[loudin]

Yes and no.

Lean and Agile act as a "hill-climbing" algorithm. You start at point x and take an action in some direction. If you improve, continue. If you don't, change directions. Keep doing this until you can't improve any further and you've hit a local maxima.

The important concept here is that you hit a LOCAL maxima. There could be other vastly superior outcomes, but whether or not you reach these outcomes depends on your starting point.

I think Lean and Agile are fantastic for making improvements to a product. However, in order to change the game, you need to take risks by jumping to a new starting point and beginning again.

I think Google, as the article points out, espouses both philosophies. They take massive lateral jumps (Driverless Cars, Project Glass, etc.), but once they make that jump, their development is Lean and Agile.