This approach is ideal for a CIO at a major financial institute he claims, because it eradicates the traditional scenario of clients and users demanding every little piece of functionality they can think of, which then has to be incorporated into a massive development and roll-out. "People say 'we need this, this and this', without anybody saying 'why?' Users believe and have experienced four-year development cycles, so they demand everything up front, because they know there will be no further development after initial roll-out. He believes 64 per cent of what they require is never going to be used, only 20 per cent is often used. "How many people use every component of Excel?" he asks as an example.

Gill describes a development pattern that every CIO, sitting in the lounge on a Sunday afternoon can relate to. He describes the kids asking for a swing, in much the same way as a department requires some new IT functionality. You tell the kids that they could wait six months and a complex swing will be developed for them. Or you can tell them that you'll tie a piece of rope to the tree and they can play on a swing immediately. "'Great let's start it' - and you've realised value because all of a sudden the kids are happy," he says. "Next, the kids say 'well its not very comfortable, it would be nice to have a seat'. OK, but you ask if they need a fancy seat or even if they need the seat," and his metaphorical seat is delivered, presumably on budget. "Next the kids want more fun, because the seat is not really fun, 'why don't you put a tyre at the end of the rope'. Excellent, now we really understand you want a tyre."

Staying on a domestic tangent, Gill points to darling of the retail industry Tesco as an organisation which took lean practices into yet another field and has prospered as a result. "Tesco were the fourth or fifth player only about 15 years ago. Now it is number one by a mile." It centralised its processes and the rise of Tesco has been well documented.

Coming back to IT, Gill says, "We've had extra features that would never get used. To produce those extra features, somebody had to do requirements analysis of these features that were never going to get used. Waste." He adds, "We would over-engineer, we'd do complex code for features that would never get used. We would find a lot of defects right at the end, because when you've got a project and you've got a delivery date, towards the end which bit can you squeeze? It is your testing." He describes scenarios of applications having three months of development and only two weeks of testing and therefore defects go into production, "and that is the costly part".

The ultimate beneficiary is the user, according to Gill. "What this is saying is that you don't have to put everything up front, because how could you possibly know what you want on day one?" This allows users to change their minds, something they do anyway. As long as changing needs doesn't add costs, Gill is fine with it. "The principles of lean are to eliminate waste, add value and increase feedback." For an organisation the size of Standard & Poor's, it means that if the market and its business needs change, Gill's team can react with the business. He tells business units, "you don't have to decide today or commit, but we do deliver it fast, we deliver it small and in sprint durations," he says. As a result, he is able to ask the business what would change its business on that day and deliver value, and that is delivered first. He then adds medium-term requirements. Traditionally the corporation will begin to see a return after six months or a year. But by delivering in short bursts with the highest priority needs at the forefront of delivery the realisation of value is much sooner. With continual development following, akin to the water in a waterfall, the business will see another return, followed by another and so it goes on. Examples of successful users of this methodology include Google and Apple. "The number of products Google comes out with amazes everyone, it is constantly innovating." As a result Google is yet to be leapfrogged by its search rivals and the users are "hooked" he says, constantly looking for the next release.