New Contest — Pose a Lean Question or Challenge

We have winner (12/27)

Hi, blog readers. It's time for another Lean Blog contest. Our first was the “Everyday Lean” contest, where the winner won a copy of Jamie Flinchbaugh's book The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road. Results from that contest can be found here.

For this contest… first off, the prize. The winning entry will get a brand new MP3 player (probably not an iPod, but more likely this Creative Zen Nano 512 MB MP3 Player that will arrive to you pre-loaded with ALL episodes of the LeanBlog Podcast (at least the first 12 episodes).

The Contest:

Submit a personal lean challenge that you are currently struggling with. Write a paragraph or a few sentences, whatever it takes to describe the problem and the context. It can be a technical issue or a people/leadership challenge. Use this link to email Mark with your lean challenge or lean problem. (Note, the email address in the above link had been wrong until now, 12/14/06, sorry).

The winning entry will be the one judged most unique, most challenging, best written, and most interesting to our blog audience. This will be an admittedly subjective judging system by myself and our other blog contributors.

The winning submission will be posted on the Lean Blog for our readers to answer with advice and suggestions (in the “Comments” area. I'll also invite our friends of the blog, such as Jamie Flinchbaugh, Norman Bodek, and David Meier to comment on your situation or dilemma.

The deadline for entry will be December 21st at 5 PM central time.

Please include as much background information as you can (industry, type and size of company, type of products, etc) without revealing specific names. Any names or company information that is in the emails to Mark will be kept COMPLETELY confidential and no consultants will come hounding you for work (nothing against consultants, speaking as one).

Other good entries might be used in a weekly “Lean Challenge” feature. That depends on how many entries we get. And again, no private information will be shared on the blog.

If you have any questions about the contest, email Mark or post them here. Please do not post your contest entries here in the Comments field. Tell your friends in the lean world about the contest and about the Lean Blog.

Good luck and thanks in advance for your entries.

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