5 Principles of Lean Management

The five principles of lean project management serve as steps for how to reach prime customer satisfaction and if you want the best chance of reducing product waste, staying within project scope, and meeting critical success factors.

DEFINE VALUE

We make sure we are able to deliver the right value by doing our diligence to get to know the stakeholders. Who are we building the product/service for? How are they going to use it? What is the value that needs to be delivered?

MAP VALUE STREAM

Are we really utilizing time the right way? Is it really the shortest way to get to the desired outcome? Creating value stream maps of the current process helps us identify where we could trip away wastes. We keep the 8 wastes in mind while working on our projects to make value delivery as cost effective as possible.

CREATE FLOW

We rework the Project Management Process and team workflow as per the revised value stream to make them more efficient. We establish open communication with our team to make any waste not creep in. Milestones, open communication and working together with the team, we prevent future inefficiencies and keep waste from recreating.

ESTABLISH PULL

Are we really utilizing time the right way? Is it really the shortest way to get to the desired outcome? Creating value stream maps of the current process helps us identify where we could trip away wastes. We keep the 8 wastes in mind while working on our projects to make value delivery as cost effective as possible.

CONTINUE TO IMPROVE

Our practice of lean methodology is iterative. We establish an ongoing feedback loop to help the team, company and client reduce waste and enhance efficiency. We motivate a growth mindset and strive for perfection through continuous improvement.

Individuals and Interactions Over Process and Tools

Valuing people is the base of our foundation. We understand that while processes and tools assist in doing the work efficiently and faster, at the core it is the people who get the actual work done. We encourage frequent interactions with clients and cross-functional teams to make changes more acceptable to teams and delivery more spontaneous.

Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation

Our focus is on delivering working software by creating lean processes that create just-enough documentation that is sufficient for developers to deliver the product. We strive to deliver working software without getting bogged down in technical minutiae.

Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation

We encourage customer involvement in the development process enabling us to deliver software while avoiding rigidity in requirement. Having a customer involved and engaged throughout the development process enables us to ensure that the product meets the needs of the customer.

Responding To Change Over Following a Plan

By defining short iterations of work, we can deliver working software and also accommodate change in priorities. Keeping at the core, the value to respond to changing customer needs over following a predetermined plan, allows us to prioritize features as per customer needs and we are able to deploy new features that deliver needed value while accommodating change and inducing agility.

Have clear and fixed requirements? Offering a clear roadmap? Unlikely to change requirements? Waterfall may be your answer.

• Requirement Gathering
• Design
• Development
• Testing
• Deployment
• Maintenance

Waterfall follows a staged process of Requirement gathering and Analysis, Design, Development, Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance. Between Agile and Waterfall, while the work remains largely the same and working software is delivered at the end, the difference lies in the method and involvement.