So last night, I finished working my way through The Toyota Way Fieldbook: A Practical Guide for Implementing Toyota’s 4Ps on my Kindle. Normally I’d say I was reading on my Kindle, but this book was hard work in places, and more interesting and educational than enjoyable.

It’s an incredibly dense piece of writing, full of 1000s of useful facts, and all sorts of real world examples of “Lean Enterprise”, which is especially useful given the current popularity of The Lean Startup in software development circles.

The links between the Toyota way of manufacturing, and the work of staff development, supplier development, and ways of thinking and acting, were all very thoroughly explained, and really opened my eyes to a different way of working, plus I now feel I should buy a Toyota car just to experience the end result!

If you’re interested in the reality of being “lean” or in the technical details of how large companies can be transformed by new thinking and new leadership, I’d hugely recommend this book, but if you’re looking for some light business related reading before bed, then this isn’t the book for you.