Lynne Smith, former Director of Business Design at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses the potential and difficulties of applying Lean Thinking to NGOs, and how it can be used to scale impact. She reflects back on the lean transformation at the Gates Foundation with an interview with Steve Bell and Roberto Priolo, and […]
The article is an excerpt from a new book on Lean Government (written in Dutch). It discusses a transformation taking place in the City of Breda. A new law was implemented to make it easier for residents and entrepreneurs to apply for permits by combining 24 regulations into one integrated environmental permit process. They describe […]
Written by Brion
With the recent events happening in the US with racial inequality, but things aren’t much better in Brazil. 55% of the population is non-white (“black” or “mixed-race”). Despite this, an overwhelmingly homogeneous white male majority exists in most organizations. Structural racism is a reality in Brazil and it is everyone’s responsibility to join forces with […]
Written by Brion
Racism, inclusion and discrimination is not a problem many lean thinkers are called to tackle in their daily lives at work, but that doesn’t mean that Lean Thinking has nothing to say about it. Roberto Priolo interviews Michael Balle, co-founder of the Institut Lean France, and is asked numerous questions, including: If we look at […]
Written by Brion
Halte Werk is a Dutch company that awards social benefits to the unemployed. Thanks to lean thinking, they were able to radically transform the service they offer them. They manage the awarding of social benefits to the unemployed and offers support to find work on behalf of three municipalities in the Netherlands. Their goal is […]
Written by Brion
Lean IT experts Steve Bell and Karen Whitley Bell provided some pro-bono work to help the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Grameen Foundation in Uganda scale a successful innovation to other developing countries in Africa. The innovation was called the Community Knowledge Worker Program (CKW), and it involved hiring locals with knowledge of farming and customs, and […]
Written by Brion
A Dutch primary school discovered how lean principles could be used to tackle an overburdening (muri) of staff in 10 of its 55 schools. Linda van Driel and Eric Steenbakkers (lean coaches) brought A3 thinking to Zaan Primair, a problem-solving method that would help them to clarify where the overburdening came from. An initial analysis […]
Written by Brion
La Poste, France’s national postal service company, runs a sorting and distribution center in Roubaix, in the north of the country, which I am visiting with Nathalie Lagrenée, North Operations Director. Nathalie is one of the very few women lean leaders I know, and every day she lives and breathes the essence of lean thinking: learning […]
Written by Brion
When people understand that they can learn and grow, they are able to move forward towards self-sufficiency. This is what Riverview Gardens, a non-profit organization operating on a repurposed executive golf club in Appleton, Wisconsin, has come to realize over time. The NGO strives to train transferable work skills for hundreds of people every year, […]
Written by Brion
Between two and three children out of every 1,000 live births are estimated to have cerebral palsy (CP) – a permanent disability caused by brain damage that impairs movement and posture. The prevalence of CP is thought to be higher in resource-constrained settings: in many African countries, for instance, the limited access to healthcare and […]
Written by Brion