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Prompting for Problem Solving
Prompting an AI for problem solving is really job instruction work. Art Smalley and Tyson Heaton show how lean thinking…
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Peter Ward: Lean’s Bridge between Business and Academia
Peter Ward built lean's bridge between business and academia. As he steps down from the LEI board, colleagues reflect on…
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Better Thinking Faster: A conversation about solving problems just in time
Art Smalley, Josh Howell, and Mark Reich on why problem-solving speed depends on organizational level, problem type, and the thinking…
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Past, Present, and Future of Lean and AI
Gene Kim and Art Smalley join Tyson Heaton to discuss how AI is reshaping lean practice, from surfacing hidden value…
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Leaning into Lean at Summit Polymers
How Summit Polymers used jidoka, standardized work, and kaizen to survive tariffs, COVID, and labor shortages since 2019.
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Coaching and Co-Learning — Leading Lean without Authority
In the final Starbucks coaching installment, Scott Heydon, John Shook, and Josh Howell examine what leading lean without direct authority…
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Sharing Inspiration and Learning with Lean “Cohorts”
LEI's weekly feature series has surfaced lean stories across seven practitioner cohorts — from executives and product engineers to healthcare…
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Who Thrives in the AI Workforce?
AI panels predict a new cognitive elite. Art Smalley asks the question they missed: how do organizations develop everyone to…
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The Next Value Stream: What Lean Can Learn from the Internet
Applying AI to broken workflows just makes them faster at failing. Steve Pereira argues that lean organizations must redesign their…
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Coaching and Co-Learning — Improving the Work at Starbucks
Starbucks had $50M in annual coffee waste and 15% stockout rates—yet no one on the front lines could see the…
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The Toyota Economic System and the end of trade-offs
TPS is not a management system — it's a different economic model. Olivier Larue explains why philosophy and technical design…
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No (Design) Problem is a Problem
Traditional lean improvement starts with value predefined. LPPD thinking goes further — asking leaders to define what value should be…
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