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A sprinkle of agile, a dash of lean



Katie Serignese
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December 2, 2010 —  (Page 1 of 3)
Whether used separately or together, agile and lean are here to stay. Now it’s just a matter of how to describe the combination of agile and lean as a business process and how to make it fit within that business, according to experts in the processes.

“The best way I can describe it is if you look at how agile and lean have been used in the last decade, and in the decade from 2000 to 2010, agile has predominantly been a software development methodology and lean has predominantly been a manufacturing process,” said Alex Adamopoulos, CEO of lean and agile consultancy emergn. “And in the next decade, which we kind of have already started, I believe they are both going to become the transformation agents in business.”

Aside from defining the combination itself, organizations also have a hard time defining the best combination for the business and its projects, explained Mike Gilpin, research director at Forrester Research. One project, such as making a system compliant with certain federal regulations, may call strictly for an agile approach, while another project, like making a customer-facing website, is considered highly valuable to the business and therefore would warrant a lean approach instead, he said.

To help organizations reach the best working combination, Gilpin said, “We discuss process frameworks that include elements from lean, agile and other practices. From there, we use these frameworks to consult with clients about their situation, identify the ‘pains,’ and make recommendations drawing from the framework. It’s that sort of approach that guides the design of a hybrid approach for each particular client development shop.”

Adamopoulos agreed, adding that people are starting to realize that both agile and lean add value, but they are still trying to figure out how to combine them and extract from them what is needed to best fit their organization.

“As I learned more about lean, I was intrigued the most by the Kanban board because it’s all about workflow,” said Ted Young, development manager at Guidewire Software, which serves the property and casualty insurance industry.



Related Search Term(s): agile, lean

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12/06/2010 11:45:05 AM EST

Katie, great points. With many companies trading in their waterfall and lean methodologies for Agile, there is bound to be some pieces of the previous methodologies that companies and employees miss. After all, waterfall has its strong points too, but, luckily, some tools work well in any scenario, such as deployment automation. Because deployment automation helps eliminate the backlog of deliverables that typically bog down operations teams by delivering faster iterations, it frees up time that these employees could be spending on improvements, rather than just playing catch up. How have you seen companies customizing their automation?

United StatesXebia Labs


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