Lean Management: Lessons from the Field

Agile development methods such as Scrum, XP, and kanban have achieved notable success in improving speed to value, reducing waste, and raising customer and team satisfaction. Successful practitioners worldwide have cut development times, improved product quality, and reduced development cost. Underlying these agile methods are timeless lean principles—focus on customer value, respect for people, and continuous improvement. Sanjiv Augustine describes how agile teams are implementing lean management. Learn the basics of lean, including its origins in the Toyota Production System, and how to apply lean to software development with disciplined practices such as automated build-and-test and test-driven development. Find out how to apply kanban to non-software activities including operations and maintenance. Take away new approaches for PMOs to manage WIP, how executive teams can use visual control to manage their enterprises, and how kaizen teams drive continuous improvement across the organization.