What's this Lean all about ?
A brief journey into the world of Lean
Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.
This usually comes down to eliminating unnecessary actions from processes. An unnecessary action is one that does not add value to the product or service in the opinion of the customer.
Removing unnecessary actions from processes has other benefits as well: the process becomes less errorprone and, if done well, the clarity and goal driven approach is appreciated by staff.
Below you see the 7 original types of waste that were recognized within Lean. The 8th, waste of talent, is becoming more accepted and is often very much tied to bureaucracy and under-utilization of people. I therefore found it appropriate to add it:
With the basic principle of Lean in mind, we approach the development of our applications. Leaning up, or in our case, designing the ultimate, clean and wastefree process, is an important criterium in what we do.
In what way does this make us different from others ? Most companies will either sell you software or provide you with an online service that is filled with options, settings etc. that you will (or should) never use. An example is the 2nd approval function that you see in various packages. In the end this is basically an option that underlines that you don't trust your team making the right decision the first time.