Tag: lean

The Rockstar Approach to Visual Management

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Visual Management Done the Rockstar Way Visual management can take the most unlikely of forms. Done well, it should show you enough details at a glance so you can decide whether to look further into the situation. Background Major bands get riders, often part of the contract stipulating what the venue will provide the band to make them comfortable on the road. This can be sofas, champagne, beer, food cooked to a certain standard or even a curry take-away flown […]

Lean Service Improvement Book

Service Improvement Book – In Progress

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After a year or so working with a large, complex client and some time before that working on a startup, I’m back to writing the book I started a couple of years ago. Three good things have come from this break: Both of the experiences have confirmed that the book needs to be written. What I have seen in the last two years has proven to me that there is a gap and this book will fill that gap Both […]

Applying Lean Startup in the Public Sector

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Yesterday, I presented at #Leanconf 2013 in Manchester. It was the first Lean Conference covering Lean Startup in Europe. There was a great energy to the 2-day event with a variety of planned and unplanned talks plus lots of opportunity to network without the usual tradeshow conference feeling of being stalked by sales managers. I don’t think I’ve seen a community spirit like that in a long time; every attendees helped someone else no matter how far along their own […]

Lean Service Improvement Book

Forthcoming Book on Improving Your Own Service

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Some of you may already know, I’m in the process of writing a book on improving your own service. I’m aiming the book at the people who work the process themselves, e.g.: nurses social workers claims adjusters HR/OD staff office managers office administrators hotel staff and their managers and change agents/analysts As you can see, it’s not restricted to any industry, but will be most relevant to those working in service industries (whether from private, public and 3rd sector), so […]

Be The Customer

Be The Customer

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Introduction I really believe in getting customer input, especially before you build you product or service. Lean Six Sigma includes the concept as part of Voice of Customer, Lean Startup and similar methods include the concept within Customer Development. If you work for an existing organisation that currently delivers products/services rather than a start-up, sometimes it’s easier to actually be your customer than to gather their input. Many companies try to get closer to customer needs by using mystery shoppers. […]

Introducing the new Questions and Answers

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Starting this week, I’ll be answering your questions on Lean and Lean Startup and how they can be applied to the public sector. I’ll also answer questions on wider subjects of business transformation and change management, although I expect most will relate to Lean in public sector and/or Lean Startup in existing organisations. I’m assuming that any questions you ask me are public and can be posted on this site and publicly responded to. If you need a private response, […]

Kanban prototype for an NHS Acute service

Lean Cost Benefit Analysis of a Quick Improvement

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Last week, I was provided with the short opportunity to improve a service within an NHS Acute Trust. I had 5 minutes to understand the problem and then I suggested a quick improvement. I’d like to take you through how we arrived at a solution and the resulting lean cost benefit analysis of that solution. I don’t get that involved in the individual solutions anymore, instead I’m usually engaged for more strategic issues and end up mentoring others to make the […]

Lean or Lean Startup

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There’s a lot of hype around Lean Startup for at least the last year. The positive thing is that much of this hype is well-deserved; the concepts have changed the thinking of a lot of its readers. Having a foot in both camps as a lean practitioner improving services and organisations and as an entrepreneur roughly adhering to the Lean Startup method, I think it’s important that we are all clear on the difference between the concept of the lean startup method […]

Yorkminster

Service Redesign

Posted on alanPosted in Service Redesign

Are you designing a service or transforming an existing service? For redesign, we help organisations to reform teams more logically and change the way that they work resulting in more efficient processes. This is more structured and more logical than older BPR (Business Process Redesign) concepts as we’re heavily influenced by Lean but in a service environment. At the smaller end of the scale, there are service improvement engagements and delivering strategies and methods for continual improvement. We can’t implement […]