Office Lean: Understanding and Implementing Flow in a Professional and Administrative Environment

by Ken Eakin

Struggling to apply Lean effectively in your office environment? Office Lean is a book for anyone who wants to apply Lean better in contexts where the work is both intangible and complex. it explains in simple terms, what Lean is -- and what Lean isn't -- enabling office professionals to understand how it can be successfully applied to their complex office-based work environments.

Contrary to popular opinion, Lean is not only for mass manufacturing or healthcare. It applies just as much to the digital world of "knowledge work" industries such as banking and financial services, software development, and government. But the fundamental concepts, straight from the factory floor, need a fair amount of translation to be effectively applied in cube farms.

Overturning the common perception that Lean is about imposing rigid rules, or simply eliminating waste in the name of "efficiency", Eakin presents Lean as a dynamic, flexible, people-centric philosophy that delivers outstanding business results by improving employee engagement and customer experience.

Office Lean helps Lean practitioners (leaders/managers and coaches/consultants) working in professional office environments access the amazing, transformative results Lean can bring to their specific domains. It combines clear explanations of the core concepts of the Lean philosophy with relevant, practical examples from the fields of accounting, finance, insurance, IT and government.

246 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2019

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that only a few people will like but more people should. It’s rather dry. It talks about the flow within professional and office settings. Balance and continuity of flow. Really zen like.

Focus on understanding your customers and providing value to them. Everything else doesn’t matter much. Systems thinking and cutting across silos is the key. If you improve something but it doesn’t improve value to your customers why did you do it? The weakest and slowest part of the value stream is what needs to be improved, improving other parts won’t help provide more value to customers. you should not improve something that should have been eliminated.

My favorite example from this book is what Starbucks did with their order and pay app. They eliminated the waiting such that you got to the store and picked up the coffee with your name on it. Do that more.

[Paiman Chen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuity
Balance



Kanban — helps employees identify their most vital work
— To Do
— Doing
— Done

Lean leaders — a servant leader — help, support, guide and coach their customer-facing employees.

[Yorick H · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice story about lean and it's application in the office. Not a very practical guide, but a nice read and reminder about the concepts and their application/ impact

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Validating.