Understanding lean: Ongoing work is a waste

 

A few days ago, I attended a special presentation at lean workshop, a pioneer in lean Software Development in Beijing. In terms of form, scrum is represented by iteration, and lean is represented by value stream ). The lean method emphasizes the elimination of waste and ensures the fast and smooth flow of value streams. This concept is not difficult to accept, but I was surprised when I first came into contact with lean development when I mentioned that "the ongoing work is a waste" (work in process is waste! How can we say that ongoing work is a waste? An audience asked Mary for an explanation. Mary drew a project cycle chart on the cart for six months from the user's request to delivery. Mary said the six months were a waste! Why is it not three months? Why is it not delivered immediately?

 

After some thinking, I think Mary makes sense and I will give you an example of dining at a restaurant. I sat down at the restaurant and ordered a Kung Pao chicken. 20 minutes later, the waiter sent the food to the dining table. After eating it, I paid the cashier 25 yuan. What is my cost in this process? Is it only 25 yuan? No, I spent 20 minutes waiting in addition to money. This is a waste of 20 minutes for me! Of course, as a restaurant, it has enough reason to explain that "our chefs are cooking for you" or even say "your menu is queuing up in our queue ", they don't think this is a waste of time. It is no wonder that as developers, we will be surprised to hear that "Ongoing work is a waste.

 

Is there a smarter way to eliminate this waste for restaurants? Of course, there are some. First, we can identify waste and use the elimination method flexibly as needed. For example, our company only has a lunch break between and ~ At, my colleagues often have lunch at a Sichuan restaurant near the company. It may take about 20 minutes for us to take a few dishes. If the Sichuan food restaurant provides us with a recipe and a telephone reservation, we can call to order food before getting off work. When we arrive at the restaurant, the food will come up, how wonderful life should be! There are still many ways to eliminate restaurant waste. What about software development? Of course, there are also some ideas that we will discuss later. Today we will first establish the concept of "Ongoing work is a waste.