Cost Management 6th Edition by Edward Blocher,David Stout ,Paul Juras,Gary Cokins

Exercise 24

Research Activity: Applying Lean Principles to Knowledge Work Can lean principles be applied to so-called knowledge work This issue is addressed in the following article: B. R. Stats and D. M. Upton, "Lean Knowledge Work," Harvard Business Review (October 2011), pp. 101-10. After accessing and reading this article, respond to the following set of questions.
Required
1. Define what is meant by the term lean (or lean management ). To date, what types of organizations have successfully applied lean Why have these contexts proven fruitful for the application of lean
2. According to the authors, what is meant by the term knowledge work Why is it more difficult/ challenging to apply lean principles to this work context
3. Based on their own research, what do the authors claim to be the primary benefits of applying lean principles to knowledge work
4. Based on their experience with over 1,800 projects, the authors developed six principles that they say could be used to guide the implementation of lean to knowledge work (such as software an IT-development projects). Provide an overview of each of these principles.