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High Yield, Low Maintenance

by Pete Abilla on April 22, 2010

Much has been written explaining “What is Lean?” or similar articles. But, little has been said describing what a Lean Practitioner is like. Regardless of where lean thinking is applied: lean practitioners in software, in lean startups, manufacturing, healthcare, and others – what are they like? Here’s my stab at that description. Lean Thinkers and Lean [...]

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Defining Corporate Culture

by Pete Abilla on April 13, 2010

Defining culture is difficult. Most change management consultants would say that a culture is defined by our language, behaviors, and interactions. Anthropologists go a step further by saying that culture is defined more by what is absent than what is present. In a recent meeting I attended, a question was asked regarding culture and what [...]

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Visualizing Decision Making Complexity

by Pete Abilla on April 2, 2010

I’ve written before that there are, at times, too many cooks in the kitchen. In that article, I quantitatively show how the number of communication links grows exponentially as the number of team members grow. This state of affairs adds tremendous burden to a system, as well as confusion, diffusion of responsibility and, most troubling [...]

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A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker

by Pete Abilla on March 8, 2010

One thing I know from experience: when people are given a chance to participate in creating something good, solving a problem, and play a role in adding value through the use of their mind, hands, and heart, good things happen. Indeed, morale increases and a type of magic takes place – a feeling joy can [...]

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How to Add Value

by Pete Abilla on March 7, 2010

In Lean Thinking, we use the phrase “value-add” and then qualify that term as taken from the “customer’s perspective.” While that might be true, it’s not concrete enough and is actually difficult to understand. I am reminded of something my older brother taught me a long time ago. He said simply (I’m paraphrasing): You will [...]

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Gretchen Rubin – Part II

by Pete Abilla on March 5, 2010

Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, answers reader’s questions – your questions – on this multi-series post on her Happiness Project. This post is Part II of her responses to reader’s questions. ~~~~~~~~~~ Comment by Brandon Klive on February 10, 2010 @ 2:42 pm Religion promises eternal life and joy, but I see [...]

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Gretchen Rubin – Part I

by Pete Abilla on March 4, 2010

Gretchen Rubin, the author of The Happiness Project, answers reader’s questions – your questions – on this multi-series post on her Happiness Project. ~~~~~~~~~~ Comment by Porter on February 10, 2010 @ 12:59 pm Hi, Gretchen – There is a debate on whether humans are truly altruistic. What are your thoughts on altruism, and how [...]

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Less is Less with Jason Fried

by Pete Abilla on February 18, 2010

Most of you know who Jason Fried is – the founder of 37Signals and the author of several books, including Rework, his most recent publication. He’s on shmula.com to answer your questions – on Lean Thinking, Design, Less is Less, Customer Development, and other principles he lives by and encourages others to consider in his [...]

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