Category: lean

State of Agile

October 9, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

Seems like there's lots going on in the agile world right now. Lots of talk about Lean and it's impact on Agile. Lots of attacks going on at the CSM certification. Kanban is all over the news these days. And just last week, I read about a new Agile methodology called Stride.

So how do we make sense of this all?

My opinion is that there is value in each of the methodologies (for the purposes of this blog I'll refer to them all as methodologies even though some of you might not think of them as such). It's real important to read about them all so that you are armed with enough knowledge to know what's out there. I see this as a toolset from which you can choose for your specific situation.

Poka Yoke, error handling for your process

October 7, 2009 by Mendelt Siebenga

Software engineering is still a very human endeavor. Its a complex process that requires our ability to create non-standard solutions for non-standard problems. But with this ability to creatively solve problems comes a tendency to introduce defects, one of the seven wastes lean production and lean programming try to eliminate. Jack Milunsky describes several ways to reduce the amount of defects in his article. I want to look at another idea from lean manufacturing for reducing the number of defects called Poka Yoke in Japanese and have a look at how we can apply this idea to software engineering.

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Lean series Part 7 - Defects

September 26, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

When one looks at all the wastes, defects has to be the most obvious one. The cost and repercussions of finding defects varies depending on where in the cycle they're found. Defects found early on in the development life-cycle are way less costly to resolve than defects found later on in the cycle; the most expensive being when applications are already in-production.

Additionally, depending on when the defects are found, defects can and do trigger other wastes like task switching, relearning etc.

Defects can be very costly for an organization. So the trick with defects is that you need to 1) Prevent them from happening in the first place and 2) Find and fix them as early in the development life-cycle as possible.

So what can you do to prevent them from happening in the first place?

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Lean series Part 6 - Delays

September 11, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

Interestingly, this weeks blog covers the 6th waste - Delays - as identified in Lean. How appropriate after the long delay since my last blog post on Task Switching. Herein lies an example of what Delays in software development can cause.  Delays introduce discontinuity and trigger additional wastes already covered like Relearning. It's important in any process, including software, to have continuity. This reduces cycle time and minimizes other wastes like Relearning, Task Switching etc.

Focus on the end-to-end process, not individuals

It's important to identify Delays early on and try to rectify them as soon as possible in order to maximize team productivity. It's interesting... I have been reading many interesting threads on the Agile forums lately about measuring developer productivity, team productivity etc. Managers/executives have us focus our efforts and attention on individuals instead of looking at the end-to-end process to find the real issues that address productivity and enhance team effectiveness.

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Lean series Part 5 - Motion

August 15, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

Previous posts on software development wastes can be found here: In-Process Inventory/Partially done work , Over Production/Extra Features , Extra Processing and Transportation

I must apologize to you all for the lag in this series. But being August, I was away on vacation. Interestingly, getting back is hard. You have to get back into the swing of things again to get up to maximum productivity. There's quite a bit of re-acquainting and relearning so there's waste for sure. However, I do feel I have more energy now since I am back so perhaps the waste is negated over time.

Motion - Task Switching

Waste #5 in manufacturing is defined as Motion. And motion can be compared to "task switching" in Software Development - as defined by the thought leaders applying Lean thinking to software development.

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Lean series Part 4 - Transportation

July 25, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction Previous posts on the first 3 wastes can be found here: In-Process Inventory/Partially done work , Over Production/Extra Features and Extra Processing It's both interesting for me on the one hand, yet puzzling for me as to what makes a blog popular or not. The first article I wrote on this topic had close to 5000 reads as compared with only 1000 for the last blog post. I figured that based on the response to the first post, folks would be real keen to understand the rest of the 7 wastes in software development. Never the less, I am committed to continuing with the series. Hopefully there are still some of you out there who can benefit from it all.

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Lean series Part 3 - Extra Processing

July 17, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

Waste is a killer in any organization. But if you don't know what to look for then you're probably not going to be able to find waste and minimize it or eradicate it. This series primarily deals with explicitly defining the 7 wastes in software development so that you can start thinking about how this may affect your ability to remain as productive as you can be. This can make a significant difference to your company's bottom line.

As reference, the first two wastes can be found in my previous blog posts here: In-Process Inventory/Partially done work and Over Production/Extra Features.

#3 - Extra processing

Extra processing in Manufacturing is the 3rd waste and this can be equated to Relearning or Rework in Software development. The time we spend relearning things we once knew or having to rework the same feature due to poor code quality can be significant in many organizations, ergo, it's important to be mindful of this. It's probably useful to list examples that would cause extra processing in software development

The 7 Sofware Development Wastes - Part 2

July 6, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

I have been writing for AgileSoftwareDevelopment.com for nearly 6 months now and was quite shocked to see how many folks read last week's blog post. I can only assume from the response that there is a lot of interest in Lean. Which in my opinion is a really good thing as we can learn tremendous lessons from this philosophy. I wish I knew about Lean earlier in my career - I think it could have made the world of difference. Lean offers such practical advice on what to look for in order to make the process better. I think just knowing about these aspects of lean will help you day to day, help you make better decisions, make you a more effective player on a software development team.

Last week I covered the first manufacturing waste In- Process Inventory corresponding to partially done work in software development.

This week I will discuss the 2nd Waste:

Over - Production

Over production in manufacturing amounts to production of goods that are not required or consumed immediately by a customer. This is very costly in a manufacturing plant. Inventory can become stale, superceded, damaged etc.

In the software world, over-production is the same as excess features, features not really needed by customers. My understanding is that there is evidence to backup the fact that over 60% of features in software are ever used.

The 7 Software Development Wastes - Part 1

June 28, 2009 by Jack Milunsky

Introduction

The more I learn about Lean, the more I realize how much we can learn from Lean teachings and how they apply to software development practices. Typically, we go about our day-to-day activities without thinking about the bigger picture. Lean specifically addresses the complete end-to-end process with the view of enhancing cycle time and quality.

Lean

Value stream mapping is one of the key areas for helping us learn where we fail, but in particular, what I'd like to address in the next series of posts are the 7 wastes which Lean identifies and which I believe are worth mentioning. Once you hear about these wastes I believe you will be more sensitive to realizing when you see these manifested in your organization and should therefore help you to enhance the overall productivity of your teams.

Seven Principles of Lean Software Development

January 20, 2009 by Przemysław Bielicki

Lean Software Development has its roots in Toyota Production System and it helps software organizations optimize their processes and production methods in order to deliver their products to the market much faster and with better quality. Lean movement can be considered as a new development method that tries to identify and eradicate all problems and "disabilities" of old methodologies like Waterfall. Lean puts main focus on people and communication - if people who produce the software are respected and they communicate efficiently, it is more likely that they will deliver good product and the final customer will be satisfied.

Lean Software Development subsequently gave birth to Agile Software Development methods and its main branches like Scrum or Crystal Clear. For many people who know the subject Agile is just another word for Lean or Lightweight.

In one of the most popular books on Lean subject, namely "Implementing Lean Software Development - from Concept to Cash", Mary and Tom Poppendieck explain how to implement Lean by following seven principles - principles that are some kind of Lean commandments: