Agile principles and Lean principles have much in common – to the point where sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. A methodology purest however would argue that they are different – so let’s accept that for the moment and consider if one approach is better than the other. To begin, here are the Wikipedia definitions:
- Agile software development refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams.
- Lean is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination.
The term Agile was coined in 2001 when the Agile Manifesto was formulated which makes the following statements:
We value….
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Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
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Working software over comprehensive documentation
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Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
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Responding to change over following a plan
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
In contrast, Lean evolved from the Toyota Production System in the 1950’s – almost 50 years earlier. The core Lean principles and practices are:
- Focus on the customer and eliminate waste – JIT (Just In Time), pull
- Continuously improve – See for yourself at the Gemba (workplace)
- Plan for change – Learning, small batch sizes
- Automate processes - Jidoka, flow, Takt time, production levelling
- Empower the team – visual controls
- Build Quality In – Poka-yoke (mistake proofing), Andon (signaling)
- Optimize the whole – Value Stream Mapping
Both Lean and Agile have a unique language to communicate key concepts. Lean uses Japanese terms (although most books use the English equivalents) and Agile uses terms such as ScrumMaster (project manager), sprint (short time-period for the incremental development of a shippable product), and daily scrum (stand-up project status meeting). If we look past the Agile buzzwords, we find many Lean concepts embedded in Agile and some of the same techniques used by both such as A4 Problem Solving and 5 Why’s.
Certainly there is more to integration than software development, but to the degree that integration does involve software development, there is a great deal of alignment between the respective methods as summarized in this table http://www.informatica.com/blogs/agilevslean.gif. The left column shows the principles from the Agile Manifesto and the right column shows the Lean principles with similar objectives.
Note that Lean practices for Jidoka (automation), Value Stream Mapping, and Just-in-Time delivery do not have clear parallels in Lean. In summary, Lean is primarily focused on continuous improvement of repeatable processes while Agile is generally used as a light-weight methodology for rapid delivery of custom software.
Stay tuned for part two of this blog series on Lean versus Agile. In the meantime, you may want to check out www.integrationfactory.com which includes an overview of my (and David Lyle’s) upcoming book Lean Integration and a number of useful reference links.
4 Comments
I find it interesting that you feel these two things have to be mutually exclusive. Could someone be both lean and agile?
Indeed, from my own observations, it’s hard to imagine ever becoming agile without being lean! And from what I have scanned here I cannot see them as mutually exclusive at all – so, what am I missing here?
Derek and Richard, thanks for your comments. From a strict interpretation Lean and Agile are different methodologies. In normal everyday use however, many people use these terms interchangeably so they tend to blur together and any distinction is lost. As my article points out, the principles and objectives of the two methods have a great deal of overlap, but there are some aspects of each that make them unique and differentiated. In subsequent articles (part 2 will be posted tomorrow) I will discuss more directly how Agile supports Lean and how Lean supports Agile. So in short, yes, it is possible to be “Lean and Agile”.
sometime it is hard to differentiate these two. As a student of marketing and sales we need to know pretty much about those terms in the case of supply chain and relate those with sales. When we went through our lecture during our class there comes lot of confusion and even sometime it looks there is not so much difference between these two. In a simple difference we trace out was like lean is less flexible where as agile is more flexible. can I get more clear about it from you sir.