In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we continue our series on AI in product development with an interview with Mari Zumbro, Co-Founder and COO of the tech startup Filament. An active participant in the open-source community, Filament describes itself as a new communication platform with the goal of accelerating global innovation with leaders who are thinking deeply about “how different communities and organizations can mutually benefit and look for arrangements that benefit the public good.”

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How to build high-performing product development teams that effectively leverage AI to achieve exceptional results.

• What it takes to create work cultures where teams feel “safe to create.”

• Why “product development is a team sport.”

• The larger benefits and hidden problems of AI, including its impact on the environment.

• Leadership behaviors and practices that keep teams in a generative space, putting people before AI and keeping them at the center of work design.

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, speak with Scott Heydon, former VP of Global Strategy at Starbucks, McKinsey & Co. consultant, and a Senior Lean Coach with LEI since 2014. They discuss Scott’s efforts to transform Starbucks with lean thinking, learning lean methods and new ways of problem-solving along the way, and how he’s taken that knowledge to other organizations.

Scott says at Starbucks he evolved his own problem-solving from that of a top-down, MBA-style focused on financials and strategic analysis to include a recognition of problems from the bottom up and a need to develop the capability of others to incrementally improve and problem-solve at the local level to “get better every day.” His work at Starbucks included a four-store lean experiment, which involved then Starbucks colleague Josh and was eventually expanded across the coffeehouse chain. The effort was revised midcourse, says Scott, as his programmatic approach shifted to a better understanding of the processes and problems that need to be solved specific to individual stores and asking store leaders, “What problem are you trying to solve?”

Scott offers two pieces of advice for those in leadership positions progressing with their own lean learning and working to develop and support others who are learning with them:

• “Spend more time where the work happens. That can be challenging as a leader because people will operate differently” and the perspective viewed may not always be authentic. Scott worked in a local store as a barista for a few hours each week, and told people on the line he was trying to learn and was not there to judge. It also helped that he had an idea of what to look for, a key skill learned from LEI coach Jeff Smith while at Starbucks.

• Turn off the problem-solving in your brain as you talk to someone, and instead ask questions to learn from them about what they are doing and ask questions that can help them become a better problem-solver. “To develop that capability in others and to create improvement by supporting others is a really important capability for leaders.”

In this episode of The Design Brief, we speak with Fabrice Bernhard. Fabrice is cofounder and chief technology officer of Theodo, a leading tech consultancy in Europe, and coauthor of The Lean Tech Manifesto. Fabrice discusses what it takes to create great digital products, how high-performing teams can use AI with care, and how LPPD (lean product and process development) thinking works with generative AI to strengthen businesses and teams.

The conversation explores:

• What intentional use of AI in product development looks like (while keeping human beings at the center)

• Where Fabrice and his team have focused their energies helping companies make the digital transformation

• How AI helps teams practice the LPPD principle of “building in learning and knowledge reuse” to create better products

• How business leaders can use AI to “translate” legacy systems into the modern systems we need to do value-creating work now

• Common pitfalls leaders run into when experimenting with AI in product development

Get Started with Lean Product & Process Development

Improving how you develop and deliver products doesn’t require a full transformation to start—it begins with learning to see problems clearly, involve your team, and improve how work gets done.

At the Lean Enterprise Institute, we help organizations:

• Focus on customer-defined value

• Reduce delays and rework

• Build learning into the development process

• Align people, processes, and purpose

Whether you're exploring Lean for the first time or want to improve your development system, we’ll meet you where you are.

Explore your next step:

• Read Designing the Future or The Power of Process

• Take the 60-minute Lean Product and Process Development Overview course

• Join the Designing the Future Workshop for hands-on practice

• Bring a coach into your organization for customized support

Let’s take the first step—together. Learn more at lean.org/LPPD »

Josh Howell, LEI President, and Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, join Olivier Larue, President of Ydatum, and discuss the Toyota Production System (TPS), the three elements embedded within TPS that make it more than just a production system, and the ability of TPS to foster problem-solving and creativity. Olivier worked with Mark at the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in the late 1990s and has led Ydatum since 2000, assisting companies in implementing its version of TPS. Olivier recently authored the first of three volumes of The Toyota Economic System, which will present the three elements of the “Toyota triangle” — philosophical, technical, and managerial — and their necessity in making TPS an economic system for growth.

