Lean Thinking, whether it is in the form of Lean Manufacturing, or Lean Business Processes has at its core a very simple concept - Elimination of Waste of every kind - Unnecessary Physical Movement, Unnecessary Money, Time and other Resources in gettting anything done. It is as simple as that!
Sometimes, many people without understanding the basics of Lean, attribute it to some other things, Japanese Manufacturing Approaches, Six Sigma, Total Quality Management and any of the other thousands of Buzz Phrases that they encounter and react to them when Lean is applied to IT in those contexts.
In almost all aspects of Information Technology, if you pause and think for a minute, you can identify thousands of improvements that you can do in no time at all!
If you are a Systems Administrators, on day 1, hour 1, you can identify five PCs or servers that are not being used by anyone but still stay powered up. Shut them down and you just cut down waste in power usage and monthly electric bills for the company!
If the systems closet is full of unused computers and is taking up space, get rid of them and you can use that space for something else, saving money in space usage.
If you are a database administrator, cleaning up your databases of old data, moving them to a DVD disc or tape makes your current server faster, thereby avoiding the additional disks you were planning to.
If you are a program manager or any other executive responsible, every software development project that is delayed or cancelled incurred massive amounts of waste in money, people, time and colossal waste of internal morale, the worst kind of waste of all things!
Software development must be one of the biggest wasters of time, energy, money and people within any organization. That's where the maximum gains can be made when Lean Thinking is applied.
Unfortunately, if you want to apply Lean Thinking to Software Development, it requires major changes in overall approaches, not just tinkering here and there. Agile development methodologies posit that you never know fully well in advance, the precise requirements for any software development project. You go with an initial set of requirements and then tailor your development with actual releases of software for the end users to tinker with and use. They then come up with revised, fine tuned requirements which are then rolled into subsequent releases.
Lean thinking is a very powerful concept that can make anybody using it a formidable competitor. If only IT catches up with it and starts using it to its full potential!
The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize. ~Shigeo Shingo
Hi Nari,
I agree with the gist of your blog. I also want to add that, nowadays, the problem is not with IT, as more and more programmers and technical folks realize that they need to align their efforts with their company's corporate goals and initiatives, to justify their budget and promote their department as strategically oriented and an "enabler" of business solutions.
The problem is how to get the business users and stakeholders on the same page, encourage and help them articulate clearly business requirements and what they hope to achieve in initiating new projects and programs. This has been a long-standing problem and I see it in all the places where I have worked, regardless of the type of industry.
We can try to apply all the software development methodologies in the world to IT, but it won't matter if there is no change in the business culture of that company.