The skinny on Lean

This week I am Lean training and after completing just the first day of this bootcamp it has been an eye opening experience. Whether it is work or personal life, process is everywhere and the Lean methodology is a way of looking at the process and making it as efficient as possible. What I enjoy most about it is it takes a no nonsense approach to getting the job done.

Lean is designed for quick wins or at least as quick as possible when challenging an established way of doing work. Through this act of challenging it is looking to make a cultural change. It requires a deep dive into a process and at every step asking why do we do this and what value does this step add for the customer.

Some of my biggest take-aways from the first day of the bootcamp include:

1. Defining value add of a process step is difficult and can have grey areas however the general rule of thumb is would the customer pay for this activity.
2. Simple things like floor layout play a huge role in reducing lead time even outside of the manufacturing floor. Things like walking to the fax or copier machine add bloat to a process and overtime add up to huge costs.
3. Lean is the not the end all. In fact, it should be treated as one of many tools in your process management tool box and can be used many times over in a process for continuos improvement.

I still have two more days of learning and simulations as part of the bootcamp. I look forward to learning more and sharing my stories so others can realize the cost saves and quality improvements available through a lean event. If you have stories or tips to share about participating in an event post them here.

Outstandingclub - A Group Writing Contest

In previous posts I have asked and discussed what you should be blogging about and overall entrepreneurship. Overwhelming feedback has come back time and time again that if you go down either route it needs to be about something you are passionate about. This means before you can even begin you need to be able to discover and know yourself. Once you have this you can create a cornerstone to build on and that is your personal or company mission statement. Outstanding Club, a blog I recently subscribed to and launched by a good friend of mine, is hosting a contest to do just that.

I encourage readers looking to enhance their personal brand or evaluating a business venture to take this challenge and create a mission statement. Blog about it and put your hat in for a chance at an Amazon gift card. I’ll be following the trackbacks and looking for additional inspiration as I need to also work on my mission statement.

What is Your Mission Statement - Outstanding Club Group Writing Contest

The leadership of Outstanding Club is busily working away at refining the vision and mission of the group. A great mission statement is one that is succinct but thorough, simple but all-encompassing. It is a filter through which all things must pass to be considered a part of what the group is and does. If you intend to use it as that filter, it has to be, deserves to be, chiseled to near-perfection.

With that in mind, the challenge to you this month is to define your own mission statement. What are the things that define you to the core? With a clearly defined mission statement and vision for your life, it becomes far easier to know what to say no to, what to embrace in your life, and how to spend more of your time doing what is unmistakably “you”.

Write your personal mission statement and the process you go through to determine what it ought to be, and you might win one of two US $25 Amazon Gift Certificates! For an example, here’s a link to the Personal Mission Statement of one of the Outstanding Club members. Yours does not have to be as long, structured in the same way - heck, you don’t even need to succeed in coming up with one! The process of trying to develop one is the important part.

How to Win

Write a blog entry on your own blog describing what your personal mission statement is, along with a description of the process you went through to come up with it. Only one entry per participant! It should be recent and original (up to 60 days old is OK). You’re strongly encouraged (though not required) to link back to this blog to acknowledge your participation.

Contact us via a comment on this post (see the little comment link near the top of this newsletter) or via e-mail at iainhamp at gmail no later than Wednesday, April 30, at midnight Pacific Standard Time. Include your name and the URL of your list. On May 7, we’ll post a list with all valid entries.You have until Wednesday, May 14 to read the participants’ entries and post a list with your favorite entries in your own blog. You should pick at least 3 favorite entries, and as many as you like (all, if you are so inclined).

Note: While we certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from linking to their favorite entries, regardless of whether they participated, only those who submit entries and then vote on their favorites will be eligible to win.

On May 21 the winners will be announced. Every time an entry gets mentioned as a favorite it gets one point, regardless of position. The two entries with the most votes get the prizes (if there’s a draw, the entry that was submitted first gets ranked higher).

Prizes

As mentioned before, the two top entries in the group writing contest will win US $25 Amazon Gift Certificates! Good luck, and we can’t wait to read your entries!

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[From What is Your Mission Statement - A Group Writing Contest]

I like free stuff

Sorry all for not blogging recently. I wish I could say that I have been spending less time on the computer but the very opposite is true! I have been wrapped up in the world of online applications targeted for small businesses and I amazed by all of the services/features that are available.

As someone looking to start my own business, and often consults others on technology solutions, I have been looking into and using several powerful tools to help me stay organized and measure progress. The most amazing part from all of this is (besides spending a few dollars for domain names) all of the tools I am current using are available at no cost, as in free! In the future, I definitely want to spend some more time doing a deep dive into these tools and maybe write a review but in the mean time here is a list of tools I have been using to support my own online work.

Google Analytics: Own a domain and want to track pageviews, visitors, and other points of data to make a beautiful line? Google has a free tool just for you. Set up is easy and in a week I was able to review traffic to my site and understand who is providing referrals or correlate events in my day such as the Central Iowa Bloggers breakfast which ended up driving my second largest day for visits/pageviews.

Google Apps: Again if you own a domain I don’t know why not to use Google to provide a suite of communication and collaboration tools to your team. I am using the free version of their service and in a couple of hours I had email rolling using my domain along with a shared online calendar and document hosting/writing.  

37signals’ Highrise: A tool I just started using for all of those CRM based functions. Admittedly I need to start using it more to realize its full potential but with a clean interface and tutorials available for key features I am confident I can start using this tool to build and support my business well into the future.   

WordPress: This one goes without saying as you by reading this are looking at wordpress in action. The upgraded interface is a dream and is by far my favorite blog publishing platforms. However if you wanted to just setup an account to host a few pages there is nothing stopping you from doing that also.

Tumblr: Is quickly growing to be my favorite of all services. It is a lightweight content management system commonly used for microblogging or tumblelogging.  I love it because it is free and fully opened to make your tumble log whatever you want it to be. This includes using your own domain, editing the html and the CSS. Want to see it in action? Check out my tumble log at www.elephantscrossing.com. 

Twitter: Forget LinkedIn and Facebook, you need to have a twitter account. I have realized more value in twitter over the last couple of months than I have in the two plus years I have been using Linkedin and Facebook combined. Through twitter I have been able to build a network in my area which had lead to meeting even more people to collaborate with and a constant stream of information.

These are some of my favorite tools I have been using recently and are providing a real value at no costs. Setup for each is simple and it would do well for any small business to check them out before making any other technology investments.

So let me know what am I missing out on, or if you have some tips for using the services listed above in a different way to provide even greater value than originally marketed? 

Great advise for start ups

I was skimming my RSS feeds and found a gem of free advised posted on Valleywag. The advise comes from StyleDiary’s Patricia Handschiegel. At a glance it seems pretty common sense but when I talk to others with dreams of entrepreneurship I often question if they really want to start a business or just want a chance of web-stardom. Read through the free advise on Valleywag and ask yourself again, “why do you I want to start my own business”.

My take-aways from the post include:
Focus on numbers - Not every company can be the next google, myspace or facebook. Highlight your best numbers and let that speak to your value.

Promote yourself and the company carefully - You have to choose how you promote yourself and your company. You are managing a brand and you need to ensure it is consistent over time. And sometimes it is better to cut down the quantity and focus of on the quality of your message.

Accumulate real advisors - Find others with real experience and attach yourself to them. Take any learnings you can from them and build a network that will support and guide you.

Manage your dollars - A great company in good times or bad needs to be on top of their expenses. Every dollar spent needs to on something with a higher value otherwise it just waste and money is a very limited resource.

Business first - Once the business has started there will be very little time for ego building. Time should be used to promote and grow the business, not yourself.