TPS has enabled mass production to accommodate customization, which had been minimized in the pursuit of lower costs for large quantities of standardized goods, says Olivier. TPS allows companies to “build a product affordably and very much customized to the desires of the customer, one without compromising the other.” Yet when attempting to apply TPS it remains difficult for many organizations to simultaneously achieve the primary goals of TPS — highest quality, lowest cost, and shortest lead time.

Josh and Mark explore with Olivier the importance of the Toyota triangle in achieving TPS goals, especially longer-term goals, and examine the relationship of the triangle to the better known TPS “house” (the roof of three goals, supported by jidoka and just-in-time columns, etc.). The house embodies philosophical, technical, and managerial elements throughout, notes Olivier, but they are not specifically called out in the house. Human development, also not shown in the house, is at the center of the Toyota triangle. Olivier says human development is critical because despite advances in artificial intelligence, currently only people can solve complex problems, human problems. “TPS at the end of the day is trying to solve a human problem using people through the human creativity and the human intelligence.”

Olivier also discusses the organizational problems he encounters with problem-solving. For example, he often sees people gravitating toward problems they know how to solve instead of solving the right problem. This occurs because it’s not always safe to solve the right problem and individuals don’t have the courage to take them on. “It’s very important for companies to realize that if they don’t provide an environment where it’s safe to solve problems, two things are going to happen: problems are not going to get solved, or if some problem gets solved it will be the wrong one... As management and leaders, you have to be able to encourage the people to solve difficult problems without fear of having negative consequences if they fail.”

Learn more about TPS and lean leadership at lean.org

Josh Howell and Mark Reich, LEI President and Chief Engineer Strategy, respectively, talk with Sal Sanchez, a Toyota veteran and TPS coach with LEI. Sal’s Toyota career began at New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), the GM/Toyota joint venture and Toyota’s first automotive footprint in the United States, and continued with roles at Toyota North American headquarters and TSSC (Toyota Supplier Support Center, where he worked with Mark in the late-1990s) as well as Dana Corp. Across his career he’s learned from Toyota leaders and other notable lean mentors, including Gary Convis, which has, in turn, enabled him to help many organizations apply the Toyota Production System (TPS) and TPS fundamentals such as problem-solving and daily management.

Sal describes his pursuit of all things problem-solving while rising up through Toyota, including his role as a team leader supporting others with problem-solving issues that surfaced throughout the day, especially when an andon cord was pulled and solutions needed to be developed and applied quickly. Sal counters some misconceptions regarding andon pulls, noting that it does not necessarily stop a line; it does, however, create urgency for team leaders to quickly assist and, in many instances, gives team members a brief window of opportunity to solve the problem on their own. Sal says the andon was frequently pulled where he worked, which was a good thing, and reminds Mark that most companies don’t focus on problems until they get big while at Toyota many little problems are being addressed “minute to minute and day to day so that they don’t become big problems.”

While a team leader, Sal also sought to more deeply understand the problems team members were going through and learned this by doing the jobs they did and experiencing what they went through, earning respect of team members along the way. He carried that approach beyond Toyota and has supplemented it with additional ideas to engage and empower team members, including basic problem-solving skills for frontline associates and giving team members trend charts and templates to support their problem-solving. As Sal works today with companies trying to apply TPS, he continues to encourage a focus on culture and developing people and frontline leaders — “invest in your people.”

Learn more about lean thinking and practice and lean.org.

Josh Howell, LEI President, talks about the relationship of problem-solving and daily management with Jill Miller, Manager for Global Learning and Development at MillerKnoll, a maker of office furniture, equipment, and home furnishings. Jill supports the development, use, and expansion of the MillerKnoll Performance System (MKPS), which she says is designed to meet customers’ needs by engaging and developing people to daily surface and solve problems. “At its heart, it’s really about building capability across the organization.”

Josh and Jill describe their experiences with how an effective daily management system makes it easy and straightforward for organizations to know what problems they should be solving. “One of the most powerful things about MKPS is that it helps make problems visible every day, right where the work is happening,” says Jill. “So when people ask, ‘What problem do we need to solve?’ the system actually helps answer that by revealing the problems that might otherwise go unnoticed. I think at that point, the problems are plentiful. There’s no shortage of problems.”

MKPS intentionally sets up both the system and culture to support daily problem-solving by:

• Designing work to clearly show abnormalities and make them visible in real time,
• Making it easy and safe for individuals to quickly highlight problems (people are not blamed or ignored),
• Providing a prompt, supportive reaction to an associate’s call for help (an “andon call”), and
• Ensuring the problems that are surfaced actually get solved; team leaders (called “facilitators” at MillerKnoll) are developed to be skilled in practical problem-solving, identifying root causes, and eliminating problems in ways that keep them from recurring.

The two also discuss the development of ongoing MKPS expertise within MillerKnoll: building capability in a way that is standardized so that MKPS is effectively executed in a consistent manner. This involves a partnership between the MKPS leadership team, operations leaders, and the human resources group that supports operations for selecting individuals to train (“students”), creating alignment based on behaviors and characteristics, and reflecting on the learning process and its effectiveness. Jill says students have called the development program “life changing” — who they are as a person, how they think, how they see their roles, how they interact with people, and how they approach their careers within the company.

Josh Howell, LEI President, Mark Reich, LEI Chief Engineer Strategy, and Art Smalley discuss the four basic types of problem-solving. Art is a well-known expert in leadership, management, and the Toyota Way. He worked at Toyota Motor Corp. in Japan; helped to transform Donnelly Corp. in Michigan; was a consultant with McKinsey & Co.; and has authored several award-winning books, including Four Types of Problems.

The trio set out to discuss how the framework of the four types of problems maps onto the lean management system explained in Mark’s recent book about hoshin kanri, Managing on Purpose, as well as daily management in Toyota, leadership, culture, and other related topics. The systematic intersection of these topics is a complex subject beyond just the simpler notion of “tools.” Art and Mark share respective viewpoints from their time at Toyota in Japan and what made the system so unique while trying to connect the dots of four types of problems, hoshin kanri, and other areas.

Josh kicks off the podcast by asking Art and Mark to examine in detail troubleshooting — the most frequent and possibly most misunderstood type of problem-solving. A good troubleshooting environment involves quickly attacking known problems with known solutions to get operations back to normal (i.e., how to mitigate issues that prevent achievement of near-term goals). They also review troubleshooting’s relationship with the other types of problem-solving and the “flavors” of the types — gap from standard (how to prevent a problem from recurring by eliminating its underlying root causes), target condition (kaizen to elevate the standard), and open-ended (innovations and breakthrough thinking) — as well as the complex interaction of the four types with daily management and hoshin kanri.

Learn more about a lean management system and the connection between problem-solving, daily management, and hoshin kanri: lean.org/LMP

In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with Sandrine Olivencia, author of Build to Sell: The Lean Secret to Crafting Irresistible Products, co-founder of Taktique Academy, and partner at Lean Sensei Partners. This is the second time Sandrine has joined us on the WLEI podcast, and in this particular conversation, we discuss why lean product and process development principles are crucial for entrepreneurs in today’s rapidly shifting market demands.

The conversation explores:

• How Sandrine found her way to lean and agile and how early work by lean product and process development thinkers Al Ward, Jim Morgan, Durward Sobek, and more have influenced her career trajectory;

• How to get started when it comes to building a product-led organization, in part by moving from “feature frenzy” to a focus on value-driven, performance-based product development;

• What startups should be thinking about if they want to make it past those very challenging first five years;

• Where leaders tend to stumble with lean product and process development in tech;

• What excites Sandrine most about the future and the kinds of products and companies that inspire her.

Learn more about lean product and process development at https://www.lean.org/explore-lean/product-process-development/