Lean: More than a Shop-Floor Fad

When most business or IT executives hear the term "Lean," they immediately think of shop-floor centric initiatives limited to manufacturing. However, a deeper look at Lean principles reveals opportunities for organizations to optimize their operations, including IT. At its most basic form, Lean focuses on processes in an organization that add value for which a customer will pay. It advocates removing all extraneous processes that don't directly contribute to that value stream. The author recently met with Larry Miller, author of Lean Culture: A Leadership Guide (LM Miller Publishing, 2011), to discuss not only how IT can support Lean efforts but also how the Lean philosophy can help CIOs optimize IT operations. Although executives and business leaders are Miller's target audience, IT analysts, relation ship managers, business liaisons, change-management teams, and other IT players will quickly spot how the described approach fits in with IT practices. Given that today's CIOs have evolved from simple service providers into partners in business-strategy definition and execution, these processes should be useful with or without a formal Lean initiative.