During a recession, the concept of lean should make absolute sense to an information technology (IT) manager who wants to pursue every channel to increase efficiency and productivity.
We have seen a procession of quality standards adopted by software services organizations in the last two decades, ranging from simple ISO 9001 to capability maturity model (CMM), capability maturity model integration (CMMI), people capability maturity model (PCMM), Six Sigma, and more recently, lean management. Other distinct project management certifications such as project management process (PMP) and projects in controlled environments (Prince), have also seen some growth in the software quality sector. In this crowded industry, the big question is which one makes sense for you?
If you look closely, you will see that each of these programs complement one another and rarely encroach into each other’s space. ISO 9001 recommends having standard documentation for all actions performed in an organization as does the CMM, except the latter is from an IT perspective. A more customized standards version for the IT industry was christened CMMI. PCMM is a similar approach for people management with specified key competency areas. The Six Sigma concept was brought in to reduce defects and bring down variations in processes. Finally, lean is focused on reducing waste and cycle time. All these standards and programs have coexisted and resulted in world-class processes and products.
Needless to say, all this has created a billion-dollar industry as corporations adopt these standards and programs. In this era of the global village, customers are looking for suppliers and vendors with a world-class credential to somehow differentiate one from the other. It has become imperative for software-services companies to plunge into the race for credentials as a weapon of differentiation in the already crowded market space.
The areas within the IT software development life cycle that can benefit from applying lean methodology are gold plating, extra reviews/steps, requirements collection, coding, testing, deployment, and decision-making. For software services organizations, the main rationale for embracing lean thinking is that while outsourcing is about changing who does the work, lean is about changing how the work is done.
From its inception at Toyota more than 40 years ago as a means to standardize a continuous improvement methodology, lean has seen numerous iterations among a multitude of industrial sectors and has since garnered worldwide acceptance.
Lean is a change-management tool. It’s a concept that has been implemented in many different ways around the world; the lean version being used in many worldwide organizations is quite different from the original Toyota version. Most important, lean thinking stresses not making changes solely from a financial perspective. Any unwanted or unnecessary process steps are discouraged and it suggests a change in organizational culture as a whole. Successful organizations make changes based on operational measures. When the operational measures perform well, the revenues and profits will follow and increase the bottom-line.
How is lean beneficial to IT?
For IT, lean could provide operational improvements by:
Lean also integrates fully with the CMM commonly used in IT to define world-class status. However, CMM often doesn’t consider the time required for implementation. Lean helps by taking the world-class characteristics of CMM and accelerating their implementation and integration across the IT organization, resulting in a novel approach to business problem solving.
Some characteristics of lean are:
The challenge for the organization is to integrate lean thinking into set processes to present a sustainable competitive advantage in the day-to-day business performed by an organization. A few compelling reasons for adopting lean thinking in IT:
Lean thinking is still a new idea for IT. Not many have expertise in applying lean to a global software services business model or employing it across software teams spread across the globe.
New players need to set up a lean incubating and promoting office within the organization to help guide the company into the lean era. One needs to understand that integrating lean will be a slow process. It will only gradually push you to the top by catalyzing a companywide cultural change. In a typical software services organization with matured teams employing lean techniques, the entire team will be involved in decision making, rather than looking at the IT project manager for direction. With lean, everybody will own projects as a team and will feel accountable for their impact on the bottom line.
Following lean culture in the assembly line has made Toyota the world’s largest car manufacturer with unequaled quality. IT organizations can also benefit by employing lean in their day-to-day operations. To obtain the best results, lean needs to be absorbed into the software methodology in practice across the organization.
This is apart from the IT lean success stories previously experienced by technology giants such as Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems in North America. Moreover, the presence of lean manufacturing software solutions in the market from independent software vendors and Microsoft partners such as Avanade, eBECS, and Sigma Flow, suggest that corporations are willing to invest in lean methodology-based IT solutions to streamline their operations.
Some significant tools from the lean world are value stream mapping, visual control boards, design structure matrix, leveling, autonomation/jidoka, just-in-time production, and standardization of project management processes.
Some thought provoking questions that remain are:
Bipin Roy Lekshmanan is a certified project management professional with 11 years of experience in information technology. He manages projects and does program management for the Indian IT outsourcing giant Wipro Technologies and is based in the United States. He's also a member of the Project Management Institute exam development committee, U.S. chapter.
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