It&#x27;s a great parallel.  I&#x27;ve thought so for quite some time.<p>The really hard part is bootstrapping LEAN.  For people not used to the way of thinking, it&#x27;s hard, gets in the way, isn&#x27;t as fast, etc...  Push back inertia is often high and often requires a sustained investment to eliminate.<p>Back in the day, when I was doing a lot of manufacturing, the pressure was always get more done right now today.  A good friend and mentor picked up on LEAN and I applied it in my daily work.  Caught a lot of heat for it, and the dynamic was this:<p>Do you want them fast, or high quality today?  Pick one, or leave me and the others doing LEAN alone, and you will get both over a reasonable, and dare I say, &quot;lean&quot; amount of time.  That&#x27;s how it can start.  Ideally, management buys in, and drives it from the top, but it can start and spread with a group using LEAN to significantly reduce costs and improve performance without losing out on quality.  Once it gets going, it gets noticed fairly quick. Excellence in those metrics is hard to miss.<p>Make the investment, take the hit in productivity, and come out the other side a much more competitive, efficient and high quality organization.<p>Tough sell, but very worth it. LEAN works, but everyone involved has to really do the work, really does have to buy in and really does need short cut discipline for meaningful gains to be had.  Process is tough when a release deadline looms.  Frankly, it might not be appropriate for all software cases.