{"id":2267,"date":"2025-08-01T19:00:40","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/?p=2267"},"modified":"2025-08-01T19:00:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T17:00:40","slug":"lean-and-agile-thinking-at-ikea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/2025\/08\/lean-and-agile-thinking-at-ikea\/","title":{"rendered":"Lean and Agile thinking at IKEA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"break-words\n          tvm-parent-container\"><span dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOnly while sleeping one makes no mistakes.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cBara den som sover g\u00f6r inga misstag\u201d \u2013 Ingvar Kamprad<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udca1 This quote perfectly captures a mindset rooted in curiosity, courage, and continuous learning \u2014 and it was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon it where I did.<\/p>\n<p>After a vacation in Finland, we were driving back through Sweden and decided to make a stop in \u00c4lmhult to visit the IKEA Museum. We expected to see a nostalgic collection of furniture through the decades \u2014 and we did \u2014 but there was much more to discover:<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udccc An exhibition on women in design<br \/>\n\ud83d\udccc A biographical section about Ingvar Kamprad<br \/>\n\ud83d\udccc And, perhaps most interestingly, a deep dive into IKEA\u2019s design and production philosophy<\/p>\n<p>Kamprad\u2019s quote reflects a culture that embraces experimentation and sees mistakes as part of progress. And it made me reflect.<\/p>\n<p>Back in the 2000s, when I was actively engaged in the Agile and Lean movement, most of the origin stories pointed to Toyota \u2014 and how their production principles emerged from post-war scarcity in Japan.<\/p>\n<p>So it was fascinating to see a parallel story in Swedish furniture design, also born out of scarcity \u2014 in the rural region of Sm\u00e5land \u2014 where resource constraints, pragmatism, and ingenuity shaped a culture of continuous improvement and value-driven design.<\/p>\n<p>In that sense, the story of IKEA is a brilliant complement to understanding Lean and Agile thinking \u2014 and a reminder that innovation often begins where resources are limited, but mindset is expansive.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re ever driving through southern Sweden, the museum is well worth a visit. And yes \u2014 there are cinnamon buns and Swedish meatballs in the restaurant \ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddea<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>This was first <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/feed\/update\/urn:li:activity:7356914644264845312\/\"><em>posted on LinkedIn<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cOnly while sleeping one makes no mistakes.\u201d \u201cBara den som sover g\u00f6r inga misstag\u201d \u2013 Ingvar Kamprad \ud83d\udca1 This quote perfectly captures a mindset rooted in curiosity, courage, and continuous learning \u2014 and it was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon it where I did. After a vacation in Finland, we were driving back through &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/2025\/08\/lean-and-agile-thinking-at-ikea\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Lean and Agile thinking at IKEA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/20250727-IKEA-Kamprad-Quote-e1754067201152.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5WBL8-Az","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2268,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions\/2268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harsmann.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}