A selection of highlighted blog posts from Lean bloggers from the month of February 2026.  You can also view the previous monthly Lean Roundups here.  

Good Trouble – Bruce Hamilton describes how “good trouble” in a Lean context refers to employees who challenge the status quo of a Theory X management system—those so-called troublemakers who persistently raise issues and ideas—which leaders can harness to turn dissatisfaction into constructive improvement and culture change toward a more engaged, Theory Y environment.

What is leader standard work – Alen Ganic says Leader Standard Work is a disciplined, structured set of daily leadership routines that ensures leaders focus on processes not just results—consistently coaching, developing people, checking standards, supporting improvement, and sustaining the Lean management system so that continuous improvement becomes part of everyday work.

Innovation & Stratex Blocker #1 – Pascal Dennis explains that the biggest innovation and strategy execution blocker is organizational silos—disconnected groups with their own goals, language, and methods that kill the flow of information, support, and learning across teams, slowing down innovation and preventing things from getting built.

How to Improve Canada’s Lagging Productivity – Christopher R Chapman argues that to improve Canada’s lagging productivity the focus should be on improving quality by fixing systemic management practices rather than endless research—so that better processes and systems create leverage for higher output per worker, reflecting Deming’s view that productivity follows from quality.

The Evolution of Strategic Management—Management by Objectives – Christoph Roser explains that “Management by Objectives” (MBO) is a strategic management approach popularized by Peter Drucker that focuses on setting clear, measurable goals, monitoring progress, and evaluating results—but it has limitations in aligning goals with a company’s broader vision and is now often used as part of more comprehensive frameworks like OKRs or Hoshin Kanri rather than on its own.

The Evolution of Strategic Management—Objectives and Key-Results – Christoph Roser explains that Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) are an evolution of Management by Objectives that align ambitious, measurable key results with broader company vision and direction, encourage fewer focused goals, and are used by many organizations as a goal-setting framework—even though they can be misused or vary in implementation.

Value-Stream Mapping Is Your Missing AI Superpower – Steve Pereira argues that value-stream mapping is a critical foundation for successful AI adoption because it makes workflow, waste, and bottlenecks visible so that AI amplifies real system strengths rather than hidden dysfunction, enabling meaningful improvements in throughput and stability rather than merely accelerating local activity.

You Can’t Punish Your Way to Pride: Deming, Toyota, and Learning from Mistakes – Mark Graban argues that you can’t build pride, quality, or continuous improvement by punishing mistakes; instead, lasting pride comes from respect, trust, and learning from errors—an insight supported by the practices of Don Ephlin, W. Edwards Deming, and Toyota’s culture of psychological safety.

Create Your Own Lean System — But Don’t Lose Sight of These Three Things – Mark Graban says you can create your own Lean system tailored to your organization, but true success depends on leaders consistently going to the gemba (the work site), asking “why” to learn from problems, and designing systems that respect and motivate people rather than just copying tools or methods.