How To Apply Lean and Agile Methodologies To Professional Services Procurement

By Nicolas Arkells

It is my belief that lean and agile must be combined because neither is a complete methodology by itself, only a framework. Agile is specifically designed to turn everything into short-term projects, as everything must be deliverable in a month or less. Lean complements this with tactics like “kaizen blitzes” designed to deliver considerable improvements within days. Lean, however, focuses only on process improvement, not innovation. To develop new products and processes, the agile framework is needed. It is important to understand that agility is completely incompatible with waterfall or project-management approaches, as it was designed to supersede them.