This presentation was recorded at the 2011 IW Best Plants Conference (www.iwbestplants.com)

Hear James Womack talk about purpose, process, and people as the keys to implementing and sustaining a true lean management system and as the essential metrics for evaluating lean efforts. He will note that the best lean tool a manager can have is a good pair of shoes for walking his or her value streams. The reason: Managers and executives must learn to think "horizontally" across functions in order to understand and improve the flow of value to customers. This means un-learning the traditional "vertical" thought process based on organizational charts and optimizing departments.

A good practical way to learn horizontal thinking is to take a walk -- a value-stream walk -- on a regular basis. Womack will provide practical tips and a framework, based on his years of learning by walking real-world value streams, for what managers and executives should do when they take value-stream walks.