Leading Lean Software Development – Results are not the Point
Published March 9th, 2010 Under Books | 1 Comment
What fascinates me the most in the Lean software development approach is the quality of the people that support it. The Poppendieck are not an exception to this rule. Their book achieves the seemingly contradictory goals of being very insightful but still easy and captivating to read. It might be however easier to have the right flow when you are a Lean adept ;o)
The book starts with a chapter on systems thinking that takes also examples outside the software development world like Southwest Airlines. The next chapter on technical excellence is dedicated to a panorama of the software development approaches. Chapter 3 is kind of my favorite part of the book, extracting process management knowledge from the history of the construction of the Empire State Building, a project that took only one year to be completed. Chapter four presents the tools for improvement. Finally, the last part of the book is dedicated the people and leadership aspects of Lean.
The structure of the book makes it very pleasant to read, mixing the presentation of lean concepts with case studies and short personal stories. It is definitively a book that I will recommend to every software developer and manager…. and wish that every software developer and manager had read. Even if you think that Lean is not for you or you are a Toyota owner, this book provides a mind-opening text about what the values of software development and organizations should be.
Reference: “Leading Lean Software Development – Results are not the Point”, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, Addison-Wesley, 278 pages, IBSN 978-0-321-62070-5
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk
Lean: Results are not the Point
Published March 3rd, 2010 Under Quotes | Leave a Comment
I have just finished reading the great book “Leading Lean Software Development” by Mary and Tom Poppendieck and I wanted to share with you two quotes excerpted from it.
[...] I started a conversation with the question that had been bothering me: “How do you reconcile the lean view that tests are waste with the need for tests in software development?” Mary’s immediate response: “Unit tests are what let you stop the line.” (quoted from the Foreword by Dottie Acton)
In our experience, the most common causes of policy-driven waste in software development are:
1. Complexity
2. Economies of scale
3. Separating decision making from work
4. Wishful thinking
5. Technical debt
The strategy of designing the effort to fit the constraints, rather than computing the constraints form the design, is absolutely the most effective way to achieve reliable delivery.
Reference: “Leading Lean Software Development – Results are not the Point”, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, Addison-Wesley, 278 pages, IBSN 978-0-321-62070-5
It could seem very provocative to propose an approach based on the slogan ” Results are not the Point”. In their book, the Poppendieck defend the idea that there are many good managers around that could foster the adoption of lean practices. From my personal experience, most of the managers thinking “results are not the point” do this because they think “costs are the most important point”. This is why I think that companies that adopt agile or lean approaches want results…. and quickly! We could all wish that more managers and developers take the time to read book like this one, but even if it was the case, I am very dubious that many companies will really abandon their “command and control” and “short term vision” culture.
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.com
Get more details on this book or buy it on amazon.co.uk
Report on the Agile Tour in Geneva
Published November 4th, 2009 Under Conferences | Leave a Comment
I participated on October 12 to the Geneva stage of the Agile Tour which was a great success. There were more than 100 participants announced to this free event. Here is a small feedback for three interesting presentations that I attended. Read more
Linkopedia October 2009
Published October 14th, 2009 Under Links | Leave a Comment
Top 10 reasons why teams fail with Acceptance Testing
Software quality metrics and model
Comparing Open Source Agile Project Management Tools
Icon Search Engine
Refractor – Diagrammer for .Net Assemblies, also support for Javascript.
KanbanFX – A JavaFX implementation of a Kanban board
Article: The Clojure programming language
Article: Scrum in old fashioned software environments?
Video: The Myth of the Genius Programmer
Video: What are the Roles In Scrum
Video: Top 10 Things in Ruby that Every .NET Developer Needs to Know
Find more interesting links on the software development links directory, the software development tools directory, the software development articles directory, the software development blogs aggregator or the software development videos directory.
Looking for Agile Blogs
Published March 9th, 2009 Under News | Leave a Comment
I have recently created a new web site AgileVoices.com that aggregates for RSS feeds concerning agile software development. If you know about a good blog feed that is missing from the current roster, I would be please to add it. Thanks for your cooperation.
keep looking »