Talk:Lean software development

Hi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.241.83.135 (talk) 12:00, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Right now i cannot tell this from an advertisement. I therefore plan to chop the very SPAM style header down to what seems different of new or interesting about this and move the SPAM to references on the same page unless some explains why not to do this. The whole thing seems to read as a blurb for the book/product rather than an informative article for an encyclopaedia. Facius 11:39, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that it contains some great ideas i cannot really see any strong link between these ideas and Lean apart from its choice as part of a catchy title. Waste reduction relates to so many methodologies that this specific choice is perhaps arbitrary. Can the inclusion in the Lean concepts category be defended by anyone ? Facius 11:46, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

To reply to some of the comments above...Lean software development is a recognized, but very new area (<4 years). It is not at all obvious how to apply Lean principles to software development, or why we should. The Poppendiecks wrote the book(s) on the subject, so it is somewhat understandable that much of the content be biased towards them. DukeyToo (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs a lot of improvement. While it was helpful to me in getting up to speed on Lean principles, it does not read like an encyclopedia entry. As a first step, I've cleaned up the language in a few sections and added some internal links to other articles. Qwirty (talk) 18:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I can see how this article needs improvement, but as to the "Lean Concepts" category, that's a discussion for a different page (the category page). If the category itself has merit, then this page should (in some modified form) be included. As the above suggests, Tom and Mary's book is probably going to take centre stage, since it's the (currently) definitive translation of the concepts from Toyota into software. However there are other sources which can be cited, and I'll try to work on it. --Christian Edward Gruber (talk) 17:22, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Connection to Lean manufacturing.

Facius asked about the connection to lean, claiming that eliminating waste is the primary and only meaningful link. This is both true and not. It is true in the sense that eliminating waste is probably the most powerful technique/principle in any Toyota inspired method, but it is not the only connection. In fact the connections to Toyota Production System are much more substantial. Such things include "using pull systems to avoid unnecessary work" (Kanban), "stop the line culture", "level out the workload", "standardized tasks" (impossible in a creative effort, so more appropriate to Toyota Product Development System, for which there is currently no wikipedia article), "queueing theory", as well as "eliminate waste" (muda). It differs from Lean Manufacturing in two ways. First, because of the domain (software), but secondly because software development is a creative exercise, not a manufacturing process. So (and the point is made in the book and elsewhere) Lean Software Development is more the child of Lean Product Development, which is not a well used term, but it all derives from The Toyota Way, and their adaptation of such principles to new product development.

The connections to Agile are somewhat coincidental, but while some argue that they are quite different, Lean principles seem to provide a decent theoretical underpinning to agile methods, and many agile practices are (co-incidentally or not) decent implementation of Lean tools. --Christian Edward Gruber (talk) 18:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

An interesting viewpoint but I am still not clear on what the linkage is to Lean Concepts. I do accept that (despite having created it) the Lean Concepts category definition is fuzzy. It contains 'pure' concepts like Mura,Muri,Muda but also 'tools' found directly useful in implementations, mainly in manufacturing. This reflects the confusion of the 'principle' Vs. 'tools' approach out there in the real world. I do not see this article as a 'pure' concept but i also don't see well defined tools.

You seem to be saying that "Pull", "Kanban", etc are part of this technique but the article itself doesnt specify any new 'tools'. So even if you believe the linkage to Lean is strong, this does not make it a concept of Lean but an application of its concepts/tools to a specific area of work. Hence I had removed it from Lean concepts because it is someone's concept of how Lean tools/principles might be applied but not a concept of Lean itself. If you want to start a Lean implementations category please go ahead. This is why it is categorised in the Lean manufacturing page as an area of implementation. If it is a child of Lean Prouct Development then maybe someone could write a page on that. Facius (talk) 10:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Empower the team

This section needs some improvements in style as well as some citations.. I'll get to it in a few days if nobody gets to it sooner.. 2aprilboy (talk) 22:24, 17 January 2010 (UTC)