Category: tom poppendiek
Introduction
Interestingly, this weeks blog covers the 6th waste - Delays - as identified in Lean. How appropriate after the long delay since my last blog post on Task Switching. Herein lies an example of what Delays in software development can cause. Delays introduce discontinuity and trigger additional wastes already covered like Relearning. It's important in any process, including software, to have continuity. This reduces cycle time and minimizes other wastes like Relearning, Task Switching etc.
Focus on the end-to-end process, not individuals
It's important to identify Delays early on and try to rectify them as soon as possible in order to maximize team productivity. It's interesting... I have been reading many interesting threads on the Agile forums lately about measuring developer productivity, team productivity etc. Managers/executives have us focus our efforts and attention on individuals instead of looking at the end-to-end process to find the real issues that address productivity and enhance team effectiveness.
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Introduction
Previous posts on software development wastes can be found here: In-Process Inventory/Partially done work , Over Production/Extra Features , Extra Processing and Transportation
I must apologize to you all for the lag in this series. But being August, I was away on vacation. Interestingly, getting back is hard. You have to get back into the swing of things again to get up to maximum productivity. There's quite a bit of re-acquainting and relearning so there's waste for sure. However, I do feel I have more energy now since I am back so perhaps the waste is negated over time.
Motion - Task Switching
Waste #5 in manufacturing is defined as Motion. And motion can be compared to "task switching" in Software Development - as defined by the thought leaders applying Lean thinking to software development.
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Introduction
Previous posts on the first 3 wastes can be found here:
In-Process Inventory/Partially done work ,
Over Production/Extra Features and
Extra Processing
It's both interesting for me on the one hand, yet puzzling for me as to what makes a blog popular or not. The first article I wrote on this topic had close to 5000 reads as compared with only 1000 for the last blog post. I figured that based on the response to the first post, folks would be real keen to understand the rest of the 7 wastes in software development. Never the less, I am committed to continuing with the series. Hopefully there are still some of you out there who can benefit from it all.
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Introduction
Waste is a killer in any organization. But if you don't know what to look for then you're probably not going to be able to find waste and minimize it or eradicate it. This series primarily deals with explicitly defining the 7 wastes in software development so that you can start thinking about how this may affect your ability to remain as productive as you can be. This can make a significant difference to your company's bottom line.
As reference, the first two wastes can be found in my previous blog posts here: In-Process Inventory/Partially done work and Over Production/Extra Features.
#3 - Extra processing
Extra processing in Manufacturing is the 3rd waste and this can be equated to Relearning or Rework in Software development. The time we spend relearning things we once knew or having to rework the same feature due to poor code quality can be significant in many organizations, ergo, it's important to be mindful of this. It's probably useful to list examples that would cause extra processing in software development
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Introduction
I have been writing for AgileSoftwareDevelopment.com for nearly 6 months now and was quite shocked to see how many folks read last week's blog post. I can only assume from the response that there is a lot of interest in Lean. Which in my opinion is a really good thing as we can learn tremendous lessons from this philosophy. I wish I knew about Lean earlier in my career - I think it could have made the world of difference. Lean offers such practical advice on what to look for in order to make the process better. I think just knowing about these aspects of lean will help you day to day, help you make better decisions, make you a more effective player on a software development team.
Last week I covered the first manufacturing waste In- Process Inventory corresponding to partially done work in software development.
This week I will discuss the 2nd Waste:
Over - Production
Over production in manufacturing amounts to production of goods that are not required or consumed immediately by a customer. This is very costly in a manufacturing plant. Inventory can become stale, superceded, damaged etc.
In the software world, over-production is the same as excess features, features not really needed by customers. My understanding is that there is evidence to backup the fact that over 60% of features in software are ever used.
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Introduction
The more I learn about Lean, the more I realize how much we can learn from Lean teachings and how they apply to software development practices. Typically, we go about our day-to-day activities without thinking about the bigger picture. Lean specifically addresses the complete end-to-end process with the view of enhancing cycle time and quality.
Lean
Value stream mapping is one of the key areas for helping us learn where we fail, but in particular, what I'd like to address in the next series of posts are the 7 wastes which Lean identifies and which I believe are worth mentioning. Once you hear about these wastes I believe you will be more sensitive to realizing when you see these manifested in your organization and should therefore help you to enhance the overall productivity of your teams.
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