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The Lean Post / Articles / The Design Brief | Cutting through the Noise in Tech: Sarah Milstein’s Advice for Leaders Who Want to Keep People Focused on Value Creation

The Design Brief | Cutting through the Noise in Tech: Sarah Milstein’s Advice for Leaders Who Want to Keep People Focused on Value Creation

Product & Process Development

The Design Brief | Cutting through the Noise in Tech: Sarah Milstein’s Advice for Leaders Who Want to Keep People Focused on Value Creation

By Sarah Milstein and Lex Schroeder

December 4, 2025

Sarah Milstein shares practical guidance for engineering and product leaders on building respectful cultures, streamlining roles, and sustaining lean product and process development.

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In this episode of the WLEI Podcast, we speak with executive coach and engineering leader Sarah Milstein about how to keep teams focused on value creation by putting people at the center of work design. 

My conversation with Sarah explores: 

  • How to create cultures of respect as a leader 
  • How companies can simplify job roles, salaries, and raises to focus employees on high-value work  
  • Sarah’s advice for how engineering and product leaders can successfully navigate this moment in tech, including the trends that will pass and the trends that will stick 
  • How to work with teams of engineers to create the conditions for continuous learning 
  • How to support people well so that teams build strong, sustainable lean product and process development systems  
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Designing the Future Using Lean Product and Process Development

Learn how to reduce time to market, improve quality, and drive innovation in a hands-on, coach-led experience that applies Lean Product and Process Development across your value stream.

Written by:

Sarah Milstein|
Lex Schroeder

About Lex Schroeder

Lex Schroeder is a strategy and operations leader/writer breaking open new conversations about the future of work. A longtime editor in the systems thinking community, she has led strategic initiatives at The Lean Enterprise Institute and The Berkana Institute. In 2015, she served as Founding Editor and Co-Lead of The…

Read more about Lex Schroeder

About Sarah Milstein

Sarah Milstein coaches executive and emerging leaders in tech. Previously, she held executive roles at a number of tech startups and in the federal government. She was also CEO and co-founder of Lean Startup Productions. Earlier, she was a freelance journalist writing regularly for The New York Times. She holds an MBA from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. https://sarahmilstein.com 

 

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