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An Introduction to Lean Thinking for Software

Community
Agile
Topics
Delivering Value,
Methodologies

For Agile developers only familiar with Scrum or XP, it may be unclear how Lean relates to what they do. This article introduces Lean Thinking and how it enhances software development. Ning Lu of ThoughtWorks China identified the biggest obstacle to Lean or Agile as the mind-set developed during the period of large-scale manufacturing.

News about Continuous Improvement

What Should Your Agile Organization Value?

Community
Agile
Topics
Adopting Agile

Adopting agile is not easy. Many organizations often struggle trying to squeeze the practices of Scrum or XP into the way they work. Mike Cottmeyer offers a reminder to such organizations that placing too much value in the "how" of agile may be a misguided approach.

Measuring Agility, Craftsmanship, and Success

Community
Agile
Topics
Software Craftsmanship,
Adopting Agile

While Scott Ambler, Ross Pettit and others continue to pursue the creation of a maturity model for agile, David Starr has looked at how and why an organization might want to measure things like: agility, craftsmanship, and organizational success. He found craftsmanship relatively easy to measure, while agility was the most difficult to measure in a useful way.

An Agile Blue Angels Team

Community
Agile
Topics
Agile in the Enterprise

Promoting, sustaining, and evolving agile practices in an organization requires expertise and experience. Initially, many companies bring in outside experts to help get things started. Laura Moore has described a model, based on the Blue Angels, which companies can use to develop and deploy internal experts.

Backlog Lacks the Backbone

Community
Agile
Topics
Artifacts & Tools,
Methodologies

Backlogs have been under criticism for some time now. Mary Poppendieck goes to the extent of suggesting that product backlog should be eliminated if it is not satisfying the desired purpose. On similar lines Jeff Patton suggested using story maps instead of flat backlogs which help focus on the system being developed.

Articles about Continuous Improvement

The Three M's - The Lean Triad

Community
Agile
Topics
Delivering Value,
Methodologies

The discussion of applying lean principles to software development has largely focused on identifying and eliminating waste (in Japanese: muda). Lean Thinking equally aims to remove overburden (muri) and unnecessary variation (mura). Roman Pichler discusses the relationship of the "three M's" and proposes to eliminate overburden as the first step toward a leaner process.

Questioning the Retrospective Prime Directive

Community
Agile
Topics
Leadership,
Teamwork

The 'Retrospective Prime Directive' is a practice used by many teams as part of their continuous improvement cycle. As outlined in Norm Kerth's book, it is intended to foster the deep learning that is the heart of a retrospective. This article is an enlightening conversation, captured by Linda Rising, between senior practitioners on the benefits and the challenges of using this practice.

Kanban Applied to Software Development: from Agile to Lean

Community
Agile
Topics
Artifacts & Tools,
Methodologies

In this InfoQ article Kenji Hiranabe applies lessons learned while working with Japanese manufacturers. While many Agile teams are optimizing only a portion of the value stream, Hiranabe proposes a simple way to adapt lessons from Lean Manufacturing's "Kanban" visual tracking system to make process visible to more of the organization, for better communication and process improvement.

The Secret Sauce of Highly Productive Software Development

Community
Agile
Topics
Methodologies,
Teamwork,
Agile Techniques,
Delivering Value

When Agile teams get stuck in the just-average Norming stage, rather than continuting to the exciting, high Performing stage of teamwork, sometimes they're suffering from an invisible "learning bottleneck" that stunts team performance. Agile practices require us to take time to reflect and learn - and a team that learns quickly succeeds.