About Dan Markovitz
Dan Markovitz is the founder and president of TimeBack Management. Prior to founding his own firm, Mr. Markovitz held management positions at Sierra Designs, Adidas, CNET and Asics Tiger. Learn More...
SIGN UP FOR TIMEBACK
NEWS, ARTICLES & UPDATES
NEWS, ARTICLES & UPDATES
Leveling; smoothing out the flow; e.g., doing two performance evaluations a day for 3 weeks, rather than ten a day for three days -- and then needing to take a vacation because you're so burned out.
Overburdening people, process, or equipment; e.g., people working 100 hour weeks for months on end -- come to think of it, like most lawyers and accountants.
Uneveness or variability; e.g., leaving work at the normal time on Thursday, but having to stay at the office till midnight on Friday because the boss finally got around to giving you that project...at 4:30pm.
Waste; activities that your customer doesn't value and doesn't want to pay for; e.g., billing your customer for the really expensive 10am FedEx delivery because you didn't finish the document on time.
Creativity is part of Lean
It is too bad that so many people decide that anything that improves efficiency can only apply to rote task. This idea is completely untrue. They confuse bad management with efficiency improvement. Since bad management talks about improving efficiency and destroys creativity through disrespect for people. Good lean management is, of course, very valuable for creative work. http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2005/11/16/managing-innovation/
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2007/07/04/process-improvement-and-innovation/
http://management.curiouscatblog.net/2009/05/29/pixar-movie-management-magic/