An Introduction To Lean

 

There are many ways to look at Lean. Many people have taken the principles they've seen in Lean manufacturing and directly translate them into the product development arena. But manufacturing is not like product development. In manufacturing we're trying to limit variation and the only discovery is how to improve the repeatable process. In product development, we're trying to discover what is needed and how to create a physical manifestation of it if we're creating a product, a better process if we're if we're creating a new service or software if we're creating a software product. This process is considerably different than reducing waste in a manufacturing line. A metaphor can be in manufacturing we're cooking from a recipe, while in product development we're creating the recipe.

What we want to do is to look at the principles underneath Lean-Thinking. 

• Take a systems thinking approach
  • Attend to the entire value stream
  • Align the organization around purpose
  • Think long term
• Delight customers
  • Discover true value
  • Deliver incrementally to different customer segments
• Invest in your people
  • Give them a sense of purpose
  • Provide them with a great working environment
  • Acknowledge them
• Increase flow
  • Have efficient value streams
  • Avoid handbacks
  • Remove delays
  • Small batches
  • Speed, quality and low cost work together
  • Focus on flow efficiency, not resource efficiency
• Build quality in 
  • don’t tolerate defects
  • test-first
  • common cadence and integration
  • look to the source of your challenges
• Keep getting better
  • use the scientific method
  • look for emergent behavior
  • the role of management
  • Plan Do Study Act