Is Agility More Important than Lean?

With the right vision, the two go hand-in-hand. Rick Bohan MAR 30, 2020 A friend of mine works for a company that’s always been in the consumer goods arena. It hopes to expand its B2B portfolio. The company is striving to respond consistently to Requests For Quotes (RFQ)  within  two weeks. It predicts that it…

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Never let a serious crisis go to waste

  March 30, 2020 In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on November 19,2008, Rahm Emanuel was quoted as saying; “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.  And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before.” He was referring to…

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Playing the Lean Long Game

As the market changes quickly, now is the time for some serious scientific thinking. Beau Keyte MAR 27, 2020 Many of us might be wringing our hands over the impact of this pandemic on our expansive lean (or, whatever you chose to call it) transformation.  Perhaps you’re approaching it with the wrong goal in mind.…

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Doubling down on digital transformation during the coronavirus pandemic

As the coronavirus, or COVID-19, paralyzes businesses and society worldwide, it’s tempting to backburner digital strategy amid the sharp uptake in business continuity and resiliency efforts. Don’t do that: Rather, accelerate business transformation efforts now to put yourself in better position after the pandemic passes, say experts and CIOs. “You have to avoid the tendency…

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Virtual Meetings Don’t Have to Be a Bore

Post navigation Those of us who present, facilitate, and teach for a living understand the importance of developing a personal connection with an audience. It’s critical to be and feel natural; to make people laugh, feel at ease, and fully engage — and perhaps even lose themselves — in the content you’re delivering. That’s why…

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A Guide for Working (From Home) Parents

by Avni Patel Thompson March 19, 2020 Amir and Ria are working professionals living in Seattle: he works at Amazon and she’s the CEO of an early-stage start-up. They have two kids, Amara and Aryan, who are 6 and 2 years old. They’re used to managing the usual challenges of dual working parents — coordinating…

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Silver Bullets Are Seductive But Unhelpful – Especially In Uncertain Times

Kotter ContributorLeadership StrategyWe write about accelerating transformation. By Gaurav Gupta Change is hard and complex, and changing the behaviors of millions of people is especially so. It is seductive to try to make it simple – or at least more defined and straightforward. For the millions of people who decide to go on a diet…

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Ready, aim, hire

Damien Marc, CEO JPB Système 17 MARCH 2020 • In Features Damien Marc, CEO of JPB Système, which supplies self-locking fastening systems to the aerospace industry, discusses why attracting fresh talent to this sector of manufacturing is vital to its long-term success. Thanks to economic globalisation, as well as significant progress in increasing productivity, the manufacturing industry…

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Does Lean Kill Craftsmanship?

Sometimes, resistance isn’t to lean, or to change; it’s really about the perceived loss of something that someone values.Paul W. CritchleyMAR 17TH, 2020 I’ve been practicing lean for more than 20 years now, having been first exposed to it while at a Tier 1 automotive supplier in the late 90s. Back then, the concept of…

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Scaling agile and DevOps for digital transformation

Many organizations see a move to agile software development and then to DevOps as key steps in their digital transformation journeys. But in many cases, these transitions are tackled by smaller teams, thereby limiting the overall impact they can have. Rolling out these practices more broadly throughout the organization can pay significant dividends by revamping…

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