Lean Principles and Practices

Lean has two primary emphases: Achieve fast-flexible-flow and discover what is needed. These principles work together to remove delays and to minimize the amount of work in process. When Work-in-Process (WIP) is high, the team will thrash and there is a risk of greater waste if directions have to change. Lean-Agile Involves a commitment to continuous improvement and oversight of the flow of value. Here are some basic Lean principles:

  • Eliminate waste
  • Build quality in
  • Learn pragmatically
  • Keep options open
  • Deliver value quickly
  • Respect people
  • Optimize the whole
  • Build in resilience

Resources related to Lean principles and practices

About the Lean-Agile Portal (Article)
Acceptance Test-Driven Development (Article)
Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction (Blog Entry)
Agile at Mid-Scale (Article)
Are We Using Automated Acceptance Tests? (Article)
Continuous Improvement (Article)
Controlling Work-in-Process (WIP) (Article)
Daily Standups (Article)
Decomposing an MBI into Features (Article)
Defining MBIs Pattern Group (Article)
Do We Have So Much Technical Debt That We Need to Pay Some Down Before Proceeding? (Article)
Guardrails (Article)
How Do We Align People / Teams to the Work To Be Done? (Article)
How Do We Ensure There Is a Focus on Finishing? (Article)
How Easily Can We Import a Lean or Agile Framework Into the Organization? (Blog Entry)
How Is Integration Across Teams Being Handled? (Article)
How Is Work Within the Program Being Sequenced? (Article)
How Should We Coordinate Teams? (Article)
How Should We Manage the Number of Items in the Portfolio? (Article)
How Should Work at the Portfolio Level Be Sequenced? (Article)
How Should the Intake Process Be Controlled? (Article)
How Will Architectural Capabilities Be Handled? How Will Architecture Be Prioritize Against Business Needs? (Article)
How Will DevOps Be Involved? (Article)
How Will Shared Services Be Handled? (Article)
How Will Tactical Work Be Handled? (Article)
How Will Teams Work and Deliver Together? (Article)
How Will UX Work With the Teams? (Article)
How Will We Create Visibility Throughout the Program? (Article)
How Will We Make Visible Our Work at the Program Level? (Article)
How Will We Make the Work at the Portfolio Level Visible? (Article)
How to Ruin a Software Development Organization by Focusing on Throughput (Article)
Identifying Classes of Service (Article)
Impediments to Progress and Quality (Article)
Improve the Efficiency of the Technology Group (Article)
Issues With Quality (Article)
Lean-Agile Coach Library (Article)
Lean-Agile Team Checklists (Article)
Meetings for Lean-Agile (Article)
Metrics (Article)
Product Demonstration and Review - Facilitate (Article)
Product Demonstration and Review - Plan (Article)
Product Planning and Review - Conduct (Article)
Recommended Resources - Facilitation (Article)
Resources for Agile Coaches (Article)
Scrum of Scrums (Article)
Team Agility Templates Available (Article)
Technology Delivery Manager Library (Article)
Templates for Team Agility (Premium Content) (Article)
Tester Library (Article)
The Dot Game (Article)
To What Extent Will Test-First Methods Be Used? (Article)
To What Extent Will We Automate Tests? (Article)
Types of Tests for Code (Article)
Using Visual Controls (Article)
What Is It That Can Make SAFe® Heavy? (Blog Entry)
What Is the Budgeting Cycle? (Article)
What Is the Ecosystem Structure at the Team Level? (Article)
What Makes an Organization "Mid-sized" (or Above)? (Blog Entry)
What Roles Are Missing? Which Roles Need To Be Redefined? (Article)
What Should Team Process(es) Be: Scrum, Kanban, Leanban? (Article)
What Should the Planning Cycle Be? (Article)
What Test Harness for Acceptance Tests Will Be Used? (Article)
Why Looking at Delay Is So Important (Article)
Will We Focus on Improving People or Improving the System? (Article)