feedback, flow and friction

Brad Appleton has coined this neat epithet, which distills the essences of Agile (maximise feedback), Lean (maximise flow) and the Theory of Constraints (minimise friction). I like it a lot, and it does neatly characterise those three improvement approaches.

(If I were to be pedantic I might say that agile and lean are aimed at minimising cycle time – the period between order and delivery – while TOC is largely about reducing overproduction. But that would be another gross over-simplification, so I won’t say it. And I certainly won’t mention the difference between manufacturing and product development.)