A successful lean product and process development (LPPD) system adheres to six guiding principles, asserts Jim Morgan, LEI senior advisor of LPPD and author of Designing the Future. The principles arise from the tenets of lean thinking and practice but address the unique challenges faced by new product, process, and services development teams. Here are the principles at-a-glance:
- People first: Every aspect of your lean development system must be designed to engage and challenge people and help them to do and be their very best.
- Understand before you execute: Before you start detailed design work, strive to deeply understand your customer and their context, which will ensure you hone in on what your unique value proposition is for that specific customer.
- Synchronize workflows: Coordinate workflows and their interdependencies across the organization, which enables concurrent development and, in turn, accelerates time to market.
- Build in learning and knowledge reuse: Capture the knowledge gained at each step of every development process by building learning into the way work is done, and then sharing it with the rest of the organization.
- It’s a team sport: Engage the entire organization, including people from design, engineering, manufacturing, and installation, to collaborate in maximizing the value you’re creating for your customer.
- Design the value stream: Focus on creating and delivering value during every step of the design process, from the study period and continuing through the entire development process.
It’s not too late to register! The Designing the Future track of The Virtual Lean Learning Experience 2020 (VLX), a two-week immersion into LPPD principles and practices, is underway. With your registration, you can watch all the presentations on-demand at your convenience.
