What is Lean Mindset / Lean Thinking?

A five-step thought process proposed by Womack and Jones in 1996 to guide managers through a lean transformation. The principles are:

1. Specify value from the standpoint of the end customer by product family.
2. Identify all the steps in the value stream for each product family, eliminating, whenever possible, those steps that do not create value.
3. Make the value-creating steps occur in a continuous sequence so the product will flow smoothly.
4. As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity.
5. As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again until a state of perfection is reached, in which perfect value is created with no waste.

(Adapted from Womack and Jones 1996)

See: Toyota Production System (TPS), A3, Strategy Deployment, Value Stream, Value Stream Mapping.