More Evidence of Agile Overlap with Lean
Despite cautions about comparing lean manufacturing and agile software development principles, there is more and more being discussed and written about it. A Rally Software white paper (registration required) does a pretty good job of discussing 5 levels of agile planning but precedes the discussion by talking about “core lean elements” of muri (overburden), mura (unbalanced workload) and muda (waste or non-value add). I liked their statement of how the “m” words interact:
“…mura creates muri leading to the inability to reduce muda..”
This “inability” to improve or cut waste is what is most troubling- i.e., the waste is so high that you cannot see the problems and you attack the wrong ones. Think of a software development, or any, project with too much documentation- you can’t figure out what you have or where you are plus you spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. An old analogy used in manufacturing is draining the swamp so you can see the rocks. The corollary is the more you drain the more problems surface which sometimes stops needed waste elimination efforts.
Many times the situation will get worse before it gets better because the problems are hidden. The white paper properly focuses on planning to eliminate overburdening (mura) which starts the poor balancing/waste creation cycle. What do you think? Does more planning help reduce waste? Or is it waste in and of itself?
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