Lean Management

KEY TAKEAWAYS An Obeya is a physical or virtual space where the project lives on the walls, and the team meets weekly to decide what to change. Toyota built the first one during the Prius program in the 1990s. The method now runs in software, hospitals, banks, and creative agencies. A BI team I coached went from 24% to 55% on-time delivery in three months, cut defects in half, and raised customer satisfaction from 5.5 to 9.4. Across my engagements, I’ve used three types: project Obeya for delivery, management Obeya for business health, and product Obeya for customer fit. Pick by what you are trying to manage. The wall is not the point. The weekly conversation in front of the wall is. Without an animator running it, the room becomes wall decoration. A BI (Business Intelligence) team went from 24% on-time delivery to 55% in three months, using one room and six visual boards. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS Stop Building “Agile Silos”: Rushing to form ARTs around technical specialties reinforces old bottlenecks. Value Stream Mapping re-centers everyone on real customer value. Start with Data-Driven Fixes: Use Value Stream Mapping to quickly pinpoint dependencies and inefficiencies—no major restructures needed. Focus on high-impact workflows for faster, visible wins. Accelerate and Scale: In one claims process, lead time halved from 94 to 45 days and customer satisfaction rose 15%. Quick wins build momentum for lasting change. The Rush to Structure: A Common Transformation Pitfall Organizations embracing Agile at scale often stumble at the first hurdle: setting up their Agile Release Trains (ARTs). The pressure to show quick progress pushes leaders toward the familiar – organizing teams around technical specialties rather than customer value. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS A value stream is the end-to-end flow of activities required to deliver software from idea to production, mapping it reveals bottlenecks, handoffs, and waste Value Stream Mapping (VSM) in tech focuses — amongst others — on lead time, process time, and percent complete/accurate (%C/A) at each step Example: A 30-person engineering team reduced delivery lead time by 45% and cut process steps from 14 to 6 using VSM and 7 PDCA initiatives The 5-step approach: Learn Lean techniques → Map “As Is” → Formulate improvements → Create “To Be” → Align on action plan VSM builds lasting capability; teams equipped with Lean techniques proactively surface and resolve delivery issues What is a Value Stream? Traditional Lean Management Definition A value stream encompasses the complete sequence of activities, both value-adding and non-value-adding, required to bring a product or service from its initial conception to the final delivery to the customer. ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS The PDCA Cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) applies the scientific method to problem-solving: form a hypothesis, test it, measure results, standardize or adjust PDCA and the Deming Cycle are used interchangeably, though Deming himself preferred PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) and called it the “Shewhart Cycle” Example: A 31-person development team at a bank reduced defects from 93 to 8 (-91%) using better unit-testing, visual management, daily flash meetings, and a developer checklist Example: A QA team reduced false bug reports from 24% to 4% (-83%) using an Andon help signal system and targeted Dojo training Put PDCA into practice → The A3 report is PDCA on a single page. Download the free A3 Problem-Solving Template and start your first cycle. Download the Free Template → ...

KEY TAKEAWAYS A3 Problem Solving is a structured one-page method that forces clarity: define the problem, find root causes, implement countermeasures, and confirm results. Successful A3 implementation requires pilot projects, leadership buy-in, and integration into existing team rituals — not a top-down rollout. A tech support team used A3 to eliminate a 145-ticket backlog in 2 months, boosting productivity 72% and customer satisfaction 35%. A tech support team cleared a 145-ticket backlog in 2 months. Here’s the one-page method that made it happen. ...