Industrial Agility

Practices are solutions to single problems. They are the most visible part of a Lean/Agile organization and the easier part to be imitated. They are also very contextual and they are expected to not work in some conditions. For this reason there is a large choice of them just because you have to try it and see in your context what works best. Since there isn't any silver bullet, practices are publicly shared by Hi-Tech Companies in conferences and blogs, in order to be members of communities of practitioners to get new ideas and contamination from others. I think there is only one notable exception here: Diana Larsen's Lift Off is a practice that I'm sure you'll never find useless. As far I know it's the best way to start a project or product and it's always a valuable activity.

Methods are frameworks with which you design process and communication flows in specific areas. In this part I'm listing two approaches designed for the the working flow: Scrum and Kanban. Both are well known in the area of software development and both are already used to develop tangible products. The following two can be used to understand clients needs and discover new business: Lean Startup and Design Thinking. The idea of combining Lean Startup, Design Thinking and Scrum is not new in Software, I learnt from Jeff Patton in his book and training User Story Mapping. The last two are related to change and experimentation: Lean Change and Popcorn Flow both help to establish an iterative and incremental approach to change.

Principles guides you when there isn't a clear methodology or a practice that directly address some areas. Keeping for granted Lean and Agile principles from software there is the eXtreme Manufacturing article by Peter Stevens which is a good guidance. For the Complexity Thinking I personally suggest the Cynefin Framework and Jurgen Appelo's material. Last but not least, the Agile Management topic, with three books I recommend: The Fifth Discipline, Management 3.0 and The Leader's Guide to Radical Management.

Values are the foundation of your organization through the journey to Agility, what really define your teams and company behaviour in an unexpected situation. Again, keeping for granted Lean and Agile values from software development, I listed the Scrum Values (Focus, Courage, Openness, Commitment, Respect) and the Agile Product Charter, the document created at the end of the first Scrum for Hardware Gathering and the only one in this list written having in mind tangible product and not just software.