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Innovating the Toyota, and YouTube, Way

Harvard Business Review

By sheer happenstance, I had just gotten a copy of Gemba Walks , a collection of essays by James Womack , a co-author of the automotive classic The Machine That Changed The World and a pioneering importer of Toyota-inspired lean production insights and methodologies to America. Who knows if the Space will — God forbid!

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Why Can’t U.S. Health Care Costs Be Cut in Half?

Harvard Business Review

America — and many other countries — need an audacious goal to get off the unsustainable path. What if the United States set itself the goal of cutting healthcare costs in half — without sacrificing quality, and in about a decade? The same can be said of other procedures that might lend themselves to mass or lean production.

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Five Lean Lessons to Live By

Lead Change Blog

Lean reflects the natural evolution of business and knowledge-based work: data-driven, yet practicing mindfulness in everyday production. At the team level, Lean prioritizes helping members pinpoint inefficiencies and work together to optimize results for the customer.

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Founding a Company Doesn’t Have to be a Big Career Risk

Harvard Business Review

One option is to build expertise before founding a company: ask VCs and others in the startup community to recommend the most competent people they know — heads of engineering, sales, product, and operations — and look for a job working directly under them.

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Project Manage Your Life

Harvard Business Review

More and more companies are adopting software and product development frameworks like Agile , Scrum , and Kanban — which promote quick, iterative, lean production — to deliver higher quality products, faster. This helps us get on the same page about which expenses we need to make to meet our goals.