In this digital era, it is easy to start a new business. And if you already have a business there are endless possibilities to boost your business.
And if you use lean-agile chances are you can systematically boost any small business.
What exactly is lean agile and how it can help you to boost your business? You will get answers to all these important questions in this post.
Lean Agile
Lets first try to understand what exactly is lean agile.
In simple words, lean agile is a set of values and principles. By practising these values and principles, they help you to get maximum value with minimum waste.
And a proper lean agile process has both elements of continuous delivery and continuous improvement.
Lean Agile Core Principles
And you can use these principles in your business to boost its success. I will share two core principles of lean agile which you can apply in any industry.
- Build Quality (maximizing value)
- Eliminating waste (minimizing waste)
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Build Quality
Quality is the most critical value for any Business.
Customers pay for the quality product or service. Quality is critical for your customers and retaining their loyalty.
And if your customers are satisfied, there are more chances they will buy from you again.
On the other hand, unhappy customers may return your product or cancel your service.
2.Eliminating waste
Lean-Agile always encourages eliminating waste. For any business, if you reduce waste, you can make space for profit.
There are many kinds of wastes which you can avoid. Here are the three types of waste
- Inventory / Transportation
Inventory always costs the business because it has to be stored. Even a final product in your stock for a long time is a cost to your business.
Unnecessary transportation is an easily noticeable waste.
In simple words longer, a product keeps moving around; it will take longer to add any product value.
- Overproduction
It means producing more products even if they are not required shortly. Overproduction leads to excess inventory, which costs money.
It is considered the worst as it adds other waste like inventory and transportation.
You should consider just in time production by assuming the overall time of the production line.
- Overprocessing
Overprocessing a product without adding value for the customer is a waste. Instead of doing it more by yourself, ask your customer.
Lean agile suggests taking feedback from customers to add more and more value in the product because he will pay for the quality.
Grow your Small business With Lean Agile
As now you know about the lean agile core principles. Let take one more step to identify the three steps you can apply today in your small business.
1.Identify customers need
Identifying the customer’s needs is one of the most critical steps. Understand what customers want and then develop the solution for that need.
And lean agile suggests, ask your customers before developing a new solution.
Why is it essential? As customers will pay for the solution or product.
And customers will pay for the product if it is usable and something they need.
Once you know what your customer wants, it’s time to work on your product.
2. Avoid the waste
Again as lean agile core principles suggest minimizing waste and maximizing value.
You can use the lean agile way to identify the waste, and once you know the junk in your business, you can act on it.
You can take the following steps to eliminate the waste in your business.
Steps to eliminating waste
.Identify
The first step is to identify the waste in your business. You should see it and recognize it.
To identify waste is the first step to eliminating any waste. If you can not identify the waste, it’s not possible to stop it.
- Define who is responsible
Once you have identified the waste, you can be accountable for the waste.
It may be your team members or you, who can be accountable and measure the waste.
- How to eliminating the waste
Once you know the waste and are responsible for it, It’s not hard to eliminate the waste.
You can stop that process permanently or merge with others, or you can automate the process. On the other hand, most of the time, businesses have to outsource it.
3.Keep the feedback loop open
Continuous improvement is essential. It will help if you keep improving your product.
Many companies spend vast amounts of money on their product for its improvement. As a small business, you might not have access to that amount.
An agile approach measures product performance from customers. And the best way to improve your product is simple. You can ask directly to your customers for feedback.
Once you have the customer’s feedback, it’s time to review. The review process helps to understand better that allows you to decide different approaches for improvement.
Conclusion
Agile focuses on making small and incremental changes. It is easy to adopt lean agile principles in your small business.
And they will help in the long term. If you combine lean agile with your business process, it provides a robust business environment.
An Agile culture depends on your team and trust. In a world where uncertainty becomes a standard norm, using lean-agile in business can benefit your business growth.
