Cafés, Restaurants and Lean

Posted on 5 February 2019 by Sarah Lethbridge

Lean moves through sectors in waves.   It can safely be declared that the most mature application of lean thinking is within the automotive industry, the industry where it all began! Other sectors are altogether newer to the lean approach however. Most recently, there appears to be a current up-swell of interest in lean within the University
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Economies of Scale vs. Economies of Flow

Posted on 24 October 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

Often when I’m teaching, I find myself skulking amongst the middle ground of contrasting ideas. Sometimes I’m even perilously perched atop of a massive fence dividing two opinions. Sometimes I’m in the middle ground of contrasting ideas, sat on the fence of indecision, whilst rocking back and forth muttering “it depends”. I think that one
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Be Honest About the Gas Tanks – Openness and Customer Visibility

Posted on 18 September 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

There’s something magical about businesses which understand that if you prioritise customer experience, the customers will come. Obviously this is a very simplistic way to look at the intricacies of running a successful business, but with all of my heart, I believe it to be true. Understanding what customers value is an essential part of
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Human or Chatbot? Declare Yourself!

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

I’m watching the television right now and after the advert break the programme titles return and a large letter P looms in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Now I know that this stands for ‘promotion’ and that products featured within the programme have paid to be there. So now I’m on product placement
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GDPR-ositivity

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

I heard the letters G, D, P and R together for the first time in April 2017 at a Breakfast Briefing that the Business School organised about the DVLA’s digital strategy. After sharing the progress that it has made towards reaching 100% of its services being offered digitally, the DVLA’s Service Manager then turned to
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Right to Left Technology Thinking

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

One of the first things I learned when I joined the Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC) in 2005 was the power of understanding that, as work is completed in organizations, it moves horizontally across functions and departments. A strange thing to say perhaps, but prior to that point I’d had job after job where (I
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The Intangible Balance Scorecard

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

Since Robert Kaplan and David Norton’s hugely successful Balance Scorecard approach to strategic business management, first published in the Harvard Business Review in 1992, organizations have sought to measure a variety of different aspects of performance. While there are many different elements of a business to measure, ‘Quality, Cost and Delivery’ has always been a
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Creating Organizational Cultures of Learning – Linked Learning Loops

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

“The trouble with us is that we’ve got no corporate memory.” I’ve heard this statement in various forms from a variety of different people I’ve worked with over the years. The starkest version came from a senior officer in a police force. He was referring to the fact that his organization kept trying new improvement
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Lessons in Innovation

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

The other week, I decided to take some time out and attend the Chartered Association of Business School’s Executive Education symposium. Like most of us, I had lots to do, including arranging early morning and early evening childcare around my daughter’s nursery, but knew that I hadn’t touched base with what the community was doing for some time, so
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Diversity Within the Digital Board

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Sarah Lethbridge

When contemplating the composition of progressive digital boards, it’s relatively easy to draw up a wish list. You’d want a board to possess a mixture of managerial acumen and technical ability, fashionable youth and seasoned experience, specialised knowledge, plus a global perspective. Ideally, any successful board should be balanced where individuals’ personal strengths and weaknesses counteract those
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