Help for students

I am a student. Can you help me with my student project or PhD?

We get several such requests every month. While we would like to be able to help each one of them, we are a small organization and do not have the resources to help to frame and design each individual’s research.

However, as a first step we recommend that you read the material that is already published on this site and on www.lean.org. Then, the trick is to get some really practical experience of doing lean – because it can’t just be learnt from books – and only then finding a research question that can contribute something new to the body of knowledge.

It may be possible for us to review a summary of your emerging conclusions and give you feedback on it but we would need to agree that individually in advance. We wish you every success.

I am a student. Can you suggest organisations on which I could do a case study?

Again, we get several of these requests every month. We are not in a position to be able to give introductions to organisations. You really need to find your own potential case studies by reading the practitioner literature in your field.

I am a student. Can you supply me free or discounted books?

We occasionally have a small stock of slightly damaged-in-transit or earlier edition books which we would be willing to sell at a special price. Please make your enquiry to info@leanuk.org.

Can we arrange for Professor Daniel Jones to speak ...

Can we arrange for Professor Daniel Jones to speak to our organisation?

Please refer to our Action Learning pages. Professor Jones is willing to talk to the senior management of organisations where this is likely to encourage action. A condition of doing a talk is that Professor Jones is able to ‘take a walk’ along the value stream (or at least to interview the key executives) before doing the talk.

Alternatively Professor Jones (or one of the other LEA faculty members or LGN leaders) can make a video recording of a talk with a pre-agreed content and length for you to show at a management meeting or at an event. By agreement it may be possible for you to also post the video on your intranet.

A simpler, or initial, option for you to consider is to download some of the bite-sized videos that are available on this site and to show them at a management meeting.

Can we arrange for Professor Daniel Jones to speak at an event we are holding for our clients?

Normally Professor Jones does not do this as LEA does not wish to appear to be endorsing any one consulting organisation.

Can you help us find a consultant or a lean manager ...

Can you recommend some consultants to help us on our lean journey?

No, we are not able to do this. We have good relations with most of the consultants working in this field but we cannot recommend any particular ones. In any case, our experience clearly shows that the best way of sustaining lean within an organisation is to learn how to do it yourself rather than to have consultants to do it for you (or ‘to you’!). However, most organisations find it appropriate to engage a sensei to help them to get started and to mentor them along the journey.

Can LEA act as our consultants?

LEA is not a consulting organisation. Our interest lies in working with new problems and new situations to carry out action research to explore the frontiers of lean thinking. If you think that your organisation presents such a challenge please read our action research pages and then complete an enquiry form.

However, many of the LEA faculty do act as independent consultants. If your project does not fit the LEA criteria for action research then one of these faculty members may still be able to help you. We will pass on the enquiry to them.

Can you help us to recruit a lean manager?

Once again, we get many such enquiries but it is not something we are willing or able to do.

Do you run public or in-house training workshops ...

Does LEA run any public training workshops?

The principal value of public workshops is as an introduction to lean thinking. Because attendees come from varied backgrounds they are rarely able to address the problems that they have identified in their organisation.

A much more effective and valuable approach is to get a group together from your own organisation and to run an in-house workshop to work on your own processes to address your own issues and solutions. LEA also has access to experts from the Lean Global Network to complement its own faculty to provide the right kind of expertise for your particular problems.

I have a question about how to use a particular lean tool ...

How do I decide which lean tool to use in my particular circumstance?

With lean it is easy to jump to lots of solutions. The place to begin is to define the purpose – in other words, what is your problem and then to look at the process and then after that the people. Too many people apply an inappropriate tool because it is one they are familiar with or it is one they have seen used elsewhere. So, start by defining the problem; ask yourself how you know what it is you are trying to solve, what are the steps to solving it and also define how you will know whether the problem has been solved and who needs to be involved and responsible. After that, consider more than one way of solving the problem and do some experiments using what appear to be the appropriate lean tools for that experiment.

If you are willing to try to turn your problem question into an A3 we may be willing to review it even if it is not fully complete.

Have a look at the resources available on this site and also on Lean Enterprise Institute at www.lean.org

Do you publish lean articles or papers from other authors

I’ve written an article on lean. Will you publish it on your website?

We may be interested in publishing occasional articles, aimed at senior management, of between 1000 and 1500 words. If you send a synopsis or an abstract to info@leanuk.org we can give you a decision as to whether we may be interested in the article itself.

Can you help us to visit some lean examples ...

We want to see some lean examples. Can you organise a study tour for us?

We get many such requests and although, as part of our Lean Summits, we sometimes arrange site visits we do not have the resources to be able to arrange bespoke study tours.

We want to see some lean examples. Can you recommend any companies to visit?

Again, we get many such requests but we do not keep a list of organisations that are willing to host such visits. We suggest that you look at the list of speakers at our Lean Summits or at lists of those companies that have won awards such as ‘Best Factory’ awards.

Will you put a hyperlink to our organisation on your website ...

We are involved in lean and would like you to put a link to our website on yours

We would consider this for a research organisation but not for commercial companies, especially those involved in software or consultancy solutions.

Do you provide lean certification ...

We want to get our lean programme certified. Can you do this for us?

We are not convinced of the value of existing certification schemes; they are usually geared to generating revenue for the certifier.

It would be more valuable to your organisation for you to provide us with a portfolio of A3 projects to review. If you are interested in this please make an enquiry.