Amanda Zimmerman & Dominic Stokes Discuss ”Squishy Lean”

Episode page with transcript and more

For episode 483, we are joined today by Amanda Zimmerman + Dominic Stokes, two Lean Six Sigma professionals who co-host a new podcast called “Squishy Lean.”

Amanda Zimmerman is a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt with a global background. Amanda has worked in Oil and Gas, Software, and in a variety of industries all over the world mentoring professionals in Continuous Improvement. She holds an MBA from Imperial College of London. In 2020 she launched Beautiful Opportunities, aiming to empower people in continuous improvement worldwide and make it easy for people to start applying the tools.

Dominic is an industrial engineer with a background in manufacturing engineering and management consulting. Ever since he first learned about lean manufacturing principles, Dom has looked for more opportunities in and outside of work to learn and practice. His overall goal is to find ways to convert commercial lean tools to residential uses. When he isn't learning about lean, he is spending time with his wife and dog or cutting his hair.

In today's episode, we discuss their Lean origin stories (or Six Sigma then Lean or Lean Six Sigma). We also talk about the origins of their podcast, using Lean methods at home, the power of experimenting, and helping people not feel bad about making mistakes when they're doing something new.

Questions, Notes, and Highlights:

• Harder to define what's a “Six Sigma culture” compared to a “Lean culture”?
• The psychological safety required to point out problems and try things
• Laundry — smaller batches… eliminating the time spent sorting / pulling apart
• Why someone is in the middle or anti-Lean?
• Experiments that led to the podcast?
• How did you two meet? – Lean Portland
• How did the podcast come to be?
• What's squishy lean?
• How to not let things get “too squishy”?
• “More important to experiment… than to do it perfectly”
• How to make it easier for people get started with C.I.?
• My blog post about lessons from personal trainer
• How to help them feel they aren't making a mistake when new? A focus on learning not punishment?
• You mentioned using Lean at home… after learning it at work…
• Dominic – wants to convert “commercial grade lean” for use at home… to have people learning lean at home… as kids… and then bring to workplace?

The podcast is sponsored by Stiles Associates, now in its 30th year of business. They are the go-to Lean recruiting firm serving the manufacturing, private equity, and healthcare industries. Learn more.

This podcast was also brought to you by Arena, a PTC Business. Arena is the proven market leader in Cloud Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) with over 1,400 customers worldwide. Visit the link arenasolutions.com/lean to learn more about how Arena can help speed product releases with one connected system.

This podcast is part of the #LeanCommunicators network.