Monday, September 29, 2008

Lean Software Development - Experiences

Over the next few days I'm going to post information on experiences with lean software development.

I find it surprising that people actually believe Scrum can work without Lean. LSD helps to organize the backlog, figure out what to do during the sprint, and gets the business on board.

The principles of LSD are most important. Principles drive the practice which drives the technique. Most people concentrate on the techniques, but before you look at techniques, you should ask why (and more questions). Why use these techniques, why do they work, why should I change them. Going back to the principles will guide you when the work at hand can't be boiler plated into a technique. For example if one of your principles is that honesty is the best policy, when your wife asks if her pants make her look fat, you should tell the truth - not doing so would violate your principle in favor of 'say what doesn't rock the boat'.

The LSD principles are:
Optimize the Whole
Eliminate Waste
Build Quality In
Deliver Fast
Defer Commitment
Create Knowledge
Respect People

Over the next few days I'll go into each.

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