Our editor Pat Speer cites a new
Our system for managing enterprise IT is broken. Millions of dollars are wasted every year on technologies and projects that either end up not being used, or render business processes more complicated than they were before.
Why can't the same lessons learned from the manufacturing sector be applied to enterprise IT management across all industries? I recently had a chat with Steve Bell, author of
The No. 1 takeaway from implementing lean methodologies into IT and software management is you don't cut costs simply because costs need to be cut, Bell says. “The quickest way to lose weight is to give blood, but the patient isn't very healthy when you're done. You're weakened, and you've lost a lot of your intellectual capital. If you simply try to attack cost, and short-term cost reduction, all you end up doing is killing the patient.”
Lean means more than simply cutting costs or streamlining, Bell says. Lean, as successfully applied to manufacturing, means doing things “simpler, faster, better, cheaper,” he says. “Notice that the last item on the list is cheaper. If you adopt a systems perspective into every business process. You find where the waste is and you drive it out, focusing on doing things faster and with higher quality, cost will naturally be driven out of the system.”
In lean IT, the focus is on collaborative teamwork—represented by all parts of the business—to deliberatively and systematically tackle problems. Right now, IT is forced to fight fires every day, Bell points out. The focus of lean IT is to put forth “a set of principles that says you are going to slow down in order to speed up,” he explains.
Joe McKendrick is an author, consultant, blogger and frequent INN contributor specializing in information technology.
Readers are encouraged to respond to Joe using the “Add Your Comments” box below. He can also be reached at joe@mckendrickresearch.com.
The opinions of bloggers on
