InfoQ Homepage Lean Content on InfoQ
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Without a Defined Process, How Will We Know Who To Blame?
"A fundamental premise of the 'train-wreck' approach to management is that the primary cause of problems is 'dereliction of duty'" said Peter Scholtes in his 2003 book on leadership. Mary Poppendieck's recent article on process, people and systems asked: "Which is more important - process or people?" and showed how Lean is an alternative to certified process improvement programs like ISO 9000.
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InfoQ Article: Lean Kanban Boards for Agile Tracking
"Big Visible Charts" aren't unique to Agile - Lean manufacturing also has its Kanban Boards. "Kanban" roughly means "card or sign," and each Kanban card is "pulled" onto the board only when the work represented by an "in progress" card is retired. In this InfoQ article, Kenji Hiranabe proposes using Kanban Boards to track Agile project status (Time, Task, and Team) to enhance collaboration.
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Kaizen in Lean Software Development
Lean methods employ Kaizen, or continuous improvement, to reduce waste and improve results on a regular, even daily, basis. On the leanagilescrum group, Alan asked, "Are there known techniques for facilitating kaizen activities within Lean/Agile software development?"
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InfoQ Presentation: DSDM and Lean Explained
This second Agile2006 Agile Styles video looks at DSDM and Lean. Jean Tabaka covered the history and principles of the venerable DSDM methodology, founded in 1994 and now accepted in the UK for use on government contracts. Mary Poppendieck gave real examples of how the 7 Lean principles provide competitive advantage, and discussed the relationship between quality, speedy delivery and low cost.
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Agile Measurement - A Missing Practice?
Tom Gilb and Lindsey Brodie have written an article that suggests that Agile methods have a major weakness - that of lack of quantification. They argue that all qualities can be expressed quantitatively and present a new process, PLanguage, which looks very much like Scrum with an explicit measurement step. Are they right? Are Agile methods such as Scrum and XP in need of explicit measurement?
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Does Cost Accounting Cause Crappy Code?
Cost accounting , the standard accounting approach to analyzing the monetary value of a project, treats all parts of a project independently and encourages local optimization. Local optimization of costs means that you focus on task completion time. A focus on minimizing task completion time means that you don't have time for refactoring and other niceties - they are too expensive.
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What can Math and Psychology teach us about Agile?
With Agile, we avoid early commitments to gain flexibility later. APLN members Chris Matts and Olav Maassen have noted a connection here with the math behind financial options. Their article introduces "Real Options," applying both psychology and financial math to our thinking about Agile practices. They propose it will help us refine our agile practices and take agile in new directions.
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Incremental Software Development without Iterations
David Anderson described how his team is using a kanban system for their sustaining engineering (maintenance and bug fixing) activities. Iterations have been dropped although software is still released every two weeks. Work is scheduled, monitored, and run via a "kanban board" and daily stand-up meetings.
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Accurate Estimates - the ultimate oxymoron?
Amit Rathore questions the value of real time task based estimates in the planning and execution of software projects, taking a lean stance on what they bring to the software delivery party.
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InfoQ Interview: Mary and Tom Poppendieck on using Lean for Competitive Advantage
Lean software gurus Mary and Tom Poppendieck share their years of practical experience, as they speak on the history of Lean thinking, the value of fast delivery and deferred committment, their use of Value Stream Mapping to identify and reduce waste, the importance of identifying and dealing well with cross-organizational and inter-organizational boundaries, and how Lean relates to RUP and Scrum.
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Lean Process Works at Toyota USA
Since the "Toyota Production System" emerged in the late 80's, GM, Ford and Chrysler have applied TPS ideas, but they still trail Toyota. In his article, "No Satisfaction at Toyota," Charles Fishman suggested that the key is in teaching new ideas about what success looks like. It's an interesting read for those thinking about waste reduction in software development.
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Presentation: Jeff Sutherland on The Roots of Scrum
Jeff Sutherland, an Agile Manifesto signatory, ran the first Scrum at Easel Corp. in 1993. At JAOO 2005 he covered the history of Scrum from its inception to its impact at Easel, Fuji-Xerox, Honda, WildCard, Lexus, Google. Along the way Sutherland shared interesting stories & looked at Scrum types A, B, and "all at once" type C, reminding listeners that cultural change is the hard part of Scrum.
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New Book on Lean Software Offers Practical Advice
In 2003 Mary and Tom Poppendieck adapted the revolutionary principles of Lean manufacturing for software development. Their new book offers a blend of history, theory, and practice, drawing on their experience optimizing the software "value stream". They present the right questions to ask, the key issues to focus on, and techniques proven to work for those implementing a lean software process.
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Tips for Effective Kaizen Process Improvement
Agile software development and Lean Thinking go hand-in-hand for many practitioners. Six-Sigma blackbelt Mike Wroblewski has blogged some lessons learned from a recent kaizen session. People are a key variable in both manufacturing and software environments, so his lessons learned in manufacturing are also interesting for Lean Software practitioners using kaizen events for process improvement.
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Mary and Tom Poppendieck Discuss Their Next Book
Bob Payne interviewed Mary and Tom Poppendieck at Agile2006 about their next Lean book, which focuses even more on software than the last. Mary summarizes it as "So you think Agile is a good idea: now what?" saying it will help people get started with Lean, going beyond the recipes of the first book to provide practical information and case studies to help teams do their own process experiments.