I was recently reading Steve Krum’s Don’t Make Me Think, a book published in 2000 that gives an in-depth analysis into website usability. Nowhere in the book does Steve mention the words Lean or continuous improvement – but it seems impossible that Steve had never heard of these terms, or considered applying them to his work. If I were to swap out a few choice words and hand you the book, you’d swear you were reading something written by a Lean guru.
The focus is on the customer
Use standard conventions wherever possible
Test frequently with actual users
Only a small part of the work you do will benefit your customers. Identify what value your efforts add for the end customer, and remove non-value added or wasted steps.
Standardizing your workflow will eliminate errors and increase the quality of your product or service to improve the customer experience. Keep in mind, though, that you don’t want to take standardization too far; rather than blindly following standards, continually think about how you can improve upon them. Standardize good processes, and improve them to create great processes