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Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service (Value Stream).
In IT, value streams are the services provided by the IT function to the parent organization for use by customers, suppliers, employees, investors, regulators, the media, and any other stakeholders. These services may be further differentiated into:
- Business services (primary value streams) - Examples: point-of-sale transaction processing, ecommerce, and supply chain optimization
- IT services (secondary value streams) - Examples: application performance management, data backup, and service catalog
Examples
| Waste Element | Examples | Business Outcome |
| Defects |
- Unauthorized system and application changes.
- Substandard project execution.
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Poor customer service, increased costs.
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| Overproduction (Overprovisioning) |
- Unnecessary delivery of low-value applications and services.
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Business and IT misalignment, Increased costs and overheads: energy, data center space, maintenance.
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| Waiting |
- Slow application response times.
- Manual service escalation procedures.
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Lost revenue, poor customer service, reduced productivity.
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| Non-Value Added Processing |
- Reporting technology metrics to business managers.
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Miscommunication.
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