The Lean Edge: How lean is the Lean Startup?
"How lean is the lean startup? The lean startup movement is growing fast, now highlighted in the HBR yet no one in the lean movement seems to comment or connect - how do you feel about the lean startup? What can we learn from it?"

Posted on May 21, 2013

Author Archive

Tracey Richardson: Hoshin Kanri’s aim is to establish line of sight By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Saturday, April 27, 2013

Thanks Joel for your question, I think it is one that many can benefit from. Based on my experiences with various industry I feel that this is a key area that is often discounted, and somehow organizations think through osmosis that the people just somehow know what they should be doing on a daily basis that cascades upward to "something" but not always a defined strategic business plan. I often ask the organizations I visit what their true north is and/or business indicators and to my surprise a common response is the"deer in headlight" look. If they ...

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Tracey Richardson: First translate purpose correctly by answering what-how-why – What am I doing, how will it be done, and why is it important? By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Sunday, April 14, 2013

It's funny (it's really not), no matter where I go to teach or what industry I'm in, there is always several folks in the group that define Lean as "less employees are needed"; this is a joke of course, but is it?   Art refers to it as something <mean>, I've heard many different types of analogies in my tenure as a trainer, I always ask why do we have to call it anything?  Is it necessary, could that be part of the program that labels get formed based on misunderstandings of intent? Who can really say!   To ...

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Tracey Richardson: Train to the what-how-why model when you make changes then there is more time to spend on proactive problem solving than reactive By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Monday, March 18, 2013

This was a thinking process I had to get used to at Toyota, we never got to "settled in" before something changed on us.   At first it was frustrating, but then as the purpose was explained it became the "norm" then it was expected for us to do this without being told, you know, like our "job" imagine this :).  This was something that was evolutionary because you never were complacent to just be happy with maintaining, if you did, you were expected to "purposely create a gap".  Think about that, what type of organization makes a problem ...

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Tracey Richardson: Group leaders have to compute their team’s productivity standards By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Sunday, January 27, 2013

As the ole’ saying goes “you can lead a horse to water……”, well you can give a person a measure but you can’t ensure it’s going to be totally value added.   I think most people understand the concept of managing by the numbers or objectives it’s more common than not; if you tell me what you need and you are my boss then I will normally do what is necessary to get you that number especially if it’s tied to my performance evaluation, bonus, wage increase, or promotion (*note just because I meet numbers doesn’t always mean I deserve a ...

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Tracey Richardson: You are always leading and learning! By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Sunday, January 6, 2013

(a) What is the role of the KPO to serve the organization? When I see this question it takes me back to when I was taught the essence behind the Quality Circle Program and how they began at Toyota (back in the 1950’s) based on Taiichi Ohno’s vision of developing his people. I remember when I was in my assimilation hiring process (learning Toyota history) they discussed the fact with us (new hires) that the program wasn’t designed to necessarily save the company money (ROI) in the very beginning; it was more so to develop people in problem solving, and ...

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Tracey Richardson: Ringi-sho is the formal approval process linked to hoshin kanri By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Saturday, December 29, 2012

I will have to admit when I saw the word Ringi in this question, it brought back many memories of my time at Toyota (TMMK).   It's not a word I've used or heard much since my time there, even though the thinking behind it could be more common if expressed differently. As others have mentioned above Ringi or (Ringi-sho) is not necessarily a Toyota creation, it is a Japanese term which when translated (with help from John Shook) means: A high-level formal authorization/approval process, usually for major policy matters, major projects and represents formal agreement (through nemawashi) of the authorizing parties (always including finance).  It ...

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Tracey Richardson: Understand the value stream from order to customer By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Monday, December 3, 2012

This is a good question and one that doesn't facilitate itself for such a linear answer. I think all the responses so far have talked about many different ideas based on all our experiences out there with various industry and gives our readers some good perspectives to build on. I suppose being part of Toyota in the beginning (1988) when we were setting up the systems at TMMK we realized Toyota Motor Sales (TMS) wasn't necessarily part of our manufacturing plant (meaning onsite), they were a separate entity as Jeff and others ...

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Tracey Richardson: Start with Production Control and Empower People through Standards By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Saturday, September 22, 2012

Hi Andrew, I will answer to my personal experience in regard to this question.  I think its a good one, it can bring out many dynamics that fall under that umbrella of thinking "flow vs batch" so I will try to cover several of them within my answer.   When I was first exposed to the Toyota Production System (TPS) "thinking" in 1988 at Toyota Motor Manuf. KY (TMMK) I made an assumption that if you weren't practicing one piece flow then you weren't effectively practicing TPS.  Now to explain that statement I was in a 2-week assimilation class before I ...

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Tracey Richardson: In my time at Toyota, nemawashi was as common as the word kaizen By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Nema- what !? This is a frequent response I get when I use this term with clients or individuals who are on their lean journey.  I would like to take a minute to  just explain the word and its meaning because I feel many misuse this term/concept and sometimes getting everyone to see through the same lens is very helpful.  The Japanese often used metaphors like, "prepping the soil" or "digging around the roots" for successful planting or trans-planting, some have also said "laying the groundwork".  I often describe it as gaining consensus or building support with others, sharing of ideas, engaging and involving people at the ...

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Tracey Richardson: Involvement and engagement of people at their process(es) where the work is being done must be a priority By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Saturday, July 14, 2012

It's always music to my ears when I hear a company is willing to invest time in people development from the executives to the floor level of the organization.  I believe that the training of the concepts or values are just the beginning of the lean journey, the more difficult task is the sustainment, improvement and growth of leaders and their practices to ensure the company is doing business in a way that meets customer expectations through people engagement in the value stream of order to customer. As we have all heard throughout time in the TWI realm that "repetition is the motherhood of all skills", ...

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Tracey Richardson: Without work standards there can be no kaizens By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Saturday, June 23, 2012

This is a very interesting and complex question but one Im drawn to answer based on my experiences at Toyota on the production floor, a current instructor at Toyota, and as a consultant over the past 14 years.  I've had the opportunity to be very close to this situation with a couple of my clients who could be categorized as silo based organizations. It's difficult at times to have a linear approach to such a nebulous type situation in trying to change a way of thinking that has been in place possibly for many years.   To say there are 5 major ...

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Tracey Richardson: We all individually had standards we followed as well as the team collectively and upward By Tracey Richardson, - Last updated: Tuesday, June 5, 2012

I think from my 10 years at Toyota (TMMK) standards were the basis for everything we did, including 5S.   It really was the key to our success and the infrastructure for the culture.  Having the unique opportunity to be a team member, team leader and group leader within the company it was important to understand that we all individually had standards we followed as well as the team collectively and upward. As some have stated, standards were there for us to understand when an abnormality occurred so at an individual level we understood the expectations and what resources it took to ...

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