Over the course of a few weeks, I had to interact with customer service several times in several different companies. I took away a set of lessons about how to practice customer service that aligns with a continuous improvement culture.
While bosses control the lion's share of their relationships with employees, employees can behave in a way to modify their leader's behavior.
Buffer time, in projects, is the 'fudge factor' that compensates for delays. It can be embedded into tasks, or held in reserve by the project manager.
Lean companies break with the practice of organizing work by function. Instead, they opt to organize by value stream or create cellular work areas where products are produced start to finish.
