Learning from The Elegant Solution

May 20th, 2008 by Hal

Two years ago I read Matthew May's book The Elegant Solution. It's a description of how to create an organization that day-after-day is recognized by the innovation that it creates.

The book is based on the time Matthew spent with the University of Toyota. I've reread the book to prepare for a Study Action Team™¹ that I am leading for a hospital that is being designed and constructed. Toyota is best known as the world's best manufacturer. But even more important to their long-term success, Toyota knows how to do projects.

I'm not going to summarize the book. Matthew already did a better job than I ever could. Do yourself a big favor read his Elegant Solutions Manifesto. Also, if you like his manifesto and the book, then go on to read Matthew's current thinking at Elegant Solutions blog.

How good is Toyota at projects? And, what might that mean for your company? Let's put it this way…what would it be worth to you if you could develop projects in ⅓ the time your competitors take AND hit the mark? … I thought so. Read The Elegant Solution with your colleagues and then change how you do your projects.

Study Action Team is a trademark of Lean Project Consulting. [ ⇑ back ]

Two-Cycle Lean

Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way

More on The Elegant Solution

Toyota’s Innovation Factory

Better is the enemy of good

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 11:45 pm and is tagged: innovation, books, lean, collaboration, design, kaizen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Convert this post to a PDF document.

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One Response to “Learning from The Elegant Solution”

Mike Hagen Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Wondering if anyone has perspective on the application of LEAN to organizations like ad agencies, event marketing agencies and the like? How does it relate to the creative process? How does it relate to the “one off” production process?

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Learn from a Stanford d.School prof. Robert Sutton has a great weblog Work Matters and he's the author of The Knowing-Doing Gap and The No Assholes Rule.

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From the Lean Insider: Speaking to Toyota employees at the Detroit Auto Show President Watanabe asked that they take responsibility for recent quality problems.

"I do not regard the problem as something that suppliers are responsible for. We must work together so that we are fully aware of where suppliers are."

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I'm glad to have Claude posting at RPM. It was Claude who gave name to these wonder filled times -- the project age. Please welcome him with your comments.