Lean's core premise: maximize value to the customer while eliminating everything that doesn't contribute to it.
"Lean Startup helps you identify the riskiest parts of your business plan, then finds ways to reduce those risks in a quick, iterative cycle of learning." — from Lean Analytics notes
In software development, waste takes seven forms:
- Partially done work — code that's written but not deployed delivers zero value
- Extra features — building things nobody asked for or uses
- Relearning — solving the same problem twice because nobody documented the first solution
- Handoffs — every transfer between people or teams creates a delay and loses context
- Task switching — moving between unrelated work fragments focus and slows everything
- Delays — waiting for approvals, decisions, or reviews that should take minutes but take days
- Defects — rework is waste by definition
Looking at this list, most of the waste in software teams isn't technical — it's organizational. Handoffs happen because of org structure. Delays happen because of governance. Relearning happens because of poor knowledge management.
This is why agile practices target the organization, not just the team. Scrum's sprint cadence reduces delay. WIP limits reduce task switching. The Scrum Master's impediment work directly targets handoffs and approval bottlenecks.
"The role of a manager is to contain entropy." — from notes on management
Entropy is the default state of any system. Without active effort, waste accumulates. Lean is the discipline of fighting that accumulation continuously.
Exam tip: Lean's definition of value is what the customer is willing to pay for. Everything else is potentially waste. This framing appears directly in AAC exam questions about prioritization and scope.