Tastes Great, Less Filling: Agile vs. Lean

Over the last year I have been paying more attention to Lean Six Sigma (also see Six Sigma.) Mainly because the lab has decided to move in this direction and has been having orientations and black & green belt training for employees. Recently, we discovered that our sister lab in the UK also is moving to Lean Six Sigma.

This of course always brings up Agile and Lean and are they in line with each other or orthogonal. I had read that Agile and Lean are a lot alike and that Agilist were heavily influenced by Lean.

Recent searches for more on the topic brought me to Martin Fowler's article (short) about Agile vs. Lean that I found interesting and worth sharing here. Here is a quote from it to pique your interest into reading it.

"The Poppendiecks didn't introduce lean as a separate idea, nor did they introduce lean as a published process in the style of Scrum or XP. Rather they introduced lean as a set of thinking tools that could easily blend in with any agile approach. I think of lean as a strand of thinking within the agile community, like a pattern in a rich carpet." - Martin Fowler.


On an aside....the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" was an advertising phrase that was "Made To Stick" because it has been stuck in my head for many years. Too bad I dislike beer so much. ;)