Lately I’ve been reading a lot of software development articles which use the words Lean and Agile as if they’re synonyms.
They aren’t.
I’ve been implementing both lean and agile processes since the early 90′s. The concepts aren’t new, but they are relatively new to the software development world. I’ve read about and taught TPS, SMED, and many other parts of lean production as well as many of the concepts used in agile manufacturing. Their application to software is incredibly similar.
Lean is an inward focus.
Lean is a measure of the entity separate from its customers and historically is a measurement of waste. Reduce waste and you are more lean. The Toyota Production System (one of the oldest lean manufacturing system) has a constant focus on the elimination of waste.
Lean is loved by many executives because it conforms to the “world as machine” view. Taylorism, and it’s descendants such as business process re-engineering, have viewed the business entity and its processes (and the larger scale systems the organization exists within) from a mindset of planning and control – again, a world view most managers seem to prefer.
Agile is an outward focus.
Agile is dirty, organic, unknowable, unplannable, which makes managers and executives uncomfortable.
To be Agile, you do need to be somewhat lean, but the leanness is FOR agility, not the goal. The difference is important.
Agile is measured not with internal measurements, but as a measure of how well the entity responds to changes in the external environment. Waste and leanness are not the goal and as Eli Goldrat has shown time and time again, being more lean in the wrong places can make you much, much less agile.
It’s important to understand why agility has become so important over the last several decades. It’s due to the continual shortening of product life cycles, customer order cycles, and the increase of product competition due to information exchange. No longer can you release a product once every few years. Even the idea of software versions is becoming somewhat obsolete (what “version” is the google search engine?).
Which to focus on?
I spend most of my time in the web world where agility, the ability to adapt to a changing competitive landscape, is the number one competitive advantage for a software firm.
Agility is customer focused and these days the customer is king.
So I choose agility over leanness every day. It isn’t even close.
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