Lean agile combines the best philosophy of lean and agile and when applied to project management, it brings remarkable outcomes. Many organizations have started to adopt the agile model but many have missed the true essence of agile.
The fact is, agile is more about culture and mindset than it is about the process. Lean on the other hand is a tried-and-true management framework geared towards maximizing business outcome.
What is Lean?
Lean is a very unique way of business management, initially advocated by Toyota Corporation, one of the most successful businesses in history. It also influenced similar management practices such as Toyota Production System and Toyota Industrial System (TIS) in other enterprises. In lean, we focus on quality, efficiency and customer satisfaction while being controlled by cost-effectiveness. The essence of Lean is simple; create the best product at the lowest possible cost and level of quality, while providing customer satisfaction. In addition to efficiency, lean also ensures that the quality of the product is satisfactory. The essence of Lean is so simple that when a business gets lean and efficient, it actually becomes a moneymaking machine.
What is Agile?
Agile project management is a project management methodology in which product owners and teams communicate and interact continuously during project life cycle. The process takes into account the change that happens every moment of the project and the demand from the customer. This makes it easier to maximize the output of your product. However, in many organizations, they are unable to adopt agile to their project management. Why should you adopt Lean Agile Project Management? Achieving customer experience and productivity In today’s day and age, organizations depend on the innovative strategies to maintain competitive advantage. However, many organizations are experiencing a slow-down in their business growth due to this scenario.
Lean Agile Project Management
Lean agile project management is a proven methodology that is built on lean principles. Lean project management is the set of methods, frameworks, and methods that are intentionally designed to improve the quality of work, shorten the amount of time required to complete projects and improve collaboration. Agile Project Management has inspired the methodologies associated with it, but a strong and dependable project management framework and culture are the critical drivers of the success of this methodology. The two are tightly linked, as an effective methodology cannot help but lead to a great culture of project management.
Why Lean-Agile Makes Sense in the Modern World
Lean agile is more than process. Rather it is all about a collaborative, iterative and teams-driven way of working, prioritizing and understanding the business goals and challenges. There is an inherent tendency to minimize effort. Each team member knows that others in their team will back them up. There is room for innovation and experimentation. People will rise to the challenge; instead of waiting for top management to make decisions, they’ll implement solutions on their own and with the help of others. Customer expectations have changed, and the market has become more dynamic. An accurate understanding of the context at hand, coupled with great communication and self-management is the key to success.
Achieving Your Goals with Lean Agile
The essence of Lean project management can be explained in short as the framework that helps team members analyze the value-chain and identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement. The latter are usually identified during collaborative discussions.
Lean and Agile both share a similar set of foundational objectives: to deliver value efficiently for a customer; discover better ways of working to continuously learn and improve; transparently connect strategy and goals to give teams meaningful purpose; and enable people to contribute and lead to their fullest potential.
Key Principles of Lean Agile: If we take a look at agile as a whole, the main principle which drives it is that Change is a constant. As the name suggests, change is the driving force behind agile. No project is ever finished. Continuous change is just as important as constant improvement. As with any organization, projects take more time to accomplish. This is also true for agile projects. The purpose of applying lean methodology to project management is to constantly increase the speed of the project.
Conclusion
The shift from waterfall to agile project management is definitely an exciting time for the industry. There is a sea change underway that is driving innovation in how we manage projects. It is clear now that the more we embrace agile, the better we are able to make decisions and create a plan for projects with a minimal amount of resources. In today’s business environment, budgeting, planning and forecasting must be done with every project.
