Agile Notes (No. 20)

Every Friday, I send out an email highlighting a concept relating to Agile/Scrum/Continuous Improvement. Lets get to it….

This week, I want to highlight an article from McKinsey & Co. - Lean management or agile? The right answer may be both. Soon, I will start posting notes from The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. This McKinsey article provides a nice introduction.

…the two methodologies complement one another in ways that increase the impact they generate…to speed transformation. Under this best-of-both approach, top-performing companies combine tools, ways of working, and organizational elements from each to form a custom solution that meets the company’s unique needs more completely and quickly than has been possible.

The screen grab below provides a really handy table that does a great job highlighting the similarities between the two systems.

You could throw DevOps in here pretty easily as well. When I look at this table, it strikes me that Agile is “just” stripped-down Lean. Not to slight Lean at all. Continuous Improvement was my gateway drug. :) I came to it while working in financial services with a mutual fund company. My boss, director of operations, introduced me to Tom Peters and from there I was off and running.

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