Message from Alan Shalloway, CEO of Net Objectives and instructor for the Lean On-Line Training.

I have been in this industry for over 38 years.  I have repeatedly seen things that would help enterprises, teams and individuals be much more productive, but that were not used nearly as much as they could be. This knowledge base has included design patterns, eXtreme Programming, Agile, Test-Driven Development, automated testing, integrating testing groups with developers and more. As good as these technologies are, Lean is the most underutilized set of knowledge I have seen in my entire career.  I have both passion and frustration over this.  Particularly because Lean can work at all levels - the individual (by giving them new ways to look at problems), by teams (by creating a set of principles within which to follow Agile/Scrum practices), and the Enterprise (by creating a better paradigm within which to scale Agility than any other method I know).

Scaling Agile/Scrum to the Enterprise has been a great challenge for many organizations.  I believe that Lean Thinking could assist these companies.  Unfortunately, many Agile thought leaders have essentially chosen to ignore the promise of Lean.  Having seen how a Lean-Agile approach is much better at both adopting Agile/Scrum and scaling it to the Enterprise than an approach not explicitly including Lean, I am committed to spreading the opportunity of understanding what Lean is.  I see no better way than teaching a few hundred people in what the power of Lean-Thinking can do.

Alan Shalloway
CEO, Net Objectives