How are Lean and Agile Related?

In the past few years, we've seen the emergence of serious initiatives in understanding and exploiting the connection between Lean Thinking and Agile methods. Here are some of the interesting efforts (of which I'm aware):

1. Experts like Mary and Tom Poppendieck and Bob Charette have been preaching the value of Lean Software development for many years.

2. Leaders like Bud Phillips at Capital One have established a rigorous project delivery discipline using Lean Thinking to reduce process waste and Agile methods to accelerate project delivery.

3. Corey Ladas and David Anderson have developed a discipline they call Lean Software Engineering that they use to deliver production releases at Corbis every 12 days.

4. My own work in the area of the Lean-Agile PMO and the Agile PMO work of Ash Tengshe and Scott Noble at Capital One Auto Finance.

5. There's now even a Lean-Agile-Scrum user group, hosted by Alan Shalloway of NetObjectives.

So, what's all the (growing) excitement about? My experience has been that Agile methods can be scaled up to the enterprise with hundreds of projects using Lean techniques. Also, within projects and processes, Lean Thinking can help identify and reduce waste. Finally, Lean Thinking can serve as a management philosophy - one that perfectly aligns with the Agile ethos of customer value, self-disciplined teams, small batch delivery and continuous improvement.



Some time ago, Arlen Bankston and I created the adjacent chart for our training classes.


I'm happy to share it with you now to help illuminate what we see as the connections between Lean and Agile.

What is Lean Thinking?

Lean Thinking – the term popularized over a decade ago by Jim Womack and Dan Jones in their book with the same name, refers to the core principles behind the Toyota Production System (TPS):

• Specify value by product
• Identify the value stream for each product
• Remove waste from the value stream
• Make value flow without interruptions
• Let the customer pull value from the producer
• Pursue perfection through continuous improvement
  

The TPS system and its supporting “Lean” culture, first set in place at Toyota after World War II, continues to drive Toyota‘s incredible financial success even today. Over the years, Lean practices have spread from Toyota and manufacturing to thousands of companies in all industries including healthcare, financial services and retail.

According to Womack and Jones’ Lean Enterprise Institute, "Lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies and assets to optimizing the flow of the product through the entire value stream."

The Lean-Agile Connection

Thus far, I've posted mostly on the subject of Agile methods and Agile Project Management. In the next several weeks, I will be turning my attention to Lean, and exploring how Lean and Agile fit together.

Next Post: What is Lean Thinking?

Webinar on Transitioning to APM

Probably should have announced this earlier, but I did a Cutter Consortiumwebinar on Thursday on transitioning to Agile Project Management: http://www.cutter.com/project/fulltext/webinar/2007/transitioning.html. If you're a Cutter client, the recording is easily available. If not, the link should provide details on how to get a copy.

Yet Another Book List

Actually 3 book lists. I put a reading list out some weeks ago, and got feedback from Mark Levison. Here are Mark's recommended book lists for Agile methods:

http://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2007/11/best-agile-book.htmlhttp://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2007/11/best-agile-bo-1.htmlhttp://www.notesfromatooluser.com/2007/11/best-agile-bo-2.html

Happy reading!