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Customers

Customers make customer-shaped demands; if the system cannot absorb this variety, costs will rise.

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Push versus pull

So it comes down to a choice: use marketing to stimulate demand for what we have made, or build relationships with customers to deliver what customers want - push versus pull.

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Agile According to Sun Tzu

The Art of War - Chapter 3: Planning Offenses

The picture above depicts the sport of Hare Coursing.  As you might imagine, the sport has its detractors.  Another relic of human development and the domestication of man's best friend.  The general idea is that Sighthounds chase-to-trap these jackrabbits in order to test the dog's ability to run and maneuvre.  It's possible the rabbits aren't cool with it.  Bottom line, they gotta RUN and be smart.

Run, buddy!

I've had this picture saved as my background for a few weeks as a reminder of the importance of flexibility.  There's lots of talk about #Agile in the start-up world, but we're not the only ones who should be thinking about this.  How about all those guys punching the complacency time-clock in some silo within a big multi-national company?  How well will your fiefdom hold up during a period of upheaval? Maybe your competition, your sighthounds, don't come from outside the organization, but from internal competition.  Where is the game within the game?  Do you know?

At the end of the day, we all have a bit of that jackrabbit in us.  How are you going to react when the dogs show up at your door?

I wouldn't want to get caught flat-footed.

That's why we have to be alert to new productivity tools.  Why we have to question assumptions.  And why, when required, we have to slay sacred cows.

Enjoy.

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On Management

He [W. Edwards Deming] made the point that we invented management.  It's pretty crap and we should re-invent it.

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The Nature of Demand

There are quite a lot of differences between services and manufacturing.  My own view is that one of the major differences between services and manufacturing is the nature of demand.

John Seddon -   Rethinking Lean Service

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Standardising service operations

Standardising service operations is exactly the wrong thing to do

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Different Problems

If you're not manufacturing cars at the rate of demand, the chances are, you should be solving different problems.

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If it has a label...

If it has a label [like "Lean"] management expect it to come as a box of tools.

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Seeing is Believing

When they came back [British businessmen visiting Japan in the 1970's] they copied the things they could see.

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Starting With Data

Just as Ohno did, to start this change in service organisations, we need to study them, to get knowledge and from that position improve. It's quite a different approach to change.

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