Lean IT Essentials

Description

Lean IT provides practical guidance that focuses on the improvement of whatever processes already exist within the organisation. Regardless of the framework or standard your IT organisation has chosen, the central focus of Lean IT is learning how to assess any business process to eliminate waste, where waste is defined as something that adds no value to a product, service, or output.

The Lean IT Essentials entry-level course is the first in the Lean IT certification scheme, and it is a mandatory requirement for taking the other two advanced courses: Lean IT Kaizen and Lean IT Leadership.

Learning Outcomes

Lean IT Essentials focuses on providing actionable improvements to six major components: the customer, processes, performance, the Lean organisation, behaviour and attitude, and problem-solving/kaizen. 

Upon completion, participants of this course will be able to: 

•  Describe the origin, development, and purpose of the Lean and Six Sigma philosophies – which includes their key elements and the five Lean principles 

• Understand the concept of the voice of the customer and the factors that influence customer value, etc. 

• Recognise the concept of waste – and how to reduce and/or eliminate it 

• Understand how to define, initiate, document, and implement process improvements and how they relate to value improvement, etc. 

• Understand the definition of performance measurement and how it relates to value stream maps and process cycle efficiency, as well as the requirements for key performance indicators (KPIs), etc.

• Understand the organisational requirements for a Lean IT organisation that includes the importance of customer orientation, empowering employees, implementing visual management, etc. 

• Identify the characteristics of Lean thinking, the differences between traditional management and Lean leadership, and the behaviour and attitudes required to successfully implement Lean, etc. 

• Identify and implement the key aspects of problem-solving and kaizen as forms of continuous improvement, which include being able to apply various Lean analytical tools: 

  • A3 thinking – This is a visual method for structured problem-solving. 

  • Deming (or Shewhart) cycle – This explains how to apply the cycle of continuous improvement: plan-do-check-act. 

  • The Toyota production system – One of its basic concepts is: Go, look, and see (fact not emotion). 

  • Value stream mapping – This shows how to apply Lean IT principles to a value stream. 

  • The concept of kaizen, also known as continual improvement, is applied across the organisation to systems, processes, and activities.