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Agile vs Lean vs Design Thinking
The method you choose may be based more on your experience and skills than anything else.
The choice between Agile, Lean and Design Thinking can be confusing. There are many articles that dive deep into the weeds of each, describing them in painstaking detail, but not giving much practical advice about which one to choose and when. This is not one of those articles. Instead, I want to look at the bigger picture to help you make a call on this common dilemma. To that end, I will not describe any of the three processes in great depth, but rather direct you to any of the many existing articles freely available.
With that said, let’s get stuck into the comparison.
Common Steps in the Process
At their core, Agile, Lean, and Design Thinking are all variants of a familiar process:
- Identify a problem.
- Understand the problem.
- Propose a solution.
- Build something* to test the solution (using minimal investment).
- Test whatever you built in the preceding step.
- Analyze the results.
- Repeat until you either (a) fully solve the problem, or (b) terminate the exercise.
* The “build something” part could mean a sketch, mockup, working prototype, experimental product, and so on. The idea is that it should be quick and light to develop, and easily discarded if your hypothesis fails.
It’s the Tools and Experience that Make the Difference
The differences between Agile, Lean and Design Thinking are mainly about what tools you use to build a solution.
First, let’s look at the types of artifacts that each process typically involves building:
- Agile favors building working software.
- Design Thinking favors building UI mockups, sketches, and similar visual artifacts.
- Lean favors building anything really, often either of the above or a smoke-and-mirrors solution like a Wizard of Oz…
