The Lean Book of Lean

2 The Core Lean Principles

As I've hinted at before, Lean is simple and there should only be a few principles that need to be kept in mind to be successful. In this chapter I will introduce a few that I believe are core to the thinking. None of this will be earth-shattering insights from the heavens for you, but it should at least make you think a bit about how the parts fit together. So, here they are:

• Be customer demand-driven – Don't do anything until there is demand from the customer to do it.
• Maximise flow – Once something has been started, finish it. After all, if you apply the rule above, someone wants it now, so why hold it up?
• Identify and eliminate waste – Learn to identify waste in all its forms: material, time and resources. Then take whatever steps necessary to eliminate it.
• Declare war on variation – Variability kills. It creates an atmosphere of uncertainty, which causes much of the waste mentioned above. Systematically identify and eliminate the root cause, not just the symptoms.
• Organise your people around outcomes you want – Create an organisational structure around delivery of your products or services to customers. Make sure there is clear individual or team accountability for end-to-end delivery.
• Equip your people, at all levels, with the skills to be successful in their roles.
• Clear and simple measures and controls – Lean environments are fast and things happen very quickly, so you need to keep aware of the situation and have early warning indicators ...