Three Things You Gotta Know

Lean is a pragmatic framework for absorbing principles and practices that other people have learned and putting them to work in large organizations. It can feel overwhelming. It is rich and there are many, many techniques and practices. It is always growing as it absorbs more good practices. That's why people can make careers out of Lean.

But you don't have to know all of Lean before you can get started. And you don't have to even be committed to becoming Lean to get the benefit from using Lean a little. In this show, Alan Shalloway discusses some of the essentials that you do need to know in order to get started.

The things you have to know about Lean include:

• Look at TIME not Resource Utilization. In mass production, you are trying to minimize the resources expended per unit of work. In Lean, you are trying to minimize the time it takes for the Idea to turn into something that returns value to the organization from using it (using it in the business or selling it).
• Errors usually arise from defects in a system, not poorly performing people. We don't aim for blame but we do aim for deep understanding about what happened.
• Management plays an important part in process improvement The proper role for management is neither command-and-control nor should be teams be "protected" or isolated from management. Rather, management is responsible for helping the team to see and how to think. They ask intelligent questions, question them when they are not following process, help them drive to how to solutions.
  Management creates the context within which problems can be addressed. 

Recommendations

• The Role of Leadership in Lean (by Jim Womack and the LEI)
• Lean Kanban 2009 conference in Miami May 6-8, 2009. Join David Anderson, Josh Kerievski, Peter Middleton, Alan Shalloway, and other industry thought leaders as we consider together the next wave of software management and leadership. It offers the chance to interact in a small attendee/speaker ratio.

Music used in this podcast

“Pizzaman” and “Chocolate” ©2006 William Cushman: http://ghostnotes.blogspot.com/

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