You have probably encountered the phrase “lean and agile” a number of times but you may not fully understand what it means. The words “lean” and “agile” don’t necessarily always go together, though. Each word means something that pertains to efficiency and better business operations. These words are something businesspeople should consider getting acquainted with.
Perhaps a good start for explaining the concept of “lean and agile” is by taking a look at the site weareleanandagile.com. This site does not necessarily best demonstrate how being lean and agile works for a business but it provides products and services meant to make businesses lean and agile. In particular, it offers business process modeling software as well as consulting, training, and knowledge transfer services to improve businesses. Apparently, its primary goal is to become a source for solutions to help make businesses lean and agile.
What being lean means
Being lean basically means being devoid of the non-necessities. For businesses, this infers the elimination of non-essential processes, personnel, and assets. A lean business is one that has small batch sizes. It has to have efficient human resources so a few people are enough to complete tasks. Cycle times should be kept at the optimum, as short as possible. It’s about making the most efficient use of resources, preventing wastage, and ensuring that everything is performing at its optimum level.
What being agile means
As the word itself implies, this is about speed. It is about being quick in responding to changes. Agility means being dynamic in coping with developments affecting business operations. Businesses need to be quick in reacting to problems to be able to prevent such problems from aggravating worse situations. Being agile, however, isn’t just about being able to quickly react. The reactions or responses should be thoroughly thought out too. The desired agility in business also requires a certain degree of suitability to be considered an advantage.
Similarly, agility applies to the quickness of taking advantage of opportunities. It’s not just about the rapid implementation of solutions to problems but also the ability to exploit business opportunities as they emerge.
Ultimate goal: efficiency
As mentioned, agility and leanness pertain to the efficiency of business operations. These words ultimately point to a goal of making a business operation as efficient as possible. A lean and agile business is one that works with the least use of resources but with the highest level of output that can be derived from the use of such resources. At the same time, it has to be quick in responding to important developments, especially adverse ones, to make sure that operations are not negatively affected.
Efficiency is not only demonstrated by using minimal resources to yield high output or complete many tasks. It can also infer agility in addressing concerns or problems. At the same time, it can mean quick reaction to opportunities that can benefit a business. Becoming lean and agile is something every business should aspire to achieve. Regardless of the size and nature of a business, it will always be advantageous to be lean and agile.
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