3/25/2019 What Is Lean-Agile?

– Net Objectives Portal

What Is Lean-Agile?

In FLEX
FLEX system (FLow for Enterprise Transformation) is guided by Lean-Agile
thinking. To understand FLEX, it is important to understand Lean and Agile.

Related articles
Using the FLEX Mindset and Experience to Determine What Must be Done

Related pages
Creating a Roadmap with FLEX

Relationship to FLEX
The Net Objectives FLEX system (FLow for Enterprise Transformation) is
guided by Lean-Agile thinking. To understand FLEX, it is important to
understand Lean and Agile.
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There is much misunderstanding about how Lean applies in the software world.
Certainly, there are different opinions about what Agile is. This article gives a
quick overview of our perspective of what these are.

What is Lean?
The term “Lean” was coined to describe approaches by Toyota and to a lesser
extent, Honda. It has often considered to be synonymous with Toyota’s
Production System. However, software development is different. Not only is it
not manufacturing, we are not even in the physical world. Even so, the core of
Lean can be found by looking at the mindset Toyota had when they did what
later became called Lean. Given Toyota’s commitment to continuous
improvement and learning, Lean is not a static definition; rather, it is an
evolution of both understanding and practices to achieve its goals.
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Here are the basic tenets of Lean.

Management must be involved in leading the change.
You must take a systems-thinking approach.
You must have a commitment to the quality both of how you are doing the
work and the quality of the work.
You must respect people. Give them a good environment within which to
work. Recognize they may not embrace self-organization immediately.
Make all work visible.
Strive for flow by managing queues and Work-in-Process (WIP).
Relentlessly improve.
Drive from achieving the goals of the organization. Be clear on the target
value being manifested.
Given we are not in the physical world, you must apply these tenets differently
than you would in manufacturing and physical product development. Visibility
and managing WIP have overlapping goals one of which is to see delays (they
show up as items in a queue).

Lean involves more. It is also about creating pride in our work, striving to be
the best, and personally making a difference. An example of this is one reason
that Toyota builds different cars on the same assembly line. It is to make the
work more interesting and to keep people “on their toes.”

What is Agile?
Throughout the Agile community, there are huge differences of opinion about
what Agile is. Net Objectives has never subscribed to the common view that the
Agile Manifesto, written in 2001, is the one sacrosanct definition. There are two
reasons for this. First, the Agile Manifesto is not based on systems-thinking
which we feel is a necessary agreement for organizational change. Second,
after a few years it seemed to us oxymoronic to have a manifesto suggesting
that we be agile and to have to accept it as cast in stone.

That being said, there is much to learn from the Agile Manifesto. In fact, Agile
and Lean have many of the same intentions.
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of
months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. (Principle 3)
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the
project. (Principle 4)
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and
support they need, and trust them to get the job done. (Principle 5). R Messages
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Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors,

developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace
indefinitely. (Principle 8)
Simplicity, the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.
(Principle 10)
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective,
then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. (Principle 12)
There are ways Agile goes beyond Lean.

Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes

harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage. (Principle 2)
Working software is the primary measure of progress. (Principle 7)
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances
agility. (Principle 9)
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-
organizing teams. (Principle 11)
Lean and Agile are not the same.

Agile was very much influenced by Lean, but not all of Lean was embodied in
Agile. At the time of the manifesto the two most popular methods were Scrum
(at the time sometimes considered synonymous with Agile) and eXtreme
Programming (which is closer to Lean than Scrum) were inspired by articles
written about Lean companies. Most significantly attended to was Hirotaka
Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka’s The New New Product Development Game
written in 1986.
It is ironic that the Agile community has Agile reasonably ignored another iconic
work by Nonaka, Toward Middle-Up-Down Management: Accelerating
Information Creation, that explicitly discusses the role of (middle) management.
In a nutshell management’s role is to look (up) at the business strategy to be
implemented and creating an environment for the people they lead (down) can
self-organize in to achieve those goals. While Agile is not inconsistent with this,
the Agile Manifesto does not mention management at any point and even
created its own role (the Scrum Master) to take on much of the responsibility
that Lean managers do.

The Agile Manifesto is focused around the technology side and the technology
side’s purpose of creating and manifesting value. A focus on customer value is
not all a business does, however. Successful companies have clarity of purpose
and a commitment to their employees. Both of these must be invested in.

Lean-Agile defined R Messages

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Lean-Agile is taking the mindset of Lean, applying it to the software world while
incorporating the lessons of Agile that are useful. Lean-Agile is not constrained
to the workflows that have software in them. But then some aspects of Lean-
Agile’s guidance must change.

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