Lean IT

Lean thinking should always start with the customer or user. We create value in our lives, meet our needs and solve problems by sourcing and using a combination of products, services and information. The same is true at work – we make or use products, we deliver or use services and deploy them to best effect using information. The Internet is fundamentally changing the way we acquire and use this information and translate it into knowledge. Yet there are still enormous frustrations with the way IT is currently used in organisations. We are often still prisoners of the logic of mass production – using big systems for command and control.

A lot of progress has been made in using lean in developing and managing production and services. But a new synthesis is now emerging around how to use lean in the development and management of information and knowledge, combining lean insights into managing processes and developing capabilities, agile insights into software development and the very active Lean Startup movement. This is summarised in a recent article by Dan Jones and Steve Bell on Lean Thinking and Knowledge Work for the Cutter IT journal and recent blogs on the Lean Startup movement on the Lean Edge. We have also added two important books by Steve Bell to our bookstore, Run Grow Transform and Lean IT which are worth reading, as is the Lean Startup book by Eric Ries. You can join in this growing debate at the third Lean IT Summit in Paris on 3-4 October 2013. Please pass this on to colleagues involved in IT in your organisation.

Yours sincerely

Daniel T Jones

Chairman, Lean Enterprise Academy