Today on the podcast, I’m talking with Nigel Thurlow, a leading expert on Lean and Agile approaches. Nigel advises companies on successful transformation strategies and how to achieve effective and lasting change. As the chief agile at Toyota connected, he established the Toyota agile Academy and is also the co-author of The Flow System.

In this episode, Nigel and I talk about Agile, how it relates to Lean and the flow from scientific thinking to Agile into the flow system.

What You’ll Learn This Episode:

Nigel’s background in Lean and Agile
The challenges with bringing Agile into Toyota
The differences between Japan and the western world with executive leadership
The scientific method and why it’s so important
The challenges when only dealing with deductive reasoning
PDCA and Scrum
Agile, what it is and how it differs and relates to Lean
How Agile and Lean flow into the flow system

About the Guest:

Nigel Thurlow is the former Chief of Agile at Toyota, creator of the World Agility Forum award-winning ‘Scrum the Toyota Way’ approach, and the co-creator of The Flow System™. He is also a Forbes top 10 noted author for his work as co-author of the book on The Flow System and is a well-known Keynote Speaker. He also co-authors The Flow Guide.

Nigel is an internationally recognized expert in the Toyota Production System and The Toyota Way as well as Lean Thinking, Agile, Scrum, and Complexity concepts. In addition to his work at Toyota in recent years he has also taught and coached at Vodafone, Banco Popular, GE, Bose, 3M, Microsoft, University of North Texas, and to the faculty at MIT.

Nigel also presents regularly for The Lean Institute at their events and is considered a leading expert in bridging the Lean and Agile worlds following his pioneering work at Toyota.

As a Professional Scrum Trainer, the first one ever in Toyota, and the first to have been certified by both the creators of Scrum, he has trained over 8000 people worldwide as of 2021.

Nigel is extensively published online and has co-authored several peer reviewed white papers and journal publications on team science. He acts as an advisor on several boards at the University of North Texas as well as contributing to Chief Executive Magazine.

Nigel currently serves as the CEO of The Flow Consortium, and as an interim executive with several high-profile brands advising executive leadership teams on lean and agile strategies in complex business and organizational design environments.

Important Links:

https://flowguides.org/

https://www.getflowtrained.com/

https://www.amazon.com/Flow-System-Evolution-Thinking-Complexity/dp/1680400584

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nigelthurlow/

The Flow System read online for free via UNT - https://library.unt.edu/aquiline-books/flow-058-8/

The Slack community - https://join.slack.com/t/the-flow-system/shared_invite/zt-o6zfwlwx-HkoqExXlmEWSwDaAFXAejA

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