Category: optimize the whole

Seven Principles of Lean Software Development - Optimize the Whole

October 2, 2008 by pbielicki

Picture courtesy of aussiegall@flickr

Lance Armstrong won seven consecutive Tour de France races between years 1999 and 2005. Every year there were 21 individual stages and Lance Armstrong won "only" 4 individual stages in 1999, 1 stage in 2000, 4 stages in 2001, 4 stages in 2002, 2 stages in 2003, 6 stages in 2004 and 2 stages in 2005.

As you can see Lance Armstrong was not focused on winning each stage (quite the opposite). He was focused on winning the whole Tour de France - yet he had to keep close to the head of the race. And when you take a look at time differences between him and the second cyclist in the final classification you will be amazed - they were close to couple of minutes (out of 90 hours of total time!) It means that he was focused on winning the whole race - not to be the best and outstanding cyclist (he was not - I know because I watched many of the stages these years).

Speaking with the lean language Lance Armstrong was Optimizing the Whole - and he succeeded seven times winning the most difficult and exhausting cycling race in the World.

In this post I will try to explain "Optimize the Whole" principle from "Implementing Lean Software Development - from Concept to Cash" book.