I teach a class at Kent State University from time to time on Total Quality Management.  I make it a class on managing change in organizations but I use lots of examples from my own agile manufacturing clients.  The first big assignment is to write about a company, describing its environment, strategy, and systems.  One of my students wrote about a landscaping firm owned by a family member, describing its LEAN (that's how she wrote it, so I imagine it's an acronym for something) implementation. 

I was interested in learning how lean/agile methods are being applied to landscaping, so I read on with interest.  One of the "kaizens" she described led to putting a holder of some sort on the front end of the riding mowers.  It would hold the weed whacker so that it was easy to store, easy to retrieve, easy to put away by the landscaper.  A 5S in miniature, you might say. 

My first thought was, "So 'lean' is being used to describe any program in which employees come up with ideas that make their jobs easier?"  My second thought was, "So what if it is?"

I am of two minds about it: on the one hand, any program that involves employees in making their jobs easier and more productive is good, whatever the name.  On the other hand, if we refer to any improvement effort as "lean", don't we dilute the term?  If it covers everything, then maybe it covers nothing. If it means whatever anybody wants it to mean then it makes it tougher to tell others what it actually is and how lean/agile methods are, in fact, different from other approaches.