There's a great article worth checking out over on the CNNMoney / Fortune site. It's one thing to see software companies adapting Lean methodologies, but it's quite another to see them transform their culture, and Menlo Innovations seems to be doing the latter. Jeffrey Liker confirms: "Any piece you see in Menlo you'll see somewhere else. What you won't find [elsewhere] is all the pieces working together…."
The article covers four techniques that contribute to Menlo's success -- Assigning bite-sized pieces of work, Keeping projects in plain sight, Observing the customer in action, and Training workers to stay flexible -- but, it's this last area that I found quite insightful, and CEO Rich Sheridan's explanation of "towers of knowledge." Because all programmers at the company work in pairs, no one employee becomes the sole "owner" and facilitator of a particular project. This keeps programmers available to delve into other areas as well making all projects team efforts.
What do you think of Menlo Innovations' work atmosphere and business techniques? Will it become a benchmark for its own industry? Do you know of any other software developers that are building this type of culture?
It simply isn't possible to make the kind of improvement required without changing the culture. While doing so covers many things,an essential ingredient is getting the workforce heavily involved in the decision-making process; along with management learning to back off enough to allow the process to work to its fullest. Some U.S. companies have become good at this, others not so good, but anyone venturing into Lean without appropriate consideration of the kind of change in culture needed is simply starting things off on the wrong foot.
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ReplyDeleteMenlo Innovations is constantly generating and testing new approaches to solve the challenges with which the team is presented.It is inspired by inspired by the creative and productive work environment.
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