top of page

Lean Information Skills

  • Data Excellence

  • Leaner Processes

  • Loyal Customers

  • Healthy Workplaces

Save People Time by 20-30% 

LEAN INFORMATION is an information services consultancy that helps organizations use actionable information consistently. Customers achieve the results they want from their information and build a reputation for quality information.

Four Capabilities.png
  • Lean information is based on the four intrinsic attributes of data quality. (Inspired by: Huang, K.-T.; Lee, Y.W.; Wang, R., Quality Information and Knowledge, Prentice Hall, 1999)​

  • Information is lean when it is free of waste for its audience.

  • Poor quality, or wasteful information, consumes time and money. It can also be a risk.

© 2014-2025 leaninformation.com. All rights reserved. Terms and Conditions

Our Solutions

Organizations often invest heavily in information management but neglect quality – despite its intrinsic value to improve results.

Consulting

Would you like a consultation?

 

Our consulting services introduce the principles of lean information. They help you define your improvement priorities aligned with your business objectives. 

Coaching

Who would you like us to coach?

Those who, at times, create wasteful information must want it to be lean. Coaching provides the guidance and insight to help them achieve their desired future state.

Training

Which skills are your priorities?

 

Your employees already have many basic skills to make information lean. From onboarding to just-in-time learning, additional lean thinking enables them to improve quickly.

Transferable Skills

Lean information skills are based on universal, technology-independent principles from information science, data quality, and lean management. The skills are transferable, applicable to all information in all languages.

Relevant

Define the information needed and make it plain.

Specific

Ensure that it is well named, structured, designed,

Correct

... verifiable, and governed.

Complete

Make it inclusive, contextualized, and transferable.

Measurable Results

Lean information is not simply less information. It is the minimum needed by its audience to understand and act. Here are a few examples of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Time is money, and life.

Sales proposal submitted

30%

Less text than the original

Company newsletter
to 1800 employees

150hours

Saved per month

Sales proposal accepted

9.3 million USD

+ Customer lifetime value

Better decisions with lean information

Know

-what, -how, -why, -what if

Capabilities Built

All organizations can benefit from lean information, including those in information-intensive industries. Here are four areas where capabilities are built:

Data Excellence

Lean information helps build a culture of data quality and AI readiness:

  • It uses a common vocabulary between Business and IT, and within teams

  • Roughly 60-80% of most organization’s data is internally generated

  • Employees skilled in lean information reduce the need for data cleaning and preprocessing, improving analytics and AI applications

Leaner Processes

'Information' is the forgotten ninth waste of Lean:

  • There is waste in processes and in the information that drives them

  • Lean's Value Stream Mapping does not consider information quality

  • Wasteful information affects all of Lean's 'eight wastes' including: defects, excess processing, overproduction, waiting, inventory, transportation, movement, and non-utilized talent.

Loyal
Customers

Sales and service teams that communicate effectively are more successful:

  • Customers want their information from your organization to be lean

  • Customer relationships deepen from their feedback on your quality

  • Consistently delivering lean information is a competitive advantage

Healthy Workplaces

Structured lean thinking enhances employees' natural intelligence:

  • Many sources and symptoms of information overload are eliminated

  • Employees have less interruptions and can more easily stay in their flow

  • HR Performance Management uses lean information to build employee competencies including: analytical, collaborative, communicative, customer-focused, influential, innovative, organized, relationship-builder, strategic, and trustworthy

Team

Team members are professionals sharing a common interest in helping organizations succeed using lean information. Their expertise includes business process design, information governance, information science, lean management, library science, and plain language.

Ron Hyams, Principal and Founder of Lean Information

Ron Hyams developed Lean Information while improving information quality in organizations.

 

Ron holds an Executive MBA from the University of
St. Gallen's Institute for Media and Communication Management. His scientific paper, Information Quality in Complex Sales, was published by the International Conference on Information Quality, MIT.

 

Ron’s industry experience includes re/insurance, pharma, specialty chemicals, media, and technology. His functional experience includes sales, information management, governance, and quality. In IT, Ron sold and managed the customization of information management platforms.

 

Throughout his career, he has witnessed first-hand the relationship between information quality and success. Technology is important and so are the basics. Make your information lean from the start. (LinkedIn profile)

Ron Hyams.jpg

Talks

Brussels Plain Language Experience, November 2025
Int'l Conference on Knowledge Management, October 2024
World Information Architecture Day, March 2024

Swiss Knowledge Management Forum, March 2024
Le Congrès SMP (Société suisse de Mgmt de Projet), April 2024

Introduction to Lean Information.png

Published work

"Lean Information – Eliminating information waste," June 2024

"Information Quality in Complex Sales," October 2004

Lean Folder Organization.png

Customers

Skills transfer best when information owners stay in control of their information.

SUS (Services for the Underserved)
City of Bern, Switzerland
EDRM (Electronic Discovery and Governance)
Erni Consulting AG
Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH)
Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)

Testimonials

Lean Information skills are universal and transferable. Services solve customers' immediate and future needs. Sometimes this added value is not realized until after our work is finished.
"We began by coaching lean information skills for our communications team, specifically our newsletter. Now, I'd like everyone to have these additional skills."

John Suter, President & CEO

"Working with Lean Information, our facilities manager began structuring his work more efficiently and producing higher quality information."

Markus Gasser, Past Deputy Head,  City of Bern Sports Department

"... one of the most appreciated lectures in my program.
... received positive feedback long after..."

Dr. Pavel Kraus, Lecturer, Zurich University of Applied Science

Contact Us

LEAN INFORMATION logo

Try our brief newsletter, Lean Information Inspiration.

bottom of page