Lean Software Tools

Lean is a way of approaching business, that bases on keeping procedures and goals as much to the point of business as possible. This means getting rid of any wasteful actions - those that are not adding value to the end product - and placing focus on maximizing the customer value. In other words - Lean is doing less, but much better and achieving greater results.

The simplest way in which a Lean approach gets realized is by creating a common workflow of information and work (product), that goes through a full process, as opposed to keeping the process steps separate and non-related. Originally, Lean methods were associated with production and manufacturing industries (originally known as the Toyota Production Systems). For over a decade now, it has been applied to knowledge-based industries as well.

How does software fit in?

What are the best ways to get a process streamlined and designed in such a way, that will make a product easily followed by each team member along a "process line"? In order to make a team aware of a process and therefore able to follow its steps, a popular solution is implementing a software that makes the process clear and facilitates their progress through it, keeping everyone informed and on the same page.

What to look for in a Lean software tool?

• An ease of customization, because every process is different and may change in time
• A good way of making the process visible and clear to the team
• An ease of making the workflow accessible to team members
• Different editing levels allowed - to distinguish between basic and administrative users
• Support of file attachments, which will allow the product to have dedicated documentation following it
• Good analytical functions, to will help managers see the statistics concerning results and control the process in detail
• Working integration with other work tools used by the team, which will ensure ability to concentrate on completing assignments, rather than on managing many different process tools.

Kanban Tool

If you want to try a highly recommended Lean software tool now, all of the described above features are characteristic of Kanban Tool. Kanban is one of the typical Lean approaches, focusing on visualization of the process and limiting the number of things progressed at any time.