Lean By Design

About Lean By Design

Lean by Design explores how organizations can fix what’s predictably broken in their operations — starting with the systems, decisions, and behaviors that shape how work gets done. Hosts Oscar Gonzalez and Lawrence Wong speak with leaders from biopharma and beyond, drawing lessons from industries that share the same pursuit of clarity, efficiency, and sustainable execution. Each episode breaks down real challenges into practical insights that help teams align better, think smarter, and move faster. Produced by Sigma Lab Consulting, Lean by Design helps organizations design for what works—and eliminate what doesn’t. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Publisher

Oscar Gonzalez & Lawrence Wong

Category

business · business · science

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

23 Dec 2022

Latest episode

6 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

61 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   6 Oct 2026

   0312. How Small Process Failures Quietly Break Biopharma Teams

   Send us Fan Mail Tiny breakdowns are easy to ignore. A missed handoff here, a confusing process there, a training shortcut that “works for now.” Then one day the team feels slow, brittle, and frustrated, and everyone starts hunting for the person to blame. We take a different view: most research operations failures are predictable, and they rarely come from one catastrophic mistake. We walk through the idea of “death by a thousand cuts” from our book Predictably Broken and what it looks like...

2. 

   22 Sept 2026

   0311. Everything is On Fire And Somehow That Is Normal

   Send us Fan Mail We pull an excerpt from Oscar’s book Predictably Broken and ask the question so many biopharma teams avoid: if the work feels broken, why doesn’t anyone fix it. We argue the issue isn’t apathy or ignorance, but the real weight of diagnosing root causes, aligning stakeholders, and sustaining change in a system that normalizes constant firefighting. We also separate symptoms from root causes, because most teams try to cure the cough while the virus keeps spreading. A handoff p...

3. 

   19 Aug 2026

   0310. The Slow Leak Dismantling Your Operations

   Send us Fan Mail A tiny stain on a garage ceiling doesn’t feel like a big deal until it comes back, darker, wider, and harder to ignore. That’s the exact pattern we see in operational dysfunction: the real problem isn’t loud, it doesn’t send alerts, and it rarely shows up where it started. It creeps in through missed deadlines, vague responsibilities, unclear ownership, and reporting requirements no one truly understands. As we close out season three of Lean by Design, I’m sharing shor...

Who has been a guest on Lean By Design

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• David Hirschfeld
• Marcelo Calbucci
• Liam O'Neill

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 43 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

62

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

60