FEATURE – To make the right decisions, the contribution of the team and the leader’s intuition are not enough. It’s also critical to identify the most effective channels and activities for your marketing activities.
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 – 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 – The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed all the shortcomings of our current supply chains. Lean Thinking can make them more agile, aligned and adaptive.
FEATURE – Ahead of the annual lean conference of LEI Polska, the authors reflect on a recent survey they ran with their clients on the key business challenges they face.
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.
BUILDING BRIDGES – A member of the Theodo team tells us about their attempts to improve the performance of their Web apps using lean principles.
BUILDING BRIDGES - This month, we hear how addressing work-in-progress led a startup specialized in AI to productivity gains on their machine learning projects.
INTERVIEW – Catherine Chabiron sits down with Marc Onetto, a former executive with GE and Amazon, to discuss Jidoka and its profound effects on the way people work and think.
NOTES FROM THE GEMBA – Catherine’s gemba walks are back after the summer break. This month, she visits a start-up that is using lean to manage its growth, and learns about its management’s extraordinary turnaround.
FEATURE – A traditional output-based mindset is not appropriate in the digital world. In this piece, the author explains why digital product teams should be managed to outcomes, instead.
CASE STUDY – Around four years ago, classified ads magazine Auto Trader printed its final issue and moved to a web-only business model. As its digital transformation progressed, the company discovered why real innovation must become business-as-usual.
INTERVIEW – After transitioning from agile to lean kanban, French insurance comparison company LesFurets.com has found in lean management an ever stronger foundation for value creation.
FEATURE – As many retail giants are finding out, great customer service is no longer enough to ensure competitive advantage in a world where the digital revolution is taking no prisoners.
FEATURE – The banking sector is floundering in the face of heavy regulation and increased competition from fintechs. So what can banks do? The author suggests they embrace lean IT in order to change their ways.
PROFILE – A commitment to learning and the humility to understand we never really know enough have led a Belgian mathematician to become a polyglot… and the CIO of Toyota Motor Europe.
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.
COLUMN - In the first installment of her new column, the CIO of Finnish defense company Patria shares her thoughts on what makes lean management so critical in the life of the leader of an IT department.
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 – 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 - 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.
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.
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.
VIDEO INTERVIEW – Hierarchical organization, goodbye! Embracing servant leadership and a horizontal reporting structure, Spotify is redefining the idea of company.
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.
WOMACK’S YOKOTEN – The sharing economy came with a very “lean” promise – underutilized resources made available to those who need them for a reasonable fee – but not all that glitters is gold.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
FEATURE – Lean management forces us to look at our IT service management from a different perspective and helps us to ensure it really supports our organizational needs.
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.
