Agile and Lean

Both Lean and Agile are ways upholding the performance and effectiveness of work. Primarily, Lean originates from a processing and specifically the Toyota Production System. The term Agile comes specifically from Agile Software Development which also has a connection with Project Management (Forrester, 1961). The work done by the Agile is usually borrowed from Lean practicing and thinking. There are some other three connections between Agile and Lean: team self- management, queuing theory, and empirical process.

Naylor stated that, in Queuing theory, there is a description of the statistical and theoretical characteristics of queues. There are two important parts of queue system: work units and work items. The two basic parts have one thing in common, that, they depend on one another in terms of production (Hoekstra, 1992). The duration at which work item enters and exits the system is really a process life cycle. There has been a research on how to reduce the process cycle time that work system takes. This will also reduce the queuing system. One ways in which queuing can be reduced is quite dependent on work item as in work unit and level of utilization and life cycle process.

Another connection between Agile and Lean is the Empirical Process Control. Some work process cannot be successfully control or successfully described. The primary attributes of the Empirical Process Control is what can make the continuous cycle of inspecting the process that enables correct and efficient operation and outcome and coping with the process as required (Johansson, 1995). The adapting and inspecting must match together with the requirement of the process.

Team Self-Organization as another link between Lean and Agile requires intimate knowledge that takes a great potential deal (FORRESTER, 1961). The must be individual responsibility and support from the organization and management culture. With that, managers will not be telling people to work.

In conclusion, both Lean Thinking and Agile Work have great tasks in improving the effectiveness of the organizations. For the organization to be productive there must be a co-operation and trust between the employees and the customers.