No matter how well designed, well-planned or well-managed, all organizational units and/or projects can be improved in one way or another. It can involve working conditions, poor resource utilization, getting ahead of competition or to better keep within the budget restraints. In organizations that already are ahead of competition, improvements can involve:

• Increasing competitive advantages
• Increasing employee/team member buy-in and/or satisfaction
• Increasing productivity

 No matter what the objective is, a logical relationship between the goal and how to reach it needs to be established. The term “Lean” is short for “Lean Production” or “Lean Manufacturing” and has, over time, become more commonly used than the original expression. Working with Lean is to step-by-step reach a vision, a future goal, where there is no waste. Waste means anything that doesn’t add value to anybody or anything within the organization or project. Some of the most common categories of waste are:

• Overproduction
• Underutilized competence
• Waiting
• Transport
• Inventory
• Motion
• Defects
• Overprocessing