Dec 03, 2013

Lean is an idea that puts the customer front and center. Applying lean thinking to a system one views every activity through the lens of “is this valuable to my customer?”. Put another way, one could ask: would a customer pay us more to do more of some activity? Everything that is not valuable in lean is termed waste.

Waste is not a pejorative, it’s a statement of fact. We should learn to recognize waste and try to minimize it.

“To eliminate waste, you first have to recognize it. Since waste is anything that does not add value, the first step to eliminating waste is to develop a keen sense of what value really is. There is no substitute for developing a deep understanding of what customers will actually value once they start using the software.” – “Implementing Lean Software Development From Concept to Cash“, Mary and Tom Poppendieck.

Attempts to redefine technical terms indicate either a lack of understand of lean thinking or a desire to reduce transparency through obfuscation.

See also “Lean Software Development“.