Publications

January 2005 (Revised August 2006)
Case

Lean Forward Media

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Victoria Winston

Jeff Norton and Michelle Crames, the co-founders of Lean Forward Media, face several options for producing the world's first interactive DVD film for children. Their vision is to build a company whose products simultaneously entertain children, engage them actively in... View Details

Keywords: Decision Choices and Conditions; Early Childhood Education; Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital; Management Practices and Processes; Risk Management; Partners and Partnerships; Opportunities; Creativity

25 Feb 2013
Research & Ideas

Lean Strategy Not Just for Start-Ups

Lean start-up strategies aren't just for start-ups anymore. That was the key message that Intuit cofounder Scott Cook (HBS MBA '76) shared in a small seminar with Harvard Business School faculty recently. Since its launch in 1983, the... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Financial Services

February 2016
Article

A Structured Approach to Managing Stakeholders in Lean Six Sigma Projects: Role Call!

By: Vijaya Sunder and Shashank Shah

Read Now

2013
Book

Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts

By: Tom Eisenmann

Harvard Business School Professor Tom Eisenmann annually compiles the best posts from many blogs on technology startup management, primarily for the benefit of his students. This book makes his latest collection available to the broader entrepreneur community. Divided... View Details

Keywords: Lean Startup; Startup; Prototyping; MVP; Minimum Viable Product; Freemium; SaaS; A/B Testing; Business Model

29 Jun 2021
News

Procter & Gamble’s Lean Innovation Transformation

Keywords: Miscellaneous Manufacturing; Manufacturing; Health and Personal Care Stores; Retail Trade

18 Apr 2016
News

New Study Shows that Leaning Into Negotiations Doesn’t Always Work for Women

October 2016 (Revised October 2020)
Case

Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company

By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million... View Details

Keywords: Lean Management; Operation Management; Service Management; Commercialization; Operations; Management; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Performance; Energy Industry; Europe

22 Jan 2001
Research & Ideas

Control Your Inventory in a World of Lean Retailing

inventory needs. Take, for example, a large American manufacturer of men's blazers. As part of our research into lean retailing, we tracked the demand for different sizes of a blue blazer. Far from a trendy fashion item, the blue blazer... View Details

Keywords: by Frederick H. Abernathy, John T. Dunlop, Janice H. Hammond & David Weil; Consumer Products

February 2017 (Revised December 2018)
Module Note

The Entrepreneurial Manager, Module I: Defining and Developing the Business Model

By: William R. Kerr, Mark Roberge and Paul A. Gompers

The first module of The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM) focuses on business model analysis and lean testing. Your business model defines your company and sets its strategic direction, including customer value proposition, operations, scaling, the context in which the... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Management; Business Models; Lean Startup; Business Model; Analysis; Entrepreneurship; Management

October 2020
Supplement

Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company (B)

By: Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

Keywords: Lean Management; Operation Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Energy Industry; Netherlands

October 1983 (Revised May 1984)
Case

From Lean Years to Fat Years: The Labor Movement Between the Wars

By: Richard S. Tedlow

Keywords: History; Labor Unions; Labor and Management Relations

February 2024
Teaching Note

Accelerating with Caution: Forecasting and Managing birddogs' Growth (A) and (B)

By: Mark Egan

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 224-023 and 224-024. As 2017 was drawing to a close, birddogs’ founder and CEO, Peter Baldwin, was working with his CFO Jack Sullivan to prepare for 2018. A nascent direct-to-consumer apparel brand, birddogs had carved its niche in men’s... View Details

Keywords: Inventory Management; Forecasting Demand; Financial Constraints; Apparel; Startups; Corporate Finance; Forecasting and Prediction; Working Capital; Financing and Loans; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Demand and Consumers; Apparel and Accessories Industry; United States

August 2014
Case

Rent the Runway (Abridged)

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann, Brent Goldfarb and David A. Kirsch

Two months after a successful launch In November 2009, the cofounders of Rent the Runway (RTR), a website that rented designer dresses, are debating whether to grow their startup at a measured pace and focus on improving operational effectiveness, or raise a new round... View Details

Keywords: Lean Startup; Electronic Commerce; Fashion; Expansion; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Fashion Industry

Article

Manage the Suppliers That Could Harm Your Brand: Know When to Avoid, Engage, or Drop Them

By: Jodi L Short and Michael W. Toffel

The pandemic has placed a new spotlight on working conditions in factories that supply global companies. To avert problems, firms often impose codes of conduct on their suppliers and perform audits to assess compliance. Do these measures help identify unethical... View Details

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06 Aug 2018
Blog Post

Parks Management is People Management

same way it would at a lean startup or a large corporation. The transferability of business practices, especially the need for agile thinkers in key management roles, is encouraging. I feel confident that I... View Details

Keywords: Nonprofit / Government

03 Jan 2011
News

Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders

Keywords: Leaning In; TED; Management of Companies and Enterprises; Management of Companies and Enterprises

November 2011 (Revised December 2012)
Case

Rent the Runway

By: Thomas R. Eisenmann and Laura Winig

Two months after a successful launch in November 2009, the cofounders of Rent the Runway (RTR), a website that rented designer dresses, are debating whether to grow their startup at a measured pace and focus on improving operational effectiveness, or raise a new round... View Details

Keywords: Lean Startup; Electronic Commerce; Fashion; Expansion; Business Startups; Growth and Development Strategy; E-commerce; Fashion Industry