Lean Blog Interviews — 248: Drew Locher, Lean Office to Lean Enterprise

Joining me for episode #248 of the podcast is Drew Locher, an author, consultant, speaker, and, also like me, a faculty member for the Lean Enterprise Institute and the ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value. You can read his bio via his consulting website, Change Management Associates. Drew’s books include Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market, Lean Office and Service Simplified: The Definitive How-To Guide, and Unleashing the Power of 3P: The Key to Breakthrough Improvement. He also, most recently, released a second edition of The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Office and Services, a recipient of the Shingo Research Award. You can also read his two guest posts that I’ve published on this blog. In this episode, we talk about his books, how Lean is about more than just tools, and the need to focus on “the critical few things” instead of falling victim to a “scattershot” approach to reducing waste. “We learn more by doing than talking about it,” says Drew about Lean.