Lean Software Management:BBC Worldwide Case Study

Dr Peter Middleton MBA

PeterJonMiddleton@gmail.com

13th June 2014IASA Ireland, Dublin

Irish Computer Society

IASA

1. Business Technology Strategy2. IT Environment3. Quality Attributes4. Design5. Human Dynamics

Volume + Constant change• Requirements / Budgets / Business• Sponsors• Users• Hardware / Networks• Database• Software• Staff skills and availability• Culture / Privacy / Legal / Learning

UK Government advice

PRINCE2: ‘Ensuring that the information required for the project team is available.’

BBC WorldwideDigital Hub Software Team

• Waterfall Agile Lean • London• 9 staff: Analyst, Architect, QA, Developers• Operating cost: £1.5m p.a.• C#, .NET, MS SQL Server

• RISK

Lean Software – key ideas

• Reduce Work in Process: – Minimum Marketable Feature– Analysis / Specifications– Design– Untested code

• Reduce total end to end time– Visible management & less risk– Flexibility

BBC

Lead time to customers -37%Variance -47%

Throughput:smaller, incremental deliveries

Fewer Bugs: -24%; Variance: -33%

Possible problems

1. Space needed for Kanban & info boards2. Plan driven, document centric process3. Poor fit with standardised reporting4. Remit of IT – upstream & downstream5. Command & control compliance model6. Staff initiative and multi skillingLean handles risk by low WIP, transparency,

small units & frequent deliverables

Conclusion• Lean provides discipline and agility• Software under quantitative control • Frequent, small, high value deliverables• Experiments to demonstrate:

– End to end time measure– Work in Progress – white board & post notes

Lean Software Management: BBC Worldwide Case Study, P. Middleton & D. Joyce, IEEE Trans. on Engineering Management

Continual ImprovementDays lost: -81% 26 to 5 days

Development Time -73%; Variation -78%

Differences Agile and Lean

• Batch / Push versus Pull– Time-boxed iterations

• Reliance on Data– Focus on people

• Continual Improvement– ‘impediment list’ / ‘improvement backlog’‘

• Multi skilling– Velocity’, features, story points

Engineering Practices

• Decoupling – improve legacy code• Test Driven Development (unit tests)• Automated Acceptance Testing• Source Control Software• Bug tracking software• Daily Stand Up (15 minutes)

Follow up• to the IEEE article

http://leanandkanban.wordpress.com/2011/04/09/lean-software-management-bbc-worldwide-case-study/

• http://leankitkanban.com/ (lean tool)

• peterjonmiddleton@gmail.com• dpjoyce@googlemail.com• Twitter: @dpjoyce