Respect for People

Consider the kind of messages that your policies and practices telegraph to the “ordinary” people in your company and to your suppliers. Do you trust your employees, or do you have locked stock rooms? Do you say that quality is important but only look at deadlines? Do you ask people to work in teams but then rank them against each other or base bonuses on individual performance? Do you talk about trust with suppliers, but insist on fixed price contracts? If you do these things, you are missing the central point of lean thinking: respect for people.

~ Mary and Tom Poppendieck - Implementing Lean Software Development