Intro to Lean for Service Hybrid Workshop

Intro to Lean for Service Workshop Overview

Interactive Three-Hour Hybrid Workshop (Location TBD)

In many service organizations, improving speed and improving quality are treated as competing goals.

Teams are asked to respond faster, handle more volume, or meet tighter deadlines—often at the expense of consistency, clarity, or rework. When quality problems surface, the response is usually to slow things down, add checks, or rely on individual effort to compensate.

Lean offers a different way of thinking.

This three-hour interactive hybrid workshop introduces Lean Service as a practical approach to improving both quality and speed by designing better systems of work. Through real-world examples and guided exercises, participants learn how principles such as flow, pull, and standardization apply to service, office, and knowledge-work environments—and how these principles reduce delays and errors at the same time.

The focus is on understanding how work actually flows, where defects and delays are created, and how teams can improve service performance without sacrificing quality, adding bureaucracy, or relying on heroics or technology-first fixes.

Who Should Attend?

This workshop is designed for people who shape, manage, or support service and knowledge work and want a practical foundation in continuous improvement. It is especially relevant for:

• Service managers, supervisors, and team leads responsible for coordinating work, prioritizing demand, and improving day-to-day service performance.
• Professionals in support and enabling functions, including IT, HR, finance, legal, administration, operations, and shared services, whose work flows through digital systems, handoffs, and queues.
• Individual contributors in service or office roles who want to better understand how Lean applies to knowledge work, virtual environments, and cross-functional processes.
• Students and early-career professionals seeking a practical introduction to Lean Service thinking and real-world applications beyond manufacturing.
• Anyone responsible for improving service outcomes who wants actionable ways to reduce delays, clarify work, and improve flow without relying on tools or technology alone.

Workshop Learning Objectives 

1. Explain the origins of Lean Service and why Lean thinking applies to service, knowledge work, and production-support environments—including virtual and hybrid work settings.
2. Distinguish Lean systems from traditional service management approaches, particularly in how work is prioritized, capacity is managed, and problems are surfaced and addressed.
3. Identify waste, unevenness, and overburden in common service and knowledge-work processes, including digital workflows, handoffs, queues, and work hidden inside inboxes and systems.
4. Describe the fundamentals of flow, pull, and process standardization and experience how these principles affect service and virtual work through guided, interactive exercises.
5. Understand the role of leadership behaviors and culture in Lean Service, including how leaders create clarity, enable learning, and support problem-solving in distributed and remote teams.
6. Recognize how technology (including digital tools and AI) can support Lean Service, when it is used to improve visibility, reduce cognitive load, and strengthen problem-solving rather than automate poor processes.
7. Review service-focused case examples to identify success factors, common pitfalls, and proven countermeasures in office, service, and knowledge-work environments.
8. Define realistic next steps for applying Lean thinking and selectively leveraging technology within their own service or virtual work environment, aligned with their role and influence.

Workshop Outline 

1. Kickoff Activity: Dynamic icebreaker to set the tone and connect participants.

2. Origins of Lean Service: History, evolution, and relevance of Lean thinking in service environments. Video clips highlight real examples.

3. Lean Culture in Service: Key objectives, benefits, and how Lean service cultures differ from traditional approaches.

4. Lean Principles for Service: Explore the five Lean principles with practical examples from service, office, and virtual work. Includes interactive videos.

5. Hands-On Exercise: Flow and pull simulation in service processes to experience waste elimination and efficiency gains.

6. Core Lean Concepts: Tools, methods, and practices for addressing root causes, streamlining work, and enabling continuous improvement.

7. Lean Management System: Framework for leadership behaviors, coaching, and sustaining a Lean culture in service environments.

8. Service Case Studies: Real-world examples from IT support, customer service, and office operations, showcasing measurable improvements and lessons learned.

9. Applying Lean to Daily Work: Practical first steps, overcoming adoption challenges, and embedding Lean into regular service operations.

10. Next Steps & Continuous Learning: Opportunities to advance skills through workshops on Lean tools, leadership, and tailored organizational initiatives.

    

    Summary 

    Join this engaging hybrid workshop to explore the fundamentals of Lean Service!

    Participants will leave with:

    • A clear understanding of Lean principles applied to service industries.

    • Practical strategies for improving workflow, reducing waste, and increasing value to customers.

    • Hands-on experience with flow, pull, and problem-solving tools.

    • Insights from real case studies to guide implementation in their own work environments.

    This workshop gives you actionable steps to start transforming your service value streams, office operations, and virtual work today!