The Lean Software Development provides a management philosophy together with a set of practical tools for designing and delivering software-intensive products and services. These tools enable us to select design solutions, methods, design tools, and organizational structures based on fitness for purpose. That purpose is to produce value for the customer with minimum waste for us. There is a wonderful supermarket of tools, methods, and techniques from decades of progress in software engineering management. Lean does not invalidate or validate any of these. Instead, it gives us the wisdom to shop wisely and employ just the right combination of remedies needed to maximize customer value, minimize waste, and produce real top-line and bottom-line results. (7 pages)
The core problem in software development can be boiled down to the intense pressure for a plan that lays out what the software will be able to do, how long it will take, and what it will cost - and the subsequent expectation that development will follow this plan. The problem is magnified when the software is expected to be developed independently from the system for which the software will supply the brains. This article by Mary Poppendieck looks at these problems from the perspective of various paradigm shift models. (4 pages)
This article by Alan Shalloway, CEO of Net Objectives, is about how to develop software. We'll first look at what we are trying to accomplish when we build software. We'll then investigate what we have to do to do this, including the nature of the problems inherent in building software. This may sound a little basic, but there are many inherent flaws in common approaches to building software because people haven't stepped back far enough to see the big picture. Planting the right tree in the wrong forest does not make for good forest management. Once we have a clearer view about we are trying to do, we will move on to an overall view of the tasks needed to build software that is useful and cost effective. We investigate different ways these are accomplished with both standard processes and a lean-agile approach. Finally, we come up with a set of core practices that we should follow to build cost-effective software that give us appropriate solutions so we get the return on investment we want and need. (14 pages)
Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit by Tom and Mary Poppendieck
From the book description: "In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental lean principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 thinking tools that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment."
For more information on software best practices and IT management, please contact Michael Milutis, the IT Metrics and Productivity Journal Executive Director, at michael_milutis@compaid.com