Surely you have read the term Lean PPM™ a few times on this blog already. Today I examine one aspect of '"Lean" in the context of project portfolio management: waste.
But first things first:
Lean management is an outgrowth of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and consists of a collection of technologies, attitudes, and processes for the development and production of industrial goods. It started in Japan after the end of World War II and achieved worldwide recognition in the 1980s (Womack, James P. / Jones, Daniel T. / Roos, Daniel: The machine that changed the world. How Japan’s secret weapon in the global auto wars will revolutionize Western industry, New York: Harper Perennial (1991)). There are several key elements of lean, including
- The focus on man as the key element of production
- The creation of a consistent production flow
- The continuous improvement of quality
- The shifting of decision-making power to the lowest level
- The inclusion of customers and suppliers
In this article, I would like to focus on one more key item: the creation of “value.” It is precisely this focus that has finally carried the concept of lean far beyond the production floor (Hines, Peter/Holweg,Matthias / Rich, Nick: Learning to evolve: A review of contemporary lean thinking in: International Journal of Operations & Production Management 2004 24:10, pp. 994-1011).