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Lean management (LM) is well established in manufacturing organizations, and LM adoption in service organizations has recently increased. However, we lack research that focuses on the success of lean management implementations in IT organizations (lean IT). This paper contributes to knowledge of the success factors of lean IT implementation and the relative importance of each factor based on the insights of field experts. The experts identified, agreed on, and ranked 12 implementation success factors for lean IT in a Delphi study using the best/worst scaling technique. The most important factors were leadership involvement, change culture and work ethic, employee involvement, and performance management. Factors of intermediate importance were implementation facilitation, training and education, clear vision and direction, long-term focus, communication, and a holistic approach. Least important factors were existing skills, organizational changes/standardization, and financial resources. This paper contributes a more nuanced understanding of the relative importance of lean IT success factors, proposes relationships between them, and comprehensively explains how to use the rigorous best/worst scaling method in a traditional ranking-type Delphi study.
Research on Shadow IT is facing a conceptual dilemma in cases where previously “covert” systems developed by business entities are integrated in the organizational IT management. These systems become visible, are thus not “in the shadows” anymore, and subsequently do not fit to existing definitions of Shadow IT. Practice shows that some information systems share characteristics of Shadow IT but are created openly in alignment with the IT organization. This paper proposes the term “Business-managed IT” to describe “overt” information systems developed or managed by business entities and distinguishes it from Shadow IT by illustrating case vignettes. Accordingly,our contribution is to suggest a concept and its delineation against other concepts. In this way, IS researchers interested in IT originated from or maintained by business entities can construct theories with a wider scope of application that are at the same time more specific to practical problems. In addition, the terminology allows to value potentially innovative developments by business entities more adequately.
Purpose
With the rise of digitization, IT organizations are challenged to provide efficient service delivery and offer innovative digital solutions while maintaining a constant resource capacity. To address this challenge, some IT organizations have adopted Lean Management (LM). Although LM is a standard production mode in manufacturing, it is less familiar to IT organizations. The purpose of this paper is to identify 12 lessons learned from companies who implemented LM in their IT organization (Lean IT) to free up their IT resource capacity from existing day-to-day operations so they could use it to enable their digitization strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study of two major international companies from different industries. Data were collected from 25 structured interviews.
Findings
The lessons learned provide insights into how these companies implemented Lean IT, the potential outcomes they aimed for, what they did to achieve those outcomes, how they facilitated the implementation of Lean IT, and restrictions they encountered during the implementation.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are based on a limited range of IT organizations.
Practical implications
The lessons learned inform those implementing Lean IT because they explain how companies have implemented Lean IT to facilitate digitization and the benefits and pitfalls they encountered. A comparison of Lean IT and Lean Production shows that LM is transferable to IT organizations if domain specific requirements are respected.
Originality/value
This paper reports the unique experience of companies implementing Lean IT, which can inform other companies in a similar situation.