By Pascal Dennis (bio) In honor of my late father, Frank. I learned the fundamentals of management at my dad's restaurant, the Imperial Grill Value & waste, standardized work, visual management, flow & pull -- Mama & Dad practiced them all. They didn't call it Lean, of course. It was just common sense. Value at the Imperial Grill meant good food at fair prices, a welcoming atmosphere, and a deep sense of community. People liked the food, and they liked hanging out there. At the Imperial Grill, I experienced each form of waste viscerally. Motion waste, for example, meant so ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) Enterprise, in all its glorious variety, cacophony & unpredictability begins and ends with value. We seek to create products, services, experiences…that elevates our fellow human beings, that make their lives easier or more enjoyable, that reduce hassle and free up their time & energy. Otherwise, why bother? We are human to the degree we are connected, and Value is an excellent measure of connectivity, no? In John Donne’s timeless words: No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main… So what is Value? You al ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) In times of tumultuous change brevity is king. Blah, blah, blah…doesn’t cut it when revenue is non-existent and investors are jittery. Endless PowerPoint decks, no matter how slick, are tiresome and wasteful. The four-hour meeting that goes nowhere is downright irritating. Less is more remains the cardinal rule in music, art, theater, and the world of business. Lean masters of the past understood ‘less is more’ in their bones. Toyota in the early 1950’s, for example, was facing bankruptcy, union warfare and public condemnation. They were a tenth as productive as th ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) May you live in interesting times – Chinese Curse Interesting times indeed, no? The reasons are too long to recite here – changing technology, customer expectations, internationalization, rapid cultural shifts, the explosion of information… Technological change, for example, is so rapid and severe that in many industries we can no longer confidently define value. The ‘Eight Essential’ technologies – Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, AI, Blockchain, Robotics, Drones, Internet of Things, and 3-D Printing have exploded the ‘design space’. Only by developing deep empa ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) In an era of breath-taking innovation, is there anything more important? The ‘Essential Eight Technologies’ – Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Drones, 3-D Printing, Big Data Analytics, and Distributed Ledger Technology (‘Blockchain’) – make disruption almost inevitable. Prosperity, and in some industries, survival, depends on an organization’s ability to continuously solve complex problems. And that entails leadership at each level. The internet, our era’s central metaphor, is in my view, an appropriate model of the successful or ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) This one’s like gravity – not just a good idea, it’s the law… It’s my privilege to help leaders develop strategies for complex organizations. A recurrent refrain is ‘our business strategy is too complicated to explain simply.’ If so, do we really understand our strategy? Don’t want to be misunderstood. I am all for deep dives into complexity armed with the latest analytical methods. Doing so helps us understand our key gaps with respect to technology, customer experience, capability, culture and management systems. With one proviso: we come out of the deep dive w ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) Last blog we began to build a SIPOC analysis around a high level Jury Selection process: 1. Jury Panel Selection --> 2. Jury Selection --> 3. Court Case What can mess up the process? Last time we discussed an important Direct Cause: Poor information flow at step 1 Here's a possible Five Why Analysis: Why is there poor information flow to Jury Panel members at step 1? Because people working in the Jury Panel Selection process do not know critical information such as: How many cases are in the pipeline? How many courts openings are available? How many Jury Pa ..read more

By Pascal Dennis Hi folks, recently I spoke with Brad Jeavons and the fine Enterprise Excellence podcast. Topic: Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World: The Role of Senior Leaders (Part 1). Hope you enjoy it! 2 minute tip: Best regards, Pascal In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look… Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 2 Ambidexterity - How to Get Started Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 1 Key Differences Between Protecting the Core & Igniting New Growth ..read more

By Pascal Dennis (bio) In my last blog, I described my daughters experience, and mine with Ontario's court system, which is similar to that used in the US, UK and many other countries. I experienced many of the Eight Wastes including delay, defects, over-processing, and inventory in my fellow prospective jurors! I spent much of the time is a thick fog and felt anxiety and frustration. Chats with friends & colleagues suggest my experience was not unusual. Yet, our trial by jury process is precious & we need to support it. So, how might we improve? We might start by doing a SIPOC a ..read more

By Pascal Dennis Hi folks, recently I spoke with Brad Jeavons and the fine Enterprise Excellence podcast. Topic: Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World: Ambidexterity - How to Get Started with Pascal Dennis. Hope you enjoy it! 2 minute tip: Best regards, Pascal In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look… Can Lean & Agile Help to Fix Our Courts? Part 1 Key Differences Between Protecting the Core & Igniting New Growth Why is Business Transformation so Hard? Lessons from the ‘Back Pain Industry’ Ambidexterity Requires Navigating Ar ..read more