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It’s interesting to compare lean and agile. Lean initially focused on industrial production, and was originally created over 60 years ago in an environment where things certainly moved forward but at a slow pace. Agile started by focusing on software development, 50 years later in a completely different and much more inconstant world.
There are many similarities between the different philosophies. Both focus on the customer and strive to continuously improve and simplify the work. The fact that management should work close to the business operations is also emphasized by both.
However, there are also differences. Lean, coming from mass production, has a starting point in streamlining and continuously developing a process by making slow decisions, while agile instead tries to constantly adapt to new requirements. Requirements that often come late. Delegating responsibility based on how the exact process appears to the team are all things that agile focuses on. Lean is sometimes seen as being in conflict with innovation; for example, because it is based on a stable environment, all the focus is on existing customers, and everything that does not create value for them is removed. Our view, however, is that it can be combined with agile processes, especially when working with the existing operation. When lean is used in innovative processes, it should not limit innovation to only look at existing customers and current needs. The next point takes up exactly this issue.
