CASE STUDY – This 104-year-old Chilean provider of integral solutions for the mining industry has turned to hoshin kanri to effectively connect everyone’s work with the overall business strategy.
Adam Pullin
The value of testing multiple concepts at once
SERIES—The authors discuss Concepts, the second of six elements in their process development model, discovering the key knowledge gaps, and exploring multiple process design options to facilitate learning.
Creating a model primary care unit
CASE STUDY – This primary care unit in Brazil is hoping to become a model for other units in their system. Take note, this is how Lean Thinking can spread across healthcare systems.
Lean and the digitization of Benin’s public administration
INTERVIEW – In today’s Q&A, we learn how Lean Thinking is supporting the digital transformation of the public administration of the African country of Benin.
Mission possible: How start-up thinking can help public projects
The assumption that Government and public agencies lack the capacity for innovation and do not have an entrepreneurial-like ability to find novel solutions to major problems is a myth that needs challenging. However, a shift is required from “probability government”, overly focused on performance management and mimicking best practice, to “possibility government”, embracing greater imagination and risk.
That’s the view of Mitchell Weiss, former chief of staff of the mayor’s office in Boston and now Harvard Business School professor, as set out in his new book, We the Possibility. In it, he argues that some of the practices of lean start-ups can be applied to major public projects, ensuring better outcomes and smarter use of resources.
“It’s a myth that most entrepreneurs like risk and it would be a mistake to think the lesson of possibility government is to go out and seek it. The point is, rather, that risk is inherent in doing bold, new things and we need to encourage that in the public sphere,” he tells The Irish Times.
Weiss says we need to think differently about public projects. There is a tendency to spend large sums and too much time on planning and consultancy in an attempt to achieve optimum results. This attempt to de-risk can often have the opposite effect. Solutions are delayed, cost overruns occur, and the results often don’t align with the initial objectives.
Instead, he advocates a metered approach, with risk and its inevitable failures tolerated. Adopting the “make small bets” playbook from the lean start-up movement, Weiss suggests experimenting with multiple potential solutions, quickly abandoning what fails, adjusting what shows promise and scaling the things that are clearly working.
All the world is a stage
FEATURE – The conflict unfolding in Ukraine acts as a tragic reminder of the threat posed by despotic, unapproachable, and paranoid leaders, says Sharon Visser.
Lean ain’t fishy
CASE STUDY – This Norwegian firm learned that allowing every person and area to move up their own lean learning curve can steer the business away from fire-fighting and towards more strategic thinking.
Understanding the context of your process
SERIES – The authors discuss the first of six elements in their process development model – Context – highlighting the importance of gaining clarity on the objectives of the process being created.
Where to look for hope in dark times
FEATURE – When the clouds gather, it’s tempting to throw in the towel and ask, “What is it all for?”. The author tells us why the kaizen spirit should be our beacon now more than ever.
Slashing waiting times for cancer care
CASE STUDY – This project in Brazil, part of a city-wide effort to improve patient flows, led to impressive results in the waiting time to access cancer care.
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