Revolutions occur almost every month in the world of technology. Every change in IT seems to be called a “breakthrough” in designing or handling software projects, which turns the phrase into a buzzword, stripped of any significance.
Therefore, I will share lean software development (LSD), a ground-breaking approach that has completely reshaped the entire IT value stream and, sadly, has remained obscure for many entrepreneurs.
History of Lean
Toyota started lean Manufacturing in the 1970s. The whole focus of lean Manufacturing was to reduce waste. And rather than use workers as cogs in the manufacturing line, the Toyota Lean Production System was too focused on eliminating any type of garbage in the car-making process.
For the software development environment, these concepts and methods were then developed. Tom and Mary Poppendieck wrote a detailed guide to applying lean practices and ideas to the methodology of software development.
They realized that Lean’s main objective was to seek value above all else aggressively. This resulted in value for the business and value for the consumer. They assumed that this strategy maximized value for all parties in software development.
Lean Software Development and Your Business
Lean Software Development offers seven lean principles, these principles can help your Business and take it to the next level. These principles are also applicable to Lean project management.
In reality, for whatever project approach you are using, these lean principles carry meaning. Any organization can start learning from these seven lean principles and boost their business.
Let’s look at each of them more closely.
Principles to Lean software development
- Eliminating Waste
Lean manufacturing stresses discarding anything that does not provide the final product with value. Lean management should be at the forefront of the to-do list to remove these inefficient tasks and procedures.
Project Managers conduct daily meetings after each short iteration to define and eliminate waste and for the project feedback loop. They encourage team members to report progress, point out bottlenecks and recommend improvements to be introduced over the next few iterations, which encourages learning and enables tiny, achievable increments to be implemented to strengthen the code.
- Building Quality In
In lean and all associated agile growth forms, different techniques are used to ensure that quality is retained throughout the process. Flexibility is preserved in engineering. Each small iteration, every loop, is followed by an immediate evaluation. The time between software development phases and trade-offs (occasional concessions for qualifying for other project dimensions) is often minimized as much as possible.
You could produce loads of waste if you try to add quality to a product without any structure. Excessive testing and excessive logging, for instance, are typical by-products of a stringent lifecycle of software development that gives the end product little benefit.
- Amplifying knowledge
Lean development of software emerged from lean manufacturing, where a streamlined, automated pipeline production that needs little experience and uncommon adjustments have always been the ultimate aim. Therefore, it was a game-changer when the lean “amplify learning” idea was applied to the physical industry.
For each step of the process, the Lean approach stresses the production of documents. In educating prospective teams to work on these assignments successfully, this experience would be beneficial. It’s also a healthy way for a team to focus on what they are doing and strengthen any underperforming tasks.
- Defer Commitment
Deferring participation stresses keeping the project’s arrangements and specifications flexible enough to respond to an unexpected transition. When something is still fixed in motion, leave all irreversible decision making to the very end. This enables you to work through different scenarios before choosing one that best fits your business.
Lean software development techniques understand this threat. By postponing irreversible judgments, it still leaves space for change before all the requisite experimentation is completed and as much evidence as practicable is collected; until you have comprehensively reviewed and analyzed the criteria and there are no questions about their importance.
- Delivering fast
Lean engineers created MVP’s idea (minimum viable product) and the general opposite ideology: build fast, include little features, and deliver a product as quickly as possible on the market. Research the reaction, then.
It is at the forefront of all lean operations to produce rapid work with effectiveness. However, this speedy program turnaround period must be manageable to be entirely successful in the long run
- Respect People
Lean growth stresses treating any member of the team with dignity and consideration. It is essential to apply this concept to all facets of organizational relationships.
Lean software creation is a framework that seeks to inspire, rather than regulate, team members. It goes beyond defining simple human courtesy; within each project, it instills trust. Engineers are allowed to make critical development decisions based on their experience and judgment when writing code. Providing that they are skilled enough to do so and work in company culture.
- Optimizing the entire value stream
Lean concepts make it easy to simplify the workflow of the team, generate solidarity for everybody participating in the project, inspire a sense of mutual obligation and shared ambitions, culminating in better results.
Stuff through a narrow lens that might appear inefficient may be the foundations for more comprehensive, more efficient systems. It’s up to you to understand these similarities and strive to refine the whole process instead of individual components.
Conclusion
To simplify the work processes, the seven lean concepts are a perfect blueprint. You’ll have streamlined procedures that guarantee quality and effectiveness if you obey them faithfully.
While a customer-oriented, scalable framework is applied to software development through lean agile philosophy, individuals make it functional.
Therefore, when recruiting a team to develop the application, look for expertise; experts devoted to quality development and qualified enough to represent Lean practice’s fundamental principles, generating as much value as possible in the shortest period and the most productive manner.