Shingo and Ohno were industrial engineers once upon a time in the land of rising sun. They created the Toyota Production System (TPS), which was later referred to as Lean production. Although the system was originally developed for the automotive industry, it proved to be a great success when applied to the software industry. “Lean” was developed in response to a complex environment. It is easy to describe the modern business climate as such, especially in an age of startups. Lean management principles can be used for both startups and companies that have been in business for decades. The emphasis is on testing hypotheses and adapting to changing circumstances and requirements. Agile is very popular in our software development business. Agile encompasses many frameworks, including Kanban, Scrum, and Lean. Eliminate waste
The seven principles of Lean software engineering help us to maintain agility and flexibility. We must also be able to make the right decisions and not be restricted by long-term and rigid plans. Imagine being bound by a January 2020 annual strategy. Agile allows us to adapt quickly to both natural disasters like a pandemic or smaller changes in the environment. These are the seven principles of Lean software development:Eliminate waste
Amplify learning
Decide as late as possible
Deliver as fast as possible
Encourage your team
Integrity is built
Optimize the whole
We will now examine the first, “eliminate trash.” It is important to first recognize it in order to eliminate it. Lean suggests that there are eight types waste: Partially done work
Extra features
Relearning
Task switching
Waiting
Handoffs
Defects
Management activities
Partially completed work
Unfinished features are a key part of software development. These are the result of all the wasted time and effort our teams put in. This is not what we want so we try to avoid it as much as possible. It doesn’t mean that a feature is 10% complete, but it does not mean that we are wasting 10% of our efforts if we stop working on it. It doesn’t mean that 10% of the effort was wasted. There was a lot of research, decision-making, design, and general preparation before the development began. The total amount of energy invested is not equal to the percentage of feature completion. The relationship between wasted work hours and team members’ enthusiasm and motivation is a clear sign of the imbalance. Everyone wants to see the results of their efforts. If we don’t give our users something that adds value, morale will drop. The basics of Agile Project Management
Learn the basics of agile project management to help you develop software and manage your team better. We are grateful that you have subscribed! All newsletter subscribers can download this (and many other ActiveCollab Project Management Guides). Download the Ebook We are unable to subscribe you at this time. Please double-check your email address. If issue still persist, please let us know by sending an email to [email protected] Try Again Extra features
Those that were not used but were still in development. This could indicate that we spent time developing a feature that 4% of our users don’t find useful. Instead, we could have spent the same time developing a feature which benefits 40% of our users. Management activities
Many activities are deemed essential to the framework and believe they will bring value. Problem is when all those meetings and preparations end up being unnecessary because they don’t add the value they were meant to. This is where caution is needed.
