Lean Principles
Lean Principles are a set of practices derived from the Toyota Production System that focus on maximizing customer value while minimizing waste, forming a foundation for agile and Kanban practices.
Explanation
Lean thinking is built on five core principles: identify value from the customer perspective, map the value stream, create flow by eliminating waste, establish a pull system, and pursue perfection through continuous improvement. In software and project management, lean translates into practices like eliminating unnecessary handoffs, reducing inventory (WIP), and delivering in small batches.
The seven wastes of lean (adapted for knowledge work) include partially done work, extra processes, extra features, task switching, waiting, motion (handoffs), and defects. Agile teams use lean thinking to identify and eliminate these wastes in their workflow.
Lean is not a competing approach to agile but a complementary philosophy. Many agile practices, including Kanban, continuous delivery, and value stream mapping, have their roots in lean thinking. PMI recognizes lean as a key influence on agile and may test lean concepts on both PMP and CAPM exams.
Key Points
- •Five principles: identify value, map the value stream, create flow, establish pull, pursue perfection
- •Focus on eliminating seven types of waste
- •Foundation for Kanban and many agile practices
- •Emphasizes small batch sizes and continuous improvement
Exam Tip
Know the five lean principles and the seven wastes. Lean questions on the exam often focus on identifying and eliminating waste in a process.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Topics
Value Stream Mapping
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is a lean technique that visually maps all the steps in a process from concept to delivery, identifying value-adding and non-value-adding activities to eliminate waste.
Kanban
Kanban is a lean method for managing and improving work across systems that emphasizes visualizing the workflow, limiting work in progress, managing flow, and making process policies explicit.
Work in Progress (WIP) Limits
Work in Progress (WIP) Limits are constraints placed on the number of work items allowed in each stage of a workflow at any given time, designed to improve flow and reduce multitasking.
Continuous Integration
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of frequently merging code changes into a shared repository, where automated builds and tests verify each integration to detect problems early.
Most-studied PMP concepts
High-yield topics our learners drill most before exam day.
Burndown Chart
A Burndown Chart is a graphical representation of work remaining versus time in a Sprint or release, showing whether the team is on track to complete the planned work.
Relative Estimation
Relative Estimation is an agile technique where work items are sized in comparison to each other rather than in absolute units like hours or days, providing faster and more accurate estimates.
Sprint Review
The Sprint Review is a Scrum event held at the end of the Sprint where the Scrum Team presents the Increment to stakeholders, gathers feedback, and collaborates on what to do next.
Sprint Backlog
The Sprint Backlog is the set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus the Sprint Goal and the plan for delivering the Increment.
Timeboxing
Timeboxing is the practice of allocating a fixed, maximum amount of time for an activity, after which the activity stops regardless of whether it is complete.
Resource Leveling
Resource leveling is a resource optimization technique in which adjustments are made to the project schedule to keep resource usage at or below a defined limit, often resulting in a longer project duration.
Risk Register
The risk register is a project document that records the details of individual project risks, including their identification, analysis results, response plans, and current status.
Stakeholder Mapping
Stakeholder mapping is the visual representation of stakeholder relationships, influence, interest, or other attributes using grids, matrices, or diagrams to support analysis and engagement planning.
Cost Performance Index (CPI)
Cost Performance Index (CPI) is an EVM efficiency metric that measures cost performance as the ratio of earned value to actual cost: CPI = EV / AC.
